Since I was out of town over the weekend, I missed the announcement first broken in the Washington Times on Friday, that Washington, D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams was ready to forward a proposal to Major League Baseball that provided for the city to build a 100 percent publicly funded baseball park on a site near RFK Stadium.
Much of the local reaction was fairly predictable, with Ward 2 Democrat Jack Evans, chairman of the D.C. City Council's Finance and Revenue Committee, leading the charge:
"Unless baseball makes a commitment to Washington, D.C., I am not spending another minute on this project," D.C. Council member Jack Evans, Ward 2 Democrat, said in an interview on WTOP Radio. "If they make a commitment to us, I'll build the stadium."
For the most part, during this entire charade with Major League Baseball, Evans has been one of the voices of sanity and fiscal restraint -- and it's clear that he and the rest of the City Council weren't terribly happy with Williams' launching a trial balloon without consulting them first.
