Going out shortly...
As many of you know Save Our Sonics engaged in a productive and courteous meeting with Governor Gregoire yesterday. We appreciate the time she took to address our issue.
During this meeting the governor expressed to us her strong commitment to the Seattle SuperSonics. While she advised that a special legislative session would not present a solution at this time she pledged to make every effort to express the states support of an NBA team in time for the upcoming owners meetings next week.
For more than a year State Leadership has failed to offer a credible solution for the Sonics arena problem. During this time the City of Seattle has developed a well thought out plan which includes willing local ownership, large private contributions, and a timeline to present this matter to the NBA Board of Governors. The only obstacle to this plan has been the lack of action on a state level. Now, just days before this board of governors meeting it is up to the Governor to lend her support by providing an unequivocal state commitment to authorize Seattle to raise the final $75m, strong enough for the city literally to take to the bank.
We stressed the time sensitivity of this issue and strongly urged her to immediately engage in dialogue with the city of Seattle to create an interim plan which met the cities needs. Any solution she proposes must present a sufficiently unequivocal commitment to allow the city to make a presentation to the NBA Board of Governors next week.
As we enter the weekend this communication between the state and city has, to the best of our knowledge not yet been resolved. With each moment it becomes more urgent that this issue be addressed in a matter of hours, rather than multi-day delays. It is unfortunate that we are all attempting to address this issue in the eleventh hour. However, as a reality of the current situation a sense of urgency is essential and it is our expectation that in short order the governor’s office will have reached an agreement with the city sufficient to allow them to present a unified plan.
We hope that the Governor will be working throughout the weekend and will await nothing less than tangible action taken on Monday. Her leadership is essential on this issue and failure is not an option.