In a conservative town like Sacramento, it is an uphill battle to gain support for projects like an arena.  The proposed 1/4% sales tax increase was a strategy which would have been "easy on the pocketbook" --would have cost me only $2.50 per month--a small amount to pay for such a significant project.  

The railyard will still need to be redeveloped and the need for a "state of the art arena will continue to get attention. Alternate avenues for financing these projects will be explored.

Yes, it is now time to turn our attention to the  '06 - '07 season and have some fun.

0oops--GIANT MISTAKE--My face is RED.  I meant to type "liberal"--guess I was not fully awake and in a big hurry.  It is frustrating to live in California and constantly be battling the liberals. But, you're exactly right when you mentioned the difficulty of getting support for professional sports. My optimism regarding Q & R has been gradualy diminishing for a couple of weeks.

This battle may be lost but the war can still be won.  I'm confident that the developer, the city, and the Maloofs will be creative and come up with a new plan.

Kusian, thank you for alerting me about my error and for your insightful remarks.  
 

Well, I KNOW I'm naive, I'll continue to shill personally because I KNOW this could be good for downtown Sac & ESPECIALLY for the poor, it would clean up the core, improve the job situation, accelerate competition with venues downtown  for live/work like is present in downtown Oakland, etc.

Overwhelming odds perhaps considering the opposition to the tax, but a couple of thoughts:

1)The buffer zone around the new arena in downtown the Maloofs would want:
   a)Why can't they be involved in developing
     /financing aspects in this core themselves?
     Seems like it would behoove their image to
     contribute in downtown Sac like they do
     in Lost vega$ to the entertainment.Better  
     yet, be seen partying here more than the
     players.Within reason, of course.
   b)Is it unresonable to expect them to talk
      about what's being gained with their
      collabaration with the city instead of
      what they perceive they're loosing?
      This only feeds perceptions of them as
      greedy for the public money.
   c)If their product is the most 'desirable'
     & marketable in said area, wouldn't they
     be the most successful?This would make them
     more competitive in their entertainment
     approach to Sac. I'm sure they're that way
     in their view of the Vega$ market.
     Sacramentans resent being treated as if
     they're uncosmopolitian yokels.It makes
     them feel their being talked down to as
     residents of a 'cowtown'.This doesn't
     suffuciently massage the egos of the power
     brokers here; especially at the Bee.

2)Their needs to be a way to address the constiuents of Davey Jones so as to make him less than relavant on this issue:

     a. Obviously, field a candidate
        against him when he comes up
        for re-election.
     b. Said candidate needs to have a profile
        in social justice/a track record, who
        sees the benefit of downtown
        redevelopment & a new arena. A
        King's fan, ideally.

3)Of course, the Maloofs should have already signed a deal with me about my song to publicize social justice, since it's raised $5,050.00 so far for Hurricane Katrina survivors, but at least this way, I control all the fund disbursement; so the present(non) deal works for me.

http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/rhondda
Youtube video shoot at Weber point, Oct. 7th!

I am not sure the voters are anti-sports. It seems that over the past few years, there has been a explosion of anti-tax organizations following in the footsteps of the Howard Jarvis group. They are in vogue. Their m.o. is against any tax regardless of its need or attractiveness. These people seem to have the idea that while they want and need governmental services, they should be free or at least someone else paying for them. As a result, you get this knee jerk reaction to any public funded endeavor like the new arena. You would think when they had their garbage sitting in their front yard for a couple of weeks it might have driven home the fact that there are certain services that we require that only government can provide in a cheap and efficient manner. But they are still unwilling to pay for them. What has to take place is a campaign to point out there are other benefits which will result from the tax increase and if it is voted down, you are still faced with paying for cleaning up the railyard. As for Dave Jones, forget any retribution. He has the solid backing of the machine and doesn't come up for reelection for a while. The memory of the public is about 2 seconds.  

Not anti-sports.  You can love sports but have a problem with big taxpayer subsidies.

That's true, but has Observer pointed out, the public in the form of the county government will have to pay for the cleanup of the railyards....Might as well get a new arena outta that if public money is spent....

Are you aware that public funding for a new arena happened in Stockton WITHOUT the public voting for it?Not sure that's a ringing endorsement for Stockton politics, but it is what it is.

http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/rhondda