Instead of letting my fingers spew forth angry thoughts, I'm just going to run down a list of events. You tell me what's going on.

• The owners of the team and relevant local government officials start hinting at a possible plan that would raise the local sales tax slightly in order to fund a new arena for said team.
• A local goverment officials says the possible plan would include a slightly devious, possibly illegal but not unprecedented two-pronged ballot measure approach which would not require supermajority approval, but would instead require simple majority approval on two measures.
• Rumblings come out that the two-pronged, possibly illegal ballot approach will likely appear on the November ballot and will call for the arena to be situated in the city's somewhat sickly downtown area.
• Local government officials and the team's owners meet privately in a very public fashion (which is to say the private meeting is trumped up loudly) to hash out some details.
• The idea that the tax could not only fund the arena, but also other pet projects for each of the county's other cities, arrives.
• Officials emerge from said meeting very tight-lipped, and say the financing plan will be released in three weeks.
• Meanwhile, development of the old railyards - the proposed site of the arena - speeds up.
• As the last election before the arena measures hit the ballot, numerous regional sales tax increase proposals get shot down.
• A full five weeks after the above mentioned private-but-public meeting, it is announced that the deal is off as the owners and government officials cannot work out some key disagreements.
• Three weeks later, the league intervenes and the talks resume. In Las Vegas. There is about a month to get something finalized in time for the November ballot.
• The parties leave Las Vegas without any agreement.
• The government officials want the team owners to kick in 20-25 percent of the arena's total cost. The team owners do not want to do so. This is said to be the major remaining sticking point.
• As reports surface that a deal is coming into place in time, opponents of the deal that is coming into place but is not yet in place hold a press conference denouncing the deal that is coming into place but is not yet in place.
• A deal is reached, with the team owners apparently acquiescing to the local government demands. However, within a week, it is realized the team owners have not acquiesced to the local government demands and are simply playing a shell game with the voters, with the local government as an accomplice.
• While the pro-tax forces iron out post-deal details and form their campaign, the local newspaper hits fairly hard everyday with stories and opinion pieces about concerns with the plan itself, as well as some still unresolved issues. The pro campaign is seemingly silent in the public plaza of opinion.
• The team owners say it's possible they won't build the arena downtown, even though every facet of the pro-tax campaign has focused on downtown revitalization.
• The team owners bail on the measures, saying they have been bamboozled by local government officials on fairly important details - control of what types of competing businesses get built near the arena and size of the parking lot. The local government officials vow to push the measure without the team owners. Many hands are wrung.
• A poll by a respected and seemingly neutral local consultant shows failure is imminent for both measures just six weeks before the election.
• The team owners release a commercial for their other business advertising a fast food combo meal that costs $3,000. Said commercial shows the team owners drinking expensive wine and partying with vivacious women in a ritzy setting.
• The team owners eventually come back to the table only a few weeks before the election. Documents released exactly one week before the election show that the team owners have been the ones to Welsh on previous deals with the local government officials. What hands have not already been wrung are now wrung thusly.