by Ken Gimblin
Thursday September 19, 2013

SACRAMENTO–In what will be a grass root effort by anti Sacramento Kings arena groups Sacramento Taxpayers Opposed To Pork or STOP are within a few thousand signatures of getting an initiative on the ballot that all new sports facilities in Sacramento that are being publicly funded will have to go through voter approval before any public money is spent on any new facility. The anti arena movement confirmed that they have now 18,000 signed petitions which were financed by Chris Hansen who wanted to move the Kings to Seattle.

Hansen who was fined $50,000 for not revealing that he was the financier of the petitions missed the state deadline code to file with office of elections. Hansen wanted to be a quiet contributor to the petition drive so that he would have a chance at getting an NBA team in the future or the Kings if the initiative passed and public funds couldn’t be used. Hansen only revealed himself after he was forced to come clean on who contributed to the campaign to put the initiative on the ballot. Hansen later apologized for his campaign contribution after realizing the NBA who granted the Kings to stay in Sacramento probably will not want to do business with Hansen since he played a role in contributing to a campaign drive in Sacramento that stop public subsidies for the Kings arena.

Hansen has demanded that all the petitions be returned to him, STOP has said the campaign to put the initiative on the ballot will go forward and that the campaign is close to making the resolution, “these petitions represent the will of 18,000 people who took the time to provide their signatures and express their desire to put this tax subsidy to a vote.” said STOP president Julian Camacho.

STOP is living up to their full name in trying to stop public funding of the arena “make no mistake, this initiative will qualify” said STOP’s treasurer Jim Cathcart. Doug Elmets spokesman for the 2006 initiative that proposed using tax monies to finance a new arena in 06 that failed said there is enough political power in Sacramento to defeat the initiative, “all the invested parties are going to be out in droves trying to defeat this initiative, when you combine, business, labor, and local government all who are eager to see the arena built you’ll see an incredibly well funded effort.”

Ken Gimblin is covering Kings basketball for Sportstalk Radio