From McGinn’s perspective, Chihuly’s “glass house” spells revenue. He says that the $500,000 in annual lease payments could be enough to operate the city’s libraries for a week, or to hire five police officers or seven crime-victim advocates.
Well, by that measure, why not just sell off the real estate entirely? If leasing the Fun Forest property to a for-profit, pay-per-view museum can raise enough money to hire five police officers, just think how many police officers we could hire if started selling off chunks of the Seattle Center to developers of high-priced condos?
And years from now, when there’s no more money from the sale to subsidize basic public services, and there’s no more Seattle Center land to sell off, well, that’s future generations’ problem.
Sounds typical. Just like the CAO being a sellout for revenues. How? Ptey on owners of property that is zoned as larger chunks. Make it so THEY cannot use their land but developers can. Developers will create property that throws off tax revenues, people with 5 or 10 acre patches of land do not….dump on them. Do not let them use their land. Make them keep a large chunck untouched.
you mean the people who run seattle are short sighted sellouts?
OMG, say it aint so!!!!
what party runs seattle? oh…..
Or at least lease it to something that has more widespread appeal and use than a GLASS MUSEUM FOR JUST ONE ARTIST.
Worst fucking mayor ever. This is going to be a long 4 years.
@2: Follow the donors and you’ll find its the same people the support business interests of both parties.
but but but….I thought the progressives running the city were all “about the people”…you mean to tell me they are just as crooked and in bed with big business as the those dreaded evil republicans?
oh my god!!!! its like a bad dream! We have all been duped!
hahahahahaa, suckers!
so glad I dont live in that city. :)
lebowski @6:
You aren’t the only one who’s happy about that.
# 6: We have a state tax system which places the pain of municiple taxation disproportionately on the lower income classes (regressive sales taxes). This places a lid on revenue a city can receive, regardless of the problems it faces (you can’t realistically raise combined sales taxes paid by poor people at or above 10%). So this leaves the municipalities scrambling to raise revenue, any way they can – even if it’s not a good idea in the long term.
Of course, one of the things conservatives like to ignore is that most of them enjoy living in the suburbs (or ex-urbs) where they can have a low tax rate and few services, but jump onto the subsidized highway system to pop into Seattle whenever they want to attend sports or cultural events, take out-of-town visitors on a tour, etc. While there, they will enjoy the protection of the Seattle police and fire departments, the streets maintained by the Seattle road crews, the street lights provided by Seattle City Light, the free recreation provided by a stroll along the waterfront, through the Seattle Center, and perhaps Green Lake and other parks, all paid by Seattle taxpayers. Then they will go home and complain that Seattle taxes are too high, the streets don’t provide enough parking, there aren’t enough police and jails for their taste, etc.
@7….touche’!
Goldy,
I would think a super playground could make that kind of dough just from concessions, parking and by bringing in folks to the other paid attractions at Seattle Center.
Why not wrap up all those posts about super playgrounds into one post and leave it on the front page so folks can refer to it?
@8..oh spare me…..
you seem to forget that people coming into the city ARE SPENDING MONEY THERE….
duh.
@2 Yeah, it really frustrates us when Democrats behave like Republicans.
@8 “(you can’t realistically raise combined sales taxes paid by poor people at or above 10%)”
Sure you can, or at least, Ron Paul and Paul Ryan and other right-of-rightwing advocates of the so-called “Fair Tax” want to pile a 30% federal sales tax on top of the 9.5% state and local sales taxes so we can make the federal tax system as regressive and unfair to poor people as Washington’s state and local tax system is.
Why would anyone vote for these people, or listen to anything they say?
Yeah, there’s no excuse for yet another monument to a rich local’s ego..
The EMP was bad enough.
And Chihuly is nowhere as rich as Allen but he’s done very well for himself and needs no further boosting.
Hey arschloch…
Steve Ballmer likes DUMMOCRAPTS… Look it up on your personal Goldy HA Libtardo blog copy you have at home!
