Seattle Pitches Stadium Plan B
Faced with the possibility of losing the city’s major league baseball team, King County leaders scrambled Friday to fashion a contingency plan should a ballot measure to build a new stadium fail.
The proposal to build a $325 million stadium for the Seattle Mariners led by 310 votes Friday after a partial count of absentee ballots. The final tally of this week’s election wasn’t expected until Monday.
County Councilman Peter von Reichbauer suggested submitting a modified version of the stadium proposal to voters in November. But he withdrew that suggestion after the Mariners said they would not support it.
“If it (Tuesday’s ballot measure) should fail, the Mariners believe that sending a sales tax or any other proposal for funding a new stadium back to King County voters in November does not meet the ball club’s needs or the critical timetable for constructing a ball park,” Mariners chairman John Ellis said in a letter delivered during an emergency County Council session Friday.
Reichbauer then suggested asking Gov. Mike Lowry to convene a “sports summit” of state, county and city officials to develop alternatives for retaining professional sports in the Seattle area.
The council unanimously passed that proposal and King County Executive Gary Locke said he supported it. Locke said he also had asked the M’s to defer any decision on selling the team for 30 days.
Before the election, Mariners owners made clear they would sell the team if voters rejected the ballpark.
Later in the day, Locke and Lowry met with Seattle Mayor Norm Rice in Olympia, where they discussed the logistics of such a summit.
“I think we will save the Mariners,” Lowry said after the meeting. “I’m optimistic we’ll come up with something.”
But Lowry said he would resist calling for a special legislative session unless he was sure of a plan that could pass the Democratic Senate and the Republican House. Also, he said he would want assurances that Republicans would not use the session to try to override his veto of $271 million in tax cuts.
Lowry added he’d rather have legislators handle the stadium issue quickly in the next regular session, which convenes Jan. 8.
The ballot measure had a 4,000-vote lead after Tuesday’s election, but a Thursday tally of 36,000 absentees made it virtually even at 235,591 votes in favor to 235,281 against.
About 16,000 absentee ballots are in hand and remain to be counted. Final results will be posted Monday.
The proposal calls for increasing the county sales tax from 8.2 percent to 8.3 percent - the highest in the state - to provide $240.8 million in public funds for a retractable-roof stadium.