Tag: Arena

Run them out of town

This is a major scandal. It’s old news by now, but back in 2007 when the city council agreed to transfer $55 million to Thomas Enterprises to help the company buy the rest of the railyard land, it apparently overpaid by several orders of magnitude because it didn’t take the time to get an appraisal done. Most of the money came from the transportation fund and thus couldn’t be used to get us out of the $50 million hole we’re in — though how it was able to be transferred to a real estate developer in that case is beyond me.

This whole mess stunk before, but this is an outrage. The Sac Rag does not do political endorsements, but let’s just say I personally hope the city council’s unemployment rate soon becomes 100%.

Railyards project receives cash

As reported by the Biz Journal, the city has received an additional $17.9 million in funds tied to the almost $24 billion transportation and infrastructure money approved by us voters in 2006. Construction on the railyards is supposed to begin next year.

The money approved in prop 1B is for “creating infrastructure and affordable housing near transit.” Somewhat ironically, $18 million is exactly the amount Regional Transit expects to lose when the budget is passed. (although by the time the budget is passed we’ll all be tooling around in jet-packs.) Perhaps some of that money can be redirected toward transit near which to build more affordable housing?

Bee pats itself on the back for KJ allegations

Buried at the bottom of this story about Heather Fargo’s uphill battle against KJ’s celebrity status, the Bee’s Mary Lynne Vellinga mentions yesterday’s Padilla bombshell about KJ:

This week, Johnson has again had to contend with allegations of sexual misconduct with teenage girls in Phoenix and Sacramento. Charges were never brought in either case, but rival mayoral candidate Leonard Padilla on Tuesday distributed the police report in the Phoenix case to the press.

Yes, he had to contend with them again because they were reported on in the same paper after being dropped off by a very concerned political opponent. Continue reading “Bee pats itself on the back for KJ allegations”

New Arena, New Traffic Problems

Poppy is on board!In today’s Bee, writer Tony Bizjak reports on a number of traffic concerns from folks in-the-know concerning the new Cal Expo arena plans.  The piece pretty fairly andd succinctly addresses the concerns of a number of agencies, groups, and individuals, as well as putting forth a fledgling solution, even at this early stage:

Bartosik and other area business officials, in fact, already have been studying a potential traffic reducer — a streetcar that would run on tracks on or off the street.  It could bring people into the area from a nearby light-rail station, looping them to the Cal Expo gates and the Arden Fair front entrance.

Amazingly enough, not one of the so-called experts mentioned the futuristically fantastic solution staring them right in the face.  It’s a solution so singular it only needs one track, so simple it’s already been built, so elegant it only takes one word to express it: Monorail!  (From now on, any mention of the Monorail! will use a capitalized “M” and an exclamation point.) Continue reading “New Arena, New Traffic Problems”

The Union Pacific Food Hall

I just got back from Los Angeles yesterday and returned to our fair city with an appreciation for good urban planning.  I’ve been to several California cities in the last few months in fact, and I can say that Sacramento is much farther along in its trendy “dowtown revitilization” project than most of the others.  Nowhere is this more evident than in downtown LA.  For those of you that haven’t ventured to downtown LA recently, you’re missing a goldmine of an opportunity to see some of this country’s seediest homeless people along with one of the surest and slowest transformations of an American city.  The plodding gentrification of the downtown area is slow, true, but also relentless, transforming historical buildings and retaining some sense of SoCal history.  Instead of the “out with the old, in with the new” mentality so prevalent in LA,  planners are seizing this opportunity to do it right, mixing old and new in a symbiotic fusion.  The best example I can see of this attitude is at the Grand Central Market, an alomst open-air food haven that mixes spice sellers and fish mongers with kitchens and food stands, dishing out counter and street food from all over the globe.

Continue reading “The Union Pacific Food Hall”

Grand jury slams arena backdoor dealings

News10 reported yesterday that the County grand jury found that Sacramento officials “violated the public trust” in rushing measures Q and R to the ballot last fall. Ironically, it’s not a binding decision and finds nobody at fault for any specific infraction.

