Referendum 48 -- Opposers Hire Nader To Say No To Stadium -- It's $10,000 Punch In `Frustrating' Fight

Opponents of Referendum 48 have raised only about $70,000, have less than a week to go before election day and are facing a billionaire's checkbook on the other side. So spending $10,000 to bring Ralph Nader to town might be considered a questionable expense.

Sharon Gilpin, manager of the "No on 48" campaign opposing a proposed new football stadium for the Seattle Seahawks, considers it money well spent.

She explained: For the money paid Nader, her campaign got its anti-stadium pitch aired on every radio talk and TV news show in the Seattle area and published in three newspapers.

That same money wouldn't have paid for one commercial during the top-rated show "ER."

For his fee, the nation's best-known consumer watchdog was up at 6 a.m. to begin the round of talk shows in Seattle.

Nader drove to Vancouver, Wash., to finish off the day with an evening speech.

He called Referendum 48, which would authorize $300 million in public spending for a stadium, ". . . the worst process and package for a public subsidy for a sports stadium ever proposed."

He scolded former Gov. Dan Evans, a prominent backer of the measure; state legislators who agreed to the election; and both the Seattle Times and Post-Intelligencer, which endorsed the proposal in editorials.

And he blasted Paul Allen, the Mercer Island billionaire who says he will purchase the Seahawks only if the stadium is approved, for paying the $4.2 million cost of the election.

Nader referred to that action as "state-of-the-art corporate fascism" and warned that private funding of the balloting is a "desecration of the democratic process and a terrible precedent . . . for the rest of the country."

Nader also argued the proposal is a bad deal because most of the profits would go to Allen and the team.

Tax money, he said, should be spent on pressing needs such as roads and schools and amateur sports.

"No on 48" organizer Brian Livingston used the occasion to solicit more money to put television commercials on the air before the final votes are cast on Tuesday.

The pro-stadium campaign, Our Team Works, has spent nearly $5 million in six weeks, including an estimated $2.6 million on television, radio and newspaper ads.

Chris Van Dyk, head of another opposition group, said Allen's money allows pro-stadium forces "a tremendous advantage in having their message unanswered."

The opposition, he said, has been "frustrated and constrained."

Former Seattle Mayor Wes Uhlman and Football Northwest vice president Bert Kolde followed Nader from station to station yesterday, responding to charges.