Comments on Sonics Pick Renton

We have fresh pig heart ready, take it easy Dan.

What is the rub? Renton is Renton. Seattle is not Renton. Seattle is Seattle.

Oh, Seatle thinks it is Renton and all other cites in the region.

Surprise, not so.

"But King County and Ron Fucking Sims are going to force mostly Seattle-area taxpayers put up $300 million worth of public money needed to build the losers a $500 million dollar stadium. In Renton."

Time to call the lawyers.

The County! (enter exploding cigar). But Margarita &etc. knew that the whole time.

Good riddance to the Sonics and all, but it's a HUGE score for a very rapidly growing, and rather nice-looking Renton.

Renton: It's closer to Columbia City than you think.

Why do I even bother voting?

Yay! No more Sonics traffic clogging up Denny/Mercer.

Paying for something you don't want and then not getting it. Is this some kind of metaphor?

Seriously, didn't that initiative 91 pass by like 75%?!

And $300 million! That's like $50 million per regular season game won.

Fuck you, Dan. I don't want your rotten-ass Sonics in my town. Plus, now traffic on I-405 will get even worse (I suppose you'd propose to tear it down, no?).

But I think it's totally fair that Seattle has to pay to dispose of its trash. Moreover, people in Renton helped pay for the stadium for your dull-as-dirt Mariners, so it's only fair.

Does this mean Renton would like to have a condo boom and all the new money and wealth that projects?

Geez, what a concept for a solid future.

But wait, Seattle whiners and nay sayers do not approve ..... outside the Hillside cliques who gives a shit?

I have had it with Seattle paying for everybody else. Especially sports stadiums. No means NO! I'll miss the Storm, though.

Export all the sports to Hicksville and turn the existing stadiums into ginormous opera houses!

I'm serious.

Do you think the Sonics would take say $100 million to promise to move all the fucking way outside of the state? That'd be a bargain considering that "$300 million minimum" sounds suspiciously like "half a billion after cost overruns" to me. And we'll still be paying for the fucking thing years after it's been knocked down a la the Kingdome, no doubt.

Losers?

The Super Sonics are the only one of the major Seattle sports teams to win a world championship.

Great, I'm paying for another stadium I didn't want. WTF?!

I'm with flamingbanjo, why do I even bother voting?

"The Super Sonics are the only one of the major Seattle sports teams to win a world championship."

Dude, the 1978-79 Supersonics were a great team, but things have changed. For example, they're now called the Sonics. For another example, they also completely suck.

Yet ANOTHER reason to preserve the eastside rail line.

#15 -

There is a more than good chance that the Sonics would have also won the NBA championship the previous season, but the corporate brain trust gave away their home court edge in the playoffs by moving the post-season games into the Kingdome where the Sonics had never played before.

@ 13:

So, because they actually managed to accomplish something - NEARLY 30 FUCKING YEARS AGO - we have to pay half a billion dollars just in case they might repeat that accomplishment in another fucking 30 years?

Suuuuuurrrrree, that's fair...

To whom do I need to complain about the possibility of another public subsidy for a private entertainment company?

If selling tickets to watch these adult ball-game-players play their games is such a lucrative proposition, why doesn't someone take out a god-damned business loan to finance the venture?

Clay Bennett? Millionaire basketball players' united? City of Renton? County of King? If whoever stands to profit from Supersonicbouncyball, Inc. can't convince a bank to loan them the money they think they need to run their business, why the hell should I be forced to give them that money?

Yet more proof that I-91 was a joke...

How about if we trade the Sonics to SF in return for the Kink.com folks they're so up in arms about? Of course the porn folks would get KeyArena to film and the Sonics would have to play in an old armory.

No problem. We'll just get another initiative going. The people don't want this stadium and we won't let it be built.

Better yet. Let's just start a petition that says something to the effect of, "Each of the registered voters whose signature is herein recorded promises to vote against any WA State legislator who votes in favor of a tax subsidy for the purpose of building an arena for the Sonics".

Once we have roughly half a million sigs on that sucker, does anyone seriously believe any politician is going to be willing to trade their position in exchange for whatever measely luchre the new Sonics owners would be able to offer instead?

