Does MLS have a contingency plan for the cup final?

Let me first preface this by saying that this is probably EXTREMELY unlikely to be an issue, but the potential for disaster does exist.

The issue is parking. As anyone who's ever been to Foxboro/CMGI knows, the parking situation down there can be quite messy. Stadium owned property contains just over 8500 parking spots (I think the number is 8,571, but I'm not sure), the town mandates that for an event to be licensed, and the stadium opened, there must be at least one parking spot for every 3 tickets sold. The remaining parking spaces normally come from numerous lots surrounding the stadium, most of which are used for nothing else besides parking at stadium events. Each year the town of Foxboro charges the owners of these lots $6 per space for a license to open for the season. The one-time $6 fee is more than made up for in the first event of the year and these lot owners make a tidy profit off of what is otherwise worthless land.

Now, when construction began on CMGI the state dropped a load of money on roadwork on Route 1 outside the stadium. Apparently there was an agreement between the state and Foxboro that would have this money paid back over a period of time...the majority of this money was to come from raising the lot license fee from $6 per season to $400 per season. The majority of lot owners are refusing to pay this increased fee. I don't know the details, but they claim that since they were not party to this agreement this is equivalent to taxation without representation. The lot owners sued on those grounds and it was thrown out last week.

Regardless of losing the lawsuit, all (or most) of the lot owners are refusing to apply for their license for this season, leaving larger stadium events in jeopardy. Now this is the third year in a row that this soap opera has gone on, the last two years the state bailed out the lot-owners but this year have said no dice, it's time to pay up.

Does MLS have a plan in case the town of Foxboro, MA refuses to license the opening of the stadium for the match? As of now the stadium does not have a license to open from the town for the MLS championship, the 9/5 Rolling Stones show, and all 10 (including pre-season) Patriots games. They've got less than a month to get this done now, the first Pats game is 8/17. Even though I think this is unlikely to be an issue the Patriots apparently have a plan to move home games to the Yale Bowl in CT.

In the end this is probably much ado about nothing. I actually haven't seen anything mentioned in either of the Boston papers, but the local paper here is constantly running stories about this (probably just because there's nothing else to report). Just curious to know if MLS would have a plan if something were needed to be done.

 

http://www.thesunchronicle.com/display/inn_city/city1.txt

From today's local paper.
Seems to indicate that the town will not allow the licenses to be denied, whether or not parking permits are renewed, which is what I would expect.

The only reason I brought it up in the first place is that I supplement my income working security at CMGI, pre-football season orientation was yesterday and we were made aware of the situation and told of Kraft's plans to move Pats games to Yale if necessary, and were told to be prepared to not work football season, just in case.