shit floats.

If you disagree with the current arena "deal" you are against the Sonics, freedom, ponies and the liberty of leveraging public monies to subsidize a largely corporatized entity with low accountability and high risk.

You don't hate ponies, do you?

Death to another corporate giveaway. Goldy, why do you keep giving billionaires head? If this is a good deal, private money can finance it. Fuck this deal in every orifice.

tear down the pacific place mall cause it was built with some public money!

@3 Well, we've been through that. Hansen can't likely issue 30-year corporate bonds, and certainly not at the low rates the city would get.

But even if you're right, and he could make a profit with an entirely privately financed arena, that's not the deal on the table, and that's not the deal which will ever be on the table.

If what you're saying is we should never ever put a dime of public subsidy toward an arena or stadium then what you are saying is we will never have an NBA or NHL team, and we will ultimately lose the Mariners and the Seahawks when their stadiums become obsolete.

I mean, if you're okay with that fine. But this is not a bad deal as far as these sort of deals go.

@ 3 Fine them lets not give any government money to any building then, cmon

@6 strawman up the wazzu. Staples center in LA was built with private money.

Also the whole nonsense about freight mobility didn't exist when the coal terminal was up for discussion, with its all hours train traffic blocking mobility downtown on their way to Bellingham, why is it suddenly a game day issue?

can we debunk these hyperbolic claims one by one and just link to the answers in short form

I don't care how many cuts it takes. Kill the motherfucker.

@6
"Well, we've been through that. Hansen can't likely issue 30-year corporate bonds, and certainly not at the low rates the city would get."

Again, people, NEVER let Goldy do any financial analysis. He just does not understand it.

Money is money.
Money is fungible.
There is nothing mystical or magical about "30-year corporate bonds".

If this deal was so great then there would be private investors offering to fund it.

"If what you're saying is we should never ever put a dime of public subsidy toward an arena or stadium then what you are saying is we will never have an NBA or NHL team, and we will ultimately lose the Mariners and the Seahawks when their stadiums become obsolete."

So, for you, this isn't about whether this is a good deal or not, is it?
This is about whether all the sports teams leave.
How about you learn something about finance, okay?
It's all about profits.
If they can make more here, they'll be here.
If they can make more somewhere else, they'll go there.

The is zero evidence the Arena will affect the Port. The Port should be more worried about the business it already lost to Tacoma, and stands to lose in light of the Panama canal widening so ships can skip them altogether. This is one of the best arena deals in all of sports. If we don't get it done this city is a even stupider than I thought. Thanks again to Goldy for thoroughly vetting the issue on the facts, unlike the Seattle Times and the City Council.

The Stranger urged our electeds to accept the first offer Hansen made. "The best deal we're going to get", they said.

While we're at it: FU(K PUBLIC SCHOOLS! FU(K LIBRARIES! FU(K DA PO-LEECE! When you dial 911 you'd better have your credit card handy, too!

@17 - Private, professional sports teams and their stadiums are nothing like a public park, public school, or public library. Also, you can say "Fuck" on Slog, as in "Fuck you and your false equivalencies."

Goldy @6 - if your only real arguments are "Boo Hoo we might lose professional sports in this city" and "this raping isn't as bad as other raping professional sports do to their host regions." then you're not gonna convince me.

"But even if you're right, and he could make a profit with an entirely privately financed arena, that's not the deal on the table, and that's not the deal which will ever be on the table."

Interesting. Because that's the deal that's on the table for the hockey stadium in Bellevue that terrified the Stranger into endorsing Hansen's deal. You can read it in the Bellevue Reporter. The salient bit is

no Bellevue dollars, not even in the form of bond financing, would be included, the source added. Anything else is a non starter. This position has been echoed in the past by Bellevue officials.

I suspect the reason that a no-public-funds arena won't ever be on the table is because Seattle is so quick to bend over for a private-profit, public-risk arena deal.

If the Port dies of a thousand cuts in might just be its damn fault. They didn't yell and scream about the coal trains coming in here, how that will effect mobility. They where full supporters of the boondoggle of a viaduct tunnel even though it will not improve traffic at all and might make it worse. The city is spreading to the South, and arena or no, SODO is going to change.

Remind me: How many professional sports franchises has Hansen owned? And what guarantees will there be when (not IF, when) this shit goes south?

None.

This bullshit is going be right up there with other classic Stranger endorsement failures.

In terms of how perfectly predictably it will turn into a disaster, it's almost on the moronic level of Dan's endorsement to invade Iraq. Yeah. Don't forget that one.

And as for Pacific Place - People were against that, too. And it turned out to be a huge god damned rip off. Or don't you remember the whole parking garage fiasco? We lost $500,000 dollars A YEAR on that bullshit. But at least the managing owner, Matt Griffin, of PP was from Seattle and lived in Seattle. Unlike Hansen.

This stadium deal is purely an investment scam to benefit a a couple of billionaires that will require on-going expenses be borne out by the taxpayers. And then it will fail and we will be on the hoof for it.

Goldy and The Stranger probably have a promise of a sky box. And all the locker room interviews they can muster...

@8 says

strawman up the wazzu. Staples center in LA was built with private money.

But @8 is wrong.

LA gave the developer $71.1 million of the cost, and that wa an outright gift, not a loan.

@23 -- b-b-but it's all private! Using tax-exempt bonds (like the Seattle Arena) and paying them back with arena revenues (like the Seattle Arena) is totally different than the Seattle Arena!

Build the arena, bring back the Sonics, fuck the haterz.

Environmental Lawyer Peter Goldman. Teamsters = Sierra Club. Aubrey McClendon = Sierra Club (google it/$26M). McClendon's checks were cashed the day before Club's public stoning, but Teamster's checks still blank. "Why McGinn is angering Sierra Club establishment, and why that is a good idea if you want to get re-elected." The untold story. Strange bedfellows. 501C4 $ and how that gets Big Green working for you. (DelBene?)