Let The Blitz Of Stadium Ads Begin

Nothing quite like an election with no spending limits and a guy with bottomless pockets.

The result: an onslaught of radio and TV commercials, mailings and full-page newspaper ads around the state, starting Monday.

The ads are aimed at convincing voters to spend $300 million in public money for a new Seahawks stadium in Seattle.

Billionaire Paul Allen is paying $100 million for the stadium, with half of that raised by the sale of so-called personal seat licenses for the new digs.

The campaign expects to spend up to $3 million in the 39 days left until the June 17 election.

That works out to $76,923 a day, or more than twice the median household income in Spokane for an entire year.

The campaign is being run by Gogerty and Stark, one of the best-connected consulting firms in Seattle. It has set up 10 field offices around the state.

The Our Team Works! campaign opens its Spokane office at 10 a.m. today at 8605-B North Division. Seahawk defensive tackle Sam Adams may be on hand.

Opponents have little money, no Spokane office, and no sports celebrities to flash. But they’ve got lots of outrage, aided in part by Spokane attorney Stephen Eugster.

Eugster is waging a legal battle against the stadium deal on behalf of a Seattle man who also challenged a new Seattle baseball stadium, so far without success.

Eugster argues the football stadium deal is unconstitutional because it allows Allen to kill the whole plan if he doesn’t fork over more than $3 million to pay for the election.

That in effect gives Allen veto power, something only the governor has, Eugster says. It also gives him a more powerful vote against the stadium than any other voter in the state. That, Eugster says, violates the constitutional principle of one person, one vote.

He also laughs at the emergency clause in the bill that sends the issue to the ballot. After all, the bill also contains a clause that says lawmakers are just sending the proposal along to voters and may vote for or against it themselves.

“How can we have an emergency when they go so far as to say we don’t care, we might vote against it,” Eugster said.

The Stop Stadium Madness opposition campaign is led by Chris Van Dyk, a Seattle stockbroker who’s also fighting the Mariners stadium.

Other stadium opponents include Helen Sommers, a Seattle Democrat and one of the Legislature’s most respected financial experts, and Sen. Harold Hochstatter, a firebrand religious conservative from Moses Lake.

Cheers will turn to tears

Spokane opponents of Goals 2000 spending cheered the Legislature’s ban on accepting $16 million in federal money for the education reform program. But they have a big disappointment coming.

Democratic Gov. Gary Locke is expected to veto the prohibition in the state budget before him for signature by May 20.

Goals 2000 programs are intended to enhance student performance. But opponents argue taking the federal money gives up too much local control.

Locke thinks returning the money would be foolish. He vetoed the give-back in an earlier version of the budget and can be expected to do so again, said Craig Bartlett of the state budget office.

Locke’s veto pen has also struck backers of a reduction in the state tax on soda pop syrup.

The Legislature chopped the tax from $1 to 50 cents a gallon. Locke’s veto keeps the tax at its full amount. The tax was approved by voters in 1994 to pay for violence reduction and anti-drug programs.

Cutting the tax now would contradict the will of the voters, Locke said.

The tax cut also would cost $7.7 million in the coming biennium, which Locke said the state can’t afford.

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