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Council must approve new Commanders stadium deal

An important catalyst for economic development

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RFK Stadium (Screen capture via Voice of America/YouTube)

I am a strong supporter of the Commanders stadium deal at the RFK site. The Council members who understand economic development will vote “yes.” 

Chairman Phil Mendelson, and some of the others, are smart. Despite the chair being peeved he wasn’t in on the negotiation, he will have some good ideas to tweak the deal, and will then get the seven members of the Council needed to pass it. While the deadline is July 15, there is a paragraph in the agreement reading it can be extended if both sides agree. Again, Mendelson is a smart guy. He will not pass up this incredible opportunity. Besides that, he recognizes it could happen without the Council if the president and Congress want it. It was NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, and Commanders owner Josh Harris, who worked with the mayor, lobbying hard to get us the 180-acre site. Chances are, without their help, we wouldn’t have it. So, the deal will move forward, as it should, based on its merits. 

The domed stadium proposed by the Washington Commanders for the 180-acre RFK site is only one part of the planned incredible economic development opportunity Mayor Muriel Bowser has negotiated. This was a dream of the mayor for 10 years, and she worked with Congress to get the site turned over to the District. This finally happened last year when Congress passed the D.C. Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium Campus Revitalization Act. The legislation was signed into law by President Biden in January 2025. It gave the District the ability to develop the long-underutilized space for a mix of uses, lifting the restrictions that were in place under the previous lease. The legislation requires 30% of the RFK campus be reserved for parks and open space, not including a 32-acre riparian area along the Anacostia River.

Since the legislation was signed, the mayor worked closely with Josh Harris, principal owner of the Commanders, to negotiate the single largest private investment in the District’s history — a $2.7 billion investment from the Commanders. The mayor understands this investment will be the catalyst to activate 180 acres of what she has called ‘opportunity’ at the RFK campus. It is not only a sparkling new domed stadium. That will complement the transformation of the entire campus to include housing, parks and recreation, hotels, restaurants, retail, and neighborhood amenities. 

The mayor understands the economy of D.C. is changing. Between the pandemic, and now reduction in federal workforce, the city has to change how we generate revenue. As the mayor said, “When we got control of 180 acres of land on the banks of the Anacostia, we knew right away that partnering with the Commanders would be the fastest, and surest, route to bringing the entire RFK campus to life. As we focus on the growth of our economy, we’re not only bringing our team home, but we’re also bringing new jobs and new revenue to our city, and to Ward 7.” We have seen what Nationals’ stadium did as the catalyst for that part of D.C. Remembering the fights over that stadium, and the fact the city, not the team, paid for it, we know it moved forward profitable development of the entire area by a minimum of 10 years. 

Yes, it may be possible to redevelop this 180-acre site without a stadium; but it’s also clear it would take at a minimum at least 10 years longer, if ever, to do it without the Commanders investment. Under the terms of the deal, the Commanders will drive the investment of at least $2.7 billion to build a roofed stadium that can be used year-round, together with related improvements. The District will invest $500 million for stadium horizontal and non-vertical costs, paid for from the Sports Facilities Fee (formerly known as the Ballpark Fee). By leveraging dedicated funds from the Sports Facilities Fee, the District will not need to make cuts to the city’s operating budget. In addition, the District will facilitate parking development using a $175 million revenue bond, which will be funded by in-stadium activity once the stadium is operating. Events DC will contribute up to $181 million for parking garages near the community recreation facilities, which Events DC will own. Additionally, similar to other large development projects such as St. Elizabeths East, the District will invest $202 million for utilities infrastructure, roadways, and a WMATA transit study. The study will determine if at some time there might be new bus routes, or even an additional Metro stop. Let us remember there was a stadium there before and the RFK campus is today readily accessible by many public transit options.

The approximately 65,000-seat stadium, expected to open in 2030, will occupy only 11% of the site. In addition to building the stadium, the Commanders will be responsible for activating and developing multiple parcels of land around the stadium. Those will include restaurants, entertainment venues, hotels, housing, green space, and more. The entire campus is expected to create approximately 5,000-6,000 housing units, of which at least 30% being affordable housing.

Throughout the construction process, the District will seek to preserve and continue to operate the popular Fields at RFK. The District will invest an additional $89 million to build a new sportsplex to host year-round sporting events and tournaments for youth in D.C. The mayor’s Fiscal Year 2026 budget proposal will include $89 million for the sportsplex. Adjacent to the fields, park space, and sportsplex, the District will develop a new Kingman Park District, which will include housing, mixed-use development, open space, and recreational space. To do this, the campus planning effort, will be taking all the development parcels through the D.C. 2050 Comprehensive Plan update. In this way, community members and neighbors will have an opportunity to weigh in on what types of uses would best serve the community. All parcels in the Kingman Park District will go through the District’s RFP process and prioritize local businesses.

