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Marion Barry emerged yesterday from a three-week, post-election seclusion looking rested, sporting a distinguished new beard and gunning for a fight over Mayor Anthony A. Williams's proposal to raise taxes on business to pay for a new baseball stadium. "I'm working hard as I can to kill this thing," Barry told commentator Mark Plotkin during an appearance on WTOP radio. "I want baseball in Washington. I worked for 10 years to get baseball in Washington. . . . I'm for baseball. But I'm opposed to tax money being spent to build this baseball stadium." Williams (D) responded in a brief interview yesterday by calling Barry's comments "breathtakingly ironic" because the former mayor supported public funding for the new Convention Center and public subsidies through a business tax to build MCI Center. "I'm hopeful I can show him the information on this deal, get his involvement in it in terms of jobs and business participation for citizens and get his support for it," Williams said. "I don't begrudge him for criticizing it. I just hope we can sit down together and I can convince him where we're going. I believe we've got a good product, and I believe we can get it through the council, and I think it will be a real success story for the city." [more

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