Seattle Sonics

Gov. Chris Gregoire held a press availability today in Olympia open to the state press corps. She spoke about the Seattle Sonics' departure to Oklahoma City, the state's projected budget deficit and the negative campaigning so far in the gubernatorial race against Republican Dino Rossi. The Tri-City Herald's Chris Mulick has a recap of the events here.

On the Sonics, Gregoire called the notion that she was to blame for them leaving "laughable". She also wished to wait until her own Office of Financial Management analyzes the budget until anyone began to panic about the potential $2.7 Billion deficit, and called the campaign "ugly" so far.

Washington's two U.S. Senators, Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, have followed the lead of their stateside Democratic colleagues by calling on the NBA to postpone a vote on whether or not the Seattle Sonics are allowed to move to Oklahoma City at Friday's NBA owner's meeting.

The state's top Democratic officials joined force today to write a letter to NBA commissioner David Stern and all of the NBA owners in an attempt to get them to remove the proposed discussion of a Sonics franchise move at their upcoming owners' meeting in light of the recent revelation of e-mails from the current ownership group which suggest they intended to move the team from the start.

Read the letter below:

SEATTLE -

At the beginning of the today's campaign stop, when state Democratic Party Chair Dwight Pelz spoke to the assembled crowd of about two hundred here at South Seattle Community College, chants of "Four more years" competed against "Save our Sonics".  read more »

SEATTLE -

The most prominant interest group here at Gov. Gregoire's final bus tour event isn't one of the traditional Democratic stalwarts like the IBEW or the SEIU. No, today it is S.O.S., Save Our Sonics. The group of fans dedicated to keeping the team in Seattle has come out in force to make a statement to the Governor to call a special session to allocate money for arena renovations.  read more »

Click on the link to view the pencil sketch of today's cartoon.

The NBA's Seattle Sonics crept their way into the Washington political landscape earlier this year when a new local ownership group stepped in to try to stop the team's relocation to Oklahoma City by proposing a half-private, half-public solution to renovate Key Arena with an emphasis on the half-public. In order for their plan to even be considered they needed $150M from a combination of city and state coffers. However, presented late in a session that was already struggling to fund its legislative priorities, the plan was not considered before the end of business March 13.

At a press conference today to discuss his Pike Market Levy, Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels gave the NBA some free advice about the Seattle Sonics and economics.