Md. Treasurer Dereck Davis Tired of "Foot-Dragging" Over Camden Yards Lease. He Tells O's, Stadium Authority: "Get This Damn Thing Done."
Oriole Park at Camden Yards (Photo: Visit Baltimore)

Md. Treasurer Dereck Davis Tired of "Foot-Dragging" Over Camden Yards Lease. He Tells O's, Stadium Authority: "Get This Damn Thing Done."

By Gary Gately

With the Baltimore Orioles’ lease at Camden Yards set to expire at the end of this year, Maryland’s treasurer expressed anger and frustration Wednesday over “foot-dragging” between the team and Maryland Stadium Authority and snapped: “Let’s get this thing done.”

“I'm saying this for the explicit purpose so it gets out there, and folks have to start answering what's taking so long," Treasurer Dereck Davis, one of three members of the Maryland Board of Public Works, said at the close of the board’s meeting.

"It's time we start putting timelines out there…. They owe it to the state, the taxpayers, and this foot-dragging has got to stop.”

Davis’ comments came six days after Orioles Chairman John Angelos and Maryland Governor Wes Moore, a first-term Democrat who also sits on the Board of PublicWorks, released a?joint statement?expressing their commitment to “expand and revitalize” Camden Yards.

The Orioles lease with the Stadium Authority has been in place since the ballpark opened in 1992.

Moore’s predecessor, Repubican Governor Larry J. Hogan Jr.,?signed a bill April 2022?increasing bond authorization to allow M&T Bank Stadium, home of the Baltimore Ravens, and Camden Yards, allowing the Maryland Stadium Authority to borrow up to $600 million for renovations to each stadium.

"We've laid the groundwork for success, and progress is also being made on our vision to expand and revitalize the Camden Yards campus," the joint statement said. "We are determined to make it happen, and soon.

"A significant investment has been made on behalf of the state, and I'm not saying it's anybody's fault, because I honestly don't know, but it's time," Davis said. "It's time, and folks need to be called out on it.”

Last month, Orioles Chairman Angelos vowed that the team would not leave Baltimore.?

“As I have said before, as long as Fort McHenry is standing watch over the Inner Harbor, the Orioles will remain in Baltimore,” Angelos said in a statement released by the team.

“My mother was born and raised in northeast Baltimore, attended city public schools at Eastern High School and has worked with my father their entire lives to help the city, including by restoring the club to local ownership and preventing its relocation. For them, as for me, the Orioles will forever play at Oriole Park, and at no time ever have we contemplated anything different.”

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