YOUR ACTION NEEDED ASAP: Historic Gas Plant District Redevelopment Project
Call to Action:
Contact the City Council about the Historic Gas Plant District Redevelopment Project
The St. Petersburg City Council is set to vote on a proposed deal regarding the redevelopment project on July 18.
Now is the time to contact the City Council and express your thoughts on the proposed deal.
Our League has studied the Historic Gas Plant District Redevelopment Project for 18 months. According to the City of St. Petersburg, the City and Pinellas County will divert at least $684 million of property taxes for the project.
After thoroughly studying the project, the League has serious concerns with the deal, specifically related to issues that include: racial equity, housing, potential federal civil rights violations, environmental and sustainability concerns, and the lack of resident, taxpayer, and voter involvement in the process.
On our own and with community partners, we have written articles, reviewed extensive documents and the term sheets, met with community leaders, interviewed experts, hosted and attended meetings with professionals who have researched the redevelopment project, conducted a survey of voters, testified at hearings, and shared resources on our webpage, social media pages, and in our newsletters.
Why is the Historic Gas Plant District Redevelopment a social justice issue?
Approximately 40 years ago, the City of St. Petersburg forced residents, churches, and businesses in the Historic Gas Plant community to leave the area. The City displaced these residents through the use of federal funds and eminent domain but with the promise of future housing, jobs, opportunity, and equitable development. Those promises have yet to materialize. Instead, the land has been used for a baseball stadium for the Tampa Bay Rays. But now, this new redevelopment project is an opportunity for the City to finally make good on its promises to the community.
Why should you advocate for a better deal?
We love the Rays and want them to stay in St. Petersburg. But the serious social justice and environmental issues in the current deal must be resolved. It appears from public discussions that at least three of the eight City Council members share our concerns with the proposed deal. We need one additional City Council member to act responsibly to vote against the current deal and send it back for improvement, with a focus on housing, racial equity, addressing any potential federal civil rights violations, and sustainability and the environment. City Council member Lisset Hanewicz is an attorney, and she wrote a concise opinion editorial on legal concerns she identified in the proposed agreement. You can read her article here.
We have an updated summary of our concerns, as well as additional articles and resources on our website. Please review our summary and resources, and then write or call your City Council member with a copy to Cynthia.sheppard@stpete.org. If you have any questions, please reach out to the social justice committee at office@lwvspa.org.
We also encourage everyone to read the Southern Poverty Law Center’s (SPLC) masterful letter to the City of St. Petersburg on behalf of Faith in Florida. In its letter, SPLC advises the City of its federal civil rights obligations in the redevelopment project. We join the SPLC and other community partners in asking City Council to vote no on the current deal, and send the deal back for improvement. We’ve worked too hard to create a community of inclusivity and equity to accept a deal that risks civil rights violations.
You may know that our League invited the City to a free public forum on the redevelopment project to provide an opportunity for the City to tell St. Petersburg residents about the deal and to answer questions that residents may have. The City never responded to our invitation. We believe that the City has an obligation to answer questions from residents regarding a large, historic project such as this one. The City’s lack of response to our invitation, and the City’s failure to hold any free open and public forums in which it answered questions from the public is a shame and not an example of good government.
We conducted a survey of 32,000 registered voters in St. Petersburg and had almost 800 responses. More recently, the Mason-Dixon company conducted a poll with the same results: Voters want to vote on the project; Voters want the Rays to share revenues with the City like they do now; Voters want public funds to be used for public needs including stormwater, water, parks, schools and safety and Voters want the Rays/Hines to pay market rate for the land when it is acquired, not spread out over 30 years with no interest.
The City can negotiate a better deal with the Rays, but our leaders need to hear from you. This project involves 60 acres of prime real estate in the middle of our City—real estate that was acquired by eminent domain by procuring land in a way that displaced Black residents and destroyed homes, businesses, and churches. We must let our leaders know that we can do better than the current deal. We need a deal that fairly addresses our social justice and environmental concerns and is consistent with the City’s sustainability goals and federal civil rights obligations. We need to send a message that voters want a better deal and elected officials who listen to them. Email your representatives today, and help us make democracy work.
Email City Council members at the following addresses. Please cc Cynthia Sheppard in your e-mail and write in the first line: “Please distribute to all Council members and include my letter in the public record”.