NASCAR gets push

OLYMPIA – Calling it the most important economic development proposal he’d seen in 31 years in Olympia, Lt. Gov. Brad Owen on Tuesday urged skeptical lawmakers to back a $368 million NASCAR track on the Olympic Peninsula.

With the jobs, taxes and tourist dollars the track could bring, Owens told the Senate’s rural economic development committee, “I would hope that you would say ‘How can I help?’ “

The track, proposed for industrial land near Bremerton, would be by far the largest speedway in the Pacific Northwest. Florida-based International Speedway Corporation and subsidiary Great Western Sports would pay at least $180 million of the cost. The rest would come from bonds paid with local sales tax and admissions taxes.

In exchange, the backers say, the 83,000-seat speedway would draw NASCAR fans from throughout the region for two major race weekends a year. It would be, they say, the economic equivalent of having a Super Bowl here every year.

“I’m asking you not to hesitate and let this opportunity die,” Owens told lawmakers.

Tellingly, however, not a single lawmaker from the area around the proposed site is backing legislation to help fund the track. And many lawmakers – as well as the governor – are clearly skeptical that Bremerton is the right site.

“What do you think about the human factor?” asked Sen. Paull Shin, D-Mukilteo, who recalled a bitter fight by neighbors against a similar plan proposed a couple of years ago in Snohomish County. “They live there, they have their home there, and this is their life there.”

“This bill is nothing but corporate welfare for NASCAR,” said Ray McGovern, chairman of an anti-track group called Coalition for Healthy Economic Choices for Kitsap.

“They say that we would be an equal partner,” said Jacob Metcalf, who lives in Bremerton. “We get the risk, pollution and sprawl, and they get to take all the money back to Florida.”

Senate Bill 6040 would create a “public speedway authority” to collect a 5 percent admissions tax and a local sales tax of about 1 cent on a $20 purchase. Most of the money would pay for the bonds that help build the track.

The track is estimated to generate about $120 million a year in economic benefit for the surrounding community, according to Great Western Sports, and about $500 million during the construction phase alone.

The track has the support of every chamber of commerce, economic development council and labor union in the area, said Grant Lynch, vice president of the International Speedway Corporation and president of its 143,000-seat Talladega Speedway. The tax money used by the project would be created by the speedway and its draw of tourists and business, he said. There are some concerns that the region’s modest roads, bridges and ferries can’t handle a surge in race weekend traffic twice a year, he said, but ISC is a veteran at handling traffic.

NASCAR boasts 75 million fans, and races are televised in 100 countries and 30 languages, said Bremerton Chamber of Commerce director Silvia Klatman.

“That’s exposure that these communities simply cannot buy,” she said.

Recent polling, Lynch said, suggests that more than 60 percent of south Kitsap County residents like the idea of a local NASCAR speedway.

“We’ve got support, and the numbers are on our side,” he said.

The track doesn’t, however, have much support in Olympia. So far, just four of 147 lawmakers have signed on as sponsors of the bill.

Sen. Mark Schoesler, R-Ritzville, said he’s troubled by the fact that the bill includes an emergency clause. That would make it immune to being vetoed by a voter referendum this fall.

“Why do we need an emergency clause for a speedway?” Schoesler asked an attorney for the project. “What’s the emergency?”

Attorney Gerry Johnson said that the financing for the project needs certainty to move forward. He pointed out that a similar emergency clause was tacked onto the proposal to build Safeco Field in Seattle.

Gov. Chris Gregoire met Friday with most of the state lawmakers, two mayors, and a county commissioner from that area.

“They were a resounding no,” the governor said Monday in a meeting with Capitol reporters. “They don’t object to NASCAR. They don’t want it in its location in Kitsap County.”

Gregoire wants them to consider Lewis County, about half an hour’s drive south from Olympia. The region recently saw the closure of a coal mine that employed hundreds of high-salary workers.

“They need economic development and I think their legislators would embrace the idea.” But, she said, track boosters “said it doesn’t meet their criteria.”

Lynch said Tuesday that he may visit Lewis County to check out the site but added that the goal is too keep the track close to Seattle, the nation’s 13th-largest media market.

“There’s a reason all the stadiums are in King County,” he said. Plus, he said, if the speedway location shifts too far south, fans will patronize hotels and restaurants in Oregon. That would reduce the economic benefit to Washington.

Lynch said he’s unsure what speedway boosters will do if the bill fails this year.

Hoping that some star power will boost its odds, promoters are bringing Richard Petty, Greg Biffle and Darrel Waltrip to Olympia today to meet with lawmakers and attend a labor union reception.

Lynch also said that the speedway would be the first “green racetrack” in the nation, meeting or beating all environmental standards and spending $1 million to preserve local wetlands and green spaces. The track and buildings would occupy about 350 acres of the 950-acre site, he said.

Foes of the track staged a brief rally on the steps of the Capitol Tuesday afternoon, where they were joined by members of one union that opposes using tax dollars to help pay for the track. The Service Employees International Union is also against a similar public-financing plan to help build a new SuperSonics basketball stadium in Renton.

“When we have 650,000 people without health care, it’s unconscionable to be spending public funds to support wealthy owners of professional sports franchises,” said Adam Glickman, a spokesman for an SEIU local.

Sen. Brian Hatfield, D-Raymond, said he’s perplexed by critics of the track.

“This is about jobs,” he said, describing what it was like to grow up in a hardscrabble town with unemployment and alcoholism. “It’s really hard to wrap your brain around folks who don’t want economic development.”

State lawmakers have provided plenty of tax incentives for a wide variety of projects, from grain elevators to wildlife programs, he said.

“Somehow it was OK to do it for Boeing,” he said, referring to a massive aerospace tax break that Gov. Gary Locke shepherded through the Legislature.

Lynch also said that lawmakers shouldn”t surmise that a small number of vocal critics represent the entire community’s feelings about the venture.

“There’s 21 of these facilities in the United States,” he said. “Nobody wants one to leave.”