To the editor:
The city of Thunder Bay won’t be charging the Border Cats baseball team rent this year. Nor did the team pay the $11,000 rental fee to use Port Arthur Stadium in 2017.
The rent waivers are contained in a compensation agreement whose details were kept secret until now.
It took a Freedom of Information request to pry the information from city hall.
The city agreed to compensate the ball club and the Northwoods League after the team had to play its first 10 home games last season at other team’s fields. That’s because Port Arthur Stadium wasn’t available. The stadium was being readied for the Under 18 Baseball World Cup.
Free rent for two years is only part of the deal, however.
The city also agreed to pay the ball club almost $51,000 for the costs of playing those 10 lost home games at their opponents’ fields. Those costs included transportation, meals, lodging, stadium rentals, trainers and supplies.
On top of the cash outlay, the city also agreed to forego its share of the sale of food and beverages at the stadium. For four years. The city is supposed to get 10 per cent of the first $50,000 of gross revenues from food and drink and 2 per cent of sales beyond that. The Border Cats will get to keep all of that revenue through the end of the 2020 season.
The documents I received don’t provide an estimate of what that part of the deal is worth.
The bothersome fact here is that the city didn’t make the details public when the compensation agreement was signed last fall. Perhaps both sides were embarrassed with its generosity. The ball club thought revealing the details would hurt its reputation with the public.
But the fact is these are tax dollars given or foregone.
Why didn’t Frank Pullia, the chair of council’s closed door meetings insist this agreement be made public once the deal was approved?
He talks a lot about openness and transparency. But mostly it’s turned out to be just talk.
We’re still waiting to find out whether the city ever got the $30,000 the former owner of the Border Cats owed the city in unpaid rent. The city gave him a secret deal to install an electronic billboard in the outfield of the stadium. That sign has now disappeared. Frank Pullia has yet to publicly explain what’s happened or when the city is going to start earning rent from another sign.
Shane Judge,
Thunder Bay
