PX: Can FC Cincinnati just be honest with the public about its stadium plans?

City Council decided to approve spending $36 million on a soccer stadium after a 4½-hour marathon meeting on Monday.

Great, FC Cincinnati's new stadium is going to Oakley.

Maybe.

Or maybe not.

Well, where's it going then? Seriously, can someone just be straight up with the public? We have a done deal that apparently isn't done.

"I acknowledge that there's a level of uncertainty," FC Cincinnati President Jeff Berding told City Council.

That's the understatement of the day. It sums up why Politics Extra has been questioning this whole deal.

We left City Hall late Monday afternoon confused about where the hell the stadium is going and who's going to cover more than $20 million of an infrastructure funding gap.

Oh, but just trust us.

That was Berding's underlying message throughout his testimony. He sidestepped P.G. Sittenfeld's and Chris Seelbach's questions about who is going to cover the deficit after the city puts in its $36 million for new streets and sewers and Hamilton County pays $15 million for a parking garage.

Remember, the soccer team says it needs between $70 million and $75 million in public money for infrastructure to support building a $200 million stadium.

Basically, the meeting was a dog and pony show for FC Cincinnati to get something – anything – down on paper to ship off to Major League Soccer next month as part of its expansion bid package.

That's great for the soccer team. But not so much for citizens, especially considering Berding opened the door to the possibility that Oakley might not even be where the stadium ends up.

"The mayor and council may work with us to say it might be in a different neighborhood," he said.

Said Councilman Kevin Flynn: "It may not be in Oakley. It may be somewhere else."

So this meeting was all smoke and mirrors then? The belief is FC Cincinnati really wants to build the stadium in the West End, where Taft High's football stadium is located, a block or so off Central Parkway. It could be in the heart of the urban core, just a few blocks from all the bars and restaurants in Over-the-Rhine. MLS really wants its stadiums in the urban core.

This raises a whole other set of questions.

• Is the club not publicly saying they want to go to West End for fear of how property owners and Cincinnati Public Schools are going to react?

• Is the club concerned about escalating real estate costs if it gets out that FC Cincinnati wants a stadium in the West End?

• Don't West End and Oakley residents deserve to know if a $275 million stadium investment is coming or going to their neighborhoods?

This doesn't exactly engender confidence in the soccer club after it's already been secretive about its stadium plans.

Further, what happens to the Oakley deal council just passed if the club wants to build a stadium elsewhere? City Hall insiders told PX that FC Cincinnati would still be allowed to use the $7 million from the reserve fund and $20 million in hotel tax money wherever the club goes in the city. (And let's put this to rest: It's never going to Newport.)

Meanwhile, a healthcare company is planning a huge development to bring up to 2,000 new jobs on the Oakley site. PX is told that still could end up in Oakley regardless of what FC Cincinnati does. But the infrastructure for the site would be ready for the offices and stadium if the team sticks with Oakley.

The political game-playing and backroom deal-making are far from over.

Politics Extra is a column looking inside Greater Cincinnati and Ohio politics. Follow Enquirer political columnist Jason Williams on Twitter @jwilliamscincy and send email to jwilliams@enquirer.com.