11 suggested for stadium-review panel

Joines says he hopes city council will vote on members Aug. 4

By: Laura Graff | JOURNAL REPORTER
Published: July 23, 2009

The tentative list of members of the citizens' oversight committee for the downtown baseball stadium includes an architect, a contractor, an ISP Sports vice-president, an athletics director with the public school system and a financial-literacy adviser.

Of the 11 people suggested by Winston-Salem's mayor and two members of the Winston-Salem City Council, six are white men, two are black women, one is a white woman and two are black men. Their expertise ranges from commercial construction to banking to marketing.

Mayor Allen Joines said he plans to send the list to the Winston-Salem City Council this week. He said he hopes that the council will vote on the members at the Aug. 4 meeting.

The city council created the Citizens Baseball Review Committee earlier this month as an answer to requests from residents for more transparency in the city's involvement in the construction of the new downtown baseball stadium.

The city so far has contributed $12 million to help build the minor-league ballpark; last month, the council approved an additional $15.7 million in help after the developer, Billy Prim, said that private banks would not lend him more money to finish the stadium. Prim also owns the city's minor-league baseball team, the Winston-Salem Dash, which will play in the new stadium.

The stadium, which is being built at First Street and Peters Creek Parkway, will cost about $40.7 million. Construction has been stalled for months.

Joines said that more than 100 people applied to serve on the committee. Last week, he, Mayor Pro Tempore Vivian Burke and Council Member Robert Clark sifted through the applications to nominate the committee members.

When the council voted to create the citizens' review committee, the council members said they wanted people who had backgrounds in fields that could be helpful, including marketing, sports management and finance. The council also voted that the committee should have diversity -- not only in committee members' skin color, but also in gender and where members lived in the city. All members of the committee had to live within the city borders and none could have conflicts of interest with city employees or with any of the companies involved in building the ballpark.

"There were about 18 people who applied who didn't live in the city, and of course, those had to be excluded," Joines said. He said that one applicant owned stock in Primo Water, another of Prim's companies. Some applicants were related to city employees.

Joines said that City Manager Lee Garrity investigated each of the 11 people on the list that will be forwarded to the city council to be sure none had contributed money to the mayor or any council members' election campaigns.

Dolores Hill, who is one of the 11 suggested for the committee, said she applied because she wants to give a voice to citizens. She is a financial literacy adviser with Consumer Credit Counseling of Forsyth County.

"I have a lot of opinions," Hill said. "This is a great opportunity for me to have some input and actually help my hometown be the best it can be."

■ Laura Graff can be reached at 727-7279 or at lgraff@wsjournal.com.