Friday, Sep. 05, 2008

UPDATE: UW paying $175 an hour to lobby for stadium subsidy

Jason Mercier over at the Washington Policy Center blog uncovered this little tidbit this week. The University of Washington is paying a lobbyist $175 an hour to lobby the Legislature to bless a plan providing $150 million in taxpayer dollars to renovate Husky Stadium.

You can find his post here. There you’ll also find a copy of the lobbyist contract.

Mercier wonders why the UW would be looking for a handout when it could “use some of the UW’s $2.7 billion endowment or asking for alumni help.”

In other news, Washington State University unveils phase II of its modest renovation to Martin Stadium tomorrow.

To date, the $27 million WSU has raised for phases I and II have come from ticket fees and a student fee approved by students.

Even though WSU’s Pacific 10 Conference low athletic budget is $16 million behind ninth place Oregon State (2007 numbers), the university has not asked for public funding. WSU is making improvements in small phases as money comes in.

Fundraising is ongoing to support the proposed $42 million phase III of the renovation, which would add premium seating along the north side of the stadium and be paid for by donors and revenue from the lease of suites and such.

UPDATE: Randy Hodgins, the UW’s full time lobbyist in Olympia, has posted an item on his blog in which he asserts the school didn’t hire a lobbyist but a consultant to draft the Husky Stadium bill and crunch numbers.

This could be a matter of semantics as there are different definitions for “lobbyist” and “lobbying.” For instance, community leaders and government officials routinely come to Olympia to lobby the Legislature for various priorities without being professional lobbyists.

And Bob Longman, the consultant hired by the UW for the Husky Stadium matter, as far as I can tell is not a registered lobbyist (I'm checking).

But in his contract under “SCOPE OF WORK” it reads in part:

"Participate in meetings with policy makers and others regarding policy and legislative development of the service purchaser proposals for taxes, revenue, and expenditures..."

Is that not lobbying activity? And if so, doesn’t that make him — if only in this context — a lobbyist?

UPDATE: I heard back from the Public Disclosure Commission, which reports that the UW listed paying Longman $2,765 on its second quarter lobbying activity report. Spokeswoman Lori Anderson said she could not find that Longman is a registered lobbyist but that "he probably should be registered."

UPDATE: Hodgins says Longman was mistakenly listed as a contract lobbyist on the second quarter lobbying report and that an amended report will be filed. Nonetheless, it looks as though the PDC will end up determining whether he should register as a lobbyist.

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