#22

He/She said from the cloud of weed smoke enveloping the room.....honey, you only tell the State legislature what to do by State Initiative.

Since the tax revenue would be generated in King County, mandated by the State who collects it, why would the rest of the state care?

Everett Herald has already said as much in an editorial - why not, its a bargain, we don't pay and can go to a game.

Of course making sure somebody else can't enjoy a game .... big fucking rad deal.

Waste of time. And costing you a few dollars a year or nothing if you don't rent cars ... try helping the blind and the poor.

Adieu, trust fund kids.

There is a Times poll in progress, new Sonic stadium is winning, with thousands posting.....is this Slog really just a bunch of whining out of touch anti sports nerds?

Sports can be good for your health to participate in and lots of fun to watch while "drinking beer and sitting on your butt," as an anti-subsidy state legislator remarked in a media interview last year.

But, IMHO, sports subsidies are a waste of the public's tax dollars that could be better spent on millions of other things: health care, education, transportation, housing, the arts, etc. (Or, for our be-nighted friends on the right like Frank Blethen, on tax breaks for wealthy dead people).

The funny thing is that both free-market right-wingers and welfare-state left-wingers all agree that subsidies for sports are inappropriate, so in King County, with liberal Seattle and conservative suburbs, there is a potential electoral coalition to defeat any proposed subsidies at the local level where it doesn't cost a million bucks to run an initiative campaign.

So even though Democratic Olympia politicians are tempted to ally with Republican donor Clay Bennet, this problem should be easy to solve locally, as follows:

Stranger editor Dan Savage, Citizens for More Important Things leader Chris Van Dyk, City Council President Nick Licata, SEIU President David Rolf, KVI Hosts John Carlson and Kirby Wilbur, and House Speaker Frank Chopp should join together to announce a King County Ballot Initiative just like I-91, but at a county level instead of city, to prevent the County from enacting a local-option sales tax to support the Sonics (like the one contemplated by the Senate Bill in question).

+ The Stranger and other progressive and conservative publications join to print the initiative petition in their publications with a return-envelope.

+ King County voters sign and qualify a November 2007 initiative making subsidies illegal at a County level.

= The subsidies are made illegal at a local government level, regardless of what the Olympia politicians do.

So...the question is whether the leaders in question (citizen organizations, unions, elected officials, and the non-establishment right/left media) will step up and lead...?

Some will remember how such a stunt was successfully pulled for the Mariners in 1995. When voters declined to subsidize the Mariners, the legislature decided to take our money nonetheless.

Never underestimate the desire to tax or to spend.

More:
http://www.historylink.org/essays/output.cfm?file_id=3429
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/302535_settlement06.html

I have a solution.

We in Seattle will let them rip us off for another $300 million for the $500 million stadium in Renton ...

IF:

A. Seattle keeps the Storm; AND

B. The new Renton Stadium is served only by train, HOV lanes, and bus service - anyone with less than 4 people in a car must walk two miles from the nearest parking facility.

There, that will do it, I think.

oh, and they can build a monorail to it, if they want.

Sheeit, and none of y'all even remember that we stripped the Coliseum to the roof trusses, dug down 70 feet, and rebuilt it from the ground up for the Sonics just 10 years ago (at their demand, and to their specs - so the next time you hear them promise to deliver an NHL team remember they explicitly designed Key Arena to forclose it, and ensured that Mercer Arena would be starved to the point that even minor league hockey wouldn't/couldn't survive) ?

So much for institutional memory.

I remember very well, institutional memory. I fully expect the Mariners to come calling in 3-5 years asking for another half-billion in upgrades too. To be honest, why wouldn't they? It works. In what other arena of life can billionaires just, you know, ASK for huge handouts, and get them without too much trouble? You'd do it too, if you knew you'd get it.

There's a guy on the front of the P-I who owns a bar in Renton who thinks his business is going to go up. It might, but not by as much as he thinks; what he doesn't apparently realize is that the arena they're asking for has a fucking shopping mall in it, with many bars and restaurants inside it.

