Mayor Kasim Reed and a handful of officials may have learned the Atlanta Braves’ shocking plans to leave for Cobb County in a Nov. 7 meeting with team leaders. But they weren’t prepared for the ball club to go public with the explosive news four days later.
According to emails released by the Reed administration Thursday, the surprise announcement made on Veterans Day sent the administration into a tailspin as it grappled with how to handle the inevitable public relations nightmare.
The emails reveal many within the administration had not yet been informed of the team’s pending departure.
“My phone and email are blowing up about a report in today’s Marietta Daily Journal claiming Braves plan to move to Cobb County,” Reed spokesman Carlos Campos wrote in an email to COO Duriya Farooqui and Deputy COO Hans Utz minutes after the news broke Nov. 11. “We are being asked for comment. Anyone? I’m clueless.”
The administration soon began triage of the fallout, emails reveal. In discussing an online story by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the team seemed divided on when the mayor should issue a statement.
“Right now stories seem better without it,” noted Farooqui at 10:23 a.m. Monday.
“We’re getting beat up online, and this story is pretty significant,” countered spokeswoman Anne Torres a few minutes later.
Amid the flurry of emails sent between staffers throughout the day, an exchange between Utz — who under Farooqui led the Braves negotiations — and Campos offers a glimpse into the frustration felt about the team’s departure. Other emails show the relationship with the team soured as Reed negotiated a $1.2 billion Atlanta Falcons stadium deal with the football team’s owner, Arthur Blank.
When asked by Campos to weigh in on talking points for the mayor, specifically just how big a loss the Braves’ departure is for the city, Utz explained the team will remain an Atlanta entity.
But in that same note, his frustration was clear as he employed racially insensitive words to describe team names the Braves aren’t likely to consider in their future home.
“They are still the Atlanta Braves,” Utz, known for his candor around City Hall, wrote the evening of Nov. 11. “They are not going to call themselves the Cobb Crackers, or the Smyrna (expletive). They will still be the Atlanta Braves, and that is an indication of the value of the city.”
Campos, seemingly taken off-guard in the note, responded that he would have to “edit appropriately.”
In his response, Utz, who is white, joked: “Are you saying you will not allow me to say ‘Smyrna (expletive)’ on national TV?” and included a haiku expressing his thoughts on the departure:
“The Braves might leave us
Becoming the Cobb Crackers
I feel bad for them”
Utz, who was suspended without pay this week preceding the release of documents from the city, said he regrets his choice of words. He was reacting to posts by fans and critics on social media sites, he said.
“Those emails reflect a lapse in judgment on my part, for which I sincerely apologize and truly regret,” he said in a statement Thursday. “…The emails were my ill-advised attempt at using humor to make a point about the Braves still being a part of the greater metropolitan region. They were not meant to disparage our suburban neighbors.”
Braves executive vice president Mike Plant, reached Thursday night, said Utz’s comments do not reflect the negotiations between the team and the city. Plant and Utz were the lead negotiators for each party.
“Hans, he’s a good guy, a smart guy. He had the city’s interests at heart,” Plant said. “I feel bad for him. Every once in a while, we all turn our filter off. So I hope this isn’t some challenging issue he has to deal with for the rest of his career. That’s not who he is. I never saw that. Hans is a professional.”
Cobb County spokesman Robert Quigley issued the following statement in response to a reporter’s request: “We look forward to the Braves move to Cobb and value our relationship with Atlanta. Our focus remains on getting the stadium open by Spring 2017 and we look forward to being a part of the regions continued success.”
While the Braves haven’t spoken publicly about much of the negotiations with the city, a review of more than 600 emails makes clear that the team wanted more attention from Reed himself and were miffed by the level of attention the mayor paid to Blank throughout this year.
Reed and Blank were in heavy negotiations over financing a new $1.2 billion stadium in which the city is putting up about $200 million in construction bonds backed by hotel-motel taxes.
The key sticking point between the team and city officials was over how much control the Braves could have in developing about 60 acres of parking lots around Turner Field. The Braves sought to create a better “fan experience” around a stadium encircled by downtrodden neighborhoods.
To that end, the team wanted to outline terms of the development request for proposal, partner with a developer to make a bid for the project and also be on a committee to select the winner. That, city officials said, was a conflict of interest and against state law.
Reed has said the city could not afford to finance the nearly $200 million the Braves wanted in improvements.
Still, according to Utz, the city was vetting a 16-point proposal from the Braves when the team announced a $672 million stadium deal with Cobb County, with taxpayer dollars funding half the project.
In a Nov. 11 interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Utz, a former consultant with Bain & Co., said he doesn't believe the Braves left the city because of a bad deal but are moving to Cobb for a better one.
“No one blames the Braves for liking the Cobb County deal,” he said. “… But they surprised us by dropping it in our laps at this last second. I’m not sure what else we could have done.”
This is a developing story. For updates, return to AJC.com.
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