Take Me Out To The Ballgame

Biloxi on the Mississippi Gulf Coast is getting a new minor league baseball stadium!

There is one small problem with the good news…..we DO NOT have a minor league baseball team…..a minor setback, I am told.

Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant on Thursday said the state would kick in $15 million in BP oil disaster money to help build a professional baseball stadium in Biloxi.  Bryant said, Ken Young, president of Ovations Food Services and an owner of several minor-league teams via Maryland Baseball Holding, LLC (Triple-A Norfolk Tides, Double-A Bowie Baysox, and Single-A Frederick Keys) and Albuquerque Baseball Club, LLC (Triple-A Albuquerque Isotopes), is leading the franchise ownership group and is “in the process of purchasing an existing minor league team and relocating them to Biloxi.”  Read more here.

We are told that it will seat up to 25,000 persons……that it will be used for not only baseball but concerts and other special events…….which is a pretty good promise but we already have the Gulf Coast Coliseum which acts for these things but the baseball thingy…

Personally, I think the BP disaster funds could be spent in a much more beneficial way than a ball park…..all this will do is make a few more low paying jobs for the people of the Coast……and after 5 years will be for sale or a great place to graze goats…..

The questions I want answered is….who benefited for the sale of that chunk of property?  And what will the tax base be?

How Green Is Mississippi?

Earth Day has come and gone.  Coastians have been picking up litter and planting trees this week in honor of Earth Day and the Great American Cleanup and in anticipation of summer visitors.

In Biloxi the cleanup ran all week and continues today. On Friday teams from local organizations and the casinos spread out to clean the downtown and neighborhoods. The Biloxi Bay Chamber of Commerce installed recycling bins for plastic bottles and aluminum cans at the Biloxi Town Green and plan to install more downtown and throughout the city.

Was all this truly to make the Coast greener or an attempt to make a good impression on the nation’s governors?

The nation’s governors, many of whom will get their first look at the Coast when they attend the National Governors’ Association annual meeting at the Mississippi Coast Coliseum and Convention Center, July 17 to 20.

This was a pretty good start, but more, much more needs to be done before the Coast is considered a green community.  But the efforts by Biloxi and other Coast cities is nothing more than an opportunity for Barbour to strut around and take all the credit for the recovery on the Coast.

If Mississippi truly wants to be a green state then the legislature has the power to make it so, but they WILL NOT!  To do so would be an insult to the corporations and business interests in the state.

Planting a tree and the placing of recycling bins is just ducky….but they are superficial attempts, NOTHING of substance.

Peace…out!

Casino Revenue Down

The economic crisis is effecting everyone…..how long will it last is the question all are waiting for the answer.

November was the third straight month that revenues at the 11 Coast casinos fell below the 2007 levels.

Numbers just released by the Mississippi Tax Commission show the Coast casinos won $96 million this year compared to $103 million in November 2007.

The River casinos took a much bigger hit from the slow economy, down $12 million in November after falling $7 million in October.

Total earnings for the state were $205 million compared to $225 million in 2007.

I believe that I read that Louisana’s casinos had a 6% rise in profits for the same period.

“Tweak” The Law

THis does not surprise me…coming from a city that has little to offer but casinos….

Members of the House Gaming Committee met on the Coast today and were asked to mandate a late August start to the school year and to clarify the law that allowed the casinos to move onshore after Hurricane Katrina.

Eleanor “Sissy” Jordan asked what the committee could do to “tweak” House Bill 45 so other casino developers who want to build on the Coast won’t meet the same fate as the South Beach Casino. The Mississippi Gaming Commission ruled the R.W. Development property on U.S. 90 at Veterans Avenue was not a legal casino site.

Rep. Earle Banks (D-Jackson) said if the bill were brought up again, “there are forces out there that could kill the whole industry.” He said these forces are getting stronger every year and he told Jordan if House Bill 45 is brought back, “I’m telling you it may not survive.”

Without passage of the bill, Rep. Randall Patterson (D-Biloxi) said half of the Coast casinos probably whould not have built back after Hurricane Katrina. The bill passed the House by only three votes, and Patterson said three or four of the House members who supported the bill were defeated last year.

Woody Bailey told the Gaming Committee the Gulf Coast Business Council will ask the legislature to set the start of classes for the fourth week of August to boost tourism. “It makes business sense to do this,” he said.

FL: How To Pay For Improvments

If a $41.4 million concept to develop the commercial core of Pensacola Beach ever comes to fruition, raising the Bob Sikes Bridge toll to $2 could be the funding source.

That’s what the Santa Rosa Island Authority will suggest when it makes a proposal in December to Escambia County commissioners on the economic benefits of developing the core.

The SRIA will meet jointly with commissioners to ask their support for requesting proposals from developers for the project.

The SRIA board wants to send out a request for proposals to see what ideas developers have for building such a project and how much it would truly cost, Peacock said. Then the funding source could be considered more closely.

Lee said the $1 toll normally brings in about $3 million a year. Raising it to $2, Lee estimates, would bring in an additional $2.5 million, predicting that more people will decide to purchase toll transponders if the toll rises.

FL: What Is Next For Pensacola?

There’s good news in a survey showing many people unhappy with big parts of life in Escambia County

It shows people finally recognize that Pensacola clearly is evolving into a retirement and vacation community, and they’re deciding whether to fight it, accept it or vote with their feet and leave.

Thirty-one percent plan to leave Pensacola within five years, according to the poll commissioned by the Better Pensacola Forum.

Pensacolians have been saying it for decades, but the problem has grown worse with the loss of many high-paying jobs — blue-collar and white-collar — at military installations and manufacturing plants.

Now, will the survey’s respondents take the next step and promise to improve education, confront environmental problems and give the boot to the racism, sexism and good ol’ boyism that rule so much of Pensacola?

Escambia County and the City of Pensacola are losing population, undeniable proof that we have a problem, Pensacola.

AL: Good News For Mobile

There has been several stories in the past about things that are going wrong in Mobile and finally there is a bit of good news for the city.

Mobile joins the likes of Seattle, San Francisco and Chattanooga, Tenn., in the September issue of National Geographic Adventure magazine as one of the “50 next great towns” in which to live and play.

Magazine editors said their annual choices “aren’t just on prime relocation spots now, but smart choices for the future.”