Sound Transit blew out the stops with a weekend of parties celebrating the launch of its new $1.9 billion — under budget, ahead of schedule — light rail extension and UW and Capitol Hill stations. There was the giant party for VIPs and dignitaries. And a giant party on Capitol Hill and at Husky Stadium to celebrate the first passengers on the new line.
Now, at the prodding of an anti-Sound Transit group, the Seattle Times is making a big stink about the $858,379 price tag for the Capitol Hill party and the launch festivities:
In all, taxpayers spent $858,379 for Sound Transit’s March 19 grand-opening party for the Capitol Hill and UW stations. It was a big celebration. Some 30,000 people boarded trains there, to see how the UW connection could help them beat gridlock. Most of the money went to planning or logistics: crowd management ($209,436); police overtime ($29,520); and event management ($260,200), which included planning over the course of a year. An additional $130,198 was spent for an ad campaign on radio, the Web, print, billboards, movie screens and gas pumps.
Later in the article, the Times includes a nod to the huge early success for the new line. But it also tries to compare the Sound Transit parties to the WSDOT grand opening of the new 520 which, according to the Times, used corporate sponsorships to fund much of its celebrations. The Times ignores any costs involved in pitching, signing, and executing those sponsorship deals.
The newspaper also ignores its own part in the promotional costs of Sound Transit. According to the agency’s approved 2016 budget, the Times and all the TV and radio stations jumping on the party story will collect $1.8 million from Sound Transit this year. CHS will get a puny — but well-spent! — chunk of that.
Later this year, voters will decide on the $50 billion Sound Transit package. It’s a critical moment for Sound Transit — and, maybe, “the most important decision our generation will be asked to make.” Given the circumstances and the opportunity to showcase its achievements and win tons of free press, maybe Sound Transit should have spent even more on the party.
Frank, care to share how much Sound Transit has spent advertising with Times? Show you mine if you show me yours https://t.co/5FRqx78KNs
— jseattle (@jseattle) May 13, 2016
This is a new low for misleading, garbage “reporting”, even for the Times.
Agreed, KP.
agreed. as somebody who works on events for a living, $28 all in per person is good, especially considering advertising, logistics, staffing, security, comped tickets etc. is really reasonable for.
Wsdot (who know how to spend money) got $650k sponsorship for the 520 opening. That also seemed to have a very much bigger crowd and logistical challenge.
How can it cost $850k to have people enter a mass transit system for free ? One day of ‘crowd control’ for $200k ?
Sound Transit should save a lot of money not advertising in that worthless Seattle Times rag. The sooner the Times liquidates, the better.
So then Seattle would have no daily newspaper? And that would be a good thing?
Seems like a lot of money to me, and if it coulld be accomplished effectively for less, they should be aiming for that. It is good to call these things into questions sometimes in order to acheive the best result and pressure the discretionary money being spent. If it takes the Times to do it, more power to them.
It’s reasonable to question if this was money well spent, but the article itself was manipulative. Shoddy reporting and the headline is click-bait at bast. My concern is that the purpose is really to stoke the fires of anti-ST3 sentiment.
This is accusing the Seattle Times of what, exactly. Making a big deal out of Sound Transit’s party because they get a lot of money from Sound Transit? That makes no sense. If they have a conflict of interest, they have ignored it. That is what a newspaper should do.
As for Sound Transit, the extra money they are spending on advertising only makes them sound worse. They are spending a bunch of money on parties and advertisements. If anything, it begs for a followup article, describing all the various ways in which they are spending the money (and whether similar agencies spend similar amounts).
Meanwhile, the idea that U-Link is ahead of schedule and under budget is ludicrous. That is only compared to the revised schedule. The original vote approved money for a line from the U District (not just Husky Stadium) to the airport. It included a station in First Hill. But their estimates were way off, and they couldn’t build it. After passing another proposition, they managed to build a line from Husky Stadium to downtown, but without the First Hill Station. It was only this revised project that was “ahead of schedule and under budget”.
This cost way more and took way longer than what they said it cost on the ballot. It also took a lot longer to build. More importantly, it delivers less. Without a First Hill station — without any station on Madison — the bus restructures are terrible, and this is simply not as effective as it should be.