Let’s take a swing at Centro San Antonio’s downtown baseball study.
It’s been a bit forgotten, but Centro commissioned a study about the possibility of a Triple-A ballpark downtown, providing the final report to the city. The study makes perfect sense for Centro and an interested public. The ballpark would be downtown, and Centro’s mission is boosting downtown. As for the public, just like a close call at the plate, everyone seems to have an opinion about investing in minor league baseball.
But the details of that report have been kept out of sight. All we have to go on are anonymously sourced descriptions to City Hall reporter Josh Baugh. Since the public will almost certainly subsidize this ballpark, such secrecy is disappointing. Maybe not surprising. But still disappointing.
It’s not that the study isn’t public record. The city of San Antonio seems to agree it is, at least in principle. It’s just that making it a public record appears to be, if not an inconvenience, then an extreme hassle.
An informal request to the city was rebuffed. A formal records request to Centro San Antonio, a nonprofit focused on downtown, was also rejected because while Centro receives public funding for some activities, the baseball study was paid for with private dollars. But Centro provided the study to the city, and that usually makes such things public record.
In response to a formal records request, the city acknowledged the study’s existence, noting in a letter to the attorney general’s office that it was shared “between representatives of the entities to discuss a plan of action for the establishment of a Triple A minor league baseball team in San Antonio.”
Sounds interesting and pertinent. The city even said it’s OK with the report getting released. “The City does not desire to make any arguments to withhold the requested documents,” the letter says.
But the report hasn’t been released, yet.
The city says it has to give Centro the opportunity to appeal to the attorney general’s office. Clearly, no one is rushing to share.
In keeping with this trend, Mayor Ivy Taylor declined an interview. But you can’t hit the ball, if you don’t step to the plate. This is her vision.
It would be helpful to know what she thought of the Centro study. Has it helped the site selection process? How does it weigh the merits of different stadium locations? Does it raise any questions about opportunity costs? Land downtown is precious, and there might be higher and better uses for it than minor league baseball.
And it would be helpful for an interested public to read the study so people can come to their own conclusions. Even if, in the end, the conclusion is the Centro study doesn’t amount to much of anything.
One person who did give an interview was City Councilman Ron Nirenberg, who has the mayor looking over her shoulder these days. Alas, he hasn’t seen the study.
Would he like to?
“Yes,” he said.
It might be a product of political tension, but Nirenberg was pretty much blindsided in April when Taylor announced a deal with Elmore Sports Group to bring Triple-A ball downtown by 2019.“My understanding is it just caught everybody off guard,” he said.
Nirenberg’s take? Taylor announced this deal publicly, so she and the city should be as forthcoming as possible when it comes to details about sites, financing and things such as the Centro study. Months after her photo-op with San Antonio Missions’ mascots, that hasn’t happened.
Something else to think about: The saga of the baseball report also casts a shadow on another Taylor initiative. That would be privatizing the Convention & Visitors Bureau. Backers of this move, which would place about $20 million in annual hotel tax revenues into a private nonprofit, have said Texas’ open records law will still apply. Public dollars at nonprofits are still public dollars.
True. But it’s obviously more complicated. Centro San Antonio receives public dollars, for example, but the baseball study was paid for with private funds and, well, here we are.
It’s funny how the world sometimes turns. Taylor rose to power in large part by killing the unpopular downtown streetcar, which was really a development tool that happened to involve public transportation.
Now, she’s pitching a downtown minor league ballpark, which appears to be just as unpopular and is really a development tool that happens to involve baseball.
If that’s not progress, it’s definitely politics.
jbrodesky@express-news.net
