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With the Seahawks' new home now safely in place and chunks of the Kingdome making up parts of its foundation, Allen also no longer has to worry about repercussions from the messy back story of the stadium deal, revealed in documents recently unearthed by Seattle businessman Armen Yousoufian.
In December, the 56-year-old University District hotelier, assisted by dogged attorneys David Balint and Michael Brannan, won a landmark public-disclosure case against King County for stonewalling his efforts to obtain and review stadium studies, agreements, memos, and planning documents. For its five years of stalling, the county may have to pay Yousoufian up to $500,000 in penalties, and Yousoufian gleefully notes, "They picked on the wrong Armenian!"
Yousoufian has found what he calls a paper trail of how the stadium deal was engineered. For example, voters were promised 72,000 seats, which Allen claimed were necessary if he was to make money and if the Super Bowl was to be held in Seattle. (Two weeks ago, the NFL said that wintertime Super Bowls at any of its northern, open-stadium cities are not on the radar; they're looking for a warm, domed stadium like Detroit's new 64,000-seat Ford Field.)
In December, the 56-year-old University District hotelier, assisted by dogged attorneys David Balint and Michael Brannan, won a landmark public-disclosure case against King County for stonewalling his efforts to obtain and review stadium studies, agreements, memos, and planning documents. For its five years of stalling, the county may have to pay Yousoufian up to $500,000 in penalties, and Yousoufian gleefully notes, "They picked on the wrong Armenian!"
Yousoufian has found what he calls a paper trail of how the stadium deal was engineered. For example, voters were promised 72,000 seats, which Allen claimed were necessary if he was to make money and if the Super Bowl was to be held in Seattle. (Two weeks ago, the NFL said that wintertime Super Bowls at any of its northern, open-stadium cities are not on the radar; they're looking for a warm, domed stadium like Detroit's new 64,000-seat Ford Field.)
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