WARNING: sports addicts are seeking to get ahockey team in seattle, inevitably this will cause a drain on public purse - that's why they come to government, right? because they want a subsidy private capital or private lenders won't give them!

see the contradiction where we have on post lamenting the shortfall in public funds for education, followed by another calling for hockey in seattle despite the certainty this will require public subsidy?

typical deranged sports addict behavior. I mean, entertainment addict behavior, it's not a "sport" to watch other people do sports.

we are already paying for about five stadiums, we don't need a sixth one, we can't even afford education and roads, and to have so called liberals push sports billionaire welfare programs is highly destructive to liberal government and democratic party type goals. how can you say a stadium is more impt. than say education or roads?

"different city with no emotional or economic investment in the team" -- au contraire sports predator capitalism is driven by the intense emotions of fans that lead politicians to make sucky deals.

and there is always public investment in the team -- that's why they come to government instead of 100% private finance or private investor deals.

for example, the Hansen mou calls for a $200M public loan in which we get paid back, hopefully, over 32 years and earn zero profit above cost of borrowing. zero profit! free use of $200 M for thirty years is a public investment with zero return. should have a return of say $200M just for use of this money -- but we don't get it in the mou. so there's public investment with zero or inadequate return, a/k/a "subsidy" a/k/a "waste" a/k/a "bailouts for billionaires" a/k/a "public welfare for billionaire team owners helping deprive us of public resources for education and other more important things" but since fans driven by emotions can't see this they continue to prattle on about ripple benefits or other nonsense.

@13 -- we wish there were privately owned arenas, the Hansen deal is for public ownership which is in name only, to give him about $300 million in real estate tax shirking -- a way to deprive the state of revenue.

if eastsiders don't come here for an arena, they will come here to go do tom douglas restaurants jack. sales taxes on team gear will not go to general fund, read the mou, they are used for repay of public finance in a large scam which calls third party tax payments a repayment from Hansen. iow, no, he doesn't even repay the public finance! not to mention paying for a profit on that money. if the benefit you can show is 50 hotel rooms ahem, how about we ........oh, repair the roads, or simply wait for another hotel to be built? besides, hello! how do you know they won't stay at an airport hotel? Also if you bring in a team of rowdy hockey players and concentrate 20,000 people at a SODO location, you create needs for greater govt. expense...it's called externalities....somehow you want to count only positive ripples, not negative ripples.....you need more cops, you have mor traffic, there is more burden on the roads, more traffic, btw the increase in traffic alone would cause more of us to NOT go downtown thus the city perhaps would not have greater sales of beer.....fact is, if the stadium supported itself private lenders would loan the money and you fans would bear the ticket prices to pay it back no problem. but they don't becauseit doesn't. you all want a handout for your preferred choice of what entertainment to consume. again, let's start calling this visual entertainment, it's not sports to watch sports sitting on your backside. why should we taxpayers subsidize you sitting on your backside with a $40,000 public subsidy per seat? pay for those seats yourselves if you love hockey and basket ball so much.

@16 they won't come here based only on a one year lease...they will demand imrpovements and subsidies to no end. duh!

Earth to Phoenix....Hockey is dead there so get rid of it. Why is this taking so long to do? they moved winnipeg in the 90's within a year, this phoenix mess has dragged on 4 years already! Put a team or product where there is a demand for it. Is that not the cornerstone of a democratic system? Provide a level playing field for all. the NHL is coughing up 25m a year to keep the coyotes running. If there was demand in Phoenix then it would have sorted itself out by now. Its not the city, the nhl or the prospecitve buyers, its the lack of interest.