Kemper Freeman Jr is Old School (Business School)

SEATTLE - Kemper Freeman Jr, pardon the phrase, is old school (that is business school). He says what he thinks and doesn't overreach. He's doesn't appear to be thoughtless, just conservative in his choice of phrases to get to the point. He is stepping up to take chance to be part of a significant revenue generator for Bellevue. Planting a multimillion dollar multi-use facility on and next to underutilized land will only improve the value of that property. It could be a big money maker for somebody that owns and controls land near such a facility.

"What have we got to lose trying to keep them here?" Freeman said Wednesday. "It's like we've adopted a losers approach. They are not gone but they will be gone if we continue to sleep through it."

He repeated his belief that a new arena could be built primarily with private, not public money.

"There's no interest in a big wad of dough from government on this," Freeman continued. "Once you start down the trail of 'Uncle Sugar is going to bail you out' your brain turns off."
Kemper Freeman Jr said in the King County Journal.

He's right, there are people dancing around with their words, mostly trying to mitigate political fallout, well, everybody but Christine Gregoire. It's time for those in power to make use of their power to the benefit of the community, and maybe even themselves. Freeman is willing to take a look at how this could help his city. I don't see anybody on this side of the 520 bridge making that kind of effort.

At this point I score the winners being: Christine Gregoire for her political leadership; Kemper Freeman Jr for his business leadership, Howard Schultz for knowing when to fold 'em (I'm not kidding).

Another winner is Art Thiel for telling everybody to move on from the venting the after the sale was announced and for asking some meaningful questions. I'll take a turn at answering them, as I see them right now:

Do enough important as well as ordinary people care?

The fans care, SonicsCentral is all whipped up. As far as the important people go, people become important through action (see Christine Gregoire and Kemper Freeman Jr).

Can the developments be marshaled in 12 months or less?

Kemper Freeman Jr said on KJRam that 12 months is plenty of time to know if this is going to happen here.

Where do we sign up for a Tully's franchise?

Let's not be rash, though I've made the switch myself, mostly because of the taste.

The losers so far are: Nick Licata for not representing all of us; Steve Kelley for being so disconnected from reality that he channelled the dearly departed Sam Schulman so that Steve could mash his sour grapes over the 11 year old firing of Bob Whitset; Seattle Mayor Greg Nichols for being a spineless weasel.

On the Chris Wilcox front I wrote on August 4, 2006 :

They should meet halfway, 3 years @ 7.25 mil =21.75. The Sonics will save money off Collison, and Wilcox will not leave 4 million dollars on the table this season going forward.

This looks like it's close to happening, maybe this coming week.