Council member Robert White believes there could be enough D.C. council members in agreement to shoot down a proposed deal that would build a new stadium for the Washington Commanders.
At-Large Council member Robert White believes there could be enough D.C. council members in agreement to shoot down a proposed deal that would build a new stadium for the Washington Commanders.
White told WTOP he plans to vote against the deal in its current form, with several of his sticking points related to the potential impact on D.C. residents.
After days of marathon-length public hearings on the proposed new stadium deal at the old RFK site, the council is set to take its first vote on the plan Friday.
District taxpayers will have to put up about $1 billion to transform the old RFK stadium site into the new home for the team.
On Wednesday, some exchanges between Mayor Muriel Bowser and several council members got rather heated as the mayor testified for the revised plan.
After the meeting, Bowser also said she believed the votes were there, but did not want to give a number for how many council members she believes are going to vote for the project in the first vote.
White joined WTOP’s Anne Kramer and Shawn Anderson to discuss why he currently plans to vote against the deal Friday.
Listen to their conversation below.
D.C. Council member Robert White talks about the stadium deal with WTOP’s Shawn Anderson and Anne Kramer.
The transcript below has been lightly edited for clarity.
Anne Kramer: Councilman, you raised some flags about this deal, including concerns about it being fast tracked when you looked through the details this week, heard specifically from the team yesterday. What, if anything, worries you now?
Robert White: Thanks for having me. There are a number of things that worry me. One is, people elected me, and they elected me not to displace them, but to protect them. And in conversations with both the team and the mayor, there doesn’t seem to be any attention paid to the fact that we’re going to gentrify out many of our residents. I’m also really worried about the revenue that we’re going to be bringing. And what we’re gonna have to put in.
The initial announcement was that citizens would pay $500 million, now it’s ballooned to about a billion and a half. And there’s just too much money that is going to the team and the stadium, not enough going to residents, good jobs at the end of that. So, again, it has to be a good deal for the Commanders, but it has to be a good deal for D.C., too.
Shawn Anderson: Well, if we understand this correctly, eight ‘yes’ votes are needed tomorrow to move this forward. How will you be voting on this plan as it exists right now?
Robert White: As of my most recent conversations with the mayor and the team, I’m going to be a ‘no’ again. We can’t go into this understanding how we need to protect the Commanders, but no understanding whatsoever as to how we will protect our residents. We have a 23-year timeline for building 600 units. We’ve got to get that in writing down to 10. We need housing more than we need a lot of things.
And then when we have jobs on that site, we need them to go to D.C. residents, and we need them to be good paying jobs. And, you know, the city will remember that the council’s budget office did a revenue analysis that said if we do a development without a stadium, we will more than double the amount of revenue to the team. So, I’m prepared to take a hit for the team to come, but it has to be a good deal for D.C. residents. And, right now, there are too many things that the team is not budging on.
Anne Kramer: OK, Councilman, so what could sway your vote to the ‘yes’ side? If someone tried to come to you today and say, ‘We’re going to put this in, we’re going to put that in.’ What are you looking for specifically?
Robert White: There are a few things. And, you know, we’re being asked to rush this. So we’re trying to compile things quickly. But first, there has to we have to dedicate some of the future revenue to housing stabilization in the area so that we don’t gentrify people out the way that we’ve done so many times in the past. We have to accelerate the timeline for getting the housing built, and the land has to go back to the city if the housing doesn’t get built.
We have to put labor protections in place so that the jobs on the back end are good jobs for D.C. residents. And we got to keep protecting the environment. After we’ve poured millions and millions of dollars into cleaning up the Anacostia River, we can’t then say we’re going to ignore the environmental regulations in order to build a stadium really quickly. So, those are the things that are going to have to change between today and tomorrow.
Shawn Anderson: How many fellow colleagues do you have who might be thinking the same way you are? Are there enough votes on the council at this point to maybe turn this thing down?
Robert White: There are enough votes to turn it down. And the way that things are looking right now, there will be a lot of amendments tomorrow, and if the bill went up for a vote right now it would not pass.
Anne Kramer: So, talk to us about these amendments, then. What are you expecting to hear when it comes to amendments on this already?
Robert White: Well, I think the things that I’ve mentioned protecting residents with housing stabilization funding, dedicating some future funding, accelerating the timeline for the housing project, labor agreements and environmental protections. I also would expect amendments on what’s called personal seat licenses.
So, teams charge fans up to $75,000 for the opportunity for them to then buy a ticket, and the team is saying they don’t want the District to tax the personal seat license. That means that the city is going to sacrifice tens of millions of dollars more in addition to giving up the land for $1 in addition to all the other revenues that we’re foregoing. So there has to be a line at which we say, ‘This doesn’t make financial sense to the city,’ and so I would expect an amendment on the personal fee licenses as well.
Shawn Anderson: Councilman, you and your fellow Councilman Zachary Parker, got into it with the mayor during the hearing yesterday about some of this. Are you certain that the mayor is being up front with you about everything involved?
Robert White: Well, I mean, we know that we don’t have all the information. The mayor announced yesterday that she had made a deal with Maryland to allow them to keep the Commander’s headquarters. I don’t think that’s the type of deal that we should be making here in D.C., because no other jurisdiction would allow that. And that was the first we heard of it.
The amount that this is going to cost the city, from her first announcement to yesterday, has changed drastically. The amount of revenue projected has changed drastically, and a lot of the revenue estimates have, frankly, been not very good or sincere. So there’s a lot we don’t know, which makes me more nervous about rushing this vote.
This would be the fastest by far that the city has ever voted on a stadium, and also the most amount of money we’ve ever committed. And so, that’s a tough combination, and I want to make sure we don’t make a mistake that we’re going to live with for several decades.
Anne Kramer: Councilman Robert White, we appreciate your time this afternoon. Thanks for spending a couple minutes with us, and I guess we’ll talk to you as you all move forward, or don’t move forward, on this plan.
Robert White: It’ll be a long day. Thanks for having me.
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