They promised the eighty million and called it a tool in the tool box. I know the sentence. It is what a handshake says when a city signs a stadium deal in August, comes back in October to authorize the borrowing, hears its own lawyer say the money is already owed no matter how anyone votes, and then describes the debt as an option \u2014 a little something on the shelf, next to the hammer, in case the promise needs paying.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, October 15, 2026, the Tampa City Council voted twice on the city\u2019s share of a new ballpark for the Tampa Bay Rays, the Tampa Bay Times\u2019 Nina Moske reported. The first vote tied 3-3 and failed because Council member Bill Carlson, the board\u2019s swing vote on the stadium, was absent and sick. Supporters scrambled for a special meeting; DRaysBay\u2019s Danny Russell reported that Luis Viera \u2014 at his last regular meeting before leaving to run for the state Legislature \u2014 pushed for a session before Nov. 2, and that a proposed Oct. 29 date ran into conflicts. Then Carlson joined by video. \u201cI happened to turn this on and saw what was happening,\u201d he said, voted yes, and added, \u201cI\u2019m going to go back to bed.\u201d The second vote passed 4-3: Naya Young, Viera, Alan Clendenin and Carlson for; Charlie Miranda, Guido Maniscalco and Lynn Hurtak against \u2014 the same split as the August funding agreement. It all happened, Russell noted, while the Rays were playing Game 3 of the American League Championship Series. The vote starts bond validation, a court process the city must complete before borrowing, for up to $80 million in non-ad valorem revenue bonds toward the city\u2019s contribution to the $2.3 billion stadium; the contribution comes in four annual payments, and the Rays have said they won\u2019t start construction until public funding is approved, with a goal of opening by 2029. City attorney Scott Steady: \u201cWhether you\u2019re for or against the Rays, we\u2019re in a position right now that we\u2019re obligated for the $80 million.\u201d Clendenin: \u201cThe deal is done. It\u2019s already signed. This is just putting a tool into the tool box.\u201d Hurtak: \u201cI\u2019m so sorry that you all voted for it and you\u2019ll have to figure out how to pay for it. It\u2019s not my problem.\u201d Rays CEO Ken Babby declined to comment. Deputy CFO Michael D. Perry wrote that \u201cit may be necessary and\/or desirable to fund all or a portion of any or all of the four annual payments with debt.\u201d Ahead of the vote, the Tampa Monitor\u2019s Michael Bishop read the paper. Perry\u2019s memo framed the item as one that \u201csimply is required to be adopted to initiate the Circuit Court validation proceeding,\u201d with later council approval needed to issue debt; the resolution allows bonds in multiple series with maturities of up to 30 years each. The signed agreement says the city\u2019s share of the stadium district\u2019s property-tax increment will \u201crepay\u201d the contribution \u2014 but non-ad valorem bonds, by definition, can\u2019t be paid from property taxes, and Bishop reports there is no guarantee from the Rays or the stadium district to cover the debt. His estimate: borrowing the full $80 million over 30 years at 4.1% would cost roughly $140 million; even in the Rays\u2019 \u201ctarget\u201d scenario, the city\u2019s cut of district taxes wouldn\u2019t cover a single year\u2019s debt service until 2045, and in the county\u2019s \u201cminimum\u201d scenario not until 2057, while payments start in 2027. The $80 million, the resolution says, is \u201cto be used solely for Public Horizontal Capital Improvements\u201d serving the 21.5-acre ballpark parcel \u2014 streets, sidewalks, plazas, utilities, stormwater, parking garages. Unlike the spring\u2019s memorandum, Bishop writes, \u201cThere is no rent in this agreement,\u201d and Perry told council on Sept. 8 that if the city borrows, his \u201cfirst play\u201d for the Community Investment Tax reserve is the debt service.<\/p>\n
Buck had Game 3 on and asked who pays for the parking garage. UCraig says his rain-barrel rebate makes him 7% owner of the plaza. Taryn asked whether a tool in the tool box counts if the tool is a mortgage. I love them. They are seasoning.<\/p>\n
The tool box is the alibi. The signature is the story. Sit with the $140 million until it confesses. One side carries the stamp: a council that signed first and authorizes later, a lawyer who says the vote is a formality because the obligation is already real, a finance office whose \u201cfirst play\u201d for the payments is the Community Investment Tax reserve, and a swing vote who dials in from bed. One side carries the term sheet: a ball club that won\u2019t move dirt until the public money is locked, pays no rent in this deal, and gets the streets, plazas and garages under its stadium built with the city\u2019s money while the mixed-use acres that are supposed to pay it back are still drawings. I am not against baseball. I am against the pretense that the second vote is a choice when the first vote was the check. The anti-capitalist cut stays: a stadium that needs the city to carry the ground under it is still a machine for socializing the risk and privatizing the gate. And the libertarian cut came free this year \u2014 I have learned what a public body does with a number it printed before it explained it. I am keeping the cardigan. Fill the notebook. Then ask, out loud, whose tool box it is when the city holds the debt, the team holds the lease, and Hurtak is the only one who said plainly whose problem it will be.<\/p>\n
Sources:<\/strong> Tampa Bay Times, Nina Moske, \u201cTampa council approves Rays stadium bond vote after initial denial,\u201d Oct. 15, 2026<\/a>; DRaysBay (SB Nation), Danny Russell, \u201cTampa City Council Averts Rays Stadium Bond Crisis After Dramatic Last-Minute Vote,\u201d Oct. 15, 2026<\/a>; The Tampa Monitor, Michael Bishop, \u201cThursday\u2019s Rays vote: $80 million in bonds the stadium\u2019s property taxes can\u2019t repay,\u201d Oct. 11, 2026<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u2014 Theo Ashford-Lindstr\u00f6m<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On Oct. 15 Tampa City Council tied 3-3 on starting bond validation for up to $80M toward the Rays\u2019 $2.3B stadium, then passed it 4-3 after Bill Carlson joined by video. The city attorney said the $80M is already owed; Clendenin called the bonds \u201ca tool into the tool box.\u201d Tampa Monitor: full borrowing ~$140M over 30 years; no rent from the team.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":432,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-commentary","category-news"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thetheolowgen.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/theo-rays-tool-box-bonds-1015pm.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetheolowgen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetheolowgen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetheolowgen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetheolowgen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetheolowgen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=431"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thetheolowgen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":433,"href":"https:\/\/thetheolowgen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431\/revisions\/433"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetheolowgen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetheolowgen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetheolowgen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetheolowgen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}