My reply to a letter posted by Postman:
Subject: Your Name wants to keep the Sonics in Washington, but only if the Sonics can support themselves in the marketplaceDear Legislators:
I am writing this letter to encourage our local government to tell the Seattle SuperSonics and Storm to find their own solutions to their own financial problems. As a voting taxpayer my expectation is that our government doesn't finance some people's amusements using other people's money. It is not acceptable to simply roll over and give these mendicant team owners a gift from the public purse. Action and leadership are required on your part.
Failure to tell the schnorrers to go pound sand will be a major consideration in upcoming elections. If the teams receive public funds I can assure you that my vote will be affected.
Regards,
Your Name
Your City
"Sonics leave town? Not soon enough, IMHO.
Hey legislature!...You give one farthing to that bunch, and the voters will rise up and hound you to the nether reaches where there is perpetual weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth!
No public funds or subsidies of any type no matter how derived, named, or disguised! Save a suitcase fund...I will support a suitcase fund to help them pack their jocks and uni's for the trip to Oklahoma City.
Adieu, Squatch! Write when you find honest work!
The Piper"
There are some chuckleheads over there who think spending money on a Sonics arena is more important than spending money on jails or schools, one of which these putzes belong in and the other they never attended.
Don't have a lot of worries, however, since any public funding for a Sonics arena is DOA.
The Piper
Posted by: Piper Scott on June 8, 2007 05:05 PMThe Piper
Posted by: Piper Scott on June 8, 2007 06:32 PMThe golden goose was killed in King County growing criminal justice budgets,education budgets,and metro transit budgets.
Now I have a prison in Tacoma waiting for us to catch enough buggar pickers and jaywalkers to fill.
Piper is hiding under a rock on this one.
The simple fact is that if the Sonics manage to get some government entity to subsidize a new arena or a move to Bellevue or whatever, not one politician will lose his job because of it. You know it, I know it.
Off the subject a little . . . I posted over at the Northwest Progressive the other day and Ivan called me a liar!!
He really hurt my feelings.
Better an empty prison than an empty basketball arena.
Posted by: Mike H on June 9, 2007 04:31 AMHuh?
If that is the best logic in favor of corporate welfare, methinks the Sonics are moving out of town. Like OKC.
Posted by: S. on June 9, 2007 07:23 AMIf you want to say "no money to ANYBODY," that's fine. However, few things annoy me more than those who say, "fund what *I* like and not what others do."
That the Sonics & players make money is true. So do the "artistes" who weld together pieces of trash and call it "art," as do the *professional* musicians who play in our various arts facilities.
Personally, I think that the biggest issue with sports facilities is that professional politicians get involved and things don't get done right in the first place. Ten years later, all of the compromises come back to bite you on the a**.
Long story short, just don't let me catch you advocating for any spending much outside of cops and roads.
Posted by: The Real Mark on June 9, 2007 07:29 AMSo it's good to see you are learning.
Posted by: Swift Boater on June 9, 2007 08:46 AMMy view is that sports teams of all types need to support their business just like everyone else. The cost of their play areas should be part of their business expense paid by their revenues just like it is for everyone else trying to make a go of it. Why does the fact that their product is a sport justify dipping into the public's pocket? Doesn't make any sense to me.
Posted by: RJK on June 9, 2007 09:27 AMMaybe pro-basketball needs a new angle instead of browbeating the public into "funding" it.
Posted by: John Bailo on June 9, 2007 12:12 PMHe really hurt my feelings.]
Isn't that illegal here? Hurt feelings are a major crime aren't they? I'm sure our socialist masters and their legions of lawyers will support you in your horrible suffering.
Oh, wait, you aren't a dumbocrap are you?
Seriously, I'm a recovering Demorat. I've been clean and sober for a little over 15 years now.
Posted by: G Jiggy on June 9, 2007 03:47 PMI'm sure that a separation between sport and state would do wonders for the professional sports industry. We'd have lower prices, better quality, and more variety if government got the heck out of pro sports.
Next we need a separation of education and state. We were supposed to have that at the federal level, since the Constitution does not authorize the feds to legislate in the area of education. Bush's No Child Left Behind is just as unconstitutional as the rest of the Fed. Dept. of Education. Reagan almost deleted that one back in the 80's.
I take issue with the Piper's comment that we should spend more on schools. Educational outcomes are not related to incremental spending increases. Instead we need choice, and the ultimate form of choice is privatization. Let's give ed. vouchers only to the poor. I'm a teacher, by the way...
Same thing with health care. Cover the poor only, and leave the rest of us to the better choices and better service of the free market. Look for Republicans to pass more socialized medicine proposals in their quest to regain power. The poor and sick will get the worst end of that deal.
But good work opposing corporate welfare to big sports business, Stefan!
Posted by: Bruce Guthrie on June 9, 2007 04:56 PMKing County can build the most expensive sewage treatment plant in history, wasting billions of taxpayer dollars so that the county executive can have a really cool plaque hanging on his wall when he is done but we can't have enough vision to build a state of the art events center that would host around 225 events a year and bring hundreds of millions into the local economy.
I know it is popular to bash pro sports and there is a lot of good reason to have some distaste for some in that industry, but in a state that gives $64 billion in tax breaks to corporations, most of which goes right to their bottom line profits, it amazes me that people can be so ignorant and shortsighted as they are in this issue.
That we've been conned into it for so long doesn't mean that there wasn't a learning curve... and the fact is that we're at the end of this particular model.
There is no argument in favor of taxpayer subsidies for these multi-millionaires that could not, logically, be applied to non-sport multi-millionaires who do a lot more for our community and who hire a great many more people then the Sonics or any other sports franchise.
I have yet to see, for example, Bill Gates demand that Bellevue or King County split the cost of his next expansion of Microsoft, or he'll move the whole outfit down to Silicon Valley.
The Sonics are a "nice-to-have," but are by no means a "must-have."
When they move (as if their staying here was ever a question) you may feel free to move to those utopias known as OKC or Kansas City or wherever they alight.
Those of us remaining behind? Well, after they leave, we'll muddle through somehow... reveling in our ignorance and shortsightedness, but several tens of millions of tax dollars ahead of the game.
Posted by: Hinton on June 10, 2007 12:26 AMYou all think pro basketball isn't worth finding a solution to keep if that solution involves public funds.
Awesome. The guys on Soundpolitics agree with Licata on something. Kudos to out of town sports team owners coming up with an issue on which everone can agree. Group hug
Posted by: DaveD on June 10, 2007 07:59 AM