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March 17, 2010
Sacramento council gives go-ahead to talking about negotiating possible Kings deal
The Sacramento city council yesterday unanimously endorsed the mayor's arena task force's endorsement of developer Gerry Kamilos' Kings arena proposal. Or at least endorsed endorsing it — the Sacramento Business Journal described last night's vote as "directing city staff to begin a preliminary analysis and lay out a timeline and process for working with the team led by developers Gerry Kamilos and David Taylor for a proposed arena in the downtown railyards," which is quite a mouthful of qualifiers.
The next steps: File a report on the parameters of a council committee to work on the arena project, and another report on the proposed language for a negotiating agreement under which to talk about the project. Once this is accomplished — which could take up to six months — maybe they can stop talking about how to talk, and begin actually talking about some items of substance, like how exactly the whole shebang is going to be paid for?
Another action item: Writing up language for the state legislature to approve the sale of its Cal Expo land as part of the Kamilos deal, something the state hasn't seemed keen on given the costs of building a whole new Cal Expo on the Arco Arena site. It should be an interesting six months, to say the least.
This whole deal sickens me.
It looks to me as though none of the details have to be made public on this -- such as the terms of the lease -- until after everything has been agreed to.
Transparency is lacking. Logic is lacking. Good sense is lacking.
Posted by MikeM on March 17, 2010 11:56 AM
MikeM,
Man, did you intend to make this post on the Santa Clara stadium deal?
Please copy it there also, haha.
Posted by santa clara jay on March 17, 2010 12:54 PM
How can the state and local government afford this deal? The state is bankrupt and the municipalities cannot be that far off.
Posted by bevo on March 18, 2010 11:37 PM
What needs to be made transparent is that this whole deal is a swindle from beginning to end. It isn't even about the arena. Its about putting 360 acres of urban public commons (state land) into the hands of private developers in a complicated land-swap. They've been angling for that land for years. That's why everything seems so illogical, downright dumb. We've all got our eyes on the wrong ball. Some of the gory details are at www.stopcalexpo.wordpress.com where we've been fighting these guys for over a year. And yes, we can use some expert help if any of you folks have it to offer. - red, The CEAV Project.
Posted by redslider on March 29, 2010 06:13 PM