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Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Politics / City / Sports Does Arena MOU Attempt a Head Fake on SEPA?

Posted by Goldy on Tue, Jul 17, 2012 at 9:04 AM

If only the Seattle Times would grant environmental attorney Peter Goldman credibility when he's opposing candidates and issues they support.

Goldman does some incredible work, and I really respect him as a lawyer, so if he says there's an issue of whether the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on the proposed Sonics arena meets the letter of the State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA), I suppose the attorneys writing the ordinance need to look into that. But from my non-lawyerly perspective, the MOU makes no obvious effort to sidestep SEPA:

Section 5: SEPA. The Parties acknowledge that the Project is subject to review and potential mitigation under various laws, including the State Environmental Policy Act, Chapter 43.21C of the Revised Code of Washington (“RCW”), and the state and local implementing rules promulgated thereunder (collectively, “SEPA”). The City or County may not take any "action" within the meaning of SEPA except as authorized by law, and nothing in this MOU is intended to limit the City’s or County's exercise of substantive SEPA authority.

Section 21: City/County Conditions Precedent. The obligations of the City and County under this MOU to commit Public Financing are expressly conditioned on the following conditions precedent:
…
b. SEPA and Permitting. (i) SEPA review associated with any City or County actions as contemplated by paragraph 5 of this MOU has been completed; (ii) the master use permit and all other permits required for construction of the Project have been obtained; (iii) the City and County have considered the SEPA review in connection with their respective actions and have waived this condition precedent, which waiver may be withheld only on the basis of an exercise of SEPA substantive authority; and (iv) any challenges to the Project have been resolved in a manner reasonably acceptable to the Parties.

Goldman says that he's concerned signing the MOU would create "irreversible momentum," and that may or may not be true. But I find it hard to characterize the language of the MOU as an effort to make an end-run around our state's environmental laws.

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My goodness. Deflecting another criticism of the arena deal? I'm so surprised. You must be sore from all those gymnastics.

Posted by hmmmmm on July 17, 2012 at 9:09 AM

@1: why do you hate Seattle? And freedom?

Clearly Chris Hansen is the savior of Seattle. All our problems evaporate with an arena and these motherfucking schmucks that call themselves "lawyers" and "city councilmembers" are going to destroy the only chance Seattle will ever have to put our bonding capacity on the line to finally obtain a professional sports team.

Can't you assholes see we need a sports team? Why are we voting on libraries and seawalls when we should preserve as much money as we can to help in this last ditch effort to keep Seattle from falling into the Sound?

And why do you people keep talking about the DOJ? You're distracting Mayor McGinn from doing the work of Chris Hansen (hallowed be thy name)!

Posted by Baconcat on July 17, 2012 at 9:22 AM

"Hansen loves us this we know! "Cause the stadium deal tells us so! Little suckers to him belong, all their hard earned tax dollars. Yes, Hansen loves us! Yes Hansen loves us!"

Posted by Cato the Younger Younger on July 17, 2012 at 9:41 AM

Goldy: in your expert opinion, if SEPA identifies 10s of millions of dollars in mitigation (or more), according to the MOU, who is on the hook for paying these "cost overruns"?

Posted by south downtown on July 17, 2012 at 9:45 AM

Every good con man offers their mark the illusion that they understand and are ahead of the con.

Posted by south downtown on July 17, 2012 at 9:46 AM

@4 Bingo.

Posted by hmmmmm on July 17, 2012 at 9:51 AM

SEPA isn't impossible. you just comply with it and you get your DNS.

Posted by Max Solomon on July 17, 2012 at 9:57 AM

#4 Hanson's group does. Bond money isn't used until the land buy back happens. And the bond money is capped at $200 million.

Posted by TooManyUserNamesHere on July 17, 2012 at 10:16 AM

And if there are eventual environmental impacts not identified in the SEPA process? Who pays for mitigating those?

Posted by monox on July 17, 2012 at 10:27 AM

Peter Goldman's no slouch, you know. He tends not to start things he isn't perfectly capable of finishing. If he's doing this there's a damn good reason.

Posted by gloomy gus on July 17, 2012 at 10:29 AM

Baconcat for the Seattle Freedom win.

I like my DNS like I like my women - highly encrypted but with easy passwords.

Posted by Will in Seattle

on July 17, 2012 at 10:30 AM

@4: ArenaCo is responsible for all cost overruns, and the project can't go forward if SEPA can't be met. (That said, it's hard to imagine a SEPA issue that couldn't mitigated.)

