SARASOTA - Sarasota city commissioners are expected to hear more about what's in the ground under Ed Smith Stadium.
Community groups and business groups plan to come out in full force to tonight's commission meeting. Some worry that spring training baseball could be at stake.
ABC 7 spoke to Cathy Antunes, who is a board member of Sarasota Citizens for Responsible Government. She says you can expect a bombshell to drop at the city commission meeting tonight.
Her group is fighting the city's efforts to renovate Ed Smith Stadium. She says Sarasota citizens were promised that they would not have to fund the stadium. Now, city officials are breaking that promise and turning to the taxpayers for additional funds. She says spring training brings no monetary benefit to a city.
The Greater Sarasota Chamber of Commerce disputes that and they plan to have many of their members there tonight to talk about how much it'll mean financially to the city to bring the Orioles here.
"What we found was not only was there not a deficit, but taxable sales actually increase when spring training was cancelled. So it's irrefutable that there is no economic benefit to spring training. There's just -- it's not there," says Antunes.
"This is a complete community investment. Most studies indicated a 30 to 50 million-dollar annual impact to the city's economy, but more importantly, it's an impact to the city's young people. This brings the Cal Ripken Academy, which foucuses on children between the ages of 13 and 18. It's a community investment," says Del Borgsdorf, GSCCC Ex. VP.
The second point of contention is that Citizens For Responsible Government says the area under Ed Smith was once a landfill and the commissioners weren't given adequate time to look over a study done on how much an environmental clean up would cost. They want more studies to see how much the clean up might cost the city before they sign with the orioles.
The chamber says this is an old issue. The landfill was there 50 years ago, a stadium has been there 20 years and either way the city will be responsible whether or not baseball comes.
We will have much more live tonight from outside city commission chambers starting at 5.
