As Brickell posted in the comments yesterday, the stadium vote has been deferred, as expected. Sarah Talalay gives the details.
County Manager George Burgess is scheduled to give the commission an update on negotiations at Thursday's commission meeting. Commission Chairman Bruno Barreiro says he will ask for the item to be deferred until the commission's next meeting on Jan. 22 "so everyone can have enough time to review and analyze the whole package," Barreiro said.
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The commission delayed a vote on the $525 million ballpark agreement last month to give the sides time to reach an agreement. An earlier draft of the agreement called on the city and county to contribute $370 million in hotel bed and sports facilities taxes and a general obligation bond and for the Marlins to chip in $155 million. Barreiro said he doesn't think the hold up in finishing a Baseball Stadium Agreement is substantive.
"I think they're very close," Barreiro said. "It's minor details from what I understand, legalities, stuff like that. The stadium itself, I don't think there's a lot of big issues."
If an agreement is ready in time for the Jan. 22 meeting, the county could vote then followed by the city at its meeting on Jan. 24.
One of the big holdups earlier in the process was the Marlins wanting to cap their part of the stadium overrun costs at $20 million, but maybe that has been worked out.
On a down note it gives the opposition more time to rally grassroots support to defeat the proposal.
No one said it was going to be easy.