by Jerry Feitelberg, Jeff Hall, Charlie O Mallanee and Tony Renteria

SACRAMENTO–The Downtown Plaza is barricaded to keep onlookers and patrons at the Westfield Mall away. The stores have been shut for over a month now and the Sacramento Kings and the City of Sacramento are ready to groundbreak for construction on the Kings new arena. Opponents who are trying to block construction of the arena filed an appeal on Thursday but the Kings and the City are on schedule to start construction this Friday.

The last minute appeal looks like it won’t hold any water as the court has cleared the Kings for constructing the new building. Opponents have tried putting an initiative on the ballot that would ask voters in Sacramento if city funds should be spent to build the new arena but that was blocked when the court ruled that the ballots signed were under suspicion and that the legal writing on the ballots were not legitimate.

The citizens opponents that is being led by former Caltrans director Andriana Saltonstall says that in the appeal that construction on the new arena would create an environment havoc for air quality, traffic, gridlock in neighborhood, force current tenants in neighborhood hotels who had lived there for decades to move and would lose their lock in their rents.

Saltonstall admitted that the project will go forward but questioned the legality of it saying if there is an appeal than the project should not be able to go forward until the appeals process is exausted.
Sacramento city attorney James Sanchez said that the Kings have stated their case that they did not misuse susbsidies to finance the new arena by using parking lot land owned by the city to pay back the general fund for the new arena loan and that there is no environmental issues to be concerned about.

Governor Jerry Brown and Senate Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg also signed bill SB743 that gave teeth against any appeals by opponents who file injunctions against the new arena with two exceptions that it encroaches on Native American artifacts and burial grounds and for health and safety issues.

Saltonstall filed under the California Environmental Quality Act or the CEQA that there were a number of environmental issues to be concerned about. The opponents group of 12 appealed a ruling by Superior Court Judge Timothy Frawley who ruled twice against opponents who tried to stop construction of the arena. One of the issues that past opponents filed against was the funds that would come out of the city budget and this most recent the environmental issues.

The Kings and the city will share in the cost of the new arena at the tune of $477 million, the Kings will spend $222 million and the city will spend $255 million. The city share comes out of the city general fund and will be repaid by parking sales and sales tax from arena events. The Kings who recently signed a mega television deal worth $700 million with Comcast Sports Net California that pays $35 million per year for 20 seasons, the deal essentially covers the cost that Kings owner Vivek Ranadive and his group paid to get the team from former owners the Maloofs.

With the cost of the arena in the balance Ranadive is confident that will be paid off through ticket sales, brand marketing, and rights deals with other outlets radio, souvenir sales, and NBA branding.

Jerry Feitelberg, Jeff Hall, Charlie O, and Tony Renteria all cover Sacramento Kings basketball for http://www.sportsradioservice.com