RI Senate passes revised Pawsox stadium bill

June 23, 2018 12:42 am

By John Krinjak

Email: jkrinjak@abc6.com

Twitter: @johnkrinjakABC6

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WLNE) — The Rhode Island Senate passed the revised PawSox stadium bill late Friday night, 26 to 4.

The floor vote happened about an hour after the Senate Finance Committee passed the bill in a 30-second hearing.

The revised plan, drafted in the House, does make borrowing money to build the stadium more expensive than the original Senate version, but Senate Finance Chair William Conley says passing the newer bill is better than risking losing the team.

Under this version the state would not guarantee the loans to finance the $83 million ballpark, and taxes generated by the park would go into a special account to leverage against a potential default by the team.

What hasn’t changed–Rhode Island would still cover $23 million of the overall cost, with $15 million coming from Pawtucket. The Senate vote comes after the full House passed the plan 53 to 13 earlier Friday night.

"If we can help Pawtucket with no recourse to the taxpayers, I cannot find a legitimate reason not to do it," said House Speaker Nick Mattiello.

Not without some strong objection from Republicans.

"These men have plenty of money to fund their own stadium. They don’t need taxpayer dollars," said House Minority Leader Patricia Morgan.

Mayor Grebien is grateful to see decisive votes on a plan three years in the making.

"It’s all in the numbers, and when people see those numbers they realize that it is sustainable, it is keeping millions of dollars in our community and it’s the right thing to do," said Grebien.

But the question remains–will the team go for the house plan? Mattiello says PawSox officials have told him they’d prefer to stay in Rhode Island, but said "there’s no reassurance of anything."

"That is always a risk," said Gov. Gina Raimondo. "So let’s see what’s in the bill and then we’ll do our best to convince the team to stay here"

Raimondo plans to sign the bill, but it’s unclear when that will happen.

A spokesperson for the PawSox released a statement late Friday night, saying:

“We saw this proposed legislation for the first time only this morning, so it would be premature to comment further without having studied its terms and ramifications.

“We will continue to work with the City of Pawtucket to see if this new proposal is feasible, viable, and permissible.”