Miami’s bid for a $60 million state subsidy to help build a new baseball stadium for the Florida Marlins is dead, Senate President Tom Lee said Thursday. Lee also said “it’s not looking good” for other sports subsidies, including $30 million for a NASCAR hall of fame in Daytona Beach and facilities for the Orlando Magic and spring training facilities. The fate of the NASCAR subsidy likely will be decided today, the last day of the legislative session. Lee didn’t anticipate even bringing the bill up for debate on Friday, the final day of the session. George Mirabal, president of The Chamber, Daytona Beach/Halifax Area, said the setback to the NASCAR hall proposal was a disappointment but by no means did it signal the end of the project.(Daytona Beach News Journal)(5-6-2005)
UPDATE – not good: In a tumultuous end to the legislative session, Florida lawmakers passed a $63 billion budget Friday and approved overhauling the state’s Medicaid system — but refused to spend $30 million to help Daytona Beach attract a NASCAR hall of fame. The Senate never took up a bill that would have provided subsidies to Daytona Beach to try to outbid other areas of the country for the NASCAR hall of fame. Daytona Beach lobbyist Sam Bell said the issue was dead. A bill outlining a NASCAR hall of fame subsidy — which House members passed last month, lumping the hall of fame with other proposals to subsidize stadium projects for the Florida Marlins and Orlando Magic — never came up in the Senate. Bell said that, coupled with a lack of time to push through the proposal, played a key part in lawmakers scuttling the NASCAR subsidy. “It was just a salad of things that was not palatable,” Bell said.(Daytona Beach News Journal)(5-7-2005)
