Field of Schemes

November 30, 2006

Sonics: What the 49ers said

The Seattle Sonics are reportedly focusing their arena efforts on a site in suburban Bellevue - one whose main property holder is Cushman and Wakefield, the realty company in charge of searching out arena sites for the team. Gosh, don't know how that could have happened.

As for who would pay for this beast, Sonics owner Clay Bennett isn't talking, beyond saying he hopes to have a "preliminary economic model" done by the end of the year and that it would involve a "significant public investment." Whether Washington state legislators will be more eager to throw money at a sports team than Seattle voters remains to be seen; it's certainly happened before, though.

Meanwhile, Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels threw a twist into the arena debate by announcing that if the legislature gives money to the Sonics for a suburban arena, he'll demand money to rehab KeyArena to keep it "viable" and "financially solvent." Which makes sense, except that it's almost inconceivable that Seattle and Bellevue could find enough events to support two arenas in the same metro area - Minneapolis-St. Paul, which is basically the same size, had to dynamite its Met Center once the Target Center opened, to ensure one of them could be viable. So the state of Washington would be paying twice, to build two arenas, neither of which would be a benefit to taxpayers (beyond, presumably, assuring that the Sonics didn't move to Oklahoma). Two wrongs may sound equitable, but that doesn't make them, you know.

49ers: Soon, we promise

The owners of the San Francisco 49ers are promising to proposed initial guidelines in January for a new stadium in Santa Clara, which could cost between $600 million and $800 million. According to the San Jose Mercury News, "the guidelines are expected to include a timeline, a method for seeking resident feedback, the effect on neighboring Great America theme park and what sources of public money will be ruled out to help pay for the $600 million to $800 million stadium."

Up the peninsula, meanwhile, the San Francisco Chronicle has uncovered documents showing the 49ers were in secret negotiations with Santa Clara officials for more than a year before the team's recent surprise announcement that it was abandoning plans for a San Francisco stadium in favor of the South Bay. San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom charged that this revelation "does not indicate good faith," while 49ers officials say they were just trying to perform "due diligence"; San Francisco supervisor Tom Ammiano took the middle road, saying, "Was it disingenuous? Yes. But in my point of view, it's what's accepted as business practice and it's about the bottom line. That's the carnivorous part of it."

Finally, the San Francisco Bay Guardian reports that it seems the 49ers' waning passion for the Candlestick Point site was largely related to the fading housing market, and worries that the residential developer picked to build apartments alongside the proposed stadium couldn't make the finances work. "We're uncomfortable with the idea of Lennar paying for it, based on the current housing market," team CFO Larry MacNeil told the BG, also mentioning "the enormity of the garage, the decade-long duration of the project, and the need for state-enabling legislation" as reasons for ditching the site. Enormity?

November 28, 2006

Nationals to corporate America: Your name here

The Washington Nationals are about to put the naming rights for their new stadium up for sale, with an expected asking price between $4 million and $10 million a year, according to the Washington Post. And when I say "their" new stadium, I of course mean the one that will belong to the city of Washington, D.C., which, like New York City, will own the building but won't get squat from the sale of its name.

This shouldn't be news to anyone, but apparently it is to the folks at DCist, who note:

It's not so much that we should be surprised that the stadium may be named after a corporation - it's that the District won't see a penny of the money that the chosen corporation splashes all over the publicly financed $611 million project. Reads the article:
The District government is building the Nationals a new stadium in Southeast Washington, and the facility is scheduled to open in April 2008. Under the agreement that Major League Baseball reached with the District, the ballclub is entitled to all of the revenue from the naming rights to the stadium.
The provision was opposed by some local politicians, who said the city should receive any naming rights revenue. Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D), the stadium's main backer, said the naming rights were an important incentive for persuading baseball to locate a franchise in Washington and attract a buyer.
Apparently a fully funded stadium isn't incentive enough these days. Hmph.

Apparently not.

November 26, 2006

How is Newark like London? Cost overruns!

Cities on both sides of the Sea of Atlas are running into the problems of budgeting for sports construction projects, especially when there's a built-in incentive for officials to lowball costs:

An audit by the city of Newark revealed that the New Jersey Devils arena currently under construction will cost an extra $102 million for roads and infrastructure, bringing the total public cost to $312 million. In addition, the original cost estimates failed to consider "the costs of signing, extra policing, trash removal, and liability issues," according to auditor Paul Fader. But hey, what's a few police among friends?
The public cost of London's 2012 Summer Olympics is now up to 3.3 billion pounds (about $6.4 billion), thanks to soaring costs for security, management, and other trifles. In response, London mayor Ken Livingstone insisted that "Nothing's a mess. Everything's going exactly according to plan. These games will make a profit," while government spokesperson Don Foster snapped, "We should be celebrating it; I wish people frankly would shut up." Hmm. Is that the first stage or the second?

