Because nobody seems to know any better: Sarasota County agrees to continue negotiations with the Atlanta Braves in regards to building a brand spanking new exclusive Spring Training facility estimated at $75-80 million dollars

Naturally the Braves are hoping to contribute nothing but $Free.99 towards this grandiose and unnecessary expenditure, while the (mostly) innocent public picks up the rest of the tab.  And as 100% of sporting venues have proven, the initial estimate is always incorrect, and the safe rule of thumb is to double the estimate, and that’s closer to the end result than originally intended.  It’s a whole lot less disappointing when they actually fail to exceed an estimate, albeit revised and deliberately inflated one.

Best part is?  If this stupid and pointless project actually takes off and the Braves get their new Spring Training complex, with public funds doing most (all) of the lifting, the Braves might not even have to make the financial records public.  This is often being called something along the lines of the “Pitbull clause,” since apparently rapper Pitbull found some loophole that allowed for him to privatize the financial records to a some tourism event or whatever, but the bottom line is that because Pitbull did it, it leans to believe that the Atlanta Braves might be able to do it as well.  And what’s more trustworthy than taking measures to eliminate transparency and hiding records that should be public, if being paid by the public?

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