http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/32085.html
Arena sales tax hike in deep trouble
Survey shows little support, even among Kings fans
By Mary Lynne Vellinga and Terri Hardy - Bee Staff Writers
Last Updated 12:38 am PDT Sunday, October 1, 2006
Unconvinced their tax dollars should pay for a new Kings arena, Sacramento County voters appear poised to soundly reject a proposal to increase the sales tax a quarter-cent to build a new sports and entertainment complex for the basketball team.
A poll commissioned by The Bee found no strong base of support for the sales tax proposal, even among die-hard Kings fans.
Leaders of the arena plan said they still have time to change voters' minds in the five weeks until the Nov. 7 election, but the pollster, Cheryl Katz, said they face "a pretty steep uphill climb."
In the survey of 600 Sacramento County residents taken between Sept. 22 and Sept. 25, 58 percent said they would vote against Measure R, which would raise the sales tax.
Just 23 percent said they would vote for it, and 19 percent were undecided.
Measure Q, the advisory companion measure that would earmark the sales tax funds to be split between an arena and other community amenities, received a higher level of support, with 42 percent of respondents saying they would vote yes, and 38 percent saying they opposed it.
However, Measure Q's passage would be meaningless without the sales tax money contained in Measure R.
Only 16 percent of those polled said they would vote for both Q and R.
County residents were selected at random from a list of registered voters identified as likely voters based on their voting history. The poll's margin of error is plus or minus four percentage points.
Katz, vice president of Baldassare Associates, the nonpartisan, nonprofit public opinion research firm that conducted the poll, said the pro-arena campaign hadn't really gotten under way and voters are still confused about the plan's details.
"Voters have not heard much in terms of campaign messaging," Katz said. "We could still see some movement once the campaign gets rolling."
The dismal poll numbers come as no surprise to those running the "Yes on Q & R" campaign.
"Everybody understands that this is going to be a challenging campaign," said Ray McNally, a campaign consultant working on the effort. "There's been no campaign. ... These early polls are really meaningless."
Starting Tuesday, Sacramento County television viewers will be bombarded with an ad pitching the arena as more than just a sports and entertainment facility, but rather a key component in a vibrant redevelopment planned for the desolate downtown railyard.
Direct-mail pieces also will be arriving in voters' mailboxes.
Fueled by a recent $2 million campaign contribution from the railyard developer, Thomas Enterprises, the TV advertising campaign will represent the largest amount of money ever spent to promote a local ballot measure, campaign managers said.
"Measures Q and R will dominate political debate in this community because there's a lot at stake," McNally said.
Opponents said they won't have much money to spend, but will win with a grass-roots effort.
"The (poll) results reflect the voters' strong opposition to this bad arena tax deal," said Assemblyman Dave Jones, D-Sacramento. "People don't want to be taxed $1.2 billion to build a publicly owned arena for billionaire sports team owners."
Even as campaign strategists emphasized the positive, the poll contained almost exclusively bad news for arena supporters.
It found one of the campaign's basic building blocks -- convincing voters Arco Arena needs to be replaced -- hasn't even been laid.
Only 40 percent of those interviewed agreed that Arco is outdated, compared with 46 percent who disagreed and 14 percent who said they didn't know.
The poll did find significant enthusiasm for the Kings -- nearly 6 in 10 voters thought it was important to keep them in town -- but that feeling didn't translate into support for spending $542 million in taxpayer funds on a new arena. And 41 percent of those polled said it was not important to keep the Kings in Sacramento.
"It just shows that people aren't really convinced it's important to make a huge effort to keep the team in town," Katz said.
Opposition spanned all gender, age and income groups. "A real challenge for the proponents is that they don't have a solid pocket of support anywhere," Katz said.
John Thomas, president of Maloof Sports and Entertainment, which owns the Kings, said the results weren't surprising.
Details of the final arena deal have yet to be finalized, and the Maloof brothers recently said they were through negotiating unless the city and county agreed to give them various things they said they were promised, including the revenue from 8,000 parking spaces in the railyard. City and county officials have denied they agreed to those provisions.
Nonetheless, they went back to the drawing board and came up with a new arena site plan that they delivered to the Maloofs on Thursday. Thomas said the team is still reviewing it.
