PITCHING A SHUTOUTTHE PUBLIC WAS CUT OUT OF THE BASEBALL-STADIUM DEBATE BEFORE IT EVEN BEGAN

County elections director Jim Shumway says he is simply not sure whether the sales tax, if formally enacted, could be challenged by referendum. The County Attorney's Office has declined to issue a legal opinion on the question until there is a specific board action on which to pass judgment.

Adding to the confusion is what exact action the board takes when it okays the stadium deal.

By law, the board cannot actually levy the sales tax until Maricopa County is awarded a baseball franchise. Prior to that, officials say, the board can approve only a memorandum of understanding that it will vote for the tax if a franchise is awarded.

In a strict technical sense, therefore, the board will not have levied a tax, but merely expressed its intent to do so. And the board may well have a different membership when, or if, a vote on actually levying the tax occurs.

"There is no tax passed, so there is nothing to try to hold a referendum on," says one source in the county administration. "You can't do anything, no how, no way, until we have that franchise in hand."
All of which leads to the largest question of all: Is there any chance that Phoenix will even be awarded a major league franchise, or was the entire stadium debate an exercise in communal wishful thinking?

Although he will provide no details, Colangelo insists that he has received signals from major league baseball owners encouraging his bid for a team. Expansion, he says, should be a topic at the upcoming owners' meeting in Florida.

An observer close to the major league owners, however, says he'll be surprised if Phoenix is awarded a franchise anytime soon. "I'm guessing it would be a slim chance at this point," the source says. "These guys [the owners] are so far from being united on anything, I don't know if they could make up their minds."

At the uninformative press conference held last Friday, negotiators were willing to stick their necks out and predict that the chances of Phoenix landing a team are good. Joe Garagiola Jr., son of the famous catcher and a longtime baseball supporter, jauntily characterized the odds of gaining a franchise as "very high."

Which, until tonight's scheduled meeting, is as solid as any other information the public has been given.

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