Op-Ed: Sonics Arena deal doesn't do enough to protect jobs

Guest — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 04:04:15 +0000

Guest (not verified) Tue, 09/18/2012 - 9:04pm

Editor’s note: This opinion is written by Save Our Sodo, which is co-chaired by Max Vekich, a marine clerk in Seattle, and Warren Aakervik, the owner of Ballard Oil, a small business in Seattle for the past 75 years

As a grassroots group of people with concerns about the proposed Sodo site for a new arena, we were excited to hear the City Council’s lofty rhetoric last week when announcing a deal with potential NBA owner Chris Hansen.

The council members said they had reached a deal with Hansen that would protect Port of Seattle operations, family-wage jobs in the maritime industry and also require a thorough and unbiased study of alternate arena sites.

So we were greatly disappointed several hours later when the text of the revised memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the city and Hansen was released to the public. Instead of a deal that protects jobs, we have a deal that has a good chance of killing thousands of jobs. Instead of a deal that will study alternate sites in a thorough and unbiased manner, we have a deal that is overwhelmingly favored toward the arena being built in Sodo.

Instead of a genuine environmental-impact statement (EIS), the deal will allow a sham of an EIS that will do nothing to stop the irreversible momentum of a future Sodo arena. Never mind where the best site for an NBA and NHL arena may be in the Seattle area; the arena deal reached by the City Council has no concerns for that. Under the MOU, the Sodo site, rather than a possibility, is an inevitability.

In a meeting two days after the arena deal was announced and the opposition had raised concerns, some council members had good words to say about ensuring that the EIS is unbiased and studies multiple alternate arena sites, not just Sodo and Seattle Center.

The tens of thousands of people who rely on freight mobility and an efficient Seattle maritime industry will have to hope that in the months ahead, these words turn into action. Without an MOU that protects our interests, all we can rely on is the intangible: the City Council’s good faith and a commitment to an independent environmental review.

Ballard in Mayor's plan to fund light rail study

Guest — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 18:24:04 +0000

Guest (not verified) Tue, 09/18/2012 - 11:24am

Light rail or another form of high capacity transit could be coming to Ballard in the future

Photo by VeloBusDriver (Flickr/CC)

Last week, Mayor Mike McGinn announced an ambitious plan to dedicate $6 million to study light rail and high capacity transit which would connect various neighborhoods in Seattle.

Ballard is a part of that deal.

In the 2012-13 budget proposal that he will announce to City Council on Monday, Sept. 24, $500,000 is dedicated to studying a north/south pedestrian, bike and transit crossing of the ship canal, one of the most constrained choke points in Seattle. (Anyone waiting for the Ballard Bridge to go back down can attest to this.)

The Transit Master Plan identifies that a high capacity route from downtown to Ballard via Fremont has the highest ridership potential.

"You could see the excitement on everyone's faces at last month's groundbreaking for Sound Transit's Northgate Link light rail line," McGinn said in a press release. "Families, commuters, and business owners came out to celebrate the coming of rail to the University District, Roosevelt, and Northgate. It's no surprise. Seattle loves rail. The question for our region is no longer if we are going to build rail, but when is it getting to your neighborhood."

The $6 million budget will also include:

$2 million to fund a corridor analysis of a future downtown to University District high-capacity transit line via Eastlake. If approved by the City Council, this work would begin next year.
Funding a $1 million corridor analysis of a Madison Street BRT line.
Funding a $2.5 million TMP Investment Reserve to fund the local match for the next phase of design work on this top corridor, starting in 2014.