As the Bee recently covered, the NBA very rarely blocks teams looking to move cities. There is only one example in modern history, when the NBA blocked the Timberwolves proposed move to New Orleans in 1994. What’s more, the decision appears to be based more on financial problems with the new ownership group, rather than the two cities. But today, the NBA appears set to declare that a personal grudge and a bit of money does not speak louder than a loyal fan base and motivated host city. The relocation committee recommended the NBA deny the Hansen group’s bid to move the Kings to Seattle to replace their recently departed Supersonics. While the NBA rejecting a move initiated by a quality o

“Players wanna play, Ballers wanna ball, Rollers wanna roll …” and voters want to vote. As the Field Poll (California’s long running, highly reputable independent polling service) said of Californians, “Voters also think that the voting public rather than their elected representatives ‘can be trusted more often to do what is right on important government issues’ (63% to 24%) and ‘are better suited to decide upon large-scale government programs and projects’ (57% to 33%).” In this context, it should come as no surprise that a new poll released by Tab Communications that showed nearly 80% of Sacramento voters would like to vote on the arena plan. (Tab Communications is a conservative polit

Yesterday, Sacramento Press contributor Tony Sheppard challenged fellow readers and contributors to share what they would do with a theoretical $250 million, in a way that might bring a greater return than a basketball arena. I started writing a comment but, as often happens, it ended up being an article in itself. So here it is. Step 1: Build the Downtown/Riverfront Streetcar: $130 Million. Streetcars are often called "development-oriented transit" because they promote growth of transit-oriented neighborhoods along their right-of-way. Portland is the canonical example of a new city streetcar line spurring growth in the "Pearl" District, a mostly vacant industrial district until installa

Let's come at this from another perspective. And just in case I sound like I'm anti-arena, I'm not – I'm just inclined to be wary of public spending on developments of this nature as they rarely pan out. Money often gets made, but it's not by the city or municipality involved. Deals are made that involve fabulously wealthy people who generally get wealthier (the Maloofs being bad examples) with public assistance. And if the overall business proposition involved was so appealing, there would be private investors lined up around City Hall, bidding on the opportunity to build an arena and operate it. The only time recently we've had that kind of rush to bid on something was when the city prop

In order to build a downtown arena, Sacramentans will have to give up that which they hold dearest: free parking. The funding plan requires expansion of on-street metering downtown, and will increase parking rates at city lots. The arena’s presence dramatically changes the economics of private parking lots, in ways that threaten the main funding source for the arena. By releasing the term sheet at the absolute last minute, on a Saturday night, followed by a Monday city holiday and a crashed City of Sacramento website, the opportunity for public review is so limited that it is effectively nonexistent. Three days is simply not enough time for a detailed look at the term sheet, but it was su

The City of Sacramento  held open house on the plans to build a downtown arena Thursday at 5:30 pm to 7:30pm in the New City Hall Foyer. Here's how the meeting went down on Twitter: Editor’s note: The “News Digest” goes out every Tuesday morning and highlights our best stories, photos and videos from the week prior. Sign me up.

Lights, camera, fashion is all the buzz to be heard around the Emerald City as it kicked off its seventh annual Sacramento Fashion Week http://sacfashionweek.com/, February 24 - March 2. Growing in attendance each year since its launch in 2006, we have been able to watch fashion in Sacramento transition from adopted trends from nearby cities and magazines to developing designers and fashionistas with inimitable style. SACFW Editor in Chief, Bridgett Rex explained that SACFW allows us to educate our community about fashion and style, creating a demand for people to become more interested and eager to engage in fashion. “With events like Sacramento Fashion Week, the community becomes mor

I'm just a simple, hard working Sacramentan. I've worked for small businesses since I was 15 years old, so I'm mystified by all this talk of arenas and billionaires and commissions and hearings and plans and such. I'm too busy running a humble little bike shop with my dad to fully grasp the truth of the matter, and what it has to do with the price of bread. I grew up in Phoenix watching Kevin Johnson play for the Suns, and I've met him a few times and I've always liked the guy. He seems smart and reasonable enough, so if he says this Kings nonsense is good for the city, then fine – I'll go along with it. He is the mayor after all! But yesterday I learned that the city council has author

It seems the Kings won't be hopping over to the East Coast anytime soon. A deal between the city of Virginia Beach, cable giant Comcast-Spectacor and the Sacramento Kings has fizzled, according to several outlets. A joint statement regarding plans to build an arena is expected to be issued later Tuesday from the mayor and cable company. "The city doesn’t see a clear opportunity at this point and as such it's not something we're aggressively going after,” Virginia Beach Mayor Will Sessoms told the Virginian-Pilot, a local newspaper. He said the company that would have operated the arena will continue to negotiate with the team targeted as the anchor tenant – widely believed to be the Kin

An anonymous individual – who currently goes only by the moniker “Citizen X” – started a petition on Change.org to recall Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, but it looks like the person is facing an uphill battle: The road to citizen recall of an elected official is long and arduous and only rarely succeeds. The petition cites Johnson’s nonprofit activities and recent disclosure shortfalls as some of the reasons for the recall effort and has, so far, gathered 41 signatures. A Facebook page supporting the recall effort was also started Thursday, and it garnered 91 likes by Friday morning. According to the city charter, the steps to a recall of a city official follow the outline found in the

