Allen To Lobby For Cash Football Northwest To Ask Legislature For Assistance With Seahawks Stadium

Football Northwest, the Paul Allen company looking at buying the Seattle Seahawks, plans to ask the Legislature to help put together a deal to renovate or build a new stadium for the NFL team.

To that end, the company wants to forge a good relationship with lawmakers, who begin their 105-day legislative session Jan. 13. Allen’s exclusive option to buy the Seahawks from Ken Behring expires July 1.

Football Northwest has made $40,000 in state legislative campaign contributions, company vice chairman Bert Kolde told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, which reported on the situation in Monday’s editions. Contributions of $5,000 each went to caucuses for the House Democrats, House Republicans, Senate Democrats and Senate Republicans, and gifts of $10,000 went to the state Democratic and Republican parties.

Kolde also has made $1,425 in personal contributions to key political players.

“To us, this session is critical,” he said. “The scenario would be that we would be coming down to Olympia in January with some sort of package crafted for a public-private partnership to fund a stadium solution.”

Football Northwest is awaiting a recommendation, due Dec. 5, from King County’s Seahawks/Kingdome Renovation Task Force before deciding whether to pursue a renovation of the Kingdome or Husky Stadium, or construct a new football stadium near Kent.

Either way, Kolde said, Football Northwest expects to ask for state help.

He said he anticipates asking the Legislature for a package similar to that put together for the Seattle Mariners’ new ballpark. That package, approved in a special session last year, permitted an increase in sales taxes at restaurants and bars and on rental cars in King County; sale of ballpark vanity license plates; establishment of a ballpark lottery scratch game; and granted an exemption from certain taxes for the ballpark construction.

“As a baseline, we would start off with a Mariners-like funding package,” Kolde said.

“But we’re trying to be creative and see if we can make the private component a little larger.”

He said his $1,425 in personal contributions went to Democratic gubernatorial candidate Gary Locke and several legislators, including Rep. Ida Ballasiotes, R-Mercer Island; Rep. Jim Horn, R-Mercer Island; Rep. Dave Schmidt, R-Bothell; and Rep. Steve Van Luven, R-Bellevue.

Locke was a major supporter of the Mariners package and has worked hard to keep the Seahawks in King County. His opponent, Republican Ellen Craswell, has said she does not support any public funding for sports stadiums.

Van Luven is chairman of the House Trade and Economic Development Committee, which would get the first crack at drafting a stadium bill, and was also a big backer of last year’s ballpark legislation. Schmidt is vice chairman of the committee, Ballasiotes a member.

Football Northwest also recently sent a letter to every incumbent legislator saying the football issue “may become the subject of legislation next year.”

The letter included a briefing paper about Football Northwest and the Kingdome Renovation Task Force.

Football Northwest has also hired lobbyists James Halstrom and Mark Greenberg, at $5,000 and $6,000 per month, respectively. Greenberg has lobbied for the American Plastics Council and Anheuser-Busch Companies. Halstrom has lobbied for agricultural interests, the Master Builders, Joseph E. Seagram and Sons, and Momentum, a privately funded group promoting economic development in Spokane.