As of last Friday, March 4, Mayor Nickels' spokesperson Marianne Bichsel was still defending her boss' corporate welfare scheme to help the Sonics expand KeyArena. Bichsel had the gall to tell me that the $200 million tax package--a plan to extend and hand over taxes to the Sonics that currently pay for Safeco and Qwest stadiums--was about "protecting Seattle taxpayers." Given that the plan included a .5 percent tax on local restaurants and bars to help the $70 million team beef up its own restaurant and bar business, Bichsel's reasoning was out of whack.
By propping up the Sonics' business, she said, the tax would enable the team to pay off its current debt through ticket sales--ending the need for public assistance. (The city currently covers the Sonics' ass to the tune of about $2.5 million a year to pay off the KeyArena bonds the city floated 10 years ago to renovate the stadium the last time around.)
Bichsel's spin ignored the fact that her boss' new $200 million plan to "protect Seattle taxpayers" was being funded by, well, taxpayers. Worse, some of those taxpayers--Queen Anne entrepreneurs, for example--were being asked to fund their own competition.
With the subsidy, the Sonics planned to nearly double the size of their arena, leaving the seating bowl the same size, but adding indoor parking and expanding the concessions area. The scheme was about making the KeyArena a one-stop shop (keeping high-end customers in the building rather than in the neighborhood) that would increase the Sonics' profits at the expense of the same Queen Anne restaurants and bars saddled with funding KeyArena expansion.
"It would stab us in the back," says Wells Hamlin, manager at Queen Anne's Floyd's Place.
"I think it's sort of ironic that they'd have us [the restaurants] pay for it, which makes me feel like not wearing my Sonics hat next year," adds Liz Thomson at nearby Peso's.
Not only would the plan have propped up the Sonics at taxpayer expense, it would have robbed the city of revenues it currently gets from non-Sonics KeyArena events (like Britney Spears concerts) and funnelled that money to the Sonics instead (perhaps about $700,000 to $800,000 a year.)
Nickels retreated late last week when it was clear the legislature didn't support the idea. The mayor's office told me they're currently waiting on the Sonics to take the lead on a new package. So, why am I bent out of shape about an idea that clanked off the back rim? Because it speaks volumes about Nickels' priorities. This corporate welfare bill is the one piece of Olympia legislationTeam Nickels decided to throw its weight behind this session.
Hmmmm, tax subsidies for Howard Schultz? Must be an election year.
