If you had asked me, oh, a month ago whether I thought the multipurpose event venue would begin gathering forward momentum so soon after a citywide vote, I’d have said, “not a chance.”
My concern was that foot-dragging would impede the MPEV’s progress, that the Local Government Corporation might begin looking for reasons to delay it.
Well, things might be working out all right after all.
The LGC is beginning now to assign duties to city staffers charged with carrying the MPEV forward. Downtown Amarillo Inc. executive director Melissa Dailey has informed the LGC that her office has had informal contact with an organized minor-league baseball franchise that might be interested in moving to Amarillo and playing some old-fashioned hardball in the MPEV. Nothing is set. No deal is done. It’s just conversation, she said.
Then came an LGC decision, which was that it should pursue an affiliated team first rather than an independent team, such as the Amarillo Thunderheads, which has entered into a goofy decision next season to split its home schedule between Amarillo and Grand Prairie.
By all mean, LGC, pursue the affiliated team!
The LGC has been advised that time is not on its side. It has deadlines to meet, work to get done, firms to hire and construction to begin.
The LGC now aims to have the MPEV open for business by the start of the 2018 baseball season, perhaps March or April of that year.
Were some of us wrong about the LGC’s commitment to following through on the voters’ expressed desire to build the MPEV and the ballpark associated with it.
Man, I sure hope so.