Lebowski,
The libtardos got what they voted for last fall. And Puddy and family spends $100 or more each time we visit Seattle.
To THE DUMB BUNNY… are these Cheap DUMMOCRAPTS?
15 – Couldn’t care less what Ballmer likes. I have as much regard for Ballmer as I do for crazy Larry Ellison.
Microsoft gave plenty to Republicans especially after the Dems decided to enforce the law and bring antitrust actions against them back in the nineties. It was long overdue.
Goldy
Someone otta explain some ec 101 to McGinn.
Lease payments are only not profits AFTER your costs are deducted.
So less suppose that this 500k is real (I would not bet on that!). OK, next lets delete the value of the land! Suppose that land is worth 20 million dollars on the real estate market, then the lost income from leasing it AT A FLAT RATE to the Wrights is ~$500K/yr! In other words the Wrights are getting this essentially for free or at a profit when you assume inflation will make the land more valubale over 20 years!
I think the mat is this .. the Wrights are LOTs smarter than hizzoner.
@16
May I remind you that even the primary slate was pretty “liberal”. We had in addition to McGinn, Mallahan and Nickles. In the general the choice was McGinn and Mallahan.
Frankly compared to Nickels I’m not sure either McGinn or Mallahan was a particularly good choice. In hindsight Mallahan might have done a slightly better job, simply for having been a manager inside of a large organization. But based on what I saw during the election I’m sure he would be looking about as good as McGinn right now for his own reasons.
You know before we decided to terminate the lease we had a private amusement operator who was paying to use the the site for the Fun Forest.
If we have to lease the property to fill city coffers I’m sure we can find a use that better benefits the public at large than a monument to fancy ashtrays.
For that matter why don’t we take a look at all of the other City property we could lease or sell off to the private sector. I’m sure all of that waterfront property now being wasted for parks is worth quite a bit, how many police officers could we hire if we sold Alki beach for condo development?
# 11: You assume that visitors to the city are spending money there. Undoubtedly many do, as they attend sporting events, concerts, or eat lunch or dinner in town.
Of course, these are in effect discretionary user fees which they could choose to spend or not spend. Some don’t spend much money at all as they visit the parks, stroll around the waterfront, take in the ambience of the Pike Place Market, etc.
Take, for example, the Fourth of July fireworks at Lake Union. When I took the kids there in past years we would pack a lunch (purchased in Edmonds or Everett), park on the city streets for free, walk to Gas Works Park, enjoy the fireworks (paid for by the sponsor, but benefiting from the park itself and police presence paid by the City of Seattle taxpayers), and then leave afterwards. I can’t remember paying a dime on such visits.
It’s not that I think the visitors from the suburbs should be taxed more or less. I just don’t like to hear some of them take advantage of Seattle amenities, then rant about how Seattle not providing enough street parking, police on the beat, etc., while at the same time they say the city’s tax rates are too high.
@21…..cmon rhp…WHEN have you ever known ANYBODY to not spend money when making a day trip to the city?
Sure, Im gonna go spend the day in the city at alki or at a park or pike street, and not eat any lunch, buy any trinkets, etc…..
NOW, on the other hand, I could make a much more realist argument that its you city folk who come out the hinterlands without spending any money: IE pedaling your girly bike on the trails, hiking in the forest, taking a drive, etc…..
nice try, even you know that you FAIL.
Max, Max, Max. Look. Marijuana* is Washington’s 2nd largest cash crop. I think it reasonable to assume at least half of it is grown “in the country”. So there’s a lot of money changing hands there.**
I’m also pretty sure some of that dough gets left at the local tavern/diner. I’d recommend staying away from the G. Washington Inn (in George, natch) though. Man, is the food in that place awful! I thought all you country fucks were ace cooks…maybe just beer and belch suits you folks after all.
*Trailer park meth cooking is also a well known rural sport.
