Initiative would block tax subsidy for Sonics

Seattle's Key Arena. Photo from The Sports Road Trip.

Is the title of an article in today's Seattle Times. (Even though I get an e-letter from the Seattle Times, I learned about this first from City Comforts.) From the article:

A local union plans an initiative campaign to try to block taxpayer subsidies for the Sonics at KeyArena. Service Employees International Union (SEIU) 775 will file the initiative Wednesday and start gathering the nearly 18,000 signatures of registered Seattle voters needed to place it on the November ballot, union spokesman Adam Glickman said.

Details were still being worked out, but the initiative basically would prohibit the city from signing a new lease with the Sonics that did not give the city a "fair market" return on any taxpayer investments in KeyArena, according to a draft of the measure.

The Sonics want a $220 million expansion of the city-owned arena. Under the team's proposal, taxpayers would pay most of the construction bill while the Sonics would keep profits from the building.

______
Hmm, that might be an idea to forestall the crazy talk going around to try to re-attract the Redskins football team back to the city. Why devote all that land and all that money to a place that is used at most 16 days/year?

Also see KeyArena plan gets no help in Olympia and Center Park: It's time to create a glorious urban park at Seattle Center.

Of course, in DC, the labor unions were big supporters of the baseball stadium project.

Index Keywords: stadiums-arenas