M’S Sale On Hold For Now Team Owners Give Politicians Month To Get Stadium Funding

On the day the Mariners began their final and most important road trip, team owners gave King County a 30-day reprieve to come up with a plan to build them a new stadium.

But if the politicians fail to deliver within that time frame, owners said Thursday, the club will go up for sale.

“The financial cost to owners has been enormous, but the commitment has been kept. Now is the time for political leaders to decide their level of commitment,” the Mariners’ chief executive, John Ellis, wrote Thursday to King County Executive Gary Locke.

Ellis and other members of the ownership group are hoping to add fire to the feet of Washington Gov. Mike Lowry, state legislators and local officials who will gather in Olympia Friday for an unprecedented “sports summit.”

Lowry told reporters that he doesn’t expect any concrete proposal to emerge from today’s summit, but he sounded quite optimistic about the Mariners’ future in Seattle.

“We will save baseball. I believe it will be done,” Lowry said.

The summit comes on the heels of the Wisconsin Assembly’s approval of a plan to increase the sales tax in five metropolitan Milwaukee-area counties by 0.1 percent to help pay for a $250 million park complete with retractable roof for the Brewers - formerly the Seattle Pilots.

If significant progress is made at today’s meeting in Olympia, there is a strong chance an emergency legislative session will soon be convened to address the stadium issue.

The final vote count from the Sept. 19 primary election vote count was announced Thursday, indicating that King County’s stadium proposal had died by a margin of 1,082 votes out of nearly half a million cast. Soon afterward, Ellis made his letter to Locke public.