Sullivan was against stadium> Absent city councilor would have voted `no’

BANGOR – At least one of the “What if?” questions regarding the Bangor City Council’s vote on the $2 million stadium bond issue Monday night has been answered.

If longtime councilor Charles Sullivan had been able to attend the meeting, the outcome would not have been different.

“I’ve been reading about everything in the newspaper right along and I would have voted against it,” said Sullivan, who is suffering from anemia and a liver disease that doctors haven’t been able to fully diagnose.

“I think we’re asking the taxpayers to put up a lot of money on a plan that seems dubious at best. I love baseball, but I don’t think we can afford to stick the taxpayers with a bill like that,” he added.

Sullivan’s vote would have made the final margin 5-4 in favor, but bond issues require a two-thirds majority of six votes to pass.

Sullivan has been unable to attend council meetings since late June, when he became ill.

“I’ve had two blood transfusions. They don’t know what the illness is. They’ve tested for every damn thing known, but haven’t been able to pin it down.”

Doctors have told Sullivan they won’t rule out a a liver transplant if things don’t improve.

The news of how Sullivan was leaning surely won’t soften the blow to stadium proponents and Bangor Blue Ox baseball team officials, who were still dealing with Monday’s defeat.

“I was looking forward to seeing the Blue Ox play in Bangor,” said Blue Ox principal owner Vincent Burns from his winter home in Florida. “But I’m going nowhere. I’ll still be staying right in Maine.”

Burns said the favorable council vote is a reason for optimism.

“No. I don’t think it kills it,” he said. “It would have if it had been a majority against it. What it will prohibit, I think, is any non-Bangorite from trying to bring a team to this area. So if it comes, it will have to come from within.”

Burns says he will support any effort to resurrect a team and stadium in Bangor, but would not lead it.

The 62-year-old retired investment banker said he recently talked to a Bangor businessman who, given his passion for baseball, may well lead the charge to bring baseball back to Bangor.

“I don’t know what his thoughts or plans are. I wouldn’t encourage him just because he doesn’t need to be encouraged,” said Burns.

Without a $2 million contribution from the city, ownership would have to raise the entire $4 million to $5.7 million estimated to build a stadium in Bangor.

While a renewed effort to revive a Bangor-based team is far from a surety, one thing is not. The Bangor Blue Ox name and mascot will be there if a team comes along.

“The Blue Ox is Bangor’s name and won’t travel anywhere else. It belongs to Bangor and its people,” said Burns, who will lend financial support to Blue Ox president and son-in-law Dean Gyorgy and daughter Margot as they try to bring a new Northeast League team to New Bedford, Mass.

Losing by a vote is nothing new to Burns, who lost a 1964 mayoral race in Bowie, Md., by a single vote.

“It was my wife’s. She accidentally erased her ballot when she was casting it and and her votes came out as a blank ballot,” he explained.

“I was crushed. But without that, so many other things may not have happened to get me where I am today,” Burns said. “This could be Dean’s Bowie. This could blossom in ways that for him, could be better.”

For Burns, he’s content to wait and see if baseball returns to Bangor.