Also: Today London, tomorrow Halifax!

November 22, 2006

ESDC EIS snafu leaves Nets arena MIA

Get this: The proposed Brooklyn arena for the New Jersey Nets could have its approval delayed until 2007 - not because of opposition from state assembly speaker Sheldon Silver, as some had speculated, but because of a state clerical error. Seems the state-run Empire State Development Corporation neglected to include all the public comments into its final environmental impact statement as required by law before certifying it last week.

The ESDC says it's now conducting a "quality control review" of the FEIS - hopefully something involving a gorilla - but by the time it's been reprinted, re-reviewed, and recertified, it's likely to be January, and Gov. George Pataki will have given way to incoming Gov. Eliot Spitzer. While Spitzer isn't an opponent of the plan, he has said he has unspecified questions about its financing - which isn't exactly surprising, given that what we don't know about this project could fill volumes.

Add in that more and more Brooklyn elected officials are calling for the project to be delayed so it can be downsized, and it seems likely that Silver will do that anyway, especially if it only means putting off a vote of the state Public Authorities Control Board for a few weeks until Spitzer is in charge. All of which means that these guys are probably going to start getting a lot of phone calls from lobbyists in the near future.

November 21, 2006

The Hole That George Built

For those who've been wondering what the New York Yankees stadium construction site (before picture here) looks like these days, three months into construction, you can now feast your eyes on two new photos of the Hole That George Built, courtesy of my digital camera and the Village Voice Power Plays blog. Also included are my interviews with two residents of adjacent Jerome Avenue, who describe the dust that now blows over their neighborhood most days, along with such scenes as:

Touring the north end of the construction site along 164th Street, where a few remnant tennis courts will soon give way to a multi-story parking garage for Yankees players and execs, Hester notes, "I don't walk on that side because the rats are so fat." Since construction began, she says, overflowing trash cans and blowing debris have been the routine. "I'm from the old school, where you teach your kids to pick up your garbage."

Curbed.com also gave the piece a nice link, while telling readers to expect "the palpable taste of dust as you read." I think that's a compliment.

Miami eyes new Marlins site

City-vs-suburbs battles really are all the rage this week: Now it's Miami-Dade County reopening discussions of building a stadium for the Florida Marlins. The county has identified a new downtown site, says county manager George Burgess, that would cost less because it's already publicly owned; however, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel notes, "the county would need to find an alternate site for a new Children's Courthouse for juvenile and dependency cases, which is planned for the location." Which would cost money. So it wouldn't really be cheaper, though it might look cheaper because the money would come out of the courthouse budget, not the stadium budget.

Added the Sun-Sentinel:

Burgess would not discuss how the financing might work at the new Miami location, but said it would need to include participation from the county, city of Miami, the Marlins and, if possible, the state.

Isn't this where we came in?

Anoka County to Vikes: Don't let the door hit you

So much for that $800 million Minnesota Vikings stadium that no one knew how to pay for: Yesterday Anoka County officially pulled the plug on its three-year-old stadium campaign, paving the way for many bad failed-relationship metaphors.

The final straw apparently came this weekend when news broke that Minneapolis was seriously exploring building a new stadium for the Vikings. When team owner Zygi Wilf failed to respond to a letter from the county seeking "exclusivity," county officials issued a statement withdrawing their stadium offer.

So much, it seems, for the Vikes playing off Minneapolis against the suburbs. "This is not a happy day out here," team stadium czar Lester Bagley told the St. Paul Pioneer Press. Given that there's even less indication where the money for a downtown stadium might come from, I can imagine this is not a good day for Vikings management's happiness meter.

