Environmental restoration at Ed Smith Stadium will likely cost $600,000 to $800,000, City Manager Bob Bartolotta reported on March 15.
The city is required to pay the sum under terms of the agreements to bring spring training baseball to the field.
One of those documents is a complex interlocal agreement on baseball with the county. It transfers to the county city ownership of the stadium complex and the proceeds of bonds backed by a grant to the city from the Florida Office of Trade and Tourism Development (OTTED).
The state grant pays a fixed monthly amount to the city; in nearly two years it has accumulated about $1.4 million. The remaining payments are designed to back the bond, which could provide another $8.1 million in the current financial climate. Of the $9.5 million total, $7.5 million is pledged to rehabilitate and remodel Ed Smith. The remainder is split 50/50, with $1 million going to the county and $1 million into a fund for the environmental restoration at Ed Smith.
On March 15 the city commission made the fund official by inking the interlocal agreement with the county specifying the sources and uses of the proposed OTTED-backed bond, including the clean-up fund.
However, the bond process is halted dead in its tracks by a lawsuit claiming the county violated sunshine meeting and public records laws. A section of the Monday agreement calls for the city and county to work together at a "bond validation hearing" before a circuit judge.
Part of the suit claims the OTTED grant is being circumvented. The money was given to the city to keep the Cincinnati Reds baseball team in town; instead, it’s being used to bring the Baltimore Orioles to town, and the proceeds will flow – with the exception of the $1 million for remediation – to the county.
Because of the lawsuit, the city and county cannot sell bonds, as bond-buyers are leery. City Attorney Bob Fournier told the commission, "If the bonds are not validated, all bets are off on the interlocal."
Bartolotta added, "Without the interlocal, we’d have 100 percent liability" for the clean-up.
The stadium is built on top of a landfill that was closed in the 1950s. The contamination underground is documented. "The Florida Department of Environmental Protection believes it is mostly a groundwater problem," Bartolotta told the city commissioners.
On March 12, the FDEP also added concerns about the venting of methane gas from the old landfill.
City Commissioner Kelly Kirschner reminded his colleagues, "Our consultant said our liability was $250,000. Now it’s three times that." The commission voted 3-2 to approve the interlocal agreement, with Kirschner and Terry Turner in the minority.
The following day the Sarasota County Commission approved the deal without comment as part of its consent agenda.