Seattle City Council pretending to study arena options

This is a rather ludicrous exercise in political theater: a Seattle City Council committee is working to find the best option for a future sports arena. As of now, the only two options on the table are redeveloping KeyArena and building a new SoDo arena.

Related: KeyArena proponents will bury traffic impact

The council has already decided it’s going to redevelop the KeyArena. So why waste time on a committee?

What has changed since the council voted not to vacate Occidental Avenue in SoDo, thus killing the chances of a new arena? Investor Chris Hansen has stated he’d privately finance the entire project. But that hasn’t seemed to move any of the council members who stood in the way of arena and Seattle Mayor Ed Murray seems to want the KeyArena proposal to pass. Why have a committee at all? To pretend you’re looking at all the options? Just take a position instead of dragging out the inevitable.

By any subjective review, only SoDo makes sense. And I say that as someone who doesn’t like basketball and doesn’t particularly want any arena in Seattle (I prefer the Eastside or Tukwila options). But there are indisputable facts here: 1) there’s virtually no parking and 2) traffic would be at a standstill. No matter how many committees you convene, these two facts won’t be resolved.

“In our RFP, we’ve been very clear that we expect innovative proposals from potential bidders on the transportation,” said Brian Surratt, director of Seattle’s Office of Economic Development, to The Seattle Times.

So far, one of the “innovative proposals” indicates the Monorail is going to help solve the traffic problem. That is, of course, completely laughable. (I should also note that the Port of Seattle Commission president has a financial stake in the Monorail; the Port is against the SoDo arena.)

Nothing any of us say will likely change the council’s mind on this. But something you can do will have an impact: vote out council members who take a KeyArena stance (whether they’re doing it because they don’t want to placate union interest in disrupting plans in SoDo or because they think it’ll force more public dollars to light rail to service KeyArena). Donate to candidates who will promote SoDo. If this is a topic that moves you, act like it with your vote.

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