Field of Schemes
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June 13, 2006

Seattleites on Sonics: Let 'em walk

A poll of Seattle residents has found that 78 percent would rather let the Sonics leave Seattle than pay for arena upgrades with tax money. Those polled were far more willing to put money into needed vity transportation improvements, even if it meant raising taxes.

That's a pretty overwhelming indication of public opinion - wouldn't you say so, deputy mayor Tim Ceis?

"When you frame it that way, 'Do you want to pay taxes to build an arena or have them leave Seattle?' I think that's a pretty crude way. That much ambiguity isn't going to elicit a very positive response no matter what."

Actually, given that there's no guarantee the Sonics would leave without arena renovations - they've threatened to, certainly, but we've heard that kind of thing before - if anything the phrasing of the question would tend to skew responses toward support for arena funds. But maybe deputy mayors have a different definition of "ambiguity" than the rest of us.

COMMENTS

In Minnesota, the common complaint about the stadium polls was that they didn't mention the consequence of the team leaving. Most thought that omission skewed the results toward the negative.

Posted by spycake on June 17, 2006 05:56 PM

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