Safeco Field's retractable roof "wouldn't open"
yesterday, "this time under suspicious circumstances,"
according to Neil Modie of the SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER,
who writes that the Mariners "immediately called reporters
and told them of the problem, which appeared to bolster" the
Mariners' "contention that the roof doesn't work." But
Modie notes that the Public Facilities District (PFD)
"offered up its own suspicions about why the roof failed to
open." PFD Exec Dir Ed Hunter said that "part of the
mechanism that drives the roof 'appears to have been
tampered with.'" Hunter added that a technician and two
roof operators "discovered that control cards had been
unplugged" from a control panel, and "once the control cards
were reinserted," the roof opened (SEATTLE P-I, 11/12). In
Seattle, Alex Fryer examined the feud between the Mariners
and PFD over the cost of Safeco Field and wrote that
Mariners CEO Howard Lincoln "has refused to meet with
members of the PFD." The team feels that the PFD "is too
cozy" with contractor Hunt-Kiewit and is "not looking out
for the public interest." But PFD officials "lambaste" the
team's N.Y.-based attorneys as "ignorant of what really
happened during construction" (SEATTLE TIMES, 11/10).
