There's one person left in Seattle who thinks Sonics owner Clay Bennett is on the up-and-up, and that's state legislator Margarita Prentice. It wasn't the fact that Bennett's ultimate goal was to take the Sonics to OKC that kept the team from getting an arena. No, it was "Seattle's elitist attitude." Says Prentice:I just think it's part of Seattle's elitist attitude that somehow or another we're too cool for sports.Yes, if we weren't such anti-sports......

The financing bill that would pay for a new Sonics arena in Renton will be changing a bit in hopes that House Speaker Frank Chopp will actually read the thing. From the PI: According to the new plan, no state sales tax would be used to finance the new arena. Currently, King County keeps part of the state sales tax to help pay for pro baseball and football stadiums. The revision means the Sonics are......

Sonics owner Clay Bennett, displaying an uncanny sense of timing, delivered an estimate on keeping the Sonics to Governor Gregoire today, 24 hours after she'd decided there wasn't enough money for an Alaskan Way Tunnel. From the letter [pdf]:To make this project work, it is clear that we will need at least $300 million in revenue sources authorized by the state. These would be taxes collected only in King County... The entire project, Bennett says,......