November 19, 2006

Weekend update: Vikes plot to play off cities, and other stories

For some reason last week was a busy one in the stadium and arena world - trying to beat the Thanksgiving rush? Some of the items that evaded the FoS purse seine news net:

Minneapolis' Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission has hired a consultant to explore building a retractable-roofed stadium for the Vikings on the site of the Metrodome. While Vikings owner Zygi Wilf is so far noncommittal, the St. Paul Pioneer Press notes that "the team is happy to let Minneapolis and Anoka County compete" to build him a new $800 million stadium. Of course they are.
NBA commissioner David Stern has announced he's taking over the campaign for a new Sacramento Kings arena. "Although I have a full-time job, it dawned on me that there's really nothing more important than this," Stern told the Sacramento Bee. So far, the commissioner has phoned California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, and booked flights to Sacramento in December "for a series of as-yet unscheduled meetings," according to the Bee. Next up: Stern flips through Christmas catalogs from arena construction companies!
Sports Illustrated columnist Jonah Freedman lauds the owners of the New York Yankees, New York Mets, and Oakland A's for planning stadiums plans to build new stadiums for the Yankees, Mets and A's, respectively, and these new projects that will be "financed with a majority of funding from private sources" - ignoring the fact that the Mets and Yanks will be getting so much in hidden public subsidies that they could end up paying less for their "privately financed" stadiums than taxpayers, and that A's owner Lew Wolff has hinted that he'll seek major tax breaks as well. Sports owners have no better friends than journalists who don't read the fine print.
Though they've lined up a prospective owner for an NHL franchise (William "Boots" Del Biaggio III, who had previously sought to buy the Pittsburgh Penguins), officials of Anschutz Entertainment Group now say it's "highly unlikely" that they'll have an anchor tenant lined up for Kansas City's Sprint Center by the time it opens next fall. Told you so!
There was much activity on the Brooklyn Nets arena front, with the final environmental impact statement being issued and rumors flying about whether state assembly speaker Sheldon Silver, who killed the Manhattan Jets stadium, will delay or force changes to the Nets plan as well. For more details than anyone could possibly need, including plans for a lawsuit challenging the results of the FEIS, see Norman Oder's comprehensive Atlantic Yards Report blog.

November 17, 2006

Yanks parks, garages still AWOL

Even as a federal judge rejected a lawsuit against the National Park Service over the New York Yankees stadium plan, on the grounds that "the residents of the South Bronx will have a complete replacement of all parkland facilities torn down as a result of construction," Metro NY reports that construction of that parkland is already behind schedule. Reports Metro's Patrick Arden:

According to this timeline, put together by the city's Economic Development Corporation, one temporary track was supposed to have opened in July, and construction was set to begin in October and November on another interim track, a temporary ballfield and tennis courts on a waterfront "esplanade."

Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion assured reporters just before the stadium groundbreaking, "Over the next few months, there will be a new track and there will be new fields - artificial turf baseball fields, soccer fields - right in the immediate vicinity of the new stadium."

So far those promises have not been kept. As recently as two weeks ago, the Parks Dept. promised Community Board 4 construction would begin in November, but apparently contractors have not been solicited. "We have not bid out anything yet," said Parks Dept. spokesman Warner Johnston. The first park facilities won't be available until the spring.

Arden also reports that after a year's search, the city still hasn't found a developer willing to spend $250 million to build four new parking garages, and doesn't expect to until next year sometime. The city promises that taxpayers won't be left on the hook for the extra quarter-billion dollar outlay, but given that the numbers didn't pencil out when it was only going to be $160 million, you have to wonder.

I've also received reports that the city may be considering scrapping one of the garages, though the Parks Department, which has been assigned the task of finding a garage developer, wouldn't comment on this possibility. That could save construction costs, but would almost certainly reduce the ground rent that the city would collect from the garages - costing taxpayers on the back end. It seems very likely that we still don't know the final public cost of this project.

November 15, 2006

A's to seek tax-increment financing?

Hidden in the midst of long article in the San Francisco Chronicle about how the Oakland A's are about to become the "San Jose A's of Fremont" - a suggestion that, it's worth noting, made Bud Selig's already-sour look even more sour at yesterday's press conference - was this tidbit from the A's press release about the stadium:

The public assistance sought will be in the form of processing the development activity in the most efficient manner possible, the agreement that benefits generated solely by the development will in part or in total be used to facilitate the development program in a manner that will not impose on general fund or bonding issues or local government and other aspects of public-private cooperation that will stand the test of public acceptance.

If that middle section - "benefits generated solely by the development will in part or in total be used to facilitate the development program" - isn't code for a TIF, I'll eat my hat.

A TIF, you'll recall, short for "tax-increment financing," is when a city kicks back all new property tax (and sometimes sales tax) revenue generated by a project to the project's developer, under the theory that "if it didn't get built, we wouldn't have it anyway." It's a line of reasoning that ignores the fact that property taxes are used to pay for services - say, the roads, schools, fire and police protection, etc., needed to support a stadium and condo complex. (TIFs were previously proposed for the New York Jets' Manhattan stadium project, among other things.) Add in the fact that the city gives up the possibility of the land being developed by someone who'll actually pay their taxes, and little wonder that TIFs have been criticized as corporate subsidies by another name.

