He lied to us.<\/p>\n
Those four little words are the paper mache shield being used by politicians from Seattle to Olympia to deflect the blame for the Seattle Sonics inevitable departure for Oklahoma City.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have been lied to. All of the people of the state of Washington have been lied to. I\u2019m shocked and I\u2019m very disappointed,\u201d said Gov. Christine Gregoire.<\/p>\n
The \u201clie\u201d consists of e-mail messages revealing that the Oklahoma city owners of the Sonics were eager to relocate the team if prospects for a better arena didn\u2019t pan out.<\/p>\n
Either the Governor has a very short memory or she deserves Oscar consideration for her patently feigned outrage.<\/p>\n
There was open speculation on the FIRST DAY the sale of the Sonics was announced two years ago that Clay Bennett and his group were interested in moving the Sonics to Oklahoma City. The handwriting was big, bold, simple and clear: if the new owners couldn\u2019t get a better deal than the previous owners, the team wouldn\u2019t be here for long. Did they say it outright? No, they didn\u2019t have to. Everyone knew it. Article after article here and in Oklahoma City chronicled the enthusiasm of fans there for big league basketball, of their politicians who were eager to help land a team, and that their impressive new basketball arena would be packed night after night with 18,000-plus fans.<\/p>\n
As it turns out, those stories were accurate. Oklahoma City voters even went to the polls and raised their taxes to seal the deal.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s contrast that with our politicians here..<\/p>\n
When Howard Shultz and his group wanted taxpayer financing for a $200 million make-over for Key Arena he was jeered, both at Seattle City Hall and in Olympia. The politicians were reflecting public impatience with public subsidies for rich players and mega-rich owners. And who can blame them? Key Arena was renovated in the mid-\u201990s from the ground up exclusively for the Sonics, with public financing. Next came Safeco Field and Qwest Field, also built with some public dollars. Then the Sonics owners come back looking for even more public money for a make-over. No. Not this time. Enough\u2019s enough.<\/p>\n
To drive the point home, a local ballot measure demanding no new public subsidies for<\/p>\n
the Sonics passed overwhelmingly in the city last year.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, in Olympia, State Sen. Margarita Prentice tried to put a package together to build a new arena complex off I-405 in Renton. Had it succeeded it would have transformed Renton\u2019s future the way Microsoft changed Redmond. It fell short, and Sen. Prentice gave props to Bennett and company for mounting a serious effort to make it happen. To her credit, the Democrat from Renton refuses to follow the script condemning the current Sonics owners.<\/p>\n
Earlier this year, four local guys with deep pockets, including Eastsiders John Stanton, Costco\u2019s Jim Sinegal and Microsoft chief Steve Ballmer lobbied Olympia with a tempting new offer: they would toss in $150 million to improve Key Arena, then buy the team from Bennett if the state and city would supply the remaining $150 million. It was a good deal. But the Legislature dallied, then did nothing, claiming that the proposal was \u201clast minute\u201d and couldn\u2019t be appropriately vetted.<\/p>\n
Actually, the Legislature and governor knew two months before the end of the session about this offer. The \u201clast minute\u201d claim was, well, a lie to cover their inaction. The governor and Legislature simply couldn\u2019t get it done.<\/p>\n
So now the Governor complains that she was \u201clied to.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cry me a river.<\/p>\n
The team is leaving because Olympia and Seattle\u2019s political leaders simply didn\u2019t make a new arena a top priority. It\u2019s that simple. End of Story. End of Sonics.<\/p>\n
John Carlson hosts a daily radio program with KOMO4\u2019s Ken Schram each weekday at 3 p.m. on AM 570 KVI. He also broadcasts daily radio commentary on KOMO 1000 news. E-mail him at jcarlson@fisherradio.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
He lied to us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23248"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23248"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23248\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23248"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=23248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}