Here is Mayor McGinn's State of the City Address.
It was a kitchen sink speech, stretching about 45 minutes long (roughly).
He redressed the arena at the bottom of page 2 very briefly:
Nine months ago we were approached by Chris Hansen to explore options to build an arena in Seattle. I am going to talk about that later in the speech. But I want you to know that when anyone approaches us asking for our help to invest in our city, we take it seriously. You don't have to be looking to bring a basketball team home.
And then again near the end on the bottom of page 9/ top of page 10, in a 4 point statement:
I mentioned the arena at the top of this. If successful, this project means hundreds of millions of dollars of private investment – an investment that means even more during our city’s fragile recovery.
I want to reiterate a few of the key points regarding this proposal:1. No new taxes will be required. The arena will be self-financed.
2. Only taxes generated from construction and operation will be used for the project. In other words, it is funded by revenue that only exists because of the arena.
3. The public will be protected by contractual guarantees from the investment group, backed up by securities placed in escrow.
4. The teams will enter into a binding non-relocation agreement until the arena financing is fully repaid.If no teams come, no arena will be built.
We are putting that proposal in front of a citizen panel, and the Council will have their chance to review the proposal too. I look forward to the day we can stand up together and say to the NBA: this is a good deal for Seattle and we are ready for the Sonics to return.
Lots of suits there today, at times McGinn was reading from his iPad with a focus that slowed down and deadened his voice. Other points in his speech he was heads up and more engaging. Lucky for you he was more engaging when speaking about the arena proposal (and the Amazon project, and the SLU redundant power substation for the high tech and bio research companies, and Brooks athletic relocating it's headquarters in Freemont).
The speech was part an inventory of hard work that needs to be done (social justice, schools, neighborhoods), and aspirational (see above, as well as how well the city is doing, growing, when so many other cities are not).
In this overall context the arena message, although short, fit into a broader vision of people wanting to come here to visit and live, quality of life, etc.
Not too bad, but maybe too late for his candidacy.
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Yes, I was there, green short sleeve shirt (Pete Holmes was a couple seats away from me, on the groom's side of the event.)
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I am repeating Brian's plea for your support, it is important that we are all engaged:
Brian Robinson:
I continue to be very busy. Lots of great stuff in the pipeline.
I cannot stress enough how important it is that people who support the cause continue to just generally spread the message. We need massive conversation and for people to spread articles, requests, press release, etc. HELP!
Green and Gold / Arena Solution Advisory sign up
(Emphasis mine)