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April 29, 2010
Sacramento council okays Kings land swap (again)
The Sacramento Kings three-way land swap deal took another baby step forward on Tuesday, as the Sacramento city council voted to sign an exclusive negotiating agreement with the developers behind the plan. Next up: a whole lot more negotiating, since nobody's exactly figured out yet who'd be paying what to whom.
And, of course there's also Cal Expo, which would be swapping out its current land as part of the deal, and which is now publicly disagreeing with the proposed developers over how much that land is worth. There's a whole lotta baseball left to be played...
What a stupid plan. The State isn't going to go along with this. Everyone's assuming they'll move from a far nicer location, with 350 acres, to a worse one, with an obsolete arena, of 185 acres.
They're not going to do it. What a waste of effort. Does anyone remember that California has monumental budget problems? The agreement specifies that the Legislature will agree to sell Cal Expo by July 31, 2010. That's just not going to happen.
Here's the State's latest "take" on the arena:
http://www.sacbee.com/2010/04/26/2705128/arena-plan-may-hit-snag-over-arcos.html
Posted by MikeM on April 30, 2010 02:37 AM
No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public. With apologies to H.L. Mencken, the same may also be said of the State Fair Board, of the state government, and particularly of the elected officials of our "fair" city and county. Hasn't anyone noticed that the end result of this swap snafu is elimination of a middle class, family entertainment venue (Expo) so that the wealthy can have a palatial arena? I TRULY love the Kings, but perhaps the time has come to part company: Not selling out to these hucksters is a clear sign that Sacramento has moxie and class, that Sacramento IS truly a "World Class City!!!!!"