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CommunitySupporters see stadium as community focal point
Friday, July 27, 2007
 Click here to enlarge this photo Staff Photos by Gary Smith
Members of the Hughesville 11-12-year-old Little League fast-pitch softball team, who won the district and state championships and are headed to the next round in New York, join O’Malley at the ceremony.
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Thanking businesses that purchased skybox contracts for next summer’s baseball season, Kirk announced that the Southern Maryland Blue Crabs would be charging $5 for general admission tickets.
The scores of county officials, local dignitaries and stadium supporters gathered under the podium tent, munching Cracker Jack and peanuts at the sun-baked construction site erupted in applause upon hearing the announcement.
‘‘We believe that children have some difficult choices these days,” Kirk said, adding that he wants local youth to choose to go to the ballpark.
Kirk’s announcement reflected the message of community unity repeatedly pushed by the officials who spoke at the ceremony.
O’Malley stressed that the stadium was not about economic development or reclaiming a gravel mine site, saying, ‘‘It’s about community. ... The people of Charles County, the people of Southern Maryland should be proud of this groundbreaking day.”
The governor obliquely pledged his support for the remaining $1.5 million the county hopes that the state will finance next year.
‘‘I’m going to do everything I can; I promise you that, my friend,” O’Malley told commissioners’ President F. Wayne Cooper (D).
The $25.6 million facility is being financed with a combination of public bonds. The county is financing two-thirds, or $17 million, of the project, taking annual payments from Maryland Baseball LLC to support the company’s $8.5 million share and financing the rest with tax dollars.
The state has agreed to finance $7 million for the project, and local officials hope Annapolis will come through with an additional $1.5 million following next year’s legislative session.
The commissioners voted to change the financing for the stadium in an 11th-hour 3-2 vote late last month. Supporters of the decision say that the financing deal will provide the county with an extra million in contingency funding for the project, and that the county is well protected in the event that Maryland Baseball falters in its commitment.
Critics argue that the move further loosens Maryland Baseball’s ties to the project and betrays the commissioners’ promises that the county, the state and Maryland Baseball would equally fund the project.
At a town hall meeting at the Capital Clubhouse ice rink in Waldorf on Monday, Commissioner Reuben B. Collins II (D) defended his vote to support the late financing deal. Facing a handful of skeptical citizens who questioned the deal, Collins argued that the project has enjoyed bipartisan support in Annapolis and candidly expressed his confidence in it.
‘‘I may have to come before you and say I was totally wrong, but I believe in this project,” Collins said, going on to call the stadium ‘‘one of the greatest projects this county has ever done.”
The county will own the stadium outright once construction is complete, and the commissioners have promised that county government will put it to good use with other special events during baseball’s off season.
‘‘It’s only going to be an amount of time that baseball will actually be there [during the year],” Collins said. ‘‘I’m looking at the revenue stream beyond merely baseball.”
Collins’ message was repeated in nearly every speech by county officials Thursday, and Commissioner Gary V. Hodge (D) specifically thanked citizens who he said assured him of their quiet support of the stadium.
‘‘It’s quiet words like those that keep the fires lit,” said Hodge, who has been working to make the stadium a reality for more than 20 years.
Contractor Skanska Building USA Inc. has been grading and shaping the stadium site for the last month. County officials said construction should be complete within a year and the stadium will open during the 2008 baseball season. The complex could be available for community events by early next year.
County Administrator Paul W. Comfort told the ceremony audience that the stadium would feature 4,500 seats, two 500-square-foot video screens, 16 skyboxes and a lawn that can accommodate 1,500 more spectators. He pledged that the county would make frequent use of the facility for off-season events, including car shows and concerts.
‘‘You name it, we’re going to use it” for that, Comfort said.
E-mail Jay Friess at jfriess@somdnews.com.
