Field of Schemes
sports stadium news and analysis

  

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March 29, 2005

Promises, promises

There's a new twist in the tale of Paul Allen, scofflaw. As you'll recall, the Seattle Seahawks owner (and Microsoft billionaire) agreed to report his team's annual profits as part of the deal that gave him $300 million in public money for a new football stadium; instead, he's been reporting only the finances of the shell corporation that manages the stadium.

Last year, as state attorney general, Christine Gregoire said she'd sue to force Allen to open his books, but her office didn't have the money. Now that Gregoire has been elected governor, reports Callaghan:

Last week, Gregoire released her spending and tax proposal. I searched for the appropriation that would allow the new attorney general to enforce the auditorís findings against the stadium authority and Allen.
It wasn't there. Nor was it in the Senate Democrat budget that was released Monday.

Callaghan writes that he has sympathy for politicians' plight of having to "choose between making the aforementioned billionaire mad or appearing to let a billionaire break the law. But what I have no sympathy for is the apparent solution to their dilemma ñ make public statements about the need for everyone, regardless of net worth, to obey the law while doing nothing to require everyone, regardless of net worth, to obey the law."

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