There has been much coverage lately of the proposed NASCAR track that Marysville and Snohomish County officials are trying to lure to the area.
Much has been said about the lack of a guarantee by International Speedway Corp. officials that a Nextel race will be held at the track if it’s built here. Even if one of the Nextel races is scheduled for the track, there’s no guarantee it can’t be moved elsewhere if the ISC believes such a move is in the best interest of NASCAR. Although no one from the ISC will discuss funding of the facility at the present time, all other tracks built in the recent past were built with significant concessions in the form of tax breaks to ISC and changes to infrastructure, paid for by the taxpayers of the state where the track was built.
Let’s look back to when the Seattle Mariners were threatening to leave Seattle unless they got a new stadium. Taxpayers helped foot the bill and the Mariners guaranteed they would not leave if a stadium were built. However one may feel about that arrangement, at least the primary users of Safeco Field agreed they would not leave the area once the stadium was built. The ISC will not make such a guarantee. They want a new sports complex, they likely will want us to pay for a significant portion of it and they will not guarantee a prime Nextel event in return.
Do you think Safeco Field would have been built if the Mariners didn’t agree to a long-term commitment to the state? I think not. So why would anyone consider building another major sports complex, using taxpayer money, without an ironclad agreement that the primary user will utilize the facility for the foreseeable future?
Bill Brown
Arlington
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