Media reports were buzzing from coast to coast about a plan being pitched in Virginia Beach to build a new arena and possibly make it the new home of the Sacramento Kings – but when the proposal was unveiled to the Virginia Beach City Council Tuesday, no mention was made of the Kings, leaving fans to breathe a sigh of relief. “They didn't present a financing plan, provided only a cost estimate and – most importantly to Sacramento basketball fans – didn't mention any potential sports teams as tenants,” Ryan Lillis reported in The Sacramento Bee Tuesday. Although the rumors remained unsubstantiated after the weeklong worry-fest leading up to the City Council presentation, questions linger

There has been much ado in recent days about a potential Sacramento Kings move to the coastal town of Virginia Beach, Va. – but as more information is revealed, a writer with an influential liberal think tank said it is starting to look like Sacramento is little more than a pawn in a larger corporate game. As the Virginia Beach City Council prepares to hear a presentation from a group of corporate executives interested in building a new arena in its region, Travis Waldron, a reporter from the liberal forum blog ThinkProgress, presents a different take on the situation and what may be happening behind the scenes. “Connecting the dots in the roll-out of this story,” Waldron wrote, “makes i

It’s all over mainstream media: Virginia Beach is making a pitch to steal Sacramento’s beloved Kings, and team owners, the Maloofs, are buying in – but a spokesman for the Maloofs said in an email yesterday not to believe all the hype. “The franchise is not going to discuss which cities have approached the organization and are not going to comment on every rumor,” Maloof spokesman Eric W. Rose said in the email. “The sole focus of everyone within the Sacramento Kings organization continues to be to put a winning team on the court as we look forward to what promises to be an exciting 2012-13 NBA season.” Wait. What? Notice that Rose makes no commitment with his statement beyond the curre

The best things Sacramento could do to bring the downtown railyards to life and spur greater development would be to start small and build from the inside out, some say. That’s the message in a new report from the Urban Land Institute about the potential in the railyards, and it was the topic of a recent Sac Press Live interview with John Hodgson, president of the Hodgson Company and a member of the Urban Land Institute. Hodgson talked about the ULI report as a roadmap for development in the railyards. It includes recommendations to build incrementally, create interconnected, mixed-use neighborhoods and start with inexpensive interim uses to draw people and develop interest in the railya

As yet another summer of arena drama for the Sacramento Kings comes to a close and the team prepares to hit the court this Fall, I'll be hosting a live chat Thursday with one of this city's experts in all things basketball: James Ham (@James_Ham) of the Cowbell Kingdom blog. The chat will be streamed live on SacramentoPress.com on Thursday at 12:15 p.m. You can participate by posting questions in the conversation below this article. We'll also be joined by our King's blogger, Mark Needham. The chat will be emebed here:   The documentary Ham and Blake Ellington produced in 2010 about the arena saga, "Small Market, Big Heart," will be screened  the next day, Friday at 6:30 p.m. at the

While the arena deal might be dead, planning for the downtown railyards remains at the center of the agenda for Sacramento, and next week, city staff will present the city council with a report on the best way Sacramento can encourage development in the 240-acre site. The basis for that presentation will be a recently-published report conducted by the city and the Urban Land Institute think tank, "Redeveloping the railyards to strengthen the urban core." This Wednesday at noon, we'll be chatting with one of people behind the ULI Report, John Hodgson, a land use attorney and founder and president of The Hodgson Company. The chat will be live streamed in this article. You can also join us

A Kings move to Seattle less likely as NBA arena deal hits a snag: Things were looking good for Seattle’s bid to get a new basketball arena, Ryan Lillis reports in The Sacramento Bee today – until the city council balked at the plan for sharing tax revenue in the deal. All eyes were on Seattle recently as a potential relocation spot for the Sacramento Kings, but any move for the team hinged on a deal for an arena. As Sacramentans know well, arena deals can be a tough business, and can blow up. Welcome to the club, Seattle. “This doesn't appear to be a death blow for Seattle's arena plans,” Lillis writes. “But it's certainly worth noting that the political climate in the Emerald City seem

The Sacramento Press will be chatting live with Sacramento Bee City Hall reporter Ryan Lillis at noon about an eventual week in city politics - with the Lisa Serna-Mayorga credit card/criminal investigation and the more recent news that the Sacramento Democratic Party blasted Mayor Kevin Johnson for running a number of his non-city funded initiatives out of offices on the 3rd floor of City Hall – including the Greenwise group’s pursuit of energy and green tech opportunities and Think Big, the initiative to get an arena built in Sacramento. The chat will conintue a conversation with City Concilman Steve Cohn about the credit card scandal and the city's developing plans to rebuild the playg

It’s a question that’s been on the mind of everyone who has been following Sacramento’s arena debacle: How did Isaac Gonzalez get ahold of that email cache that changed our understanding of how the negotiations between the city and the Maloofs actually played out? On Tuesday, Gonzalez addressed the question during a Sacramento Press live chat with Carmichael Dave Weiglein. The context: About halfway through the chat, Weiglein asked Gonzalez to clear up questions about leaked emails and letters that circulated between the Maloofs, their attorneys and NBA representatives, which Gonzales obtained from an unnamed source and made public. The emails outlined issues the Maloofs had with the “h

The debate over the future of the railyards entered a new phase with a bang Monday as Mayor Kevin Johnson announced his new target for the space: a Major League Baseball stadium. The details are sketchy at this point – there isn't even a team in play yet, though the city hopes that bringing Kevin McClatchy, a former co-owner of the Pittsburgh Pirates and the current chairman of the board of The McClatchy Co., which owns The Sacramento Bee, will help them recruit one. As part of The Sacramento Press's ongoing discussion with writers, activists and community leaders who have been engaged with the arena issue, I checked in with ranSACkedmedia.com blogger and Sacramento Current podcaster Isaa