Local officials have scheduled the first in a series of community meetings in Snohomish County to talk about the myths and realities of a NASCAR racetrack in case one is built here.
The meeting will be in Marysville but is open to anyone who has questions or concerns about the possibility that the International Speedway Corp. might choose a site in the county.
In addition to the community meetings, city and county officials plan to organize a task force to look at NASCAR issues, and hope some of those who have expressed opposition to a local track will participate, Marysville Mayor Dennis Kendall said.
International Speedway wants to build a track in the Pacific Northwest and is considering sites in several Washington counties, as well as in Oregon. The two favored Snohomish County sites are north of Marysville east of I-5 and south of Lakewood west of I-5.
Kendall and others from Marysville, Arlington and county government, along with three state legislators, including state Sen. Val Stevens, R-Arlington, recently went on a fact-finding trip to the California Speedway.
Stevens said the NASCAR track wasn’t as noisy outside as the Evergreen Speedway in Monroe, an older facility without many of the noise-absorbing features employed in modern tracks.
The local delegation spoke to city managers in Fontana and Ontario, Calif., about the effects the track had on their communities. Both agreed the track was the “engine that drove their economic development,” Kendall said.
They said the economic benefits of the track were triple what they had anticipated, and that many other businesses opened because of it.
“We’re looking at four days of racing over three weekends” if the track is built in Marysville, Kendall said. The city would be able to negotiate some of the races and refuse some it doesn’t want, he added.
Arlington City Councilman Ryan Larsen said he went to Fontana expecting the track to be noisy in surrounding neighborhoods, but instead it sounded like freeway drone.
“I was really caught off-guard,” Larsen said. “I really thought I would hear it.”
Senior policy analyst Paul Roberts, who represented County Executive Aaron Reardon, likened the event to a large county fair. The crowd was largely composed of families with children. Local charities were given space for food vending booths, which are big fund-raisers.
“That was something we hadn’t thought about,” Roberts said.
Linda Staswick of Snohomish County Citizens Against a Racetrack, or SCAR, was not impressed when told of some of the group’s impressions at Fontana.
“They went down with preconceived ideas,” Staswick said.
Members of SCAR have heard different stories about noise and traffic from people who lived near other tracks, she said. And not every track is as lucrative as proponents claim, she said.
Reporter Cathy Logg: 425-339-3437 or logg@heraldnet.com.
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