As the economy of the District changes, the mayor and Council must be
focused on responding to the shifts. Activation of the RFK campus through this deal is expected to create approximately 14,000 jobs in connection to the stadium construction alone, and 2,000 permanent jobs. The stadium and surrounding development are anticipated to create approximately $4 billion in total tax revenue, and yield more than $15.6 billion in direct spending over 30 years.

The District has a successful history of using catalytic sports investments to transform underutilized spaces into vibrant neighborhoods, including in Chinatown-Gallery Place with Capital One Arena (originally the MCI Center); Capitol Riverfront with Nationals Park; and St. Elizabeths East with the CareFirst Arena (originally the Entertainment and Sports Arena) in the past decade. During her time in elected office, the mayor has worked on successful deals for Audi Field, the CareFirst Arena, the renovation of Capital One Arena, and now this partnership with the Washington Commanders.

Again, Mendelson will have some good ideas that he will want to negotiate into the agreement as it moves through the Council. But the overall positive impact of this deal on the District’s economy will win the day. He, and many Council members, understand major sports are a significant driver of the District’s new economy, generating $5 billion in 2022 and attracting 7.4 million visitors in 2023. The fact is D.C.’s sports teams and their facilities have boosted neighborhood investment, with nearby commercial development outpacing the rest of the city, after each facility opened. 

This is a once-in-a-lifetime deal for D.C. I urge everyone to contact your Council member, and tell them to vote yes.


Peter Rosenstein is a longtime LGBTQ rights and Democratic Party activist.

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Opinions

We’re all suffering in Trump’s alternate universe

We must throw MAGA sycophants out of Congress in 2026

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President Donald Trump (Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key)

We are all stuck for the moment, suffering in Trump’s alternate universe, where it’s OK to lie and insult foreign leaders who are your guests in the White House. Where it’s OK to lie and say you have a beautiful bill that won’t add to the deficit when it’s actually a disgusting bill that will add $4 trillion to the deficit. Where it’s OK to screw the poor and make the rich richer. Where you can scapegoat trans people and make their lives hell. Where you can invite racist South Africans into our country, and send legally here Venezuelans back home, to maybe face death. Where it is OK to take grift from Qatar in the form of a $400 million plane that will cost the American taxpayer over a billion dollars to retrofit for your sorry lying ass to use. That is the Trump alternate universe we all currently live in. 

But as this alternate universe begins to unravel, I have a gut feeling the American people, or at least enough to make a difference, will wake up one morning and say ‘we’ve had it with you and your MAGA cult’ and finally rebel. My hope is they do it in time for the 2026 mid-term elections. By then there will be very few Americans who themselves, have a friend, or relative, who have not been negatively impacted from the actions taken in Trump’s alternate universe. They, or someone they know, will have lost their job. They will have lost their healthcare, or know someone who did, or find their rural hospital has closed. They or someone they know will have trouble applying for Social Security because their local office has been closed. They will know a veteran who can’t access their healthcare, because they were fired, or their VA hospital has fired so many care givers. They will see their grocery bill go up, and all the Christmas gifts they hoped to buy for their children become unaffordable because of Trump’s tariffs. They will see their rent rise, and have no recourse but to find the money to pay it, or lose their home. They will be told they can no longer get their annual flu or COVID vaccination, and even if they could, their health insurance will no longer pay for it, and that is if they still have health insurance. Their prayers for a cure for their own, a relative, or friends’ illness; cancer, Alzheimer’s, MS, or HIV/AIDS, will have been dashed, as in Trump’s alternative universe all the research looking for those cures has been defunded. 

They will wake up one morning to a nightmare realizing Trump lied to them. That he has appointed the biggest collection of incompetent fools ever to run the government. They will finally understand it’s not the government that is bad, but rather Trump and his MAGA minions. They will see too late that in Trump’s alternate universes it was OK to fire the people at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) so we no longer get predictions of hurricanes and tornadoes, which allowed communities to get advance warning. Then when they hit and create havoc and death, people will find out in Trump’s alternate universe the Federal Emergency and Management Administration (FEMA) has been defunded, so there is no help for them to rebuild their lives. 

I believe that one morning people will wake up to reality, and realize that yes, President Biden was diminished and should have said earlier he wouldn’t run for a second term. But their lives were still better and safer than they are now in Trump’s alternate universe. It is Trump who is diminished, and is diminishing them, while screwing them. They will recognize in Trump’s alternate universe the poor in the United States are expendable and don’t matter except as pawns in his desire to rule the world. He thinks it’s OK to screw the heroic people of Ukraine, and all of our allies in NATO, as he bows down and kisses Putin’s ass. That he can actually talk about displacing millions of Palestinians, so he can steal their homeland, and build a resort. That he can go to the Middle East, bow to their sheiks, and cut deals for his private company to build hotels and resorts. 

