Turns out that getting people to sign multiple different versions of a petition is a problem after all: Sacramento city clerk Shirley Concolino ruled on Friday that she was rejecting the petitions to put a vote on the Kings arena plan on the June ballot, because of the multiple-versions thing, and the failure-to-include-required-legal-language-saying-this-will-be-enacted-into-law-if-approved thing, and the statements-ending-in-incomplete-sentences thing. “I’ve never seen a petition with as many flaws as this one,” Concolino said.

Of course, Concolino’s boss is Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, something that ballot measure advocates noted in protesting her ruling. Sacramento Taxpayers Opposed to Pork and Voters for a Fair Arena Deal will almost certainly now challenge the petition rejection in court; the Sacramento Bee cites some legal experts as saying judges tend to interpret petition rules strictly, others that they’ll let things slide if they’re not major, so it’s anyone’s guess how things proceed from here. Except that unless things are resolved soon, there’s an excellent chance that Sacramento will be able to sell arena bonds before anyone can vote on anything, which could make the whole issue moot.

Meanwhile, the Bee this weekend ran another story about that economic impact report Kings arena boosters issued last month, this time burying the bit about how more than 90% of the impact would just be cannibalized from spending elsewhere in the city way down in the 22nd paragraph. Actual additional economic activity: $25 million a year, according to the report. Even that’s questionable (Stanford economist Roger Noll says it’s more likely $10-15 million a year), but if we take the report at its word, this means that the city of Sacramento would be better off taking its arena money in suitcases of twenties and handing them out on the streets of the city. (Especially when you consider that Sacramento residents are more likely to spend money locally than Kings players or owners, making for a higher multiplier.)

It’s the kind of thing you’d expect to see in a headline — “Even Kings supporters don’t see much new economic impact” — but instead we get
“City says Sacramento arena would be economic powerhouse; subsidy critics disagree.” Because far be it from journalists to actually try to say whose math is correct.

Aw, man, did I forget to tell you guys that the Sacramento arena ballot petitions got certified? Well, they did, last week, and now there will be a vote on whether financing of any pro sports facility should require a public vote, which would take place on June 3. (The vote on whether to vote would take place on June 3, that is. The actual vote on the Kings arena in particular would take place in November.)

Except that the county registrar still needs to rule, possibly as early as today, on whether those multiple versions of the petition mean some should be tossed, and regardless of what she says, there will be a lawsuit over this whole thing anyway. So we probably won’t know for a while yet whether there will be a vote. Hey, here’s an idea: Why don’t we have people vote on whether to vote on whether to vote? I’ll get a petition going…

A Sacramento judge has ordered that city councilmember Kevin McCarty can be subpoenaed to testify in a lawsuit charging that — you know what, I have to go on the radio on half an hour, let’s let the Sacramento Bee explain:

In a statement filed in court, attorney Patrick Soluri said McCarty told him the city gave the Kings a secret subsidy intended to reimburse the Kings investors for the fact that they were “overpaying” for the franchise. The new owners bought the team in a deal valued at an NBA-record $535 million.

Also, Soluri said McCarty told him [city economic development director Jim] Rinehart felt the city had seriously undervalued city land that is being given to the Kings as part of the deal. Soluri’s clients, a group of citizens fighting the deal, believe the true value of the subsidy is well above $258 million.

McCarty, who opposes the subsidy, said Tuesday by email, “I certainly have no problem answering tough questions during these legal proceedings.”

I’m not sure what makes this part of the Kings deal any more “secret” than the rest of it, given that what’s been announced already doesn’t really add up, but if the city allegedly knew it was cooking the books but didn’t say so, I guess that’s news. McCarty and Rinehart now both have 20 days to be deposed in the case; if nothing else, it should provide some entertainment right about the time that Cemeterygate starts to die down.

As several readers have now pointed out, when I wrote on Friday that the Sacramento Kings arena vote squabble couldn’t get any more ridiculous, I apparently spoke too soon:

A group supporting the construction of a Sacramento Kings arena is in hot water from both sides of the debate after holding a press conference in a cemetery on Friday.

I’m sorry, in a what?

The group clarified on Twitter that the location of the conference was meant to highlight signatures of dead people found on petitions submitted by Sacramento Taxpayers Opposed to Pork.

If you want video, you can find it here. At this rate, I think maybe Sacramento should give up on this whole basketball thing and just construct a building where people can buy tickets to watch STOP and The4000 face off for the next 30 years.

There were a bunch of developments in the Sacramento Kings arena saga this week, and fortunately Sactown Royalty has summarized most of them for us. But I’m still going to summarize them even more, because that’s how the Internet rolls:

• The counting of petitions to put the arena deal up for a public vote in June, already complicated by such matters as the mayor’s pro-arena group trying to demand that the petitioners pay to have the petitions counted, got even more complicated with the report (also from the same pro-arena group, the crazily named The4000) that the petitions were issued in five (or maybe eight) slightly different versions. This is either a major crisis that will require going back to the beginning and doing a recount, or a minor issue that in past petition cases hasn’t caused any problems at all, depending on who you ask. Or, more likely, grounds for a lawsuit.
• If you’re wondering how the petition validating is going otherwise, Mrs. Lincoln, of the first 8,518 signatures to be checked, 67.7% were deemed valid, somewhat ahead of the 62% validity rate needed for the ballot measure to go through.
• There could be an initial ruling soon in a lawsuit claiming that the city illegally offered under-the-table inducements to the new owners of the Kings to help get them to buy the team, with the plaintiffs currently trying to depose city councilmember Kevin McCarty on the subject. Which seems like a reach, but we’re talking about a battle here that’s currently turning on petition typos, so really, anything is fair game.
• Meanwhile, Craig Powell of Eye on Sacramento writes that the city is trying yet another tack to get around a possible June vote, by pushing up the sale of arena bonds to 14 days before voters would go to the polls. That could be difficult — as the Sacramento Bee has previously noted, petitioners could always go to court to try to delay the bond sale until after the vote, and “it’s also difficult to imagine that the bond could get through the legal and underwriting process with a ballot measure pending” — but we’ve certainly seen these sorts of shenanigans before.

In sum, then, the arena battle is still a great big steaming mess, and everyone could save a lot of time and legal fees by choosing a simpler method of resolving it. Like, say, arm wrestling.