Posted by Goldy on July 17, 2012 at 10:46 AM

@12. ArenaCo is not paying the costs of mitigation. Hansen already said no. McGinn already said no. So who pays? Answer: no one. Traffic gets more fucked up, Port packs up and heads to Canada, industry moves to Kent. So does a portion of the city's tax revenue. OOOPS!

For being a self proclaimed expert on taxes, contracts, environmental law, and economics, you are sure missing the obvious here. But sports fans, even liberal ones, seem to have taken leave of their senses on this one.

I guess all that debt capacity won't go to road repair, neighborhoods, bike infrastructure, parks, public spaces, etc after all. Just to more hobbies that don't generate much economic growth, and hey, we get an old building out of the deal that will need to be upgraded if we don't want the team to move to, say, Sacramento. Tack that cost on as well. I'm sure your south end neighborhood will be looking pretty crappy by then, but you'll just have to tough it.

Posted by hmmmmm on July 17, 2012 at 10:59 AM

If industry moved to Canada it would have to actually pay taxes.

Posted by Will in Seattle

on July 17, 2012 at 11:38 AM

Tacoma Dome would be the ideal location for an NBA, NHL franchise.

The fanbase is bigger there than it would be for Seattle.

The transit is there in the form of Sounder, and LINK.

The highways are more robust and provide easier access in all 3 directions.

Ample parking is available.

The all weather dome is recognizable and beautiful.

Posted by Supreme Ruler Of The Universe

on July 17, 2012 at 11:41 AM

@15. How will Hansen flip his property to the city for profitz? $$$! If you could figure out that detail, I bet Tacoma would be a go.

Posted by hmmmmm on July 17, 2012 at 11:55 AM

He has contributed to the campaigns of Constantine; McGinn; County Councilmembers Bob Ferguson, Joe McDermott, Larry Phillips, Julia Patterson and Pete von Reichbauer; and City Councilmembers Richard Conlin, Sally Clark, Tom Rasmussen, Jean Godden and Tim Burgess.
Goldman said he finds it offensive that the arena "has risen to the top of what we want to accomplish in this region." He has been an advocate for parks, bike trails, transit and a new waterfront tunnel, among other projects.

He has paid good money for his influence. Sadly, he has had to turn to the indignity of opining in the Seattle Times like a common city councilmember.

Posted by MrBaker

on July 17, 2012 at 11:56 AM

@17, Goldman's been a hard worker in so many ways beyond financial support, for many years, here and all over the state. He helps with advocacy, strategy and fighting ignorance around environmental conditions. Moneywise he's small potatoes compared to what Hedgefund Hansen's dumped into his own agenda.

Posted by gloomy gus on July 17, 2012 at 12:42 PM

@13, Hansen said he would pay mitigation attributable to the arena, not the laundry list the Mariners failed to do.

When will you stop telling lies.

Posted by MrBaker

on July 17, 2012 at 12:45 PM

And the Seattle Times anti-arena smear campaign continues. Congrats, anti-arena crowd, for aligning yourselves with a fox news-worthy effort.

Posted by Slog Tipper David on July 17, 2012 at 12:46 PM

#16

Vulcan does that stuff all the time.

No big.

We put the Sonics in the Tacoma Dome.

City takes the Sodo property and makes some low income TOD out of it.

Then we run Sports Sounders trains every game night...add a bar car.

Posted by Supreme Ruler Of The Universe

on July 17, 2012 at 12:49 PM

He is saving the endangered SODO warehouse from extinction by filing his court case in the Seattle Times.

Posted by MrBaker

on July 17, 2012 at 12:59 PM

@19 @Hansen said he would pay mitigation attributable to the arena, not the laundry list the Mariners failed to do.

What he says on KJR is legally binding then? Didn't think so.

Posted by hmmmmm on July 17, 2012 at 1:05 PM

Seattle - where we're so smart, we're stupid.

Posted by Slog Tipper David on July 17, 2012 at 1:11 PM

@23, SEPA process is legally binding. He either mitigates the impacts attributable to the arena or he doesn't get a permit from the city to build.

Posted by MrBaker

on July 17, 2012 at 3:23 PM

You know what I think? The City Council is jockeying to squeeze $$ out of the arena deal to pay for the dock area. They'll have to come up with thatv$$ somewhere. Why does this have to be so mean spirited? It looks like it could be a win win for Seattle if they can wrangle both.

Posted by Lampshade on July 18, 2012 at 3:24 PM