So again, it is my hope and prayer, that before 2026 they will realize Trump never had a mandate from them, the people, to enter his alternate universe. Contrary to his rants, while he won the last election, the vote was split nearly evenly. So, it won’t take many voters to throw his MAGA sycophants out of Congress in 2026. It won’t take many to rise up and say, “We have had it with your alternate universe.” They will refuse to continue to live in Trump’s alternate universe, where we get hurt, and you and your friends get richer on our backs. They will say, “We are ready to reclaim our country, to bring back common decency. You will not continue to lie to us and we will not continue to be fooled. We finally see through you, and see who you really are. We will keep you from doing any more harm to us, and our country, in your last two years in office.” Then the people will cast Trump and his MAGA sycophants in Congress out. They will see to it that he ends up on the dust heap of history and ensure that one day his tombstone will read “Here lies the lying felon who tried to destroy our county, but we stopped him, and took it back.” 

We the people, will eventually win against Trump’s alternate universe, because good does finally triumph over evil, and Donald Trump, you are proving to be pure evil. 


Peter Rosenstein is a longtime LGBTQ rights and Democratic Party activist.

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Opinions

A WorldPride call to action

Lavender Interfaith Collective united for justice, liberation, joy, and love

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(Screenshot courtesy of WorldPride's website)

Across faiths, identities, and nations, we are united by one unshakable truth: every person is worthy, every voice sacred, every body divine. Our unity is not rooted in a single tradition but in a collective belief in the sacred worth of every person. We uphold the fundamental principle of religious freedom, recognizing that no faith should dictate the governance of our nation. We reject all attempts to impose religious values, symbols, or authority upon our shared civic life, united in our commitment to a society where all traditions — and those who follow none — are equally respected. In the face of forces that seek to divide, erase, and harm, we unite as one — rooted in justice, driven by love, and committed to a future where liberation is not just an ideal but a lived reality. 

We call upon all to embrace joy as resistance — to dance, to celebrate, to laugh, to live loudly. In a world that weaponizes despair, joy is our defiance. It is our fuel, our sustenance, and our reminder that liberation is not just survival — it is thriving. 

We call upon the LGBTIQ+ community to embrace the common ground that unites us in the fight for dignity and liberation. Though our experiences and identities vary, we share a sacred commitment to intersectional justice. We will not be divided by differences; instead, we will center solidarity, knowing that our shared struggle is our greatest strength. 

We call upon people of faith across the globe to join in radical solidarity — not just in the United States, but across borders, traditions, and languages. Justice is not bound by geography; neither is our love, resistance, or advocacy. Let faith be the force that binds us together, not the tool that tears us apart. 

We call upon faith communities to be places of compassion, healing, and activism — spaces that do not merely welcome but actively uplift, renew, and give witness to inclusion and intersectional justice. Let our faith be evident in the way we fight for each other, hold space for each other, and refuse to leave anyone behind. 

We call upon faith leaders to unite in advocacy and pastoral care, challenging their communities to make visible the lives of those under attack, and providing education on trans and nonbinary realities, human sexuality, nonviolent social change, and the systems that increase vulnerabilities to harm and violence. Knowledge is power, understanding is liberation, and faith must never be a tool for harm — it must be a beacon of transformation. 

We call upon faith leaders to amplify trans theologians. Their voices, wisdom, and spiritual insights must not remain in the shadows. Let pulpits, platforms, and sacred spaces be filled with trans-theological perspectives, ensuring that faith itself becomes a force of liberation. With care and consent, we commit to sharing their work, making sure their voices reach the wider faith community. 

We call upon advocates to join in solidarity — bearing each other’s burdens not with judgment, but with grace. Intersectional justice demands action against homophobia, transphobia, biphobia, ableism, racism, white supremacy, any religious nationalism, and every system of oppression. We must reject policies that strip our communities of essential services, including gender affirming care, HIV, reproductive health, and other programs addressing public health, medical research, housing, education, and services for persons with disabilities. Justice is not selective; it is intersectional. We cannot be free until we all are. 

We call upon all people of conscience to hold elected officials to account that they defend the Constitution, oppose self-dealing by public officials, resist transactional, market-driven approaches that dismantle collaborative spaces and institutions, and uphold the inherent dignity of every human being. No exceptions. No compromises. Let us rise up against the forces that weaken democracy and erode our shared humanity. 

