PLANTE TALKS BASEBALL
If a team is a good project for the city, ‘we’re in’: mayor
Mayor Valérie Plante had what she described as a “very fruitful” meeting Friday with the promoters of the return of a Montreal baseball franchise.
“We want projects that are good for economic development and for social development and if the return of a baseball team is good for Montreal, we’re in,” Plante said after a one-hour meeting with Stephen Bronfman and Mitch Garber at city hall.
But Plante repeated the vow she made during the election campaign last year that she wouldn’t spend taxpayers’ money on a new baseball stadium without consulting Montrealers first.
Bronfman reiterated that he and Garber were not looking for money from the city but just for Plante’s support. “It means a lot. If this is going to work, it means everybody is going to have to be on the same page and we need the support of everyone, and the city plays a big role,” said Bronfman, a Montreal businessman and son of Charles Bronfman, who was the Montreal Expos’ first majority owner.
The three said the aim of the meeting was simply to bring Plante into the loop on the efforts that have been made so far to bring back Major League Baseball to Montreal, either through expansion or relocation of an existing franchise.
Asked what she meant when she said, “We’re in,” Plante said: “It means that we want to work together.”
“How can we put our strengths, our networks together? How can we make the best project possible for Montrealers, because what’s good for Montreal, this is where we’re in, we’re always looking forward to having good projects for Montreal,” Plante said.
Bronfman and Garber said it was premature to talk about possible sites for a new stadium or financial aspects like future tax breaks.
“Stephen made it clear to the mayor that the baseball file is a slow-moving file,” said Garber, chairman of the federal agency Invest in Canada and a business executive who made a fortune in online gaming.
“If there’s a team that can move to Montreal or a new team that can be established in Montreal, we’ll figure out what the conditions are needed to attract that team, and we’re not asking the city for anything today other than for the city to support the idea of Major League Baseball coming back and being good for the city of Montreal,” he said.
“It’s a big project. It takes friends. It takes fans. It takes people around us,” Bronfman said.
He added that there are several sites that could be suitable for a stadium, “but it’s not time to talk about them yet.”
Bronfman also mentioned that the community-owned model of the Green Bay Packers football team could be a source of inspiration.
“The idea of having Montrealers be able to invest and have ownership in what we view as a social project, a project that is fan-based, that is a mix of everyone to enjoy ensemble, I think it’s a win-win,” he said.
On March 28, Plante said that she was looking forward to meeting the baseball promoters and that their plan for landing a majorleague baseball team for Montreal was “a much better deal” than the one originally proposed under previous mayor Denis Coderre.