Tag: Arena

Remember: women and children out of the ship first…

The owners of the Sacramento Kings have sent out a letter blasting city and county leaders for taking the side of a developer who they say wants to renegotiate terms of a deal for a new arena.

The letter was sent to season ticket holders, other customers, team members and at least some city leaders.

Is anybody out there in Sac Rag land on that mailing list? We’d love to get a copy of that letter…

UPDATE: Thanks, “somebody else” for hooking us up so quickly (26 minutes). This thing is turning into a full blown fiasco. The timing of this is great, even if the city/county could react it wouldn’t be until the weekend. Wonder how they’ll distance themselves from this?

One thing, though: “For us, failure at the Railyards would mean everything.” I thought it just meant that they “may have to consider other options”?

Various sources are reporting that the talks between the Maloofs and the JPA are stalling over parking spaces. In a stunning turn of events, the pro-arena campaign is now saying that it will press on with or without the Kings:

“We still consider [the Maloofs] part of our team, but it is our arena, and we will decide where it goes, and the public has said loud and clear that the best place for the arena is in the railyard,” said Assistant City Manager John Dangberg

Again I ask how and when we made our voice “loud and clear” on the arena issue. This is starting to completely unravel into a major scandal. What are these idiots doing? More later…

I don’t blame the Arena supportes for distancing themselves from Joe Maloof’s apparently off-the-cuff prepared statement last week about the possibility of the railyard site not materializing. But in doing so they bury a key point of the agreement they made with the Maloofs: namely that the railyard site might not materialize and that “we may have to consider alternative locations in Sacramento.” They know it’s true because they signed the document, things Dignan’s not supposed to touch. Oops, sorry.

Campaign chairperson Sandy Smoley told News10 in a written statement. “The community has decided that the best place for its new arena is at the old Sacramento railyards, and we have no doubt that this is where it will be.

The community decided that? When was that, was I out of the country when we decided that?
Continue reading “Arena boosters distance themselves from Maloofs, voters”

UPDATED 9/6/06 at 8:00 pm

To quote Conan O’Brien, you just can’t make this stuff up; you wouldn’t want to, it would waste everyone’s time.

Kings Owner Joe Maloof’s statement: “We share the vision that everyone here has. The future would be fantastic to have a new arena downtown to revitalize the railyards. But it isn’t going to be easy. The site has been vacant for decades because it’s such a difficult site to develop. There are a lot of moving parts: The railroad, the developer, the cleanup, and all the work the city and county have got to get done. We believe it can happen, we believe an arena can help make it happen, but we want to make sure the people are aware that we will do our best. If for some reason it can’t happen at this site, we may have to consider alternative locations in Sacramento.”

Continue reading “Joe Maloof drops railyard arena bomb”