**And of course nobody spends any money at ski resorts outside the city limit of Seattle. Nah! No possible way.
As a business model, I wonder how well museums are doing right now? Everyone I know has experienced significant loss of revenue from fewer visitors.
When people do interesting things with glass, it is worth seeing. The genre typical of NW glass is fully covered at the Museum of Glass. How is the EMP doing? SAM? While the economy will likely be somewhat recovered by the time a Chihuly museum is built, I just can’t imagine that it would be the kind of draw that would cover the investment.
My goodness, Puddy! A whole $100? Sweet Jeebus! Well, put a hold on all them there taxes! Must be at least 1 million Puddys comin’, and right soon!
@23…
and how many ski resorts are there around here? 3? open for 4 months out of the year? lol..cmon dude, you need come up with a better one than that. :)
thanks for the heads up on the crappy food…
The article linked to the Seattle Center Master Plan, which is an interesting read. It actually calls for part of the fun forest (not the part where the proposed Chihuly museum would be) to be turned into a playground, including a “sculptural jungle gym.” The description starts on page 20.
I do think this part of the plan could use more ambition. And I’m not all that excited by the forested area that the Chihuly museum would displace — I know everyone has it in their head that the Seattle Center will be like Central Park, and I love forests, including in urban parks like Discovery Park, but this isn’t enough space to create one that would actually be a destination. A nice garden could work, or a natural playground, but don’t bother trying to create a forest.
The plan for the fun forest redevelopment is estimated at $50 million. So given the choice between spending that on something that will make no money and the Chihuly museum, I can see why some would rather do the latter, but I also have learned from your Republican commenters that the problem is that we elected Democrats, so I’m sure they’ll share the Republican plan for raising $50 million to spend on a non-profit-making public works project.
Hey arschloch,
Ballmer loving DUMMOCRAPTS explodes another of your useless libtardo fallacies. Rich peeps give to DUMMOCRAPTS and they send all types of jobs overseas… no matter what THE DUMB BUNNY regurgitates in his 2151 word copy of conceptmorons. Truth explodes libtardo minds.
You are sadly confused Eric L. Seattle is a DUMMOCRAPT town. Think about it. They continue to reerect McDimWitt (see comment #110 too) every two years yet they complain how ineffective he is… We who think right know this. Butt, it’s the continual cacophony of libtardo screams over which “progressive” candidate will do this to that we who think right laugh over. That’s what we comment on everyday here at HA Libtardos. Then THE DUMB BUNNY adds his oxygen starved pellets to the mix and you really crack up laughing over his cheapness rants. Others comment on how Republicans are only in it for the money. Well now we see local DUMMOCRAPTS in it for the money. PRICLESS! There is a better chance of a snowball surviving Hellfire for two minutes than a conservative being elected in this wasteland of progressive pukings.
So now we see De Mayor McGinn in action. Eric… did you go back and see the HA Libtardo commentary over the McGinn vs. Mallahan election? Reread some of the ‘wonderful’ “progressive” commentary. You’ll crack up in hindsight over the “political commentary”.
You can easily get these past comments from the resident HA arschloch ylb arschoch. Look for the dude with the left eye of porn. Ask him for the URLs, as he keeps an daily updated personal copy of Goldy’s HA blog on his home personal system. Ask him nicely as you can see the dumb brick has issues with peeps asking him to do something.
Having a private developer pay for the construction of a Glass Museum on an all-but-abandoned chunk of Seattle Center is NOT the same thing as letting a developer build condos there.
That’s a ridiculous logic leap of Bill O’Reilly proportions, Goldy – and you know it.
The other reality Chihuly-haters seem to be ignoring: our city parks dept doesn’t have a dime to “imagineer” our grand park. They don’t even have enough money to maintain what we have now.
Private enterprise within parks throughout Europe is not an example of “selling out.” It’s an example of how you can keep public spaces from becoming run-down and EMPTY.