News: Stadium News, Speculation & Possible Truthiness XXVI: Petitions and Goff and Development, Oh My!

Comments in this thread that make my optimisim meter go up?!?! What is the world coming too? Evans is my councilman and I sent him an email after his trip to Florida for the 'skins. I did not get a response from him. We used to engage regularly on the topic, but I feel like he has grown tired of me. Good to see something positive. Do your thing Jaime!!!. He is truely one of the most charming people I've ever met. He could probably do a lot for us.

 

http://www.lyricstime.com/vic-chesnutt-florida-lyrics.html

Dedicated to fatbastard.

 

While the Federals did relocate to Orlando, I'm pretty sure they were an American football team in the USFL and not a soccer team.

Of course, maybe there was once a soccer team of the same name.

 

Washington Darts - relocated to Miami

 

I read FB's original post and overlooked the "soccer" part of it.

 

How long does it take to finalize a short term lease? I could sign a lease for an apartment in an hour.

 

a 50,000 seat apartment?

seriously, both sides have reason to posture, and neither side exactly has an "A" product on offer -- the team has been mediocre (to be kind) and the stadium is in crappy shape.

in the end, the city has nothing to gain by letting RFK go unused, so for them its a question of what they have to put into it and what little DCU is willing to pay.

 

Here's some more fun...

http://dcist.com/2011/12/redskins.php

 

Said Mayor Vincent Gray, "Almost everywhere I go, people say, 'Bring #DCUnited back, bring them back.' And I say, "Who?"

 

just saw this cool tweet

Tom Sherwood
Ward6 tommy thomas intro's council resolution to urge city to keep DC United soccer in DC.


thought that sounded weird: followed by:

@tomsherwood: Brain Freeze Alert. That's W6 tommy WELLS bill on DC United, not not not Tommy Thomas.

then:

Mary Cheh
Proud to stand with @TommyWells and others to support keeping @dcunited in D.C.!

 

I really hope that DC government isn't going to be so stupid as to bring a giant football stadium back into the District. Those things are just death to urban living in the areas around them. The last thing the District needs is a stadium that sits empty the large majority of the year, surrounded by a wasteland of parking.

Unfortunately, most of DC Council and the Mayor are old-school, and not in a good way.

 

And just got an email from a friend who is very active in DC council politics saying "CM Wells just introduced a bill to keep DC United in DC and got 10 cosponsors right off the bat". (Excuse her for the baseball (or cricket?) etaphor in a DCU-related message!)

There are 13 members on the council.

 

Does anyone actually have any details of the bill or is it just more ego inflating by Wells? My first thought was simply a rent agreement.

 

This. Maybe they are talking about reducing RFK rent so DCU can play there at least for next a couple of years?

 

My contact reported this:

per CM Well's CoS, re: their bill: "Pleases note the resolution doesn't say "how" [to keep team in DC] (I.e. public financing) but tries to get at the city's need to come to the table to find a solution."

So it's not a bill that will bring about any action, but simply a hortatory resolution.

At least it signifies they acknowledge the issue and come down on the side of keeping the team in town, I guess.

 

Better than a sharp stick in the eye. Sometimes surface language disguises something more substantive below. Or, sometimes surface language signifies superficial interest.

 

Even more fun! A velodrome for Buzzard Point??

http://dcist.com/2011/12/velodrome_coming_to_dc_in_2012.php

http://twitter.com/#!/jdland/status/144117111168565251

 

right, i never thought it had any meat to it - but even just words are 647.328% better than we've gotten from the DC gov't since .... probably Mayor Williams (and ongoing from councilman Barry)

 

Seriously? That appears to be going right where we had hoped the DCU stadium would go.

http://g.co/maps/qeu3v

http://www.dcvelodrome.org/

 

Yep, though this velodrome would only take up about 1 of the 9 acres that they have in that strip of land.

 

You can read the Tommy Wells resolution here:

http://www.tommywells.org/2011/12/06/dc united/Wells, DC United in DC.pdf