By Ken Robinson

Managing Editor

From up here on the hill, some of the antics of officials in the valley below strike us as odd. The most recent  example is the frothing over luring a hockey team to Seattle. And rebuilding Key Arena so young men have a place slap a puck around.

We held our own naming contest and the winner is The Seattle Fishsticks. This name was chosen because it is emblematic of the fish history of our town and the addition of a sport involving sticks to hit things with.  Baseball uses a stick, too, but only until the player gets on base. In hockey, a player carries his stick like a sword while he is on the ice.

At the same time that investors are racing ahead to get the arena ready, the Mariners are racing to rename the stadium we paid for so they can make money playing baseball. Times columnist Danny Westneat nailed the conflict. Why don’t the taxpayers get to choose a new name of the facility they paid for instead of allowing a private business to choose a name and charge millions for the right.

The rich guys who are sprucing up the Key Arena (remember when the Bubbleator was there during the Seattle World’s Fair?) must have visions of sugar plums  even after discovering that it is going to cost more than estimated to fancy the place up.

Mayor Durkan and the sitting council are happy to take out-of-town money and have found ways to accommodate the investors in advance of  an impending crush of traffic that will accompany activities there. But like the baseball and football venues that now dominate the developed area south of downtown,these public (really private) things feel like they have been jammed into existence (and when they finish the current sports facilities by putting a skin of the architecturally hideous frame of the buildings, which have that oh so temporary look).

Does everything have to go downtown?