Arlington Mayor Jeff Williams cast opponents of a $1 billion stadium for the Texas Rangers as "angry" and "misdirected" and people you wouldn't trust to babysit.

Williams made the remarks Friday during a meeting with prominent business leaders. An audio tape of the remarks, which were recorded secretly, was sent to The Dallas Morning News on Monday by the anti-stadium group, Save Our Stadium.

"A lot of these folks, they don't have the facts right," Williams said on the recording. "Either that or they do not have the intelligence there to be able to translate that we're investing money in the Entertainment District to make money."

Faith Bussey, one of the leaders of the anti-stadium campaign, released a written statement along with the audio.

"I am appalled that my mayor would characterize voters, our supporters, and our team in this manner," she wrote. "The voters' rejection of this deal is not an indication that they are stupid, as you suggest. They are rejecting it because the council failed to look out for our interests during the negotiation process and brought us the foulest deal in the nation."

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Speaking on behalf of the mayor, Brian Mayes, a spokesman for Vote Yes! Keep the Rangers, did not dispute Williams' remarks. But he said the anti-stadium group mischaracterized what was in the audio.

"The whole context is, he's referring to a small group of seven to 10 people who have shown from the very beginning that facts are only optional," said Mayes, who said he was authorized to speak for the mayor. "They either don't understand the issue or they are willfully ignorant of the facts."

Spending reports released

Arlington voters will decide on Nov. 8 whether to extend a half-cent sales tax, 2 percent hotel occupancy tax and 5 percent car rental tax to fund $500 million worth of bonds to build a retractable-roof stadium for the Rangers. The proposition would also authorize ticket and parking taxes to help pay for the structure.

The release of the tape Monday came on the same day that both sides turned in widely disparate campaign finance reports.

The reports showed that the pro-stadium group — Vote Yes! Keep the Rangers — has now spent about $1.47 million, which makes it the second-most expensive stadium effort in the city's history. The Rangers have paid about half of that amount.

The Cowboys blew past the million-dollar milestone in 2004 when the team's stadium campaign spent $5.4 million for the AT&T Stadium effort.

The pro-stadium drive dwarfs the Save Our Stadium campaign opposing taxpayer subsidies for the ballpark. That group has spent $7,192 thus far.

Andy Prior, spokesman for Save Our Stadium, said he was not surprised at the numbers.

"We know we can't compete with a half-million dollar donation from the Rangers," Prior said. "If you take that total out, there's still a discrepancy, but maybe it's more like 10-to-1 instead of 300-to-1."

The anti-stadium campaign has been outspent 200-to-1, and that is likely to continue. Save Our Stadium had $724 in the bank at the end of this filing period; Vote Yes! had $210,704.

The Save Our Stadium group hopes the release of the secret Williams recording will help persuade Arlington residents to vote against the new stadium. On the recording, Williams is heard telling the group that the pro-stadium campaign had been trailing, but had pulled ahead again. He didn't explicitly mention polls. And Mayes, who is running the pro-stadium campaign, said his side has never trailed in any of their polling.

Williams also blamed what he said were anti-stadium letters from Dallas for putting the new stadium in jeopardy, claiming "that you're paying more than what they are telling you, that your taxes are going up. It's one after another, and it hurt us."

Mayes said that Williams' remarks about trailing in the vote only refers to the first day of early voting, in which polls indicated more residents voted no than yes for the stadium. Since then, Mayes said his group's tracking polls show that the pro-stadium backers are maintaining a comfortable lead.

Prior said the Oct. 28 recording came through an anonymous source who is "fearful of losing business if he is exposed."

Anti-stadium campaigners have previously recorded video of Williams at different events. At some of those, opponents pressured the mayor to say that Dallas was not a threat to steal the Rangers from Arlington.

'Money stashed away'

For the latest financial reporting period, from Sept. 30 to Oct. 29, seven residents contributed to Save Our Stadium — five from Arlington, one from Dallas and one from Fort Worth. Three donated $100 each while the remainder fell in the $20 to $25 category.

Anti-stadium forces shouldn't be surprised at Keep the Rangers' tremendous spending advantage, Prior said.

"People are always shocked at how much corporations can just drop into a campaign, but they really shouldn't be," he said. "They've always got money stashed away for that."

In the latest round of reporting, Keep The Rangers reported raising $810,845 and spending $851,096.

The Rangers donated $550,000 during the last reporting period and kicked in since with a contribution of $100,000. That's in addition to $72,949.60 in non-monetary contributions in the form of tickets, advertising, facility rentals and player appearances for the new-stadium cause.

"The Rangers have funded a large portion obviously, but throughout the course of the campaign, we've received quite a few small-dollar donations," Mayes said.

A few donors gave $10. Other small contributions ranged from $20 to $500.

Citizens for a Better Arlington, which is running the anti-stadium campaign, had a massive decline in income for this latest report. The $597 in donations was a fraction of the nearly $7,700 raised in the last reporting period.

"Ours is exactly what we said it was going to be — a small, David-vs.-Goliath-type situation," Prior said. "We knew we would be an operation made up of small contributors from Arlington."

In contrast, the pro-stadium side reported a bevy of high-dollar contributions from prominent citizens from around the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Fort Worth philanthropist Ed Bass donated $10,000, and prominent Fort Worth brothers Todd and Matthew Rainwater donated $20,000 and $5,000, respectively.

Several businesses with interest in the Rangers also contributed, including Delaware North Companies Sportservice Inc., which handles concessions at Globe Life Park, the current home of the Rangers. The firm gave the pro-stadium campaign $250,000.

Ballpark Parking Partners of Houston gave $60,000, and stadium consultants HKS Consulting donated $25,000.

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