Commissioners Get Played By The Rays or Just Bow Down to the Rays "Kingpin Ken"?

Today's Tampa Bay Times Headline

Arrogance drips off the Rays CEO as he admits the Rays were never going to further negotiate and their current Memorandum of Demand Bad Deal is it - take it or leave it.

Local media knew it as local news headlines claimed the County had approved the MOU like it's a done deal.

With this headline being the most laughable:

The Rays and their "Kingpin Ken" used the Non-Binding" (Wink Wink Nod Nod) Memorandum of Demand to flush out and bind four other commissioners to move the Bad Deal forward.

This is why the Rays "Kingpin Ken" wanted to ram a vote through on the Sketchy Stadium Subsidy Scheme that has too little transparency, too many questions and too many issues unresolved.

Disregarding Rays "Kingpin Ken" who will do and say anything for a new taxpayer funded Rays Stadium, the other four commissioners - Myers, Cohen, Boles and Miller - gave up the County's only leverage to negotiate a better deal and an equity stake.

Myers, Cohen, Boles and Miller voted to approve the Rays Memorandum of Demand that allows the Rays to jump to the head of the line and loot the County's CIT renewal funds Upfront - before a dime of those funds are used for promised road and infrastructure projects.

Myers, Cohen, Boles and Miller voted to approve the Rays confiscating $103 MILLION of Cash Reserves - the rainy day fund that "Kingpin Ken" always claimed could never be used for roads - an "essential core function of government" as Boles claimed when he campaigned in 2024.

But the Rays "Kingpin Ken" is A-OK with the Rays taking those Reserves just as Hurricane season is to begin.

All those claims by Myers, Cohen, Boles and Miller that this was to just keep the negotiations appears to have been all a Ruse.

 

The Rays say their Demand for the County''s CIT funds, Property Taxes, Cash Reserves, Tourist Taxes and the forcing of massive Debt on taxpayers for decades is the End All Deal and it will not change.

We fully expected Rays "Kingpin Ken" to allow such fiscal malfeasance. But Myers, Cohen, Boles and Miller should have said NO and sent the Rays Demand Memo back to the drawing board.

Bad policies, especially those negotiated behind closed doors with little transparency and lots of questions unanswered, should be stopped ASAP not pushed forward.

Seems eerily similar to "We have to pass the [Obamacare} bill so that you can find out what is in it".....

Two years ago a super majority of Hillsborough County commissioners, including Ken Hagan, promised voters in 2024 that NO CIT renewal funds would be used to fund ANY NEW Stadium.

Two years later on May 20, 2026 BOCC a super majority of Hillsborough County commissioners - Hagan, Myers, Cohen, Boles and Miller - violated that promise. 

The Bad Deal also violates the 2024 campaign commitments made by Boles and Miller who have already filed to run again in 2028.

Were Myers, Cohen, Boles and Miller played by the Rays and "Kingpin Ken". If so that is incompetence and bad judgment reflecting poor governance.

Were Myers, Cohen, Boles and Miller just bowing down to the Rays "Kingpin Ken" for whatever reason? If so, that is unethical governance that reeks of impropriety.

The Rays threw their Memorandum of Demand to the County and the City to get approved ASAP knowing full well they were done with negotiating about the public funding. 

Trust has been destroyed!