Susan Russell, our 2014 vendor of the year, came to me a month ago upset. “I got a tip from a friend. Next month the Seattle City Council is going to hear public comment on the SODO basketball arena. How can we spend hundreds of millions on sports instead of on housing?” We looked up the months-old articles and tried to verify the dates, but we couldn’t find any current opposition to the arena. And later that week in our Vendor Organizing Committee meeting she told 15 vendor-advocates about this, and we decided yes, we’ll testify: build housing, not an arena. Three people volunteered to form a committee.
So now the flow of coverage has begun and on March 15 the Seattle City Council will discuss vacating a two-block area of Occidental Avenue to make way for an arena. Nostalgia for the Supersonics abounds, and traffic studies say that Occidental Avenue carries very little traffic on a daily basis. Critics point out that the Key Arena could be rehabilitated for a fraction of the cost and made suitable for NBA and NHL for the amount that billionaire hedge-fund investor Chris Hansen has offered toward a new arena. I’m monitoring the coverage, and with a committee of three, we are starting to build our analysis.
Tim Harris, veteran of so many city fights, reached out to friends to find the opposition camp from previous battles over this arena. So far we haven’t heard much from the Port of Seattle and the Teamsters on the traffic mess that would eliminate any supposed economic benefits, but with the Real Change office in Pioneer Square, we know all about the 40-minute wait for the bus after a game. We’ve literally walked faster than the cars could move. We will schedule a meeting with coalition partners to get briefed on their strategy.
We gathered our research. Study after study that shows sports subsidies rarely pay off in economic growth, instead shuffling entertainment dollars from one place to another over a distance measured in tens of miles. President Barack Obama’s 2017 budget proposes eliminating the federal tax exemption for bonds for professional sports facilities. Even if that proposal fails, as it did last year, it’s a statement of priorities.
And that’s what we’re going for, a statement of priorities. Just as Mayor Ed Murray comes to the city proposing $201 million in the Housing Levy for 2,150 affordable apartments, we are discussing bonding $200 million to pay for a sports arena for a team that hasn’t agreed to come in a league that isn’t expanding.
We recognize the Seattle City Council isn’t discussing the funding piece — yet — but there is symbolic as well as economic value in the street vacation. The city could stop spending money analyzing a venue on a fantasy team and move toward solving other problems. Seattle could shift away from corporate welfare toward caring for its most vulnerable citizens.
If more than 10,000 people in the county lost their homes in an earthquake, we wouldn’t be discussing an arena. We would be opening community centers and church basements for temporary shelter. Where is the urgency in our state of emergency?
By the time this article appears, we’ll have crafted email, Facebook and Twitter messages. Susan and others have been talking to their customers already. We’ll brief the vendor community on why we think this is true team spirit. We’ll call on the RC All Stars, those people who pledge to take five actions for economic, social and racial justice in a year. (You could become one, too, just go to bit.ly/rcallstar or buy a button from your vendor and send in the postcard).
The feeling of empowerment is palpable as we tell our stories, write testimony, practice timed speeches and share feedback. We take action because change can’t wait. Join us March 15 at 5:30 p.m. at City Hall, or contact the mayor and council to tell them an arena can wait.