Why is that school supporters always attempt to make it an argument about funding schools vs. funding for sports stadiums. Sports fans never argue that we are providing too much money for schools. Why can’t we have both. I agree that teachers are underpaid and that class sizes need to be smaller. We also need more innovation in our schools and more effective methods in teaching.
State legislators didn’t overturn the will of the voters with regard to funding Safeco Field and Qwest Field by funding those two stadiums. The voters a rejected a sales tax increase to pay for those two facilities. The state implemented taxes on hotels and restaurants. Now the stadiums are funded by mostly tourists and not state residents. In addition, some of these tourists or business people will stay additional days to take in sports events and increasing the money they spend while in Seattle. The stadiums are revenue generators because of the taxes that are assessed on tickets and franchise fees paid by vendors, regardless of the financial condition of the sports teams.
A 1 percent fee or tax on the Seattle Mariners as proposed by Christine Johnson-Duell in a guest column appearing in The Seattle Times on April 27 is absurd. The Mariners lost 101 games last year and also lost millions of dollars at the gate. This makes as much sense as taxing Boeing, Amazon or Microsoft, all of which lost money in the past year’s economy. I support that we should keep funding our stadiums by taxing visitors to our state and not funding them by state taxpayers. As for school funding, we should thank our gutless legislators for not addressing the problem.
Stan Terry
Shoreline
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