"The voters don't know what they're voting on yet," Thomas said. "Our commitment is to resolve the issues as quickly as possible and get on the campaign trail."
Arena supporters had hoped one major selling point would be that at least half of the Measure R sales tax raised over the next 15 years would go back to the county and its cities for community projects.
But the idea hasn't caught on with voters. Only 8 percent of those who said they favored the plan did so because it would raise money for local governments.
"I live in the county, so it's not going to do me one single solitary bit of good to have a quarter-cent sales tax added to everything I buy when I get nothing out of it," said Douglas Busath, 85, a retired lawyer who said he isn't much of a sports fan.
Instead, among those favoring the plan, 28 percent said they liked the fact that it would "boost business," 27 percent cited a need to replace Arco Arena, and 14 percent said they wanted to see the railyard improved.
"Sacramento needs to expand," said supporter Christopher Torres, 42, a south Sacramento security guard who was among those polled. "The downtown area would be the perfect place for an arena. Even though I'm not a big Kings fan, they do need a new arena."
Of those who opposed the plan, 33 percent said it should be built with private funds, 28 percent said it would cost local government too much, and 14 percent said Arco is "just fine."
Helen Dumont, 84, a retired teacher, said she opposes the arena plan. She lives in midtown and likes the idea of seeing the railyard redeveloped with an arena. She also described herself as an "avid Kings fan." But she objected to the magnitude of the public spending.
"There are so many (other) things we should be taxing our citizens for," she said. "Our schools are in bad shape, the roads. I don't think public money should be spent to underwrite millionaires, billionaires, whatever."
Dumont said she has been put off by the stormy negotiating style of owners Joe and Gavin Maloof. "I think they need to grow up a little bit," she said.
Proponents insist they have time to persuade enough voters to support Measures Q and R. Supervisor Roger Dickinson said revitalizing the railyard would be the centerpiece of the campaign.
"We are making headway on acquainting people with what can happen from an economic development standpoint when you have this kind of project," he said.
Katz said that although awareness of the arena issue was very high, residents were not convinced they wanted to raise their sales taxes to pay for the project.
"Most voters already seemed to have made up their minds," she said. Only 11 percent of those polled were undecided about how they would vote on both ballot measures.
Barbara O'Connor, director of the Institute for the Study of Politics and Media at California State University, Sacramento, said even if proponents provide a strong ad campaign, she believes it could only boost numbers by 10 to 15 percentage points.
O'Connor said she believes the yes campaign will have a tough time turning public opinion. The failure of the Maloof family to join the campaign has hurt the effort, she said, and the proponents haven't provided a clear message.
Said O'Connor: "People don't vote for things they don't understand."
About the writer: The Bee's Mary Lynne Vellinga can be reached at (916) 321-1094 or mlvellinga@sacbee.com.
Arena sales tax hike in deep trouble
Survey shows little support, even among Kings fans
By Mary Lynne Vellinga and Terri Hardy - Bee Staff Writers
Last Updated 12:38 am PDT Sunday, October 1, 2006
Unconvinced their tax dollars should pay for a new Kings arena, Sacramento County voters appear poised to soundly reject a proposal to increase the sales tax a quarter-cent to build a new sports and entertainment complex for the basketball team.
A poll commissioned by The Bee found no strong base of support for the sales tax proposal, even among die-hard Kings fans.
Leaders of the arena plan said they still have time to change voters' minds in the five weeks until the Nov. 7 election, but the pollster, Cheryl Katz, said they face "a pretty steep uphill climb."
In the survey of 600 Sacramento County residents taken between Sept. 22 and Sept. 25, 58 percent said they would vote against Measure R, which would raise the sales tax.
Just 23 percent said they would vote for it, and 19 percent were undecided.
Measure Q, the advisory companion measure that would earmark the sales tax funds to be split between an arena and other community amenities, received a higher level of support, with 42 percent of respondents saying they would vote yes, and 38 percent saying they opposed it.
However, Measure Q's passage would be meaningless without the sales tax money contained in Measure R.
Only 16 percent of those polled said they would vote for both Q and R.
County residents were selected at random from a list of registered voters identified as likely voters based on their voting history. The poll's margin of error is plus or minus four percentage points.
