After a couple of false starts and new judges, a key lawsuit in connection with a potential St. Louis football stadium finally made it to court on Thursday. Via David Hunn of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Judge Thomas Frawley presided over a 3.5-hour hearing that explored the question of whether a city ordinance requiring a public vote before tax money is used on a new stadium can be circumvented through the construction of a stadium that replaces an existing structure.
The final hour of the hearing focused on the question of whether three city residents could intervene in the case, based on the argument that the city will not adequately defend the ordinance because the city realizes that doing so could result in the relocation of the Rams. Judge Frawley said that taxpayer status alone isn’t enough to justify intervention, but he did not issue a final ruling on that specific request.
As to the application of the ordinance, issues include whether the city law is vague as it relates to a “new stadium” versus a replacement structure, whether the ordinance conflicts with Missouri law and the St. Louis charter, and whether the replacement stadium must be situated directly next to an existing convention facility. St. Louis lawyers argued that the replacement must physically adjoin the convention center to which the Edward Jones Dome is adjacent; the opposition countered with an argument that “adjacent” doesn’t mean “adjoining,” and that only the broader stadium complex must be “adjacent” to the convention center.
Judge Frawley then asked whether this meant that the stadium could be built 20 miles away in Fenton, as long as the broader stadium complex was defined in a way that brought it technically in some way adjacent to the convention center. And the lawyer pushing that argument took the bait and said, “Yes.” Which won’t help the argument that the replacement stadium could be built anywhere except next to the convention center.
Regardless of the ruling, time is of the essence. If Judge Frawley requires a public vote on the proposed extension of an existing hotel-motel tax for the Edward Jones Dome to the new stadium, that vote needs to happen ASAFP. And the vote needs to be in the affirmative. Or the Rams will be gone.
