Financing Plan For Ballpark Lacks Votes Nine Of 13 King County Council Members Have Doubts About Proposal For Stadium

A $320 million baseball stadium financing plan adopted by the Legislature to keep the Seattle Mariners in town is a sucker pitch as far as most King County Council members are concerned.

“They’ve given us a plan that is jeopardizing our financial integrity and our financial sanctity,” council Chairman Kent Pullen said Sunday.

“It was great politics. It was just bad governance,” Ron Sims said.

Sims, a prime architect of the council’s previous ballpark proposals, said his own call on the new stadium plan is in doubt.

“I won’t know for several days what I’m going to do,” he said.

Neither does Jane Hague, who supported an earlier proposal.

“I want to do some real hard studying and looking at it before making up my mind,” she said.

Nine of the 13 council members are leaning toward rejection or are strongly opposed. Only three or four would vote for the plan today, according to Sims, Pullen and Christopher Vance, one of the most ardent ballpark supporters.

Mariners owners have set a deadline of Oct. 30 for action on a stadium plan after King County voters narrowly threw out a measure based on a sales tax increase last month.

Gov. Mike Lowry arranged meetings with county officials, Mariners representatives and state legislative leaders to draft an alternative, and the final version was approved in a three-day special session in Olympia this weekend.

The plan was passed Saturday night as the Mariners were losing to the Cleveland Indians 7-0, leaving the best-of-7 American League championship playoffs tied 2-2. The series, with Cleveland now leading 3-2, returns to the county-owned Kingdome in Seattle for Game 6 on Tuesday and, if necessary, Game 7, on Wednesday.

Before the game Sunday, manager Lou Piniella was encouraged by the legislative action.

“I think the city of Seattle has demonstrated quite well that it can and will support major-league baseball, so, hopefully, yesterday was a step in the right direction and this organization can get its facility,” Piniella said.

“It still has to climb a few hurdles, but it’s more positive now than it’s been in a while,” he said.

Club owners would provide $45 million of the cost of a new stadium. The state would grant the project a sales tax credit worth about $59 million, while a scratch-off state lottery game would provide another $48 million over 20 years.

Most of the money to retire stadium bonds would come from taxes within King County which require council approval - about $9 million a year from a sales tax surcharge of 0.5 percent on restaurant, bar and tavern purchases, about $3.5 million from a 2 percent boost in the car rental tax and a 5 percent admissions tax at the new ballpark, starting in 1999.

If the Legislature refuses to serve up a better offering, “then I am going to work very hard to see if we can organize a local purchase of the Mariners,” possibly through a public stock offering, Pullen said.

Advocates will empty their benches to try to muster enough support to pass the measure when it goes to a council vote Friday or the following Monday, Oct. 23, Pullen said, but “barring a miracle,” that support won’t be forthcoming.

But “if the Mariners go on to win the American League championship and play in the World Series, the public pressure will be enormous,” he said.

King County faces a $20 million shortfall in its budget for 1996, and no stadium plan has gotten more than seven votes, a bare majority.

Starting next year, the county must begin paying $5.5 million annually for 20 years to retire bonds sold to finance $70 million in Kingdome roof repairs. County officials also wanted $100 million to build luxury boxes and make other improvements sought by the Seahawks of the National Football League.

Legislators balked at granting the county authority to raise taxes for financing Kingdome improvements.

Some said they might consider Kingdome help next year, but “anybody who believes that is likely to happen is the kind of person who would be likely to go out and buy the Brooklyn Bridge,” Pullen said.

Even council members who favor the tax plan said it could endanger the county’s bond rating and criticized the lack of Kingdome money.

Sims said fiscal experts have warned that reliance on unproven financial sources such as a new lottery game and on restaurant, bar and rental car tax revenues, which vary widely from year to year, would make stadium bonds hard to sell.

“No, I’m not satisfied with it. It’s what we’ve got,” said Bruce Laing, one of the few assured “yes” votes. “The deciding factor is the benefit to the region of keeping the Mariners in town.”

One supporter-turned-opponent, Louise Miller, is unhappy that the county would have little voice in an independent agency formed to operate the ballpark but might have to cover any shortfall in revenue for paying off stadium bonds.

Another, Maggi Fimia, noting the ear-numbing enthusiasm of sellout crowds for the Mariners’ first post-season appearance in the 19-year history of the franchise, questioned the need for a new ballpark.

“After the playoff games, it’s obvious the Kingdome is a great place to play baseball,” Fimia said. “The acoustics are great. The seating is great.”