Attendance at Nationals Park has fallen more than a quarter short of a consultant’s projections for the stadium’s inaugural year, cutting into the revenue needed to pay the ballpark bonds and spurring a D.C. Council member to demand the city’s money back.

The District’s ability to pay down the debt on the publicly financed ballpark depends in part on the number of people who show up to the games, David Catania, independent at-large, wrote in a letter Tuesday to Chief Financial Officer Natwar Gandhi.