by Ken Gimblin

SACRAMENTO–On Thursday’s ruling by Superior Court Judge Timothy Frawley to throw out some 22,000 petiiton ballots that would have had forced a public vote on a new Kings arena, Frawley ruled that the ballots had flawed wording. This ruling was consistent with Sacramento City Clerk Shirley Concolino’s assesment that the legal wording for the petitions were flawed and the ballots invalid.

Anti arena group Voters for a Fair Arena Deal chose not to appeal the Frawley decision due to cost and said although they disagree with the ruling they will have to live with the decision, “We concluded that in the final ruling went against us, we would not appeal, we disagree with the lower courts decision, but appeals are expensive and typically it is a difficult matter overturning a factual ruling by the lower court.” said Craig Powell spokesman for Fair Arena.

Also it was Fair Arena who filed a lawsuit suing Concolino and the City Clerk’s office for saying the petitions were invalid, Frawley dismissed that suit on Wednesday. Meanwhile non union contract workers who had sided wtih Sacramento Taxpayers Opposed to Pork or STOP and Fair Arena the two anti arena groups, the non union contractors withdrew their financing of the lawsuit after Frawley’s decision. The non union contractors filed the suit after the city wanted to hire only union contractors to work on the arena leaving the non union group out.

“It’s unfortunate that the will of the poeple had to be thwarted because the T’s weren’t crossed and the I’s weren’t dotted” Said Eric Christen spokesman for the non-union contractors. STOP spokesman Julian Camacho has not made a final decision against an appeal but acknowledged that going forward would be expensive and timely, “the final, final decision by our group hasn’t been made” said Camacho

STOP has until the end the business day on Friday to decide if they want to pursue the appeal because the deadline is on Monday to get an appellate decision to get the issue on the June ballot. With the deadline closing in the odds are not very good that STOP will get an appeal in by that time, “I think the issue is the timing and financing, it’s pretty tight” said Camacho.

STOP and Camacho released their own written appeal to the voters of Sacramento urging them for the right of the people to be heard on these 22,000 petitions, “we call on the Scaramento’s disenfranchised voters to express their outrage to their City Council; and we call on our elected representatives to begin listening to their contstituents, it is not too late for the city’s arena deal to receieve the public scruntiny and debate that it deserves.”

Meanwhile Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson who said earlier that the petitions had the smell of stench, said that he his jubilant over the judge’s decision, “time and time again, outsiders have tried to undermine the right of Sacramento to control the destiny of our Kings, our downtown and our future, time and time again, we have stepped up to the challenge and stood tall. Today is no exception” said Johnson.

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