In my Baseball Prospectus article today, I posed the question of whether the A's stadium would turn out to be "an innovative way to fund a new stadium without draining the public purse" or "an epic land dodge to increase the value of a piece of worthless property by using a ballclub as the bait." The Vegas odds now favor the latter.

A's announce plans to build teeny-tiny stadium

The Oakland A's held their news conference yesterday to announce plans for a new stadium in Fremont, and the details are ... well, they didn't exactly say. Most of the day was taken up with bland pronouncements from A's owner Lew Wolff and MLB commish Bud Selig ("This stadium will not only reflect the latest in everything, but it will reflect a unique sensitivity to fans"), plus executives from Cisco Systems - the networking-supplies company that will provide land, technology, and the name for "Cisco Field" - showing off various techie gewgaws such as the ability to buy tickets and food with your handheld PDA.

In actual news about the stadium - and its financing - there wasn't plenty of it:

The stadium will be even smaller than reported, between 30,000 and 34,000 seats, making it easily the smallest in the majors. As the San Jose Mercury News noted, this will "keep fans close to the field, provide an intimate feel, make single-game tickets scarce and keep up demand for season ticket sales." All noble goals, surely, though one could argue that making tickets scarce will keep some fans closer to their TV sets than to the field.
Asked if he could say how much public money he'd want for the stadium project, estimated to cost between $400 million and $500 million, Wolff replied: "No, I can't. ... This is primarily a private activity, but we'll use both process and entitlements to come up with a financial plan to be presented to the city of Fremont [and] Alameda County." Anyone with access to a real-estate-developer-to-English version of Babelfish, please contact me immediately.
The question of how on earth fans will get to the stadium (or residents to the accompanying condos) when the only highway running past the site is already jammed to the gills is "a valid one," said Wolff. He added that he'd seek "input from the community" on this, which to the conspiracy-minded might have sounded suspiciously like "Go ask your Uncle BART for money."
As for the name of the team, that won't be decided for "at least two or three years," according to Wolff. (The A's owner said he hoped to have the stadium ready for business between 2010 and 2012.) He also indicated that the team name would include the words "of Fremont," though opinions differed on whether he was serious - the fact that he immediately suggested "Omaha A's of Fremont" as one possibility lending credence to the not-serious camp.

Wolff apparently still hasn't shared any details of his plan with Fremont or Alameda County officials, some of whom were less than awed by yesterday's dog-and-pony show. Fremont councilmember Bob Wieckowski told the Mercury News: "The worst thing you want to do is say, 'This is the greatest thing' when you have no idea what you're talking about." Dude, you could so never make it as a real-estate developer.

D.C. council okays garages

As predicted, the D.C. city council yesterday voted 10-3 to spend $36 million to build three parking garages alongside the new Washington Nationals stadium. By eliminating space for retail or housing development, Mayor-elect Adrian Fenty's plan is projected to keep D.C. under the $611 million spending cap it approved in March.

Of course, as the three council dissenters noted, it also eliminates the possibility of bringing in new city revenues from retail and housing projects. This points out one of the problems of having a spending cap rather than a subsidy cap: Spending extra now to recoup more money later isn't allowed - just as selling off future revenue streams to reduce the city's up-front cash outlay would have been encouraged. I probably harp on this too much, but I can't really say it enough: When evaluating stadium and arena deals, you have to look at the back end, not just the up-front costs.

The new garage plan will meet D.C.'s contractual obligation to provide 1,225 parking spaces at the new stadium, but still leaves the city far short of its goal of 9,000 new spaces for Nats fans. That could be taken as a good incentive for fans to take mass transit instead - except that the Navy Yard Metro station is too small to accommodate the expected crowds. But hey, maybe D.C. officials were right, and having to wait for the train will help encourage fans to mill around and patronize all those retail establishments next door ... d'oh!

November 14, 2006

Vikes stadium cost tops $800m

The proposed $675 million Minnesota Vikings stadium in suburban Blaine is now an $800 million stadium, according to Anoka County commissioner Dan Erhart. As a result, Erhart said, the project cannot be done without state funds, on top of the county sales-tax hike that was previously proposed.

Why the big increase? As the Minneapolis Star Tribune explains:

Erhart said that the $675 million plan submitted to the Legislature last spring was based on projections calculated nearly two years earlier - costs that were never updated with inflationary prices.

