Sunday, November 9, 2008

December 1st Seattle's Arena Funding Proposal is Due

Today is November 9th, between now and the December 1st meeting of the Washington State Task Force on Local Funding Options in King County will meet at Bellevue City Hall the City of Seattle will have to produce a formal proposal requesting funding.

The formal agenda for December 1st has not yet been published. Between now and then I expect the agenda to fill with a variety of proposals for the task force to revue prior to the meeting. I expect that as the city gets closer to the meeting date that the public will become more engaged, even in minor ways, by interested parties.

What, if anything, will Steve Ballmer and Matt Griffin's Seattle Center Investors (SCI) say in support of the city's efforts with the state?
What, if anything, will Brian Robinson's lobbying group Sports and Activities for Families (SAF) say in support of the city's efforts with the state?
And will there be columns and editorials written by the Seattle newspapers?
And will there be resistance expressed by the Washington State Convention & Trade Center written by David Brewster at Crosscut.com?
To the last question, the city has work to do there. There is the point to turn resistance into common support.

The state committee members that were running for re-election have won. The governor, Chris Gregoire has also won re-election. Gregoire mentioned in one of the press conferences this past week that she is hopeful the federal government will provide a jobs based stimulus package. She also mentioned that she will be proposing a stimulus package near the end of the year. She said that now is not the time to be raising taxes, but what of existing taxes? Well, she has to cut spending to balance the budget. State Senate Bill 6638 went into law last July 1st that prevents the state from taking money from hotel tax for general fund uses (again) but there are funds there. Those funds can only be spent on infrastructure of stadium, convention, cultural centers.

I expect to hear the words "stimulus package" in connection to the proposals by the City of Seattle, and Kent, and Renton, and. . .
This is one of the few revenue sources that can be used to stimulate jobs right away.

Have a great day,
Mr Baker
Sent from my iPhone

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the update. We can only hope that the parties involved can arrive at a resolution that is beneficial to the city and sports fans alike.

Mr Baker said...

Brian mentioned that he thought he might hear something around the 24th.

I thought that I would write something to focus things on December 1st. Also, I expect people to become more public, the election is over, the economy needs some prodding, and one of the only sources of revenue that could be used is this.

Spending 75 million on construction at Seattle Center doesn't get offloaded to another country, and we actually have revenue generating results when it is done.

Mr Baker said...

well, there is a story by David Brewster at Crosscut, he mentions the convention center but none of the groups that are involved the task force. He is starting to bother me.

Isaac Alexander said...

I agree Mr Baker about it would certainly be nice to get actual "names" behind the task force for the convention center.

Mr Baker said...

the names and pictures of the board of directors of the WSCTC are on their web site.
The director of the site is the one David Brewster was quoting as being worried about future funds.

I have to agree with Brian, growing the revenue is the answer for both parties.
If the city does not see that it does not have to give the tax resource back, and that their activity, as well as WSCTC's, increase future revenue from that 1% then maybe they think bigger and longer term.
The Seattle Center Master Plan is 565 (or so) million dollars and the council sees this as a ten year project, the city portion of Key Arena is 75 million in 2008 dollars (it isn't 2008 anymore). Over those ten years the 1% will over produce more than the needed 640 million as the pie grows, and the trap in the law is that it is for infrastructure/construction. They have to build with it.