In Seattle, the "logjam stalling legislation" to finance a
$250M stadium for the Mariners may have been broken this week as
the state House took steps closer to passing the Stadium Bill.
On Tuesday, a special House stadium committee agreed to remove
what was considered one of the "main obstacles" to a new stadium:
a proposal to tie financing the stadium to a request for $100M to
expand the Washington State Convention Center. It was "unclear,"
however, whether the House would also remove the stadium issue
from a King County request for help in repaying a $65M loan for
repairs to the Kingdome (Angelo Bruscas, SEATTLE POST-
INTELLIGENCER, 4/12). In addition, a bill to create a public
facilities district to finance construction of a new stadium "was
working its way through" the state House, but still awaited a
vote. The district would have special taxing power independent
of King County, increasing the county's sales and use tax by .1%.
The tax, however, would still have to be approved by voters. The
stadium bill now moves into a joint House-Senate conference
committee and must be approved by the Senate before going to the
governor, who reportedly supports the proposed project (Angelo
Bruscas, SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER, 4/14).
