As Major League Baseball's deadline for funding a Washington stadium nears, the debate has gotten down and dirty.
For months, Northern Virginia officials had been good sports about losing the Montreal Expos to the District of Columbia in September.
But D.C. Councilman Jim Graham ruffled feathers in Virginia when he snickered at warnings that baseball could put the team in Loudoun County if the city reneged on a ballpark deal.
During Tuesday's marathon meeting on stadium funding, Graham urged Council Chairwoman Linda Cropp to play hardball with baseball.
Graham said when it came down to crunch time, baseball wouldn't, and couldn't, walk away from D.C if the city chose to build a ballpark near RFK Stadium rather than at a more expensive Anacostia Riverfront site. He said baseball would stay even if the city decided to keep the team at 40-year-old RFK permanently.
"Tell baseball it's either RFK or Loudoun County," Graham said. "I'm not an expert on Loudoun County, but I think there are lot of cow pastures in Loudoun County."
The packed D.C. Council chambers filled with laughter at that remark.
"Jim Graham is right about one thing," Loudoun County Board of Supervisors Chairman Scott K. York told The Free Lance-Star yesterday. "He doesn't know anything about Loudoun County."
York said the county remains an option for baseball if the city doesn't keep Mayor Anthony Williams' agreement with the game.
The D.C. Council decided this week to require 50 percent private investment in the construction of the ballpark, which could be difficult to nail down by baseball's Dec. 31 deadline. Williams had agreed to full public financing and baseball says it will look elsewhere if the city doesn't meet the deadline for a full-financing package. The council meets again Tuesday.
Loudoun does have some farms on the undeveloped western part of the county, but has high-tech business on the heavily developed eastern side close to D.C., including the headquarters for America Online.
"We do have a cow or two," York said dryly. "But we also have orbital scientists."
The proposed Loudoun ballpark site is adjacent to Dulles International Airport, near the Fairfax County line.
"Loudoun's a better place for a ballpark than the District is," York said flatly.
It's the fastest-growing county in America, and one of the most affluent. A national business magazine recently rated Loudoun No. 1 among counties in America in terms of quality of life.
According to U.S. Census figures, the population of the District is 568,000, while the combined population of Loudoun and the adjacent counties of Fairfax and Arlington is 1.4 million.
Baseball chose the District over Northern Virginia, Las Vegas, Portland, Ore., and Monterrey, Mexico, in September.
York said he expected D.C. to fail in finalizing its stadium package.
"When Major League Baseball awarded the team to the District, we all thought they'd never be able to hold onto it, and that's being proven true," he said.
Meanwhile, the debate inside D.C. has taken a strange turn.
A story on the WTOP radio Web site yesterday carried a headline: "Sex Industry Funded Campaign Against New Stadium."
Robert Siegel, owner of a gay porn shop and adult theaters on the stadium site, is one of the biggest backers of the No Taxes for Baseball in D.C. Coalition, WTOP reported. Siegel told WTOP that the South Capitol Street ballpark site is "D.C.'s unofficial red light district."
Siegel contributed to the D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute, which helped pay for an automated phone campaign against the stadium, anti-stadium posters and radio ads, coalition members said.
Chris Weiss of Friends of the Earth, which ran the phone campaign, told The Free Lance-Star yesterday: "We believe the focus on Mr. Siegel's businesses is an effort by supporters of the stadium to distract attention from what a poor deal the proposed stadium is for the district and its residents."
He said Friends of the Earth didn't receive any money from Siegel or his businesses "and we were unaware that Mr. Siegel had any connection with the sex industry."
Ed Lazere of No D.C. Taxes for Baseball told the newspaper: "The fact of the matter is we have a campaign based on the principle that public financing is not a good idea. One of the people involved is a businessman whose property is affected by the stadium. His business is not a business everybody likes, necessarily, but no one says it's disreputable."
This is coming up now, he said, because "our arguments have been effective and it appears someone is trying to attack us because of that."
To reach MICHAEL ZITZ: 540/374-5408 mikez@freelancestar.com