by Ken Gimblin

SACRAMENTO–Sacramento Assistant City Attorney Matthew Ruyak says that the subsidy measure that would ask Sacramento voters if public subsidies could be used to build a new arena could make the ballot and that a judge could be persuaded enough to allow the measure to reach the ballot according to a confidential memo. Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson has said that the ballots are flawed and that the petitions are not legal and should not be allowed.

Sacramento Taxpayers Opposed to Pork or STOP and Voters For a Fair Arena Deal filed a lawsuit that their petitions were following political protocol and that they have the constitutional right to have their measure be legally on the ballot since they met beyond the minimum requirements to be on the ballot with 22,938 petitions over the ten percent minimum and some of the legalees were minor.

Sacramento City attorney James Sanchez sounded off immediately after STOP filed their lawsuit saying the petitions were not up to code and legal, “we believe the legal shortcomings presented by the STOP petitions will be persuasive to a judge, we believe a judge will be hardpressed to conclude they complied with the election code.” said Sanchez

But it’s Ruyak’s confidential memo that lends credence that the measure has a shot at making the ballot, although in basketball parlance it’s not a slam dunk Ruyak says there is no guarantee the city can fight to keep it off the ballot even with some of the legal inconsistencies, “we can not conclude with the requisite level of confidence that a court would more likely uphold an action to disqualify the initiative or it’s signatures. Given the fundamental right of the electorate to assist their voice through initiative, we cannot definitely conclude that there is a greater than 50 percent chance of prevailing in court should the city council refuse to place the measure on the ballot.” said Ruyak

STOP attorney Brad Hertz said that even though there were flaws on the petitions and legal disclaimer errors they are minor enough and that the initiative should go forward on the ballot, “it was a lot of very enthusiastic people with, you might say, too many cooks in the kitchen, all of (the flaws) are minor, technical, no voters were deceived” said Hertz

Ken Gimblin is covering the Sacramento Kings and Golden State Warriors arena developments for Sportstalk Radio