Group trying to get Triple-A baseball to El Paso is making concessions

The group trying to get triple-a baseball moved to El Paso is making concessions.
Mountainstar Sports Group has agreed to remove a non-compete clause in it’s terms, and has also said it’ll be giving five times as much money from every ticket sale to the city, than what it had first proposed.

Up until Saturday one council member, Emma Acosta, was holding back on voting for approval of a downtown ball park which could of tipped the scales towards not having a ballpark come to our city, but now Mountainstar Sports Group is working out some kinks which could change the game.

“Several of the council members had issues with things that where in the contract, for example the non-compete agreement”, said Mayor John Cook.

And that’s the first change Mountainstar Sports Group says it’s making.

The non-compete clause of the agreement would have kicked the El Paso Diablos baseball team out of town.

Mountainstar has agreed to remove the provision, so now the El Paso Diablos can stay.

Mayor John Cook tells ABC-7, “The Mountainstar folks have been talking with city council members trying to make sure they still had their support.”

One council member was still on the fence even Saturday morning. Emma Acosta told reporter Matt Smith there were two things keeping her from voting ‘yes.’

“I would still vote no on the two items I voted no on before, which was the 10 cents surcharge, which I though was just to low, and the other was the non- compete clause,” said Acosta.

Mountainstar has also agreed to raise the surcharge tacked onto tickets from 10 cents to 50.

All of that money would go to the city.

If Acosta still decides to vote ‘no,’ the mayor would still have enough power to veto the decision and cancel the downtown ball park all together.

If Acosta votes yes, there would be enough votes to overpower any veto.

The mayor tells ABC-7 he does want the ballpark in downtown but he doesn’t feel comfortable demolishing City Hall.

He tells ABC-7 Mountainsports is trying hard to work with the city.

“I believe their hearts are in the right place to do this but like I said we’ll have to see what happens between now and Tuesday,” said Cook.