Huskies’ taxing request

Forgive us for even thinking such a thing, but where the hell is Tim Eyman when you actually need him?

Shouldn’t Tax Cap Tim be riding to our rescue right about now – now that the University of Washington has decided it should be allowed to help itself to $150 million in taxpayer money to fund the renovation of its crumbling hulk of a football stadium.

And you thought the panhandling in the U-district was confined to the Ave.

It is hard to decide which is in fuller bloom – the chutzpah of UW’s administration in plunging their mitts into our trousers or the cluelessness of our elected leaders for apparently being so eager to turn our pockets whites-out. So you make the call.

Exhibit A, from UW interim athletic director Scott Woodward:

“We are a public institution and we have a right to these funds.”

Exhibit B, from Margarita Prentice, D-Renton, budget chair of the state senate:

“I don’t imagine we’ll have a whole lot of opposition to it. Huskies are just something that all of us love and support.”

Uh-huh. Try selling that over a sumptuous repast of Keystones and cocktail weenies at the next Cougar tailgate, Maggie.

Actually, we did run it by WSU athletic director Jim Sterk, who was quick to demur that “it’s a matter between the University of Washington and the legislature” before cutting to the chase.

“We’ve always worked under the premise that state funds were not available for athletic facilities,” said Sterk, who is trying to fund a stadium redo of his own.

Seems like a pretty good premise in a state where highways are crumbling and tuition is skyrocketing.

For decades now, the Huskies have extolled their self-sufficiency in athletic financing. But looking at a scaled-down renovation tab that still reaches $300 million, a stadium with sections that could be condemned and revenue streams limited by the recent downturn – OK, suckage – of Husky football, the school has opted for the time-honored civic bailout.

And in classic Huskyese, the notion that their request might encounter resistance is simply not acknowledged, but instead turned into a wry bon mot.

“The biggest challenge we face, of course, is that we can’t threaten to move to Oklahoma City,” said UW president Mark Emmert.

Ho ho. Another glass of Chateau Sundodger, good man.

This is a deft jab at SuperSonics owner Clay Bennett and his endless wrangling with city and state governments over funding a new arena, and the very real possibility that he’ll whisk the team way. Lawmakers have taken a hard line, pointing out often that the NBA’s operational model is broken.

Now, it seems, our legislature seems agreeable to throwing our money at a model in which assistant coaches can fetch up to $400,000 a year, in which a self-proclaimed sanity-first athletic director can be forced out and paid a $500,000-plus settlement and in which Emmert himself was on the verge of doling out $3 million to divest himself of head coach Tyrone Willingham.

The fertilizer being pitch forked to cultivate this garden of goombah is already getting deep. It is being sold, for instance, that Husky Stadium is the most public of facilities and home to upwards of 100 events each year, a ridiculous stretch that includes high school practices. Oh, yes – and fun runs and track meets. Except that the renovation will eliminate the 400-meter track.

Then, yes, it was trotted out that these will not be new taxes, but merely an extension of the hotel, rental car and restaurant taxes in King County that have helped build Safeco and Qwest fields, as if that doesn’t make them state funds. This is probably news to those people renting cars and staying in hotel rooms.

Nor can it be adequately explained why Seattle needs two monstrous stadiums when it has a state-of-the-art empty one on college football Saturdays.

And yet in the end what’s most troubling is that our lawmakers want to launch a new era of “Where’s mine?” Sterk’s Martin Stadium facelift could use $23 million – or twice that – beyond what the Cougars have already raised.

“I can’t predict that,” Sterk said when asked what might happen if UW’s request is approved. “But obviously we would all be interested in pursuing an avenue like that. It would certainly help us.”

Then he’d better take a tip from the Huskies, who seem to understand that the state helps those who help themselves.