Politics & Government

Ott: Braves Stadium Support Depends on Financial Details

The Smyrna-area Cobb commissioner said he will "reserve my opinion" about a proposed Braves ball park until the numbers are fleshed out.

While Cobb government officials continue to work out details of a stadium financing plan, Atlanta Braves representatives met briefly with Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed and Gov. Nathan Deal on Wednesday. 

And the Cobb commissioner who represents the Cumberland Mall area where the 42,000-seat Major League Baseball park would be located says he wants to be clear about where he stands on the proposal. 

Bob Ott, a Republican from East Cobb whose district includes Smyrna-Vinings, said that while he is "comfortable with" what he's been shown thus far about a proposed $672 million stadium that would bring the Braves from Turner Field to Cobb County, he hasn't passed final judgment. 

He said comments published in a Patch story on Tuesday were "a little bit misleading" about his level of support for the stadium project. 

Ott said in an e-mail that the Patch story "portrays me as being totally supportive of the deal. My support is dependent on the details of the financing."

He and the other three Cobb district commissioners were briefed about the proposal only in the last week, and that was "a preliminary finance model by the Chairman [Tim Lee] and the Braves. Once the Chairman finalizes his proposal it will then come back to us along with the MOU [memorandum of understanding] for the commissioners to review."

In a stunning move, the Braves announced Monday morning that they would be pulling up stakes in downtown Atlanta after nearly 50 years and play their home games in Cobb starting with the 2017 season.

But how that stadium will be paid for remains a mystery, beyond the Braves saying they will contribute $200 million.

Cobb officials have refused to confirm a figure of $450 million of the stadium cost that would come from a local "public-private partnership" whose details have not been made public. 

Those details could be revealed this week; the commission is scheduled to vote on the financing plan on Nov. 26.

Ott told Patch that "until I see the final numbers I have to reserve my opinion. What I also said was I would not go against what I have stood for over the last five years, that being maintaining low taxes and not overburdening the taxpayer."

He also underscored that while negotations like this are often done in private "it was never intended to try to keep the public in the dark."

At Tuesday's commission meeting, Lee asked the public for more time to finalize the financing plan before making it public. But some residents weren't willing to be patient, including Jan Barton of East Cobb, who addressed the commissioners during a public comment session: 

"Nothing was said to the taxpayers of Cobb County until today and yesterday about this boondoggle."

Another issue tied to the Braves moving to Cobb concerns traffic in a heavily congested I-75/285 area which was already slated for major improvements before the proposed stadium location was announced. 

Cobb Republican Party chairman Joe Dendy has generated some controversy for commenting that traffic solutions for the new stadium should be "all about moving cars in and around Cobb and surrounding counties from our north and east where most Braves fans travel from, and not moving people into Cobb by rail from Atlanta."

Cobb opted out of joining the then-new MARTA public transit system in 1971, along with Gwinnett County.


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