The whole point of the arena has nothing to do with basketball; it has to do with capturing a higher percentage of game-related dollars, STARTING WITH those pre-game meals and beers. The Sonics don't want you going to some schlub's bar; they want you to go to THEIR bar.

Please visit http://apps.leg.wa.gov/districtfinder/ and write to your three legislators NOW. Be succinct and be polite, but make it clear that you want no subsidy.

Vote?
Vote?

We don't need no stinking vote!

Hand over the money and shut the f..k up!

(Just like all the others)

I have an idea!

Send the Sonics to Africa! I mean, for real, that's all they really are is a bunch of black dudes! I'm not racist but fewer blacks in this city the better right?! Seattle needs LESS diversity, more coffee shops! More people like us awesome Stranger readers.

For real, who watches the Sonics anyway!? Don't even worry about it cause it's basically just poor people and people who have way less aesthetics than us!

And then we can use the Key Arena as an Opera/Arts House! IT will rule! Watching an Opera in there with 4 thousand other people would just be wonderful! An acoustic dream!

I say SEE Ya Later Sonic Tall Blacks! (But maybe not Ray Allen - he is actually kind of smart I think -- NOT SMARTER THAN US THOUGH!! And maybe Ray is also actually pretty good, I mean he's like the best shooter in the history of basketball.) But SO WHAT! I want to hear me some Puccini!

And don't be thinkin' you'll get ANY of my money - no way! I only let the government anually spend our $3,860,000,000 on just the exact things that I choose (I mean "we" bros! Don't get huffy).

ps - who thinks Hollywood movies are dumb and that you should kill your television and that pad thai rules? I do!

WHY the fuck do FOR PROFIT, multi-million dollar corporations need their buildings paid for? Tax breaks are fine, but actually giving them money, FUCK NO!!!

Amazon could use a cool campus...I think Seattle should foot the bill for a nice South Lake Union campus...

I sent the following to Ed Murray, Jamie Pederson, and Frank Chopp: "I'm concerned that after my Seattle neighbors and I made it clear that we do not wish to subsidize yet another facilities upgrade for Clay Bennett's business (the Supersonics), we may be forced to do so at the county or state level. When Mr. Bennett requests funding for new facilities to use with his private business, please, refer him to a bank. "

I second Fnarf's suggestion that people contact their legislators about this.

To Michael Strangeways comment:

The reason that we are not debating whether or not to fund a cool campus for Amazon--even though they need the help just as much as the Sonics--is because no sane person wants to go watch Amazon employees work.

However, when the Sonics work, 15+ thousand sit around and watch and move several million dollars into the local economy.

Point #2. Did you know that you and your tax-hating friends spent $50 million to refurnish McGraw Hall (45% of total cost). Where was the utter outrage then? That's exactly the same scenario. We as a large, diverse city spend money all the time to lure businesses. It's why we fund the god damned Chamber of Commerce in the first place! Tax breaks for Boeing and MS, etc - the list is endless.

And finally, lets review what it means to have a "diverse" city. The real definition of diversity means having things/areas/cultures that YOU ARE NOT a part of. If this whole city was one big Stranger office, even if we were all very friendly and kind and green (and believe me, I AM those values - I've even written for the Stranger) - but even if we were all the perfect people, we would then be DEVOID of diversity.

Yes, I helped pay for the Ballet -- have I been to the ballet? No. I helped pay for roads all over this city that I have not driven on. I have paid for countless things which I have not used, but would I want my money back and those things removed? No.

James Jones wrote:

The reason that we are not debating whether or not to fund a cool campus for Amazon--even though they need the help just as much as the Sonics--is because no sane person wants to go watch Amazon employees work.

...and because unlike with professional ball-game-playing, we have not been indoctrinated with the idea that the Amazon "home team" are an important part of our city's identity.

However, when the Sonics work, 15+ thousand sit around and watch and move several million dollars into the local economy.

Uh... into the local economy? Supersonicboucyball, Inc., is an Oklahoma company, now, and it's a company that is doing everything it can to gain public financing to build a facility that will better contain its customers (e.g., more restaurants, bars, etc., on-site) so less of their spending will go to local businesses.