My own take on this saga is completely in evidence so obviously you know how I feel. However, read the PDF of the Grand Jury’s report. It is very strange. With headings like “Hail to the Kings! The Costly Illusion that City Greatness Requires the Presence of Professional Sports” and “Downtown Railyard Development – What Have We Gotten Into?” and “The Train has left and the City now has the Station!” and with language like “Has the city initiated the much wished for revitalization of downtown or has it stepped into a polluted black hole?” it doesn’t read anything like the legal document you will expect. It reads more like some snarky blog poster obviously biased against the whole deal from the start. I don’t know much about grand jury proceedings but is this normal?

Looks like the city and county officials have to respond to the findings in this report later in the year. Specifically, by “June 00, 2007.” So we’ll all stay tuned for that!

SNR website revamped; Mayor admits railyard purchase misstep

I’m getting a little behind here, working on launching a new website called BLUE MAG, an entertainment wing to my online mansion. Enjoy…

So a completely new look for the News & Review website. I think aspects of it are very attractive but it seems to me to be way too busy.

A great railyard story in last week’s issue as well. Mayor Fargo thinks that Thomas Enterprises didn’t bargain hard enough to get Union Pacific to move the tracks to accomodate the new infrastructure.

“Union Pacific should have moved their tracks. They could have done it. It would have been easy. … It’s a little bit of a sore subject, because we had hoped that our partners in all of this would be stepping up a little more, but the reality is, we wanted to get this done badly.”

So had we, Heather.

Railyard cleanup on the fast track, or pile that asbestos in the closet

According to the Bee today, Thomas Enterprises, Inc., new owner and developer of the railyard, are going to be moving as fast as possible to clean up the toxic areas of that site.

The faster the cleanup, the sooner Thomas will get city approval for development. The sooner the company sells parcels to developers, the faster it can pay off loans and turn a profit.

My mom always loved this approach to cleaning my room. Why on earth would you attempt to portray your handling of a gigantic environmental mess as proceeding as fast as humanly possible? It’s one thing if there are just a few big-box stores going in there, but there are going to be thousands of homes on that site.

That’s some good fiddling, Heather Fargo

What, me worry?
Mayor and buyers celebrate railyard sale

A telling quote from Mayor Fargo in the Bee’s report today on the railyard sale:

“I never thought I’d be spending most of my political career on this site,” Fargo said of her longtime role as railyard booster.

With 59 murders in Sacramento this year, easily the highest total in a decade, including at least 3 in the last week, along with other horrible stories of assaults, unidentified bodies turning up almost daily, and gunfire at the entrance to Arden Fair (that’s just this week), really, what else could she be remembered for? I bet you a Sac Rag t-shirt we bust through 60 by the end of the year.

Continue reading “That’s some good fiddling, Heather Fargo”

David Stern, the world is watching

I found an interesting editorial addressed to David Stern, commissioner of the NBA, regarding his taking over of Sacramento’s arena negotiations:

Nov. 19 – Dear David Stern: Thanks for deciding to be a lead negotiator for the National Basketball Association in efforts to build a new arena in Sacramento. The last arena proposal — Measures Q and R on the November ballot — was so strange that not even the Sacramento Kings ended up supporting it. Even you wondered why anyone would vote Yes. You sensed the pickle Sacramento is in. A respected outside influence sure would be helpful, maybe even necessary, to figure out a solution.

It’s an interesting, and might I say, refreshing take on the future of Sacramento’s arena issue.  Whether David Stern was brought in to try to get a deal done, or if he’s simply coming to town to eventually say that a deal can’t be done, time will tell.  However, the final thought of the article is what I found most compelling:

…The Sacramento arena problem is a symptom of a broader problem with the NBA. Medium-sized markets like ours need huge government subsidies to deal with financial inequities within the league. The league’s business model is screwed up more than Sacramento’s priorities are.

This community won’t and can’t paper over the NBA’s problem with gobs of new taxes. It can work with just about anyone for a worthy civic goal. Keep that in mind. And welcome to town.

Sacramento’s local issue might have great implications for professional basketball in the United States. Indeed, whether the Kings stay in this town is not just a measure of Sacramento, but also a measure of the NBA.