Rays meet secretly with St. Petersburg's mayor to hammer out differences

TAMPA - The mayor of St. Petersburg and the owner of the Tampa Bay Rays were scheduled to have a secret discussion Tuesday about the future of the team at Tropicana Field.

Neither side would comment on the backroom meeting, or even where the back room was.  

The Tropicana standoff pits Rays owner Stuart Sternberg against St. Petersburg Mayor Bill Foster.

Lease or no lease, the Rays want a new stadium to replace the outdated dome that has become an object of derision in Major League Baseball.

And though an independent  commission identified three promising locations for a new stadium outside St. Petersburg (two of them in Tampa) Mayor Foster has refused to consider allowing the team to leave St. Petersburg.

Mayor Foster wasn't commenting Tuesday on whether he and Sternberg patched things up, but his counterpart in Tampa was.   

"If that divorce were to take place, my personal opinion is the best location would be in downtown Tampa," said Bob Buckhorn.
 
Even if the Rays get the mayor's blessing to scout locations outside St. Pete, the even harder negotiation begins:  Who's going to pay for a new stadium?

Marlins fans love their new $640 million stadium with the retractable roof, but many South Florida taxpayers are angry that public money is paying for most of it.

Mayor Buckhorn doesn't think Tampa Bay area voters are anxious to subsidize another private sports stadium.

"The owners of that team, no matter who they go to, must come with a very sizeable chunk of the cost," said Buckhorn.