For starters, yours truly takes a look at the proposed downtown High Point baseball stadium for CJ. And today’s High Point Enterprise probes an important piece of the puzzle that’s somewhat under the radar scope— the Guilford County Board of Commissioners:
On Tuesday, Board of Commissioners Chairman Jeff Phillips met with High Point Mayor Bill Bencini and city staff. Phillips said the meeting was constructive and helpful, though questions remain about the proposal.
There are “plenty more questions that would need to be answered for the commissioners before we could get serious about any financing structure that would require our involvement,” Phillips told The Enterprise.
Phillips, a Republican commissioner from Greensboro, said he believes private investment interest and local developers are the key component of the stadium equation.
“With their serious commitment, a ballpark could have real potential, but without them being on board in a significant way it’s kind of a moot point,” he said.
Now I would say that the commissioners are a more skeptical group until I read in last week’s Rhino Times about how they let Greensboro’s Nussbaum Center for Entrepreneurship off the hook for $75,000 the center borrowed in 2001. Which commissioner voiced the strongest opposition? Democrat Kay Cashion, who said “it just bothers me that a group that is based on entrepreneurship and helping people start out young businesses—well, it’s not really a good example for them.”
