Charles County Commissioner Samuel N. Graves Jr. (D) told attendees at his first district meeting in Hughesville last week that the county will have “gone too far” to turn back on its baseball stadium project by the time the state decides whether it will fund the project’s new, higher price tag.

If the state does not approve the funding, the county must be willing to fork over an extra $1.5 million to see its project survive.

Commissioner Sam Graves’ meets with
Hughesville residents.

The county recently received a $25.5 million price tag for the stadium project, which is being jointly funded by the county, the state and Maryland Baseball LLC.

The original budget for the project was $21 million, with all three parties contributing $7 million apiece. When the price went up last month, the county and Maryland Baseball agreed to shoulder an extra $1.5 million apiece, but the state has yet to weigh in.

Discussion of the stadium project, which dominated the meeting, began when one Hughesville resident asked Graves if the county would make up the state’s $1.5 million share if the General Assembly didn’t approve it. Even though the state is making severe budget cuts to bring its deficit under control, Graves expressed confidence that the Assembly would give the county the additional funding. 

The questioner reminded the commissioner that his answer didn’t satisfy the original question. To which Graves replied that, yes, the county would pick up the extra tab if the state didn’t. 

“We’ve gone too far to go back now,” Graves told the group. 

Graves told The Bay Net that the State’s portion of the funding won’t be approved until next year’s budget proceedings and wouldn’t come to the county until the start of next summer’s fiscal year. By that time, the stadium would be finished or nearly so. 

“By that time, we will have gone too far [if the state doesn’t approve the extra portion of its share]. We’re not going to stop the project 95% of the way through,” Graves explained.

Residents expressed their continuing lack of faith in the ability of the county to make the complex self-sustaining, even though the county holds up the Capital Clubhouse ice rink as an example of its  good public management.

Attendees said they have too often seen costs spiral out of control once construction of a major project like this begins and said they preferred that the county’s funds pay for what they felt were more urgent area needs, like renovating area schools.

Donna Cave, a member of the Hughesville Revitalization Committee and an ardent opponent of the stadium project, expressed her opinion that an additional needless county expense is the proposed expansion of the county’s Government Building in La Plata.  She suggested that the commissioners use “relocatables” to expand the building’s office space like the ones Charles County Public Schools uses as extra classrooms for its over crowded schools. 

“If ‘relocatables’ are good enough for our children, they should be good enough for the government,” Cave