Advocacy Committee

May 17 Mayoral Candidate Forum.

Here's a discussion by the candidates on how cost overruns may affect the design of the stadium. You can listen to the entire forum by clicking on the link below. The question posed by Alex Orfinger, Publisher of the Washington Business Journal was:

A year from now, rising costs of the stadium may force severe design changes and cut backs. Do you:
a) hit up the Lerners for more money;
b) ask the council to raise the cap; or
c) tell the contractor to finish on time with a buick instead of a cadillac.

Linda Cropp: The Council will not chip in any additional funds, so we need to start looking towards and buick as opposed to a cadillac. And I've already initated conversations with the Lerners to chip in additional dollars for their design.

Marie Johns: Certainly not B. I don't want to see a buick. I think if we made the tough decision to put a stadium in place we ought to have one that is indeed world class. So I would cozy up to the Lerners and ask them to pitch a little more into the pot.

Michael Brown: First off I'd say I told you so because I've been a big opponent of the financing deal of the stadium. We can have a cadillac if we had used the RFK site and not had the cost overruns and concerns that we now have. Because its going to happen; any even minor construction in this city or any city always has change orders. I think its a litte of a, B & c. I don't think you an avoid any of them, except that I agree that it will be difficult to go back to Council and pitch in more money. Because, keep in mind a revenue bond is being paid by the citizens eventually. So, a little bit of a, b & c -- but I don't like b as much.

Click this sentence to listen to the entire forum on our first podcast!

If you have iTunes on your computer you can also use the following link http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=155846384

Links to Candidate Websites:

Michael Brown
Linda Cropp
Adrian Fenty (not present)
Marie Johns
Vincent Orange (not present)