From the Associated Press today.

By JEFF LATZKE
AP Sports Writer
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) ‹ The operation and upkeep of a city-owned NBA practice
facility emerged Tuesday as the chief concern among members of the Oklahoma
City Council considering a preliminary lease agreement with the Seattle
SuperSonics.

Councilmen Sam Bowman and Pete White said the city should take into
consideration during its negotiations with the Sonics what would happen if
the practice facility needs upgrades in the near future.

Oklahoma City voters recently approved a sales-tax extension that would pay
for the construction of an approximately $24 million practice facility,
along with upgrades to the Ford Center arena. The lease agreement with
Sonics owner Clay Bennett calls for the team to pay $100,000 in annual rent
for the practice facility, but White questioned a clause that sets aside 20
percent of that to pay for maintenance.

"If you look down the road to where some kind of capital expenditure might
be mandated, that's not going to accumulate very much money in today's
market," White said. "In five years, that's $100,000, and $100,000 is not a
lot of money for a capital improvement on a $20 million project."

White said he didn't want to get into a position where funding for the
practice facility would come out of the city's general fund.
"My point is that we ought to be realistic about it because that's something
that will come back at some point in time," White said.

[More:]

Mayor Mick Cornett, who was out of town when the lease agreement was placed
on the council agenda last Friday, said he was "quite pleased at where we
ended up."

"Financially we're not in a position to start having to go to our general
fund on an annual basis to subsidize operations," Cornett said. "So we kind
of felt like all along, we were going to get to a point where we could break
even on the general fund."

The council approved a $250,000 contract with the Benham Cos. as the
architect for the Ford Center renovations but will not vote on the lease
terms until next week. The agreement is only a general outline for major
terms of the lease should the SuperSonics move from Seattle to Oklahoma
City, and a more thorough deal still must be negotiated.

The 15-year deal calls for the SuperSonics to pay the city $1.6 million
annually to use the Ford Center and another $409,000 per year to be able to
re-sell the naming rights currently owned by local Ford car dealerships. It
has an exit clause after six years if revenues were to fall off
dramatically.

The NBA relocation committee is due to visit Oklahoma City next week ahead
of team owners' scheduled April 17-18 vote on the SuperSonics' request to
move. The Sonics' lease in Seattle runs through 2010, and a federal trial is
scheduled for June to determine whether the team can break it.

Bowman said he was generally pleased with the terms of the Sonics' usage of
the city-owned Ford Center, but his concerns were focused on the practice
facility -- including the team's proposed rent.

"To me, that's kind of a $1 a year fee,² Bowman said.

Bowman was pleased to see that Bennett, an Oklahoma City businessman, had
relaxed his stance that the team wanted the city-owned facility to be used
solely by the team. He said city officials must take the initiative to find
other public uses for the building in the offseason, as allowed by the lease
proposal.

City officials have said some revenue concessions had to be made to allow
the team to be competitive with larger markets, and White said a strong part
of that should be freeing up the naming rights for the Ford Center.
"I think the public probably needs to think about the fact that when they
see what the naming rights are ... that they're going to be a big number,"
White said. "It's going to be a lot of money, but that value is not brought
to the table by us. That value is brought to the table by them bringing the
Sonics here."

He said he didn't want to give the impression that he was "negative about
this because I'm not."

"There are things that I would have liked to have seen but when I look at
it, I think it's a good deal," White said.