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The Tampa Tribune

Published: June 12, 2008

More Pressing Problems

Regarding "Stadium Proposal Takes 1st Step Toward Ballot" (Metro, June 6):

I feel as if I am slipping into living in Bizarro Land. Does anyone else think the price tag of $450 million for a new sports arena is obscene? From the Metro section, let's next jump to the Business section: "Construction Drop Erases State's GDP Growth In 2007," subheaded with "Flat Economy Puts Florida In 47th Place."

Over 10,000 construction jobs lost in Florida; gas at $4 a gallon and up; the homeless problem that both Tampa and St. Pete wring their hands over; poverty, foreclosures, late payments set record in first quarter, crime, displaced families, school class sizes. Need I go on?

That people are really thinking of spending close to a half a billion dollars on a sports stadium is too much for my mind to wrap around. I wonder what could be done with all that money if it were put to work solving some of the problems listed.

MARY STICE

Tampa

Just Move To Orlando

If I was the owners of the Tampa Bay Rays, all I would do is change the name to Orlando Rays and get out of that cracker box.

Seeing as St. Pete does not want them, I am sure Orlando would gladly take them. They sure draw the crowds over there.

I know I only watch the Rays on TV. I went to the cracker box once for the NCAA playoffs, vowed to never return and have kept my promise. I would drive to Orlando to watch a game.

DON DEAN

Bradenton

Waterfront Obsession

Why are the Rays so intent on building a baseball stadium on the waterfront? Does that enhance the environment or the appearance of the waterfront?

It currently takes the people in downtown Tampa about half an hour to get to the ballpark. If you live further north, add another half hour, depending on traffic. If you live in the Brandon area, it's about an hour. If you live in Lakeland, it is one-and-a-half hours. If you live in Orlando, it takes two-and-a-half hours. With the ballpark out on the waterfront, and very little parking, you can add another half hour just to park and walk.

To build a stadium in Florida without a roof is really questionable. I've only lived here a few years, yet I have learned that every summer afternoon when the sea breeze starts, you are going to have a rainstorm and maybe a thunderstorm. There goes another rain delay or rainout and wet and unhappy patrons.

Or has anyone sat in Raymond James Stadium and watched a football game in September? It gets very hot then, much less in July and August.

What are they thinking - or are they thinking?

GEORGE VANDER VEER

Valrico

Possible White Elephant

The Florida Marlins and the Tampa Bay Rays are at the top of their respective divisions. They also share the lowest attendance in baseball. One plays outdoors and the other in air-conditioning.

Will more fans be willing to spend the additional time in driving and locating a parking space to sit in Florida's oppressive heat and humidity to watch a baseball game because of a water view? St. Petersburg alone does not have the population in the summer to support a major league team, and the proposed stadium would be even more inconvenient from Tampa.

I cannot envision a family traveling to Florida in the summer to watch a baseball game. They will come, as always, for the beaches and water sports. Spring training works in Florida where we have snowbirds watching their favorite teams.

It is speculation that a new stadium will increase attendance. It is my concern that if we build a new stadium and attendance does not increase, the Rays, as now, will be seeking creative ways of vacating the new stadium and leaving us with a white elephant on our waterfront.

HAROLD H. DEAN

St. Petersburg

Nation Should Do More

Frank Morsani's article "We Americans Are Anything But Ordinary" (Other Views, June 3) raises dubious thoughts. I do not believe that the criterion of America's success is based upon space exploration.

America will be judged as a civilization by the manner in which poor, hungry and dispossessed of our land are cared for. The care of the poor should not be based upon private donations and gratuities. I believe America does a poor job in caring for its poor.

As one who rides the bus to my employment, I would invite Morsani to join me and notice particularly as we pass the Salvation Army the numbers of people sleeping on the street.

Our country can and should do far more.

JAMES N. HOLMES

Tampa

It Happened Up North

Regarding "There's No Gray Area In Flag Flap" (front page, June 5):

Michelle Williams, representing the Community Activists of Public Affairs, demonstrated the outrage that the flag has generated in the black community by showing the Hillsborough County Commission posters of blacks lynched in Florida after the Civil War.

The poster Ms. Williams presented did in fact show the lynching of two black men. They were lynched in Indiana, in 1930, for supposedly raping a woman and killing her boyfriend.

I do not think the picture represents the situation Ms. Williams asserted. Ms. Williams was either ignorant of what the picture portrayed, or she was intellectually dishonest.

The lynchings did not take place in Florida, or even in another Southern state. It did not happen in any reasonable time frame, or proximity to, the War Between the States to make an association. There are no Confederate battle flags pictured in the crowd.

I look forward to the retraction.

BART SIEGEL

Temple Terrace

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