An airplane circling high above Hec Edmundson Pavilion before last Saturday’s men’s basketball game carried with it a message written in crimson: “NO HUSKY STADIUM BAILOUT TAX!”

The same anti-stadium funding sentiments could be heard during UW President Mark Emmert’s town hall meeting last week, at which he addressed the university’s budget situation.

Emmert, in the middle of explaining how tourism taxes were first levied to build professional sports stadiums in Seattle a decade ago, was interrupted by a man who reminded the Kane Hall crowd that the measures were initially voted down.

“Twice,” another voice quipped.

“I didn’t put the tax in place,” Emmert retorted. “You can yell at me if you want, but I have nothing to do with it. I didn’t even live here.”

A Senate bill introduced a week ago, however, could affect those who will live in and visit King County in the years to come.

Co-sponsored by Sen. Ed Murray, D-43rd District, and Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles, D-36th District, Senate Bill 6116 would allow King County to decide what to do with the revenue gained from existing tourism taxes once they’re done paying off Qwest Field and Safeco Field beginning in 2013.

It targets the hotel-motel, restaurant and car rental taxes levied in King County.

The bill would give the county the right to fund a $150 million portion of the Husky Stadium renovation project, the KeyArena renovation project, youth sports, the arts and low-income housing, among others.

“This doesn’t guarantee that the stadium will be part of it,” said John Buller, PR coordinator of the Husky Stadium renovation project. “But it does guarantee that at least those elected officials who manage this stuff in King County would make this decision.”

The bill has since been sent to the Senate Ways and Means Committee, chaired by Margarita Prentice, D-11th District.

Last year, Prentice sponsored a bill to fund the Husky Stadium remodel, citing safety concerns for the aging, state-owned facility.

“This is emergency kind of stuff,” Prentice told The Associated Press a year ago. “We just can’t keep putting people in a stadium like that and not have a safe place for them.”

But last month, Prentice told KING-TV that there is little support for stadium funding, whether for KeyArena or Husky Stadium, considering the state’s deficit.

It’s the kind of public relations battle Emmert and UW Athletic Director Scott Woodward have been fighting all along.

“You’ve got all of these [economic] issues we’re talking about today,” Emmert said. “And people say ‘and you’re building this football stadium? What are you, nuts?’ I understand that. I understand why those two things don’t look like they fit at all.”

Emmert and Woodward say renovating the 88-year-old stadium would stimulate the economy by creating between 5,000 and 7,000 jobs, and that the tax revenue wouldn’t begin to be tapped until 2014.

“I hope by then our economy has improved,” Emmert said.

Reach reporter Maks Goldenshteyn at sports@dailyuw.com