FREE THOUGHTS

OPINIONS WE
COULDN'T KEEP
TO OURSELVES


Ending Professional Sports Welfare

by Nick Licata
Free Press Contributor

Professional sports welfare as we know it may come to an end when Initiative 16 gets on the ballot. Sponsored by Citizens For More Important Things (CMIT), the initiative will give King County residents an opportunity to vote, once again, on paying for new professional sport stadiums. The initiative will require King County Government to obtain approval of a majority of the voters to issue or incur debt in excess of $50 million for constructing or remodeling any building or facility, including the Kingdome.
I-16 was broadly worded to escape the fate of other citizen referendums which were thrown out for challenging the State's Stadium Act that publicly funded the Mariner's new baseball park. Because the act was passed as emergency legislation, it was not subject to a referendum to place the act on the ballot and make it subject to voter approval.
Although Initiative 16 was carefully crafted, county officials took 28 days to accept. The County Clerk raised a series of absurd objections, like using "his/her" instead of just "his" in the text, having the wrong margins and the wrong size paper. Objections like this have effectively killed the initiative process in King County, stopping all but one from ever reaching the ballot.

Hammering on Corporate Welfare
Initiative 16 is a hammer, and has already stopped the county from issuing the stadium bonds. Originally county council members said the initiative would have no impact and voted to authorize the issuance of the stadium bonds. Within 48 hours the county's bond counsel said that the bonds might not be valid and therefore not able to be sold because of I-16.

King County's Prosecuting Attorney then filed a test case against the initiative to have it declared invalid for the baseball stadium bonds. That case was heard on February 19th,with the judge ruling against stadium opponents. That ruling is being appealed before the State Supreme Court.
Pending court cases will continue to delay the stadium bonds and may lead to the County having to loan more millions to the Public Facilities District, which is technically building the stadium. The money loaned so far to the PFD is supposed to be paid back once the stadium bonds are issued. But if they are never issued, the county's general fund will have to pay the loans off, forcing the County to cut back on services.
Recognizing that the court cases may also delay the completion if not the start of the construction project, the Mariners announced on Valentines Day that they will probably play the whole 1999 season in the Kingdome rather than in their new stadium. Having the stadium ready by that date was used as a baseball bat to beat down any move in the County Council to examine the Mariner demands. This decision shows that the 1999 "deadline" was just a bluff.

Record-Breaking Costs
The Mariners also must have concluded that any further squeezing of the already unrealistically tight construction schedule would lead to cost overruns. As of the end of last year, major league baseball's six newest stadiums have taken an average of 30.5 months to build, and two others being built for Milwaukee and San Francisco are expected to take just as long. Additionally none of them have retractable roofs, which add a major design complication and make the Mariner's stadium the most expensive of them all.

The Independent Financial Review Committee (IFRC), established by the County to review stadium costs and funding, recognized the possibility of cost overruns even before Initiative 16 caused any delays. They issued a draft report to the Council recommending that the stadium be delayed for a year because the stadium's cost appeared to be $50 million over budget. Four council members then wrote a letter to the Mariners passing on this news, and suggested that it should be seriously considered. Two days later, Mariners owner John Ellis announced the team was for sale, apparently because politicians were actually thinking rather than following his instructions.
The rest is now history. Senator Slade Gorton flew into town, hammered the council into submission and got the county to assume even more risk than what the IFRC had previously thought was dangerously too much. In the meantime, Paul Allen also created his own little drama by demanding that the Council approve his lease within 3 days or his deal on the Seahawks would be dead. Again the Council lost its will and gave another sports corporation everything it wanted, including the demolition of the Kingdome which still has $130 million dollar public debt.
The major casualty in these political games has been the public. Each stadium will now cost at least $400 million and neither has a final design.
This depressing litany of problems are the result the betrayal of the public trust caused by polticians who do the bidding of business interests with extremely deep pockets. Only a citizen-led effort can shift the balance toward one-person-one vote democracy, and fairness for the average taxpayer.
Ron and Emily Austin © 1997



Streets Fight, Coliseums Rule

by Doug Nufer
The Free Press

In November, 1995, the citizens of King County voted not to fund a new baseball stadium via an increase in the general sales tax, and the Washington Supreme Court ordered the City of Seattle to return money it had collected for street repairs with an unconstitutional flat surcharge to property taxes in 1993-1995. Now, thanks to the tax collector's clumsy grab, the high-handed maneuvering by elected officials to accommodate pro sports franchises, and threats by the Mariners and Seahawks, our teams may get new stadiums before our roads receive essential repairs.
December through March, home owners can assess the relationship between ballparks and potholes as they receive street utility refund checks, along with a letter from attorney William Severson explaining the outcome of his class action suit against the city and a notice from the city advising how they may voluntarily sign their refunds back over to a special transportation maintenance fund. Checks averaging $58 are being mailed at the rate of 10,000/week until $12.2 million is returned to taxpayers.
Although editorials in the Seattle Times and P-I applauded the kindness of taxpayers electing to give the money back to the city (one suggested the lawyer might chip in "his" 8% of the settlement), the gesture is more symbolic than practical. After 100,000 refunds had been mailed, about 3,500 people returned about $165,000. Ron Melnikoff, president of the Furman-Boyer Neighborhood Improvement Association (a group of residents whose 10/3/96 petition to county judge Peter Jarvis started the movement to reimburse the street fund) says his neighborhood has seen a city-assisted paving project delayed by the state court's decision.
Ideally, streets are repaved on a twenty year cycle; currently the rate of repaving is sixty to eighty years. Far from just relying on citizens to return unauthorized taxes, the city cut costs in 1996 with a hiring freeze, and plans to issue bonds and tap reserve funds in 1997, now that 25% of the money planned for transportation is unavailable. In a 1/27 state of the city speech, Mayor Rice also mentioned the possibility of lobbying the state for whatever legislative assistance it might offer a municipality seeking creative ways to raise funds.
Meanwhile, a few taxpayers see a more direct connection between the stadiums they vote down, the potholes they drive into, and the loopholes elected officials exploit to ignore the will of the majority: some of the street utility refund checks have been signed over to Citizens for More Important Things.



Please see a reader response to these articles:
"More Stadium Blues" (WFP Issue 27 May/June 1997)



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Contents on this page were published in the March/April, 1997 edition of the Washington Free Press.
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