Forum

If you or I wanted to own a barber shop, or a gas station, or a used car lot, would taxpayer money be used to build us a place of business? Of course not. Yet, professional sports teams take it for granted that taxpayers owe them state-of-the-art business facilities.

But just building the facilities isn’t enough. In order to keep up with changes to the state of the art, taxpayers must tear down the facilities and rebuild them every 20 years or so. And of course, the lease payments must be ridiculously low.

One point of view is that the professional sports teams are good for the local economy. Well, of course they are. But so are Boeing, and Microsoft, and Burger King, and Sidney Glick’s Latte Stand.

And although we might give them tax breaks, we don’t use taxpayer money to build and renovate state-of-the-art business facilities for them. Nor should we.

And we shouldn’t do it for the sports teams, either. The sports teams can and should build their own facilities, just like every other business in America.

Think about it: Sports teams could build and renovate their own facilities any time they wanted to, without even asking for public approval. Revolutionary.

When asked to vote on whether or not Safeco Field should be built using taxpayer money, voters said no. It was a close vote, but the taxpayers, including me, said, no. Our political representatives at the time chose to ignore the voice of the people and obligated our tax dollars to build the stadium, anyway. Now, when my wife and I go out to dinner, we drive the extra miles to Tacoma to escape King County. We prefer to pay the additional auto expenses rather than pay the Safeco Field restaurant tax.

Now, 15 years after the last Key Arena rebuild, the Sonics are demanding another one.

Several alternatives have been proposed and rejected. Regarding the latest proposal, columnist John Carlson, in the Reporter on April 19 (“Cry me a river over Sonics”) concludes, “The team is leaving because political leaders simply didn’t make a new arena a top priority”. I say, “Thanks, political leaders. And congratulations. You got it exactly right this time”.

, concludes, “The team is leaving because political leaders simply didn’t make a new arena a top priority.”

I say thanks, political leaders. And congratulations. You got it exactly right this time.