We call upon the world to reimagine love as revolutionary and decolonizing — to see faith, justice, and neighborliness through a lens that liberates rather than oppresses. Let us honor the activism, resistance, and resilience that drive change. And let us refuse narratives of powerlessness. We are not powerless. We are powerful beyond measure. It is an imperative to protect, uplift, and fight for our neighbors everywhere. 

Above all, we call for self-care — for the nourishment that sustains movements, the rest that strengthens resistance, and the healing that ensures we do not lose ourselves in the fight for liberation. 

This is the charge. This is the sacred work.  

We are boldly, unapologetically, and unshakably committed to collective liberation. Together, unstoppable, and unafraid. 

More information about the Lavender Interfaith Collective can be found here.

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Lesotho

Lesotho is an example of the power of communities

People’s Matrix Association’s tangible policy reforms have changed lives

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A Pride event in Lesotho (Photo courtesy of the People's Matrix Association)

This year’s International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, Intersexism, and Transphobia (IDAHOBiT) celebrates the diversity within the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, and queer (LGBTIQ+) communities, from grassroots movements to regional and global networks, by honoring our varied and intersecting backgrounds, identities, and experiences. The 2025 theme highlights how strength and resilience grow through collective solidarity and open dialogue. It recognizes the transformative power of conversations bridging differences, fostering understanding, and building alliances. Through these dialogues, activists, human rights defenders, civil society groups, allies, and governments are shaping narratives and advancing equal rights.

“Motho ke motho ka batho!” or “A person is a person through other people!”

While many countries have seen policy reforms related to LGBTIQ+ people after lengthy court battles, the LGBTIQ+ community in Lesotho has a different experience and has taken a different approach, which has opened the doors to transformation.

At the heart of this story is the People’s Matrix Association, whose strategic, community-rooted advocacy has led to tangible policy reforms that have changed lives and set a powerful example for the region. At the core of this, they have been using dialogue as one of their core values and strategies to achieve legislative and social reform.

The power of collectiveness

The Basotho people’s innate emphasis on mutual respect, conversation, and shared humanity laid a strong foundation for meaningful engagement. With this understanding, the People’s Matrix Association focuses on building strong bridges with government officials, police, teachers, parents, and traditional leaders. Although not a walk in the park, activists have significantly succeeded in engaging with and encouraging policymakers to see LGBTIQ+ people as deserving of fundamental rights, such as dignity and equality and not as political pawns for popular votes.

The power of Pride

Despite facing pushbacks, stigma, and violence, the community remains steadfast. They organize, mobilize, and build alliances with broader human rights movements for deeper inclusion and intersectionality. For example, the IDAHOBiT and Pride celebrations play a crucial role in reaffirming LGBTIQ+ existence and further strengthening and inspiring unity. They enable Basotho LGBTIQ+ people to claim and occupy spaces.

The power of resilience as a catalyst for change

In 2024, the parliament of Lesotho amended the Labor Act 2024 to explicitly prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and HIV status. This bold move solidified Lesotho as one of the few countries in Southern Africa to protect LGBTIQ+ people in the workplace, after South Africa and Botswana. And all this happened without a court ruling. This amendment means that LGBTIQ+ people and people living with HIV have legal recourse against hate and discrimination in the workplace. A giant step towards dignity, affirmation, and economic inclusion.

Rights under attack

Early this year, Lesotho came under attack by the Trump administration. On March 4, 2025, Trump made a claim about the People’s Matrix Association receiving $8 million to promote LGBTIQ+ rights, adding that “nobody has ever heard of Lesotho.” This intentionally inaccurate disinformation has surprised many. Yet, during this moment of hostility, we witness the power of communities rallying in solidarity and using this moment to refute harmful narratives and the need to protect Lesotho’s values, which are: “U se ke ua re ho moroa, moroa tooe!” and “Motho ke motho ka batho!”

But it does not end there, in recent months, Lesotho has witnessed a rise in attacks towards LGBTIQ+ identifying individuals, fueled by an increase in misinformation, disinformation, discrimination and online hate. These threats and violence have put the community on edge. External forces, such as false sentiments, further make LGBTIQ+ people targets of hate.

Despite these challenges, LGBTIQ+ communities in Lesotho continue to organize, speak out, and build alliances to defend human rights. Now more than ever, the power of communities theme is important and relevant in protecting the gains made in advancing equal rights in Lesotho.

Tampose Mothopeng is a transgender human rights defender, publisher, and executive director of the People’s Matrix Association that championing the rights of LGBTIQ+ people. Bradley Fortuin is a consultant at the Southern Africa Litigation Center and a social justice activist.

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