The Sonics have a deal for you! They need tax payers to cough up a quarter of $1 billion to spruce up Key Arena and for that, the basketball team will keep all of the money the arena makes, and pay the city $1 million a year to help cover rent.

Come again?

Ok, Howard Shultz, we'll do it...but only if you throw in an extra hot snake oil latte.

This newspaper joins with the Governor Christine Gregoire in hoping the city and the Seattle Supersonics basketball team come to closure on the issue of a lease at Key Arena. We'll go one step further and hope the Sonics leave.

As a distant second, we whole-heartedly support removing from office any city or state legislator, during the next available election, who would support fleecing taxpayers with another pro sports venue.

What would be the down side if the Sonics left? The mayor says we need a tenant for Key Arena, the heart of the Seattle Center. If we can't find one, the mayor warns, our mortgage payments might force us to cut back on other city services like libraries, or fire trucks, or cops.

The mayor should have more confidence in our ability to find quality tenants for the facility. More importantly, the mayor should have more confidence in the voters who put him in office. If, hat in hand, the mayor has to ask for more money because an empty Key Arena is becoming a financial drag, won't we continue to show the support, as we have in the past, for the city's need for quality libraries, plenty of green spaces and law and order? Wouldn't that be an easier sell than the "need" to cave into the demands of millionaire basketball team owners and their brusque demands?

But wouldn't the loss of the Sonics erode this city's world-class status? Isn't a city without a troika of professional sports a barren cultural landscape?

Please. Imagine San Francisco, a city often compared with Seattle, suddenly bereft of Barry Bonds. Aside from a slight dip in employment because of the loss of his vast coterie, the city would survive. Even now, that city has no basketball team and their San Francisco 49ers are the laughing stock of the National Football League. For all that, what U.S. city can look down its nose at San Francisco?

We join with the governor in hoping there's a speedy solution to the question of the Seattle Supersonics and Key Arena, and while we're on the topic of the governor, we suggest she spend more time contemplating solutions for our eviscerated public school system and less time writing letters about the Sonics.

If Seattle wants to keep its world-class reputation - the one built, in part, on the kind of forward-thinking political leadership that the mayor himself has been an example of, then it should be concerned with safer streets and a viable transportation network. The real risk to this city's reputation is capitulating to a group of disrespectful, money-grubbing charlatans.