At the close of business Friday afternoon, the city of Albany received a signed, one-year contract from the owners of the South Georgia Wildcats, although Assistant City Manager Wes Smith said the city will wait until Tuesday at the commission meeting to sign it because the original contract offered by the team had “a few small changes” and wasn’t what the group voted 5-2 to approve earlier this week.
However, Smith said that meeting would likely only be formality and that the Wildcats will return to Albany next season. City Clerk Sonja Tolbert sent an announcement late Friday saying the Commission would hold a special called meeting before its work session Tuesday morning to complete the agreement and ratify the document.
“Our belief at this point is that the South Georgia Wildcats will be back in 2009,” said Smith, adding that the contract couldn’t be decided on Friday because numerous city leaders, including City Manager Alfred Lott and attorney Nathan Davis, were out of the office. “There were just a few small changes made to the original, but I don’t anticipate any of those changes materializing into an issue that would keep the team from playing here next year.”
Wildcats partial owner Silvio Fazinni said along with the contract he faxed to the city Friday, he also sent in his paperwork to the af2 declaring that Albany would be where the team will play next season. However, Fazinni said he got clearance from the af2 commissioner to add an out-clause to that declaration letter “pending the outcome of Tuesday morning’s meeting.”
Although, Fazinni expressed he didn’t expect to use it. “Ultimately, I never would’ve been pushing this hard to stay in Albany if I didn’t think this was the place for the team,” said Fazinni, who is a land developer in Florida. “So, yeah, I’m happy (with where things are) right now.”
Despite the 5-2 vote, it is possible that the city could change its mind Tuesday, but Wildcats GM Darren McPhail said he had every bit of faith that the commissioners would stay true to their word.
“In talking to our attorney (Dave Orlowski), he said he’s spoken with the city and it’s a done deal,” McPhail said. “It’s just because of those changes, the city just has to meet and ratify it Tuesday. That should be the final step.”
The biggest change dealt with hammering out the final details of the agreement between the city and the team regarding which side would handle concessions at The Albany Civic Center.
But in the short term for Wildcats fans — and the organization — the news the team more than likely was returning was a relief.
“I’m very relieved; glad it’s over,” McPhail said. “I always thought we’d be playing in Albany next year because I knew Silvio was committed to keeping the Wildcats in Southwest Georgia.”
On Wednesday, the city offered the team $184,000 to stay for one more season while city leaders began examining a potential long-term contract, which they’ll likely begin discussing during the next year.
The Wildcats will return to the field in 2009 having two consecutive winning seasons and back-to-back af2 playoff appearances — both franchise records. And now that this deal has been all but put to bed, McPhail says he hopes the team and the city can use this as the foundation to build an even stronger partnership down the road.
One he hopes begins right away. “Hopefully, we can begin talking about the (long-term) future in the next month or two,” McPhail said.
