by Jerry Feitelberg

A Sacramento citizens lawsuit hearing was heard in Sacramento Superior Court on Tuesday, 12 citizens in their efforts to try and stop the construction of the Sacramento Kings new arena was heard. The citizens claim traffic, huge crowds creating pollution, noise in the neighborhood, possible public drunkeness and riots after games as part of the reasons given why the arena should not be built at downtown’s Fairfield Mall where all the merchants have moved out in preparation for the Kings demolition for the new arena build.

The lawsuit by the citizens was filed a day after the Sacramento City Council took a vote to approve construction for the Kings new arena, the council voted 7-2 in favor for the new arena. The citizens filed the lawsuit under the California environmental laws, the lawsuit also protests SB 743 which was signed into law by California Governor Jerry Brown giving the construction of the arena teeth against CEQA lawsuits.

The citizens went down a laundry list of reasons why the court should over rule the City Council explaining that traffic conditions around downtown’s K and L streets would be a congestion nightmare and that people who live in the neighborhood would have difficulty getting access to their homes before and after games and show events at the area.

The citizens went onto say that noise in the nieghborhood after hours or normally after a game for example around 10pm would be a disruption to the nieghborhood and to those who sleep and have to go to work the next day, parking and traffic was another issue the citizens talked about stating that gridlock before and after games would not allow the neighbors to have the normal access to their homes, parking would be horrendous for neighbors trying to park near their homes according to the citizens lawsuit complaint and creates a huge traffic delays on neighboring freeway exits.

In response to the complaint lawyers for the Kings and the City said that the issues brought up by the citizens to stop the construction of the arena were not going to be the big problem that the citizens say it was. The city and the Kings did not specify why in challenging each complaint, the proceedure for hearings at this stage for not being specific is normal. The Kings and the city plan to list why the arena is good for the city in the next hearing after listening to the citizen complaints.

The lawsuit was not filed against the Kings as the Kings were listed in the lawsuit as “the real party of interest” and the suit was filed against the City of Sacramento.

Jerry Feitelberg is covering the arena developments for the Sacramento Kings and the Golden State Warriors for http://www.sportsradioservice.com