The current Escondido (Cal.) City Council will punt on a Nov. 30 vote on a new Triple-A ballpark and instead let the next City Council — which will be seated Dec. 1 and could contain two opponents of ballpark funding, if a recount affirms their election — decide on Dec. 15.
The recount is the big news right now; currently ballpark proponent (and former mayor) Lori Holt Pfeiler is losing to ballpark opponent Ed Gallo by 39 votes, but there are still 2,500 absentee and provisional ballots to be counted. The mayoral election was not that close: ballpark proponent Dick Daniels lost to former councilman Sam Abed by a much wider margin. Abed has positioned himself as an opponent of the current ballpark deal with San Diego Padres owner Jeff Moorad but hasn’t pooh-poohed the entire notion.
Because of the incertainty surrounding the actual makeup of the council, the decision was made to put back deliberation of the ballpark plan to Dec. 15. The current deal calls for the city to build the ballpark using redevelopment money and the Moorad group collecting all the revenues. The former Portland Beavers (Class AAA; Pacific Coast League) would play in the new ballpark in 2012 after spending the 2011 season in Tucson. With Abed as mayor, we’re pretty sure that deal is already dead: Abed has already said he wants to see some sort of development as part of the deal, and he’ll want to see Moorad deliver on that side of the equation.
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