The pro baseball season started last week--in case you were in a cave and missed the glory and spectacle (and gobs of free advertising) that marked the occasion in our local media. Optimism is everywhere; local fans have all but made reservations for the World Series for a team that's never finished more than 10 games above .500 in its 20-year history.

But this Spring, in addition to optimism, there's another emotion the Mariners have rarely engendered before: bitterness. Notably missing from our local cheerleadi--er, news coverage was the perspective of the large chunk of voters who are pissed off at public money being rerouted, against voter will and in flagrant violation of both common sense and the law, to the pockets of the private enterprise that is the Mariners' franchise.

What's pissed us off? The state legislature's original cave-in following the fall 1995 stadium vote; the numerous preposterous court rulings, the flagrant bureaucratic abuse of power in efforts to both appease the Mariners and styme their opponents; the poor-mouthing and bawling of some of the region's wealthiest businessmen; and most recently, last December's extortion of another $30 million plus in concessions by threatening to sell the team if a Spring 1999 deadline to open the stadium wasn't met--a deadline the team already knew was, simply because of construction technology, impossible. It adds up to a publicly funded stadium that was rejected by voters when it was estimated to cost $180 million. Now it costs $405 million, the value of the franchise is soaring, and the Mariners are laughing all the way to the bank. My, oh, my.

However, there was an excellent reason local politicians and media figures took care not to dampen Opening Day baseball euphoria. Reflection on any of the above might have prompted the taxpaying public to take greater note of what was going on the very same week in Olympia. Guess what? We're about to get screwed again.

Why is Paul Allen's proposal to build a mostly (at least 75%) publicly funded football stadium for the Seahawks still alive when it should have died in the state legislature a half-dozen times already? Because he's rich. And because he's rich, Gov. Locke, Secretary of State Ralph Munro, and almost every legislator in Olympia is only too eager to defy law, common sense, the voters, and even their own professed ideologies.

Locke spent the week desperately twisting arms to get the stadium bill passed through at least one chamber (the Senate), eventually securing victories in both committee and the full chamber. Meanwhile, Munro graciously allowed as how the Seahawks' April 3 deadline--the 60 days needed to get a passed bill on the June ballot--really wasn't all that important after all, and heck, sure, we don't need all that much time at all. Hence, the state will scramble to put any proposal on the ballot in as little time as Paul would like.

Contrast that sort of treatment--the arm-twisting, the rule-bending, the procedural hijinks--with the open hostility accorded opponents of both the Seahawks and Mariners' stadium proposals. (E.g., the difficulty in filing initiatives & validating signatures, the hostile and common-sense-defying court rulings--does the Mariners' stadium really qualify as a dire state emergency?--and so on.) What's the difference? Money. Lots of money.

Also buried in last week's baseball hype was an announcement that the estimated cost of the Seahawks' playpen is already going up: from $400 million to $425 million (and climbing). Recall that in the 18 months since the Mariners' vote, the cost to taxpayers of that stadium more than doubled as site and architectural plans were finalized. Those plans haven't been set yet for the Seahawks' facility.

The Seahawks' costs thus far also don't include renovation of Husky Stadium--and where, exactly, did you think the football team was going to play in the two years between when the Kingdome is torn down and when the new facility built in its rubble is ready? Montlake has another ugly surprise coming.

The most interesting part of Olympia's supine position on stadium #2 has been the ideological backflips by politicians who've made careers out of insisting on no new taxes, the primacy of free enterprise, and so on. The stadium proposals are the most obvious possible corporate welfare--but of the 50% or so of lawmakers now reluctant to vote for the deal, many have said they'll approve it if one of the funding mechanisms, a sales tax on sports paraphenalia, is removed. That tax has drawn the wrath of Nike, other pro sports leagues, and various other monied interests outside the state; appease them, the solons say, and we'll vote for it. The public be damned.

The basic premise--that Paul Allen, net worth $8 billion and growing, is so poor he needs our tax money to ensure his business is even more profitable- -is not being challenged in Olympia. The probable outcome is a compromise in the coming weeks whereby Allen will pay a little more, s'more money will come out of other funding sources (that could otherwise have been used for, say, schools, roads, etc.), and the tax on t-shirts and pennants will be dropped. And then, if we're lucky, we'll all be subjected to an expensive, slick, relentless campaign to urge us to vote yes, with a number of relatively cheap bribes thrown in to make it more attractive. If that vote fails, history suggests it'll get rammed down our throats some other way.

Deals like this aren't bad news just because they're a waste of money or a subsidy for millionaires who want to watch other millionaires whack each other about the head. They're also a major reason why people hate government and distrust democracy. Any idiot--regardless of ideology--can see in this case that our government (and our tax money) is available to the highest bidder, public be damned. So why bother trying to do anything? The net result is public policy even less connected to a public convinced that we can't make a difference, and even more beholden to wealthy, parasitic investors like Allen. For that reason alone, stadium funding ought to be pulled.