Who Won? Who Lost In Battle To Save M’S?
Who saved the Seattle Mariners? Who struck out?
Here are some of the winners and losers in the high-stakes struggle to approve a $320 million ballpark for baseball club:
Winners:
The M’s. The Mariners, the nation’s Cinderella team, have been riding a crest of adulation virtually without parallel in these parts. Victories in September and October whipped up fan frenzy that helped the team edge close to the World Series.
It translated into enormous political clout that overcame the previously pre-eminent mood of the day - cut government and taxes. The stadium would be owned and operated by the government, and, yes, financed with taxes. (Who says the voters have to be consistent?)
Even if they don’t go all the way to the World Series, what a ride! And they would get a new world-class stadium and a new 20-year lease on life in Seattle.
Loser:
King County. All the old animosity toward the state’s largest county came out. Lots of legislators grumbled about county Executive Gary Locke and the supposed greed of the county government.
Although the stadium and the franchise were pitched as a project of statewide importance, county taxpayers would get stuck with the bulk of the tab - and the county was stiff-armed when it came to getting permission to raise its own taxes to pay for Kingdome improvements.
Winners:
Lawmakers. At first, it seemed legislators would “refuse to choose,” bogging down over how to pay for the expensive project, if indeed it even should be revived, given county voters’ earlier thumbs-down.
No one, of course, wanted to be tagged as the guys who killed the Mariners, so negotiations continued. Talks did degenerate into sophomoric temper fits at times, with lawmakers looking way too political and partisan. But they finally came around and pulled together.
It may seem like a tough vote for some legislators right now, but Mariner partisans say it would have been far tougher to watch the team’s lease on the Kingdome expire next year and to have a sale of the team announced right before next year’s elections.
Losers:
Seattle Seahawks. While people were going gaga over the baseball team, the Seahawks’ demands for $150 million in Kingdome repairs and improvements drew no more than a ho-hum reaction. The team and the county were big last-minute losers when the Kingdome was dropped like a hot potato from the financing package.
Winners:
Republicans. At first, they were cast as the spoilers, the guys who were going to send the Mariners packing.
A number of key GOP players, including House Majority Leader Dale Foreman of Wenatchee, Senate Minority Leader Dan McDonald of Bellevue and House GOP Caucus Chairman Todd Mielke of Spokane, all were “no” votes when they first came to town.
But they and other negotiators eventually slimmed down the package, eliminated direct appropriations of state money and reduced the local-option county taxes. Then the Republicans could claim the old tax-fighter mantle and, fairly subtly, paint the Democrats as less dedicated to the cause.
Winners:
Democrats. They got their noses bloodied sometimes and repeatedly were jammed with Republican demands. But looking at the big picture, the Democrats managed to convince conservatives that the stadium issue was more than a county problem and that the state needs to be a partner in the financing.
Also, they will be able to say next year, when the Seahawks are threatening to leave Seattle, that the Legislature should have stepped up to the mark and solved both teams’ needs in one fell swoop.
Loser:
Kingdome. Seattle’s not-real-pretty concrete dome didn’t fare well. It now stands to lose a prime tenant, the Mariners, the county will have to pay off $70 million in roof repairs without state or local tax help and the other prime tenant, the Seahawks, is looking at the exit doors.
Winner:
Dale Foreman. The Republican gubernatorial candidate again sparkled in the House as an architect and articulate interpreter and salesman for the eventually approved plan.
Winner:
Mike Lowry. The Democratic governor took an early and unequivocal stand to “save the Mariners” and used his office to bring together heads of the four legislative caucuses. It helps him nail down some support in his strongest base of support, King County, and continues to help him burnish his image. He came off like a leader.
Loser:
County authority. Some current political theories hold that county government is the most important and trustworthy level of government, but this legislative special session again showed that local government has little power that isn’t parceled out to it by the state - and the state is reluctant to give anything such as fiscal home rule.
You’d have thought King County wanted permission to euthanize its population. The county council simply wanted an array of tax options to consider as it figures out how to tackle some critical needs - and then face the wrath, or the thanks, of the voters.
Some lawmakers, such as wily Sen. Alex Deccio, R-Yakima, have served in county government and believe more flexibility and less paternalism is needed. Deccio had an elegantly simple alternative that went nowhere: Eliminate most state funding for the M’s and give the county a menu of options for solving its own wants and needs.
Winners:
“Dream Team.” A high-powered cadre of high-priced lobbyists banded together, gratis, to help gain approval of the proposal.
The Restaurant Association draws high marks for volunteering to accept a half-cent surtax in King County while deflecting an early plan to permit up to a full penny surtax on the dollar. Its position prevailed, and it gets plaudits as problem-solvers.
Winners:
Fans. Seldom is it so easy for special interests - we’re all a special interest of some kind or other - to come to Olympia with a demand and get such a speedy and positive response. (Senate Budget Committee Chairwoman Nita Rinehart, D-Seattle, was delighted that hundreds of “real people” showed up for her hearing.)
And for Mariners fans outside Seattle, there’s almost no cost - voluntary purchase of a sports lottery scratch-off ticket, perhaps, and the tiny share of lost sales tax revenue that has been shifted from the state treasury to the stadium project.