Category: Sacramento Kings

by Jerry Feitelberg

SACRAMENTO–Sacramento Superior Court Judge Timothy Frawley made his second major ruling in favor of the Sacramento Kings to start construction on their new arena at Downtown Plaza. The construction was about to face a delay after a recent lawsuit filed by foes opposed to the arena claiming that the new arena would be an act of gentrification and would displace many single occupancy hotel residents in downtown Sacramento.

The ruling by Frawley would clear a path for the arena to start construction but also would force those single occupants to move from their homes in hotels that they stayed in for decades to make way for new buildings in the neighborhood. The foes who learned of their lawsuit loss on Friday had filed the suit under the California Environmental Quality Act. The opposition said that traffic, noise, and pollution issues amongst other complaints were reasons for the suit to get a injunction to block the start of construction for the Kings arena.

Frawley back in Febuary in his first ruling against another opposition group who wanted to place an initiative on last June’s ballot saying that voters should have a vote on whether public funds and building a new arena should be allowed to go forward. The opposition group in this attempt found that that they were caught in a political triangle which went back to Hedge Fund manager Chris Hansen who tried to buy the Kings and move them to Seattle.

Hansen later admitted being behind funding the campaign to put the arena initiative on the ballot. Frawley ruled that the legal language in the initiative was flawed and that the Sacramento Registar of Voters found many discrepancies of unregistared voters who signed documents to get the initiative on the ballot and legal flaws in the language of the ballots were stained. At the time Mayor Kevin Johnson said “I can smell the stench off those ballots” regarding the initiative push.

The opponents lawyer Kelly Smith said in Sacramento Superior Court on Friday to Frawley that the bill that protects new arena projects such as the Kings arena proposal is unconstitutional. The bill was sponsored by Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg that give teeth to any arena proposal and that any lawsuit trying to block it’s construction could only be successful in the event of a health and saftey issue or if American Native artifacts are threatened.

The state initiative SB743 was signed by California Governor Jerry Brown that stops CEQA lawsuits from injunctions. Opposition after opposition group tried everything to try and halt the construction of the new arena and Frawley had played a key role in ruling in favor of the new arena with stopping some major lawsuits against it’s construction.

The project was originally scheduled to breakground this week but after this latest lawsuit filed the groundbreaking will be recheduled. The Kings new arena is expected to be completed and ready for the NBA season in 2017. The Kings will spend $222 million for their share on the arena project and the city will spend $255 million. The opponents had objected to the city’s use of public subsidies and the use of public parking lots owned by the city to pay back the money barrowed from the general fund another suit that was overruled. Opponents said that the money should have been used towards the arts rather than building a new arena for the Kings.

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

by Jerry Feitelberg and Amaury Pi Gonzalez

SACRAMENTO–Opponents who have filed a environmental lawsuit against the city of Sacramento and the Sacramento Kings over traffic conditions, drunks and rowdy fans in the Downtown Plaza neighborhood, and objections over subsidies which includes city owned parking garages that would pay off the monies barrowed from the general fund to pay for the new Kings arena.

There are two separate law suits filed one from a group led by Caltrans retired director Adriana Saltonstall who is challenging the city and Kings against building the new arena for the above reasons and Saltonstall’s group also is challenging California Governor Jerry Brown’s bill that he signed that makes it harder for opponents to file a lawsuit against new arena construction in the state specifically the new Kings arena. Saltonstall group says that the disallowing or strengthing laws with more teeth in them to prevent filing lawsuits against arena constructions is unconstitutional.

The second opposition group has filed a CEQA suit siting similar issues the cases will be heard in two differents court hearings. The major issue at hand now is the costs that the Kings and the city will incur if the project is delayed there is a laundry list of them and the city is asking the judges in each of the cases for the opponents to pony up $100 million as bond money to cover loss expenses in the event that the Kings and the city win the lawsuits and are allowed to begin construction at Downtown Plaza.

The Kings are scheduled to open the new arena which will seat over 17,000 fans as a smaller scale NBA building the new arena is scheduled to be ready in October 2016. The lawsuit that has been filed can take up the better portion of the year and the scheduled construction for groundbreaking is set for the end of this month. The delay at best could have the new arena ready sometime in early 2017 past the deadline set by the NBA. The NBA has the right to buy the Kings and move them in the event of a schedule delay or if the Kings lose the lawsuit filed by the opponents.

