Should a referendum decide the Rays future in St. Petersburg?

Unfortunately, it’s complicated!

The Rays will be building a stadium and, with their partner Hines, redeveloping the large site around Tropicana Field with a big assist from local government, which is helping pay for the stadium and selling the surrounding land for what some claim is below market prices.

Critics of this deal have maintained that most St. Pete residents don’t want to see their tax dollars used this way, with some critics (like those behind the No Home Run site) preferring to see a more market-driven approach to redevelopment.

Councilman Richie Floyd has taken another approach, objecting to subsidizing businesses rather than using city funds and land to directly address resident needs. Floyd expressed these concerns in a recent Tampa Bay Times OpEd.

Both sets of critics seem to agree on this: 1) the residents of St. Petersburg should be consulted in some form before committing to this plan, and 2) the most likely scenario — if they are asked — is that the majority would be against this plan.

But is consulting St. Pete residents either feasible or desirable? And would that consultation actually result in better policy?

How has the opposition polled the residents of St. Pete?

No Home Run, for example, worked with the League of Women Voters to share a survey intended to gauge popular sentiment about the proposed Rays/Hines redevelopment deal. They have touted these survey responses, which were on the whole negative about the city’s plans, but in fact their survey results are pretty much worthless.

First, although they emailed surveys to every registered voter in St. Petersburg (by their report, 36,461 valid emails) they received 779 responses. A 2% response rate doesn’t exactly provide us with a statistically significant sample, especially when we know nothing about whether those 779 people were broadly representative of all St. Petersburg voters.

The survey designers also asked extremely leading questions designed to elicit a preferred result; this survey resembles a “push poll” more than a real effort to assess public sentiment (you can see the full survey here). This is a particularly poorly designed survey, but it raises the issue that how we frame survey questions, especially on complex issues, can easily shape survey outcomes.

Councilmember Floyd goes beyond the quest for a survey; his opinion piece ends like this (emphasis added):

At the very least we should ensure that this current project does not run a deficit, and if we are committed to a large stadium subsidy, then I believe our residents should have a say via a referendum.

That last line is intriguing. If the city needs to make such a big decision about its financial future, what not ask voters what they think?

Let’s start by making it clear that the city and county are not required to hold a referendum to provide support for the stadium.

You might recall past referenda pertaining to stadiums around Tampa Bay: Hillsborough County voted for a sales tax increase that helped support the construction of Raymond James Stadium back in 1996 (it’s due to expire in 2026), and there would likely have been a referendum on the development of the so-called “sail stadium” on the St. Petersburg waterfront had the Rays not yanked that proposal.

The important distinction here is that both of those instances required a referendum.

Raising the sales tax to address capital needs, as was the case with the 1996 Community Investment Tax, definitively required a referendum. And in St. Petersburg, the downtown waterfront has a special status that can require a referendum for some redevelopment project like that sail stadium.

Does using existing financial sources to redevelopment land that is not preserved require getting voter approval?

Let’s say city or county officials nonetheless wanted to gauge whether their constituents supported this project, couldn’t they put the question to their voters even if the results of a referendum were not binding?

“Asking the voters” seems like an appealing and very democratic way of addressing policy conflicts, but the reality is a bit muddier.

Is there a case for a referendum?

In general, referenda are tricky business, because voter participation in local elections tends to be low.

The City of St. Petersburg is known for a high degree of voter engagement, but even there the 2021 municipal elections were decided by 36.5% of registered voters.

Political scientists further note that even those who show up to vote often fill out just the top part of the ballot, and many just don’t get to the ballot questions down at the bottom.

So even if the city were to hold a referendum, would the results provide definitive proof that residents do or do not approve of a particular deal?

And of course the proposed deal for the stadium and surrounding redevelopment is complex.

There are already competing claims about what the land is worth (for example, should the land be valued in its current state, or how much it could be sold for?), or how many jobs may be created by this redevelopment (good luck finding consensus there).

Not many voters have the time to analyze the land appraisal processes, or the potential infrastructure costs (including understanding which are necessary whether a stadium is built or not), or the potential for tax increment financing, or the opportunity costs of investing in X rather than Y.

At the end of the day, in a representative democracy we elect representatives to do their homework and make decisions on complex matters. And our elected officials appoint subject area experts in areas like public finance and urban planning who can devote their days to fully understanding the implications of this project as their full time job, something few voters can do.

Is asking people to weigh in with a downballot Yes/No vote the best way to make policy decisions?

Now, do not hear what I’m not saying. There are valid arguments against the Rays receiving a multi-billion dollar handout in St. Petersburg, and public sentiment can and should play a role in the decision-making process, but surely there are better ways to decide whether taxpayer money should fund a stadium than simply taking the pulse of a city’s residents via referendum.