News Sonics Bill
I was out too late at Schmader’s Gong Show to make this morning’s 8:30 Senate Ways and Means Committee meeting on Sen. Maragarita Prentice’s (D-11, Renton) Sonics subsidy bill.
However, no gong for $400 million in public susibidies for the Sonics. The bill made it out of committee.
Postman’s got some fat reporting on it.
Initially, it looked like Seattle Sen. Jeanne-Kohl Welles (D-36) was going to be the swing vote on it, putting her in the awkward situation of bucking big labor (the Northwest Labor Council supports the bill) or bucking Seattle—74% voted against subsidizing the Sonics last November. (Although, another labor group, the hard ball SEIU Local 775 is against the bill too.)
However, as Postman reports, Bellingham Senator, Republican Dale Brandland (D-42) eventually provided the vote to move the bill out of committee.
One of my favorite legislators, Republican-turned-Democrat, Sen. Rodney Tom (D-48, Medina) took the lead against moving it out of commitee.
I did get an interview with him today. Here’s what he told me.
I don’t think we should be subsidizing professional sports when we can’t pay our teachers. People don’t understand. We’re not buying the stadium. The ownership group gets the naming rights and seating licensing. All we are doing is subsidizing player payroll. Paying Ray Allen $16 million a year when we can’t eve pay a teacher $31,000.… and another thing…
Key arena was just renovated 10 years ago. [Tom is right. And we’re still paying that off and more.] I don’t see us renovating schools every 10 years. There are schools in Seattle where you can’t even drink the water.Sen. Tom said he doesn’t think the bill will pass the full Senate because everyone knows it’s not going to pass the House. (Speaker Chopp says he won’t give the bill the time of day.)
Tom says that passing the bill would “take away from all the good things we’ve done this session on education, transportation, and health care.” (The Dems have done some good things there: funding health care for low-icome children and getting money into school construction and education grants. Not so sure about the transpo piece.)
Tom says if they pass the bill the GOP will slam them, saying: “You’re funding stadiums not schools.”
I’m not sure the GOP, with its share of sports fans in the base, would go there, but perhaps Tom is right. After all, he used to be an R.
Tom also trashed Sonics owner Clay Bennett—saying “this isn’t who King County shoud be joining hips with.” Bennett was referring to Bennett’s wife’s family, the Gaylords, a prominent Repbulican family, which owns the ultra conservative Daily Oklahoman. I’ve been talking to the Oklahoman Democrats about the Gaylords. More on that later.
Sen. Tom may be onto something. As I reported earlier this year, the new Sonics ownership has worked to deny rights for gays and lesbians (hello Storm.)