But, here is the face, as ugly as it is and all it represents.

his reelection is already tied to the arena and the previous strong mayor initiative regardless so there’s no point in backing down at this point if he actually wants it still. If the arena stuff falls short he can grab the exit door saying “If only I had the strong major capabilities we could have stopped the gridlock in this city.” It’s his only real play to cover himself if the arena goes south. Would it actually work, personally doubt it but don’t really see what other way he can spin that defeat to his advantage.

But, a double-failing of an ESC plan and a strong mayor plan would be a pretty depressing omen for the future of Sacramento as a legitimate city. If someone like KJ can’t overcome city politics to get big things done, I don’t have much hope for much positive change in that town for the forseeable future. We’ll have a Wal-Mart and a Bass Fishing Superstore at the railyards and the “cowtown” slander will be truer than it’s ever been. It’s particularly frustrating for me now that I can look at Sacramento as an outsider who has lived in a couple of other places around the country, to know that Sacramento really is a great place with amazing potential, if they could ever stop being so damn timid about risks or trying not to piss anyone off. It really is a great town that deserves great things.

My thinking was more along the lines of:

KJ: “Hi, Bonnie, what’s your sense on this ballot issue coming up”

BP: “It’s tough, because I don’t want to kill the ESC at this point, but I feel like my constituents would want me to vote ‘Yes’ on allowing them to decide”.

KJ (knowing he has 5 votes): “Yeah, that Sheedy is a sneaky punk. But you do what you need to on this vote, you know I’ll be voting against it and I hope that we’ll continue to be able to work on this as a council”.

…as opposed to how the conversation would go if KJ didn’t know that he had the 5 votes. If that were the case, I’d expect that he and his team would be doing whatever persuading they could. My point is that I can’t imagine KJ not being just as occupied with the city politics side of all this as he is with the business side, because I think he understands that none of the business efforts matter if the politics don’t play out the way that they need to. Then again, I haven’t been to any of the council meetings or feel like I have a good read on any of the members other than Sheedy, so maybe I’m just reading the dynamics the way that I am due to fear of the alternative. Because the thought that KJ isn’t being as aggressive as he possibly can to get the council to vote this thing forward is terrifying.

Someone should screenshot it and send it to Sheedy with that picture of the kings all flipping off the camera