FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Sept.

12, 2012 Contact: Jordan Royer, cell: 206-604-1850

Arena MOU does not match councils rhetoric, coalition says

SEATTLE A coalition of maritime and business groups said Wednesday that the devil is in the details and that the revised arena MOU does not match the promises made in the press conference announcing it. In a letter today to the City Councils Government Performance and Finance Committee, the coalition said the revised MOU does not adequately address concerns about environmental review, state environmental law and study of alternate locations. The bottom line is that, at yesterdays press conference it was represented that the revised MOU merely set-up a process by which an arena location would be determined and its impacts on the environment and freight mobility would be assessed, the coalition writes. But the MOU, released only after the close of business yesterday, clearly pre-selects a location and only pays lip service to SEPA. Signing the letter are Peter Goldman, environmental attorney; Jordan Royer, Vice President of the External Affairs for the Pacific Merchant Shipping Association; Dave Gering, Executive Director of the Manufacturing Industrial Council of Seattle; and Bart Waldman, Executive Vice President, Legal & Governmental Affairs, of the Seattle Mariners. If the City Council members approve the MOU as written, they will be locking in the Sodo site prior to any analysis of alternatives something they said they would not do, Royer said. Unfortunately, the council members rhetoric Tuesday morning does not match the document that was released much later in the day. The MOU, rather than outlining a programmatic process for building an arena in the Seattle arena, is a site-specific document that gives irreversible momentum to the Sodo location and renders toothless any future environmental-impact statement (EIS) studying alternate sites. This is clear from the first page of the revised MOU, which describes in detail the Project Site as the property Chris Hansen has purchased in Sodo. The Project Site, clearly defined as the Sodo location, is mentioned 26 times in the MOU. With such language, its a fait accompli that the arena will be built in Sodo, Gering said. We were all lulled into thinking by the council members press conference that the environmental review would be robust, but the text of MOU shows that is not the case. The City Council must also allow for more time for the public to vet the revised MOU, the coalition said. According to media reports, the councils Government Performance and Finance Committee could approve the deal as soon as Thursday, just two days after the deal was announced. The full Council could vote on the deal by the end of the month.

The City Council just released the revised MOU yesterday and there simply isnt any time for stakeholder input, Royer said. The public needs more time to review such an important and high-profile deal so that the proper amendments can be made. We were all encouraged by the press conference yesterday that there would be an EIS performed under SEPA prior to any approval of an MOU, Royer said. We were disappointed to learn that the written document did not match the verbal commitment. Recent polls have confirmed that the public is skeptical of this deal, Royer added. We believe more transparency and inclusion will both help illustrate the challenges and build support for returning the NBA to the area. Other groups that have raised similar concerns about the Sodo location include the Port of Seattle, the Puget Sound Ports Council, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 19, the Inland Boatmans Union of the Pacific, the Washington Machinists Council and the West Seattle Chamber of Commerce. In the days to come, the coalition of maritime and business groups will send to the Council a more detailed list of the problems with the revised MOU. We believe that the other groups that have not signed todays letter will have the same concerns and join us once they have had a chance to review the revised MOU, Gering said.