It seems like only yesterday when falling ceiling tiles in the Kingdome sparked a significant intensification of demands for a new building for the Seahawks. Then owner Ken Behring used the argument of poor city maintenance as part of his demand to leave Seattle and pack up for Anaheim.
One crazy theory brought up to me a couple of weeks ago is that the ORIGINAL Safeco field funding package included money for a substantial repair/renovation of the Kingdome. Had that package been approved the repairs would have been funded, the Kingdome would have been repaired and renovated, and likely still been the home of the Seattle Seahawks.
In this perfect world the approved tax package would have meant less backlash against funding of arenas. Additionally the Qwest Feild debt would not exist AND there would be a potential interum home for the Sonics in a Key Arena remodel. Greatly increasing the chances that we would not be in the messy situation we currently find ourselves in.
Its great to talk about perfect world theories, but my big concern with a burning scoreboard was a claim by ownership, similar to Behrings, that the city lease should be terminated, or at the very least qualified for expedited arbitration due to city neglect.
Just to put everybody's minds at ease I made a quick review of the lease:
Page 30, Section F
SSI Maintenance and Rpair of SSI-Provided or Installed Equipment:
SSI Shall be responsible for providing or performing all maintenance, repair, and replacement of equipment that is provided by or installed by or for SSI Pursuant to Subsection IX.D.1.
Page 26 Section IX.D.1
Scoreboard and Time Clock Facilities
...SSI Shall provide and have installed in teh Coliseum, at SSI's sole expense, the following equipment:
a) a center court scoreboard having at least four sides usable for professional and amatuer basketball, hockey, wrestling, andt tennis game or match statistics....
In other words, the team installed the scoreboard, the team is responsible for maintenance of the scoreboard. Good news.