Stern & Co. are officially taking over for the Maloofs. I’m not knowledgeable enough in this area to know if this sheds light on whether the Maloofs are planning to sink this ship. Maybe it makes sense for a third party to arbitrate. I’ll open the floor to the smarter people who understand NBA finance.

From a piece in the NY Times:

The owners [...] had warned that the team would leave unless the city provided a new arena.

The vote delighted Citizens for More Important Things, a group that, with the help of a statewide health care union, spent $60,000 to sponsor the initiative. Other cities “may be so desperate to lure tourists there that they have to overpay for an N.B.A. team,” said Chris Van Dyk, a founder of the group. “[We don't] have to lure anybody.”

Mr. Van Dyk’s priorities are schools, transportation projects and health care, and he openly disdains wealthy people who buy professional teams, pay huge salaries to players and then demand handouts. Owners who threaten to take their teams elsewhere, Mr. Van Dyk said, are no better than “the neighborhood crack cocaine dealer.”

Guesses? The answer is here. (Need a log-in?)

Interesting article in The Bee today, wondering if the pro-Arena campaign was supposed to lose:

The big question floating around town Wednesday was whether Joe and Gavin Maloof’s actions in the campaign simply reflected their volatility and lack of political savvy, or whether they systematically sabotaged the campaign because they prefer that a new arena be built next to Arco in North Natomas or want to move the team to another city.

Veteran political consultant David Townsend said he thinks the sabotage was deliberate.

“I know a professional campaign when I see it, and this is a professional campaign,” Townsend said. “This is not all by happenstance. … This was an orchestrated, well-thought-out campaign to tube Q&R.”

Whether Ross was behind it or the Maloofs were simply clients out of control, he doesn’t know. Ross has not returned Bee phone calls about the campaign.

That would be on interesting explanation for the idiocy of that burger commercial.

TZ of Sactown Royalty is making all us bloggers look bad by getting like, interviews and stuff. Using the phone even! He’s got some quotes from Sandy Smoley, Chairwoman of the Yes on Q & R campaign.

On the incredible margin of defeat:
“80-20 is huge. That was startling to me, the magnitude. … But if people don’t understand a measure, they vote no. … With the Maloofs pulling out, it was way overwhelming.”

That’s one way to put it, Sandy. Another way to put it is that when people don’t want their taxes raised, they vote no on raising their taxes. Yet another way to put it is that the voters understood your idea plenty, and just decided they didn’t like it.

I’ll go ahead and give Smoley credit, she probably means that the voters didn’t understand it because it was poorly written and not well thought out. The Maloofs pulling out did make it harder to understand what was going on–hard to understand why the stewards of our public trust would leave so much out and still expect a yes vote.

TZ of the irreplaceable Sactown Royalty (and sometime Ragger) says to expect a major announcement from proponents of the widely-assumed-DOA arena ballot measures tonight, presumably as the votes are being counted. With special guest Roger Dickinson on the fiddle? (Wait a minute, who would vandalize the article about Nero? Why would facts be in dispute? Are there Roman fire deniers out there that I don’t know about?)

So the City Attorney, Eileen Teichert (any relation?) does not believe the public needs to see the details of proposed arena agreements because, according to legal briefs, the proposed draft agreement was “‘essentially the same document’” as a term sheet previously signed by the the Kings owners — the Maloof family — the city and the county and released to the public.” (from the Bee). I assume they are referring to the August 2 Preliminary Term Sheet (PDF) which contains the following provision:

If the County Board of Supervisors approves the Ballot Proposals, this Term Sheet shall nevertheless terminate and be of no force or effect if on or before October 6, 2006: … a definitive Memorandum of Understanding (”MOU”) is not executed and delivered by the parties.

Presumably, at the time the officials thought one month was the least amount of time we voters would need to make up our minds. This Term Sheet is signed by the City, the County, and MSE and it is completely invalid. If the City attorney expects us to refer to a public document, perhaps she should pick one that has some sort of legally enforceable status? Continue reading “Arena Term Sheet is invalid” »

The Howard Jarvis Taxpayer Association thinks so:

The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association accuses the City of Sacramento of refusing to release arena proposal details despite a court order.

This morning a Sacramento Superior Court judge ruled the City of Sacramento must immediately release details about an arena proposal made to the Maloofs.

The Howard Jarvis Taxspayers Association filed a lawsuit to force the city to release the information.

The group said its attorney went to City Hall to request a copy of the proposal but was told the city was not yet ready to release it.

“There must be something really juicy in that proposal,” said association president Jon Coupal. …

Superior Court Judge Jack Sapunour’s ruling reads, in part, “Unlike the city the court does not believe it is necessary to keep the public in the dark for its own good.” Ohh, snap!!

Updated at 10:25 pm: Not so fast, Justice, says the appeals court (click that link again for the updated News10 story)…

You heard it here also… CBS13 reported last night that the City will announce in the next few days that it is moving forward with that arena thing without Maloof Sports & Entertainment. So far nothing about it on News10, Sacbee, or KCRA…

If you missed R.E. Graswich today he leads with an awesome piece of Kings/arena gossip:

Bumped into Joe Benvenuti the other night. Joe, the developer who wrote the check to bring the Kings to Sacramento in 1985, had a scoop. He said he was thinking about selling his 31 percent ownership in the team. And there was something else. “It’s my understanding they have an agreement to move the team to Anaheim,” Joe said. “I expect to read about it in The Bee.”
“There is no such deal and there have been no discussions,” said Kings president John Thomas. “I’m sure Mr. Benvenuti was joking. I talked to him shortly after you did, and he was telling lots of jokes. I’m sure that was one of them.” Benvenuti, who financed Gregg Lukenbill’s dream to purchase the Kings for $10 million, said Sunday he was not joking. But his sources may be questionable. “The Anaheim deal was a rumor,” Joe said. “Everyone’s talking about it.” …

A week ago, if you were real quiet you could hear the air squealing out of the arena deal’s tires. Now, you basically have to cover your ears to block out the sound of its rims grinding:

Representatives of the Sierra Club and the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association called an afternoon press conference to demand that the latest arena site plan and proposal … be made public. … Sacramento County Supervisor Roger Dickinson called the demand for public review “laughable” since the documents are simply draft proposals that have yet to receive a response from the Maloof family. … “It’s a laughable request made purely for campaign purposes by the opposition,” Dickinson said. “As we’ve seen over the past several years on a number of occasions, negotiating in public has not proven to be very successful,” he said.

Successful for who, exactly? In Roger-speak, doesn’t that mean that when the people know what’s really going on they frequently won’t go for it? Does he really think that a proposal our public officials are making on our behalf to a private company is nothing we need to see?