Point #2. Did you know that you and your tax-hating friends spent $50 million to refurnish McGraw Hall (45% of total cost). Where was the utter outrage then? That's exactly the same scenario.

1., I didn't see anything in Mr. Strangeways' comment that suggested he hates taxes. 2., McGraw Hall is not part of a private, for-profit business like a new basketball stadium would be, is it?

And finally, lets review what it means to have a "diverse" city. The real definition of diversity means having things/areas/cultures that YOU ARE NOT a part of.

If your brand of diversity includes hundreds of millions of dollars of corporate welfare for a guy in Oklahoma who hires men to play ball games in publicly-financed facilities and charges the public can pay to watch, then I think most of us will pass.

Yes, I helped pay for the Ballet -- have I been to the ballet? No.

Is the ballet owned by a private, for-profit business (much less, one that pays its employees between $400,000 and $13 million each annually and then asks for a public handout)? No.

I helped pay for roads all over this city that I have not driven on.

Are those roads used primarily by one private, for-profit business like a new basketball stadium would be? No.

I have paid for countless things which I have not used, but would I want my money back and those things removed? No.

You haven't paid for a cool, new Amazon campus in South Lake Union, but if you had, it would be very reasonable for you to want your money back.

Oops -- was quoting old stats. Following my own link, I see that there are now two men playing basketball with the Sonics for less than a quarter-million dollars per year. They still average about $3.4 million / year, though.

But there's nooooo way they Bennett can turn the profit he wants without a multi-hundred-million-dollar handout.

There's also a big difference between $45 mil and $400 mil.

Did you hear the part where Bennett bragged that this is going to be "the most expensive arena" in the whole NBA? Isn't this sort of like a guy who can't afford to fix his leaking roof (viaduct, floating bridge) and deciding to buy a Lamborgini instead?

I also wonder if the good people of Renton heard the part where Bennett wants $100 mil of that to come from the City of Renton. That's about $2,000 per citizen, quite a bit more than that per person.

These Oklahoma fuckers need to take their bullshit back home, and take the Sonics with them. Build your own arena.

Representative Jamie Pederson's response to my e-mail to him:

Thank you for your message and for taking the time to write to me about public subsidies of sports stadiums. I agree that public monies should not be used to build a new basketball arena -- and I was heartened to see that the overwhelming majority of our fellow citizens in the 43rd agree, based on their support of the Citizens for More Important Things initiative. I think there is also wide agreement that our principal challenges are funding good schools, transit, and health care -- and I am strongly inclined to oppose any legislation that would provide a public subsidy for a new professional sports arena.

thanks, Phil...You took the words out of my mouth...but as usual I have some extra words in my mouth...

I could care less about taxes...I rent, not own...I don't have a car...And what taxes I do pay are willfully and delightfully paid to support NON-PROFIT organizations for the betterment of my community regardless if I like or dislike the ballet, or pee-wee baseball, or jars of urine with crucifixes in them or skateboard parks...

and as for tax breaks for large corporations....i'm against them, for the most part...basically large corps BLACKMAIL state and local governments to give them money so the corp doesn't pull out of an area and devastate the local economy...

I am FOR tax breaks for new and emerging businesses that need a little extra help to grow and prosper...

Why give a $900 Social Security check to an 80yr old retired millionaire when that money would be better served by a 30 yr old trying to grow their own new business?...

Hey, I just came up with a brainstorm of an idea for the Sonics!!! Why doesn't the team move to Vancouver, BC ? We already have a stadium in GM Place and an open spot that the Grizzlies left on moving to Memphis. I realize it wouldn't be as convenient as Renton but, you wouldn't have the taxes to pay either. I would liken it to the upcoming 2010 Olympic winter games in Vancouver/Whistler. You can visit and enjoy them in your back yard and not be left with the legacy of paying for them forever! You could come see the Vancouver Sonics maybe combine it with a Canucks game and take advantage of the extra 16% exchange on the US$ What do you say, EH!!!

I fervently oppose any subsidies for professional sports. It is wrong and says volumes about our lack of a sense of priority. When education, health-care and affordable housing is taken care of and buttoned up, then perhaps we can begin to address the needs of the wealthy.

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