And while that figure included a retractable roof that Anoka County projected to cost $115 million, Wilf said construction and operation of the roof would cost at least $200 million. Erhart's $800 million estimate, which Anoka County is trying to fine-tune before it submits stadium costs to the Vikings, includes a retractable roof.

And if that weren't enough, the projected $115 million that would be needed to improve roads around the stadium - money that would expect to come from the feds or the state - now carries an estimated price tag of $270 million, and the state does not consider it a spending priority. According to the Star Trib: "Erhart said he could not say whether the $800 million would cover infrastructure expenses."

In any case, needing any state money at all could be a huge problem for the Vikings, considering that the Twins only got their stadium approved after 11 years of waiting via a complicated maneuver by which the county put up all the funds, while the state exempted the county from a required public referendum. Rolling in Metrodome demolition money might help, but if the nut is really $1.07 billion dollars, that's going to be hard to find under the sofa cushions.

The Oakland A's have scheduled their press conference to announce plans for a new stadium in Fremont for 11:30 am Pacific time today - and you can watch it live via the Internet on oaklandathletics.com! Right now there's nothing there but a big picture of a grinning Lew Wolff, but the A's swear at 11:30 just load up the main page, and it'll be a news conference, really!

The D.C. city council is expected today to approve a scaled-down parking garage plan to serve the new Washington Nationals stadium. This is largely the same plan that was rejected by the D.C. council last month; by eliminating steel reinforcements so that the garages could later be expanded to include retail outlets or housing, mayor-elect Adrian Fenty trimmed $20 million from the expected cost, which was apparently enough to sway some council opponents.

In related news, would-be garage developer Herbert Miller filed a $40 million lawsuit against the city yesterday, charging that he was wrongfully terminated from the garages-wrapped-in-condos project that will now not be built. The council might not want to spend that $20 million in savings just yet.

Presumably somebody got the word that the U.S. Olympic Committee wouldn't be too happy with a repeat of the New York debacle. The U.S. 2016 candidates are now down to Los Angeles and Chicago, which has its own dubious stadium plan to worry about.

Baseball officials have confirmed that the New York Mets have sold the naming rights for their new stadium to Citigroup for at least $20 million a year, double the previous record for a naming-rights deal, the $10 million a year the Houston Texans get for Reliant Stadium. The agreement, which will result in the stadium being dubbed CitiField, will be officially announced at the stadium's groundbreaking ceremony on Monday.

Thirty years at $20 million a year is worth about $275 million in present value, meaning the Citigroup deal will cover about 80% of the Mets' construction costs. As for the city of New York, which is putting up about $200 million towards the project and will actually own the building, its take will be: bupkis. Under the lease deals cut with the Mets and Yankees, the teams keep all stadium revenues, including those from naming rights. (Though the Yankees have said they won't sell the name of their stadium, they almost certainly will sell rights to name major entrances, seating sections, etc.)

U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein and U.S. House Rep. Nancy Pelosi - who apparently doesn't have anything better to do with her time - have arm-twisted San Francisco 49ers owner John York into reopening talks for a new stadium in San Francisco, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. "The doors definitely are not closed in San Francisco, and we are continuing to talk to the city to see what we can work out," 49ers spokesperson Lisa Lang told the paper.

San Francisco Gavin Newsom sounded less than thrilled, though, about the turn of events. As the Chronicle coyly put it:

State assemblymember Mark Leno, meanwhile, announced he'd introduce legislation allowing the San Francisco Board of Supervisors to block any sports team that does not play within the city limits from using San Francisco's name. Given that "San Jose 49ers" doesn't have quite the same cachet as the current moniker, let's just say it'd be an interesting arrow to put in the city's quiver.

According to the San Jose Mercury News, York issued a statement that while the team would keep the "San Francisco" name, the planned site next to whatever they're calling Candlestick Park these days would be too expensive to outfit with the necessary infrastructure to support a stadium plus residential development. And to think, it only took them nine years to figure this out!

A parking lot across the street from the 49ers offices in Santa Clara had reportedly already been under consideration as a backup stadium site, should the Candlestick Point location fall through. No word on how financing would work for a Santa Clara stadium - San Francisco was reportedly to contribute the $100 million approved in 1997 plus unspecified "infrastructure" costs - but the team said it didn't expect to have the stadium ready by 2012, which would indicate that things are still in the early planning stages.

