The Rays' toughest crowd?

On the eve of the Rays' announcement of how the team would finance its proposed waterfront stadium, a group of influential African-American leaders gathered to hear the pitch from the baseball team's pointman, Michael Kalt, and two city officials.

Only a few dozen people attended the forum in Midtown sponsored by the African-American Voter Research Committee, and yet it may have been the most illuminating presentation to date.

If the waterfront stadium goes up for a referendum, African-Americans will play a crucial role: a significant percentage of registered voters in St. Pete are black. Mayor Rick Baker owes his election and re-election, in part, to the black vote in Midtown and Childs Park.

That's why nearly one-third of the attendees were politicians -- St. Petersburg City Council members, Pinellas County commissioners, various candidates running for office and even a state legislator, the newly elected Darryl Rouson.

To the African-American community in St. Pete, the Tropicana Field issue has little to do with keeping baseball or preserving the city's waterfront.

It's about broken promises.

Twenty years ago, the land occupied by Tropicana Field was a thriving African-American neighborhood (see "Build A Stadium, Raze A Neighborhood," Nov. 28, 2007). Nearly 800 people lived, worked, played and prayed in the 66-acre Gas Plant district, named for the two fuel towers that stood where the stadium is now. Businesses like the Harlem Theater and Citizen's Lunch Counter thrived. The area was home to St. Pete's first African-American elementary school and one of the community's first libraries. Three churches attracted parishioners from across South St. Pete. Shacks filled with renters lined some of the brick streets; well-kept bungalows lined blocks like those off of Fifth Avenue South, including the home of St. Pete's first African-American physician, Dr. James Ponder. Many residents owned their homes and had lived there for decades.

In the mid-'80s, city leaders decided to evict these residents under the guise of economic redevelopment.

"We have a lot of memories of the Tropicana Field site," said Abdul Ali, AAVREC's vice chairman, "of what was uprooted there. A lot of promises were made. Somehow, these promises were never kept. There are a lot of emotions when you talk about developing that site."

Kalt, the Rays' presenter, acknowledged the area's history while plugging the team's plans.

"I don't think anyone would argue Tropicana Field hasn't brought everything it promised," he told the crowd. "But is it better to sit on 80 acres of unused land ... or is it better to go through a process that fulfils those promises?"

To prove the Rays' sincerity, Kalt outlined the team's recent partnership with the local NAACP to provide scholarships and internships for black students.

"We're committed to use the projects to promote positive economic growth in these communities," Kalt said.

But to the suspicious folks sitting in folding chairs, the Rays didn't have to prove anything.

The city did.

"We're very distrusting of what the city tells us now," said William Graveley, whose grandfather had a dry-cleaning business in Gas Plant. "[The razing of Gas Plant] was under the auspices that it was a blighted community [that needed] economic redevelopment and affordable housing."

And those promises, the crowd continued to remind the panel, never materialized. To them, this whole venture is a bad case of déjà vu.

Rick Mussett, who as deputy city manager made the case for the area's redevelopment in the '80s, must've felt a little déjà vu himself.

"The redevelopment of the Trop is a huge undertaking," he told the crowd. "It would impact the west end of downtown, the central corridor, as well as the Midtown area."

Grumbles in the audience.

"[The bidding developers] seem to be willing to incorporate workforce and affordable housing in their developments," he added.

More grumbling.

His city economic development colleague David Goodwin jumped in: "If that project is approved, we'll get a significant amount of affordable housing."

One woman had enough.

"When you decided to build the Trop ... you destroyed a city within a city," Betty Evan's voice raised. "Now you say you're going to tear the Trop down and put affordable housing. You had affordable housing."

By the end of the night it had become clear: The future of Tropicana Field and the Rays' new stadium is tied to the past.

"The hurt is still there," observed Ali of AAVREC. "There's going to have to be something in writing from the developer, the Rays and, most importantly, our elected officials to assure us what happened yesterday would not happen again."

The next day, at a City Council meeting, the Rays continued the process of trying to convince the rest of the city as it unveiled a plan to finance its $450 million open-air, retractable-sail-roof ballpark. The deal included the now-familiar $150 million contribution from the team but dispatched with the idea of using downtown property taxes. Instead, it called for $70 million toward construction to come from the sale of the Trop land to a private developer, $100 million to come from existing city sales taxes and county tourist taxes already committed to baseball and $55 million from parking fees charged to fans.

The Rays' pitch: We won't use any new taxes to build our ballpark, and in return, the 85 acres at the Trop site become a new private development that would generate hundreds of millions in new tax dollars over the decades to come for teachers and city programs.

Not everyone is buying the plan, despite that enticement. The Preserve Our Wallets and Waterfront group isn't going to be taking down its myriad yard signs any time soon. The Pinellas County Commission would have to vote to extend its tourist tax beyond the current expiration in 2016 and agree to become even bigger partners in the new ballpark than they are in the current one. Only one county commissioner came to the financial plan unveiling, Ken Welch, and he looked especially pained at the end of the presentation.

"It's kind of awkward," Welch said the day after the session at City Council. The reason? The Rays neglected to give him a copy of their presentation, leaving Welch to read from his handwritten notes about it later that evening when he met with his fellow commissioners. He had to download the handout from CL's Political Whore blog.

"We're kind of like bystanders, but we're paying more than the city," Welch said.

Already, the forces against the plan are circling at the county level. The beach cities -- longtime opponents of the Tropicana getting county resort taxes instead of those dollars flowing back into tourism advertising or beach renourishment -- have sent word to county leaders that they want to be heard on this plan. Commissioner Karen Seel has asked county staff for a report on how much money has, or hasn't, been spent on beach renourishment. (The specific tourist tax that the Rays want, called the 4th cent, can only be used for sports or convention-related facilities, but it is conceivable the county could let the 4th cent lapse once the Trop is paid off and then enact another penny of tourist taxes for beach renourishment.)

The Rays were scheduled to present their proposal at this week's County Commission meeting. After that, the team will have to go before the Tourist Development Council, which must first hear and approve any plan before it goes back to the commission for a vote. The TDC won't meet again until July.

"Now you say you're going to tear the Trop down and put affordable housing," said Betty Evan at the Midtown forum. "You had affordable housing."