A recent poll of Maryland voters shows few support a plan to spend more than $400 million in taxpayer funds to rebuild Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore.
The Maryland Jockey Club funded the poll of 817 registered voters and released it Wednesday — a day after the city filed a lawsuit in Baltimore City Circuit Court against Pimlico's owners, the Stronach Group, to keep the Preakness Stakes in Baltimore. Stronach owns the Maryland Jockey Club.
It is the latest in an ongoing battle over the future of Pimlico after the Maryland Stadium Authority released a study in December that showed a redevelopment of Pimlico and its surrounding community would cost $424 million in public and private funding.
The Stronach Group has said it likely will move the Preakness Stakes to Laurel Park in Anne Arundel County after 2020. The Canadian-based owners have pumped millions into upgrades at the Laurel track and are planning to spend $80 million more as well as $40 million for a training center in nearby Bowie.
The poll was conducted between Feb. 22 and March 1 via telephone by Gonzales Research & Media Services. It offers the first glimpse at a statewide point of view on the ongoing controversy.
Findings include:
• Nearly 40 percent said they favored keeping the Preakness Stakes in Maryland — but moving it to Laurel Park.
• 33 percent of those polled said they preferred to keep the Preakness in the city.
• 67 percent of voters polled oppose spending more than $400 million to rebuild Pimlico.
• 23 percent said they were in favor of the revitalization project for Pimlico that would also include areas of Park Heights surrounding the track.
• Less than 1 percent said that rebuilding the Pimlico should be the highest priority of state tax dollars to assist in the revitalization of Baltimore. Nearly half of those said the city's priorities include public safety, building new schools and affordable housing starts instead.
The Gonzales poll also showed a breakdown of opinions on whether the Preakness Stakes should be run at Pimlico or Laurel Park and found a majority of voters in all four Maryland regions cited favored Laurel. The regions were Baltimore Metro, Western Maryland, the Eastern Shore and Southern Maryland and the Washington metro area.
"I interpret it as the public opinion is on the side of the Preakness and keeping it in Maryland," said Patrick Gonzales, director of Annapolis-based Gonzales Research and Media Services. "But at this point, the preference is to take the Preakness to Laurel."
Baltimore Development Corp. President William H. Cole IV said Wednesday he had read the poll and questioned the accuracy of the questions used. The questions failed to note that the $424 million needed to revitalize Pimlico wouldn't all be public funds, he said.
"I've been around politics now for 25 years and I know a good push poll when I see one," Cole said.
James Bentley, a spokesman for Mayor Catherine Pugh, said in a statement: "The mayor has been clear – the Preakness belongs in Baltimore as dictated by law," Bentley said, in an email. "We are intent on keeping this 2nd jewel of the Triple Crown – our annual ‘Super Bowl’ – here in Baltimore."