Kings Chief Financial Officer John Rinehart says that the Kings would suffer a tremendous financial hit for any delay to the project and James Moose a prominent Sacramento lawyer told the Sacramento Bee this week that it isn’t uncommon for judges to ask opponents in environmental cases like these with time sensititve constraints for bond money to be held by the court until the case is decided.

There lies the question as to whether or not the opponents have $100 million to forward to the court in bond money until the case is decided and the judge in considering the bond money and is taking into account the financial status of the opponents and the strength of the case. The Kings are about to lose close to $2.5 million in construction loses, the city’s share of loses could mount up to $5.7 million primararly because of street planning and scheduled construction to block the streets from traffic during that time, the Kings have already spent $36 million on buying the Downtown Plaza proper and Kings have shared in the land purchase at $60 million.

If the Kings and the city were to lose the case entirely the Kings and the city would be on the hook for the Downtown Plaza property with the team facing the strong possibility of being forced to leave Sacramento by the NBA. One thing that could be considered in the event any new owner who buys the Kings would absorb the costs and loses at Downtown Plaza which would total $96 million plus the purchase of buying the team.

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

by Jerry Feitelberg

SAN FRANCISCO–The State Lands Commission who filed a lawsuit against Proposition B the measure that limits height development on the San Francisco Waterfront argued in the suit that the state owns the land and that the Port of San Francisco is managed by the Port not by the city. The city said that they will aggressively defend the vote of the citizens of San Francisco who passed Prop B.

This is a different school of thought coming from City Hall as previous to the election the Mayor and some members of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors wanted to see Propositon B or wanted it off the ballot so that the Warriors could have a chance to build a new arena at Piers 30-32. Just before the measure passed the Warriors bought land at Mission Bay from Salesforce and will start construction on the new arena with planned retail, condos, and hotels at that location.

It was also noted that San Francisco’s populaton has grown from 750,000 to a reported 1 million that figure came out on Tuesday which gives incentive to developers, real estate companies and the Lands Commission to try to overturn Prop B as there is a lot riding on getting B overturned financially. No San Francisco mayor came out for Proposition B current of former except Art Agnos who was a advocate to stop highrise building on the Embarcadero when the Warriors touted the idea of a new arena at Piers 30-32.

Former San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom who is California Lt Gov is on the Lands Commission with State Controller John Chiang and Finance Director Michael Cohen are set to fight the City and Prop B. The Commission will be in for a fight against the City and San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera who was a supporter of Proposition B and says the city has jurisdiction on how the port is governed, “With (Tuesday’s) lawsuit, the State’s Land Commission seems to have embraced the notion that any local initiative and by extension, any land use regulation by a Board of Supervisors or Planning Commission affecting Port property is barred by the state and therefore invalid.” said Herrera

Ironically some of the people that Newsom will be going up against to overturn Prop B are the very people who worked for him when he was Mayor. It’s a different turn of events as the strategy to get measure B overturned will take it’s legal twists and angles in this lawsuit, “while the commission respects the power of the initiative as it relates to local and municipal affairs, when it comes to the management of state property including public trust land, the Legislature has specifically delegated the management resposibility for those lands to the San Francisco Port Commission.” said Jennifer Lucchesi an executive officer for the Port Commission.

Piers 30-32 was offered up to George Lucas and Lucas Light and Industries after the Warriors were turned away by the waterfront neighborhood but Lucas who was looking at three cities to move to which included San Francisco, Los Angeles and Chicago didn’t want to sort through San Francisco politics anymore after being forced to move out of the Presidio where his offices were located selected Chicago. Lucas could have moved to Piers 30-32 without the problems the Warriors had to face but left for the Windy City anyway.

Herrera meanwhile said he plans to defend Proposition B tooth and nail to protect Waterfront development, “That view (Lucchesi and the Commission) represents a radical departure in law and practice from land use decision making in San Francisco and elsewhere. While the city must certainly honor it’s obligations as trustee in managing public trust property, it is a legally and practically untenable position to argue that San Francisco’s voters and elected officials have no direct say over how our City’s waterfront is developed” said Herrera.

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