As the nation pores over Code of Virginia 24.2-800 through 24.2-802, there were a couple of sports-subsidy-related measures on the ballot yesterday, both of which went against the sports team owners:

The Sacramento Kings $470 million arena plan is headed for defeat by a "phenomenally high" margin, according to local pollster Cheryl Katz, with 67% of registered voters saying they planned to vote no on Measure R, the arena sales-tax hike, versus just 21% in favor. (Measure Q, the related referendum to take the cash and spend it on the Kings, lost 49%-39% in the poll.) "It's unusual to see a measure this lopsided," Katz told the Sacramento Bee. "You have a virtual supermajority, two-thirds, in opposition to Measure R. ... It's really hard to find anyone in Sacramento County who hasn't been inundated with information about this plan. Familiarity seems to have bred contempt."

The apparent discrepancy: The News10 poll only asked whether registered voters thought a downtown sports arena was a "good idea," not how they planned to vote on the actual measures. And 55% of those polled thought that any arena should be built using entirely private money - something that is hardly true of the Kings plan.

Aside from the question of when "soon" might be, there are many other unknowns about the deal: What will it cost? Who will pay for it? What kind of development rights will A's owner Lew Wolff demand for the stadiumside condos he wants to build, and will he try to sneak in any other public costs? Did the A's agree to the city of Fremont's demand to pay for the added fire and police services a stadium would require? How will anyone get to the games if the region doesn't build a BART extension?

Apparently there is a point where they'll punt. The New York Giants and Jets intend to bail on their plans for a new $1.2 billion stadium if the NFL doesn't provide them with $300 million from its G-3 loan program, according to the Newark Star-Ledger. The NFL typically provides up to $150 million per team from the fund, but hasn't yet ruled on whether the Giants and Jets would be allowed to pool their G-3 money for a single stadium.

Writes the Star-Ledger's Matt Futterman: "The Giants and Jets have spent months studying how to finance their planned $1.2 billion stadium with or without the money from the NFL, but they have privately concluded the project will be too expensive and risky without the league's support" - in part because of rising labor and construction material costs that could end up adding as much as half a billion dollars to the initial $800 million estimate just over a year ago.

This latest ultimatum puts the NFL over a barrel: While the league wants the New Jersey stadium built, there's also growing pressure from teams that haven't received G-3 money to stop subsidizing their competitors with league revenues. (The G-3 program was first put in place in 1999, primarily to get NFL teams to stop relocating from big markets to small ones in search of lucrative stadium deals that helped the teams but hurt the league's national media marketability.) "The facts and figures seem to show that maybe there's been a disparate effect - that the beneficiaries are the teams seeking the G-3 and the players, while the others, in this case 30 or 31 teams, are penalized - not intentionally - by a major increase in the player aspect of it without proper credit given," Kansas City Chiefs owner Lamar Hunt told Futterman.

Hunt added that the league might seek concessions from the players' union in order to help fund the New Jersey project. NFLPA officials were apparently not available to laugh and laugh and laugh for the record.

Oklahoma investment tycoon Clay Bennett, who officially took possession of the Seattle Sonics yesterday, has made clear his position on any public referendum on a new publicly funded basketball arena: He's agin' it. Elected officials need to show "leadership" and approve arena funding on their lonesome, Bennett told a group of local leaders yesterday, calling a potential public vote a "very difficult proposition and a very difficult achievement."

As for Initiative 91, the referendum to prohibit taxpayer funds for sports facilities that don't make back the public's investment, here's how the Seattle Times reported Bennett's remarks:

And by "you," he means politicians, not actual voters. Because that wouldn't be leadership.

"Wilf still focused on stadium drive; Vikings owner keeps Anoka County at top of his potential sites" was the headline in yesterday's St. Paul Pioneer Press. Not if you believe tonight's Associated Press report, which says that team owner Zygi Wilf is "looking hard" at building a new stadium in downtown Minneapolis instead of in the 'burbs.

Mayor Tom Ryan of Blaine, where the Anoka County stadium was supposed to go, told the AP: "It's not real promising, I can tell you."

The AP notes that a downtown Minneapolis site would have drawbacks (high land cost) as well as advantages (good public transit, "could fit into ongoing redevelopment of the Metrodome area," whatever that's worth). It would also likely face severe funding problems, given that Minneapolis voters passed a referendum in 1997 banning the city from spending more than $10 million on a sports stadium, and that Hennepin County is already saddled with the sales-tax hike it handed to the Twins last spring. But as that great Midwestern philopher noted, it's always good to have leverage.

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