Washington State Senator Ed Murray called in to KUOW's Weekday this morning to explain how legislation he voted for in Olympia earlier this year ended up creating a tax loophole that will allow Safeco Field to pocket hundreds of thousands of dollars in parking tax revenue that would otherwise go to the City of Seattle.

City Council President Richard Conlin has acted shocked at the loophole's existence, and told PubliCola on Sept. 29 that it amounted to "stealing."

But Murray has maintained, as he did today on KUOW, that the city knew full well—or should have known full well, if it was paying attention to what was going on down in Olympia—that this loophole was coming.

Aaron Pickus, spokesman for Mayor Mike McGinn, now seems to confirm Murray's account, telling The Stranger that the mayor's eyes in Olympia indeed missed the provision—which effectively exempted Safeco Field from the city's parking tax with four quick words mysteriously inserted into a bill Murray voted for (the words: "or a baseball stadium").

"We are disappointed that this legislation cut $200,000 annually from a strained city budget," Pickus said. "In a lengthy and complex bill, four innocuous words were missed by our analysts. Now that we know the effects of this change, we hope the legislature can fix it."