Lost in the announcement that Colorado Springs residents are being asked about a new downtown ballpark is a key issue: exactly who is pushing for a replacement for Security Service Field?
Colorado Springs Sky Sox (Class AAA; Pacific Coast League) GM Tony Ensor says the team is perfectly happy at Security Service Field, which has benefited from $8 million in investments from ownership in recent years. Still, Ensor agreed to distribute a survey to the Sky Sox mailing list to determine whether there was support for a new downtown ballpark. The same survey was sent to members of the Colorado Springs Regional Business Alliance. Though city officials were pushing the survey — Mayor Steve Bach and City Attorney Chris Melcher were clearly involved — there’s no indication as to who actually prepared the survey. (It’s not the city, officially.) From the Colorado Springs Independent:
Two weeks after unveiling a survey described as a first step toward exploring the idea of a downtown baseball stadium, virtually everything about that survey remains a mystery, including who’s running it, how much it will cost, when it will be completed, and whether the results will be publicly disclosed….
As confusing is just how much stock the city plans to put into the data collected. While the survey asks sophisticated marketing questions about ticket pricing, club seats and the like, it’s not scientific; for one thing, people apparently can take it as often as they like. Moreover, it doesn’t ask two crucial questions: Where specifically the stadium should go, and whether it should be funded through private investment or with taxes.
RELATED STORIES: New downtown ballpark under consideration in Colorado Springs
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