If the Baltimore Orioles or anyone else want to pitch a new proposal for training at Dodgertown, county commissioners won’t be secretive about it — again.

“Our only big mistake was to agree with the confidentiality clause (in dealing with the Orioles) so citizens and taxpayers were unable to see all the facts and figures,” County Commissioner Peter O’Bryan said Tuesday.

His remark came as the Commission agreed to rescind an Oct. 30 offer to the Orioles for spring training at Dodgertown.

Monday was the deadline to accept or reject the offer, but the team instead issued a counteroffer and asked for substantially more.

“They asked for substantial changes from our discussion that we don’t look at it as the final offer we discussed,” County Administrator Joe Baird said.

In a 5-0 vote, commissioners agreed to a four-point plan from O’Bryan:

• Reject the counter offer.

• Rescind the final offer.

• Impose a 30-day cooling-off period, during which time the county wouldn’t talk with the Orioles about using Dodgertown.

• Eliminate any confidentiality restrictions imposed on the commissioners and the county.

The Orioles also are talking with Sarasota County, which Wednesday is considering a $57 million stadium expenditure for the team. Baird said Indian River County couldn’t compete with Sarasota’s proposals.

Tuesday’s vote clears the way for Baird to negotiate with other groups interested in Dodgertown. Officials said some of those groups include colleges interested in using Dodgertown for tournaments and an international team that might want to use the field for practice.

Had confidentiality not bound the Indian River commissioners, O’Bryan said, residents would have known how hard Baird and Vero Beach City Manager Jim Gabbard were working in recent months to secure the Orioles.

The two governments on Oct. 30 issued a final offer after months of discussions. It has not been made public, but is believed to have included up to $12 million in improvements to Holman Stadium and the use of an adjacent 37.6 acres, which the city purchased a couple of years ago for $10 million.

Orioles spokesman Greg Bader, contacted later, said last week’s proposal wasn’t a counteroffer.

“The spring training site selection process that the Orioles have followed was agreed to by all parties and has yet to run its course,” he wrote in an e-mail to the Press Journal. “Further, there has been no counteroffer.”

– Ed Bierschenk and Henry A. Stephens

Tags: dodgertown, orioles, spring training

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 17th, 2008 at 11:07 am and is filed under Indian River County, Vero Beach. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.