Tony Williams Is Workin' Hard

And apparently, he's tired of the fight. The big bad council just won't roll over and play dead for them. Just like Jack Evans, he's tired. Awwww. It's just so hard to be the mayor and stuff! People are always picking on you. Tony Sad :-(

"You know the mayor's stupid and this was an awful deal, it's still awful and everybody's bad, I don't have any desire whatsoever to continue that game," said Williams.

Talk about being politically tone deaf.

When he's not whining about how difficult things are (duh!), he's confirming that a vote will take place on Tuesday, come hell or high water.

Progress, it seems, is being made on the construction contract, and the mayor continues to hope that it'll be done by Friday for the vultures on the council to pick apart by Tuesday. Although the ubiquitous 'sources' (see, I DO point it out when others use it, Bill) say nothing will be finalized by then.

The final paragraph of that Times story notes that Schwartz and Barry are squawking about the development rights issue. Whatever the merits of the issue, don't fall into the trap of assuming that they matter in terms of passage. Neither were going to vote for the agreement, even if it came with a provision to give a gold bar to each woman and child in the District.

In more important stadium developments, the private financing agreement with Deutsche Bank has been officially killed. Huzzah!

Despite the death of the plan, Deutsche Bank claims the city owes them $5 million for services rendered according to the bank spokesman, who apparently wasn't suckling the marrow from the bones of a DC-area school child.

WWN pointed to the Danny Kolb-quality pitch that Linda Cropp tossed out in the article: "It was never my plan. It was a plan that was recommended by the CFO."
Consider:
--10/12/05: Chairman Linda W. Cropp (D), who had endorsed the Deutsche Bank plan...
--5/28/05: Evans said he intends to confer next week with council Chairman Linda W. Cropp (D), who pushed for private financing during the stadium financing debate last fall.
--12/17/04: Cropp (D) attached an amendment to the stadium legislation that requires half the cost of a ballpark to be paid through private funds.

Credit should go to Vincent Orange, who basically spearheaded the campaign on the Council to get the stupid provision dropped.

Remember that under the deal, DC would get $246 million in funding upfront, but that they would pay at least $30 million per year in revenue back to the bank. The Bank would assume zero risk. If the stadium and team were a success, they'd make money hand over fist. If the team tanked, the deal had a minimum revenue floor (I want to say of about $20 MM, but I can't find the exact figure). Nice work if you can get it, huh?

Field of Schemes takes their stab at the recent events. It's notable only if in that presenting the same set of facts as I have over the last few days, he's come to a different conclusion. I'm not saying that either of us is right or wrong, but that it's interesting how the same set of info can be spun one way or another.