Katz, vice president of Baldassare Associates, the nonpartisan, nonprofit public opinion research firm that conducted the poll, said the pro-arena campaign hadn't really gotten under way and voters are still confused about the plan's details.
"Voters have not heard much in terms of campaign messaging," Katz said. "We could still see some movement once the campaign gets rolling."
The dismal poll numbers come as no surprise to those running the "Yes on Q & R" campaign.
"Everybody understands that this is going to be a challenging campaign," said Ray McNally, a campaign consultant working on the effort. "There's been no campaign. ... These early polls are really meaningless."
Starting Tuesday, Sacramento County television viewers will be bombarded with an ad pitching the arena as more than just a sports and entertainment facility, but rather a key component in a vibrant redevelopment planned for the desolate downtown railyard.
Direct-mail pieces also will be arriving in voters' mailboxes.
Fueled by a recent $2 million campaign contribution from the railyard developer, Thomas Enterprises, the TV advertising campaign will represent the largest amount of money ever spent to promote a local ballot measure, campaign managers said.
"Measures Q and R will dominate political debate in this community because there's a lot at stake," McNally said.
Opponents said they won't have much money to spend, but will win with a grass-roots effort.
"The (poll) results reflect the voters' strong opposition to this bad arena tax deal," said Assemblyman Dave Jones, D-Sacramento. "People don't want to be taxed $1.2 billion to build a publicly owned arena for billionaire sports team owners."
Even as campaign strategists emphasized the positive, the poll contained almost exclusively bad news for arena supporters.
It found one of the campaign's basic building blocks -- convincing voters Arco Arena needs to be replaced -- hasn't even been laid.
Only 40 percent of those interviewed agreed that Arco is outdated, compared with 46 percent who disagreed and 14 percent who said they didn't know.
The poll did find significant enthusiasm for the Kings -- nearly 6 in 10 voters thought it was important to keep them in town -- but that feeling didn't translate into support for spending $542 million in taxpayer funds on a new arena. And 41 percent of those polled said it was not important to keep the Kings in Sacramento.
"It just shows that people aren't really convinced it's important to make a huge effort to keep the team in town," Katz said.
Opposition spanned all gender, age and income groups. "A real challenge for the proponents is that they don't have a solid pocket of support anywhere," Katz said.
John Thomas, president of Maloof Sports and Entertainment, which owns the Kings, said the results weren't surprising.
Details of the final arena deal have yet to be finalized, and the Maloof brothers recently said they were through negotiating unless the city and county agreed to give them various things they said they were promised, including the revenue from 8,000 parking spaces in the railyard. City and county officials have denied they agreed to those provisions.
Nonetheless, they went back to the drawing board and came up with a new arena site plan that they delivered to the Maloofs on Thursday. Thomas said the team is still reviewing it.
"The voters don't know what they're voting on yet," Thomas said. "Our commitment is to resolve the issues as quickly as possible and get on the campaign trail."
Arena supporters had hoped one major selling point would be that at least half of the Measure R sales tax raised over the next 15 years would go back to the county and its cities for community projects.
But the idea hasn't caught on with voters. Only 8 percent of those who said they favored the plan did so because it would raise money for local governments.
"I live in the county, so it's not going to do me one single solitary bit of good to have a quarter-cent sales tax added to everything I buy when I get nothing out of it," said Douglas Busath, 85, a retired lawyer who said he isn't much of a sports fan.
Instead, among those favoring the plan, 28 percent said they liked the fact that it would "boost business," 27 percent cited a need to replace Arco Arena, and 14 percent said they wanted to see the railyard improved.
"Sacramento needs to expand," said supporter Christopher Torres, 42, a south Sacramento security guard who was among those polled. "The downtown area would be the perfect place for an arena. Even though I'm not a big Kings fan, they do need a new arena."
Of those who opposed the plan, 33 percent said it should be built with private funds, 28 percent said it would cost local government too much, and 14 percent said Arco is "just fine."
Helen Dumont, 84, a retired teacher, said she opposes the arena plan. She lives in midtown and likes the idea of seeing the railyard redeveloped with an arena. She also described herself as an "avid Kings fan." But she objected to the magnitude of the public spending.
"There are so many (other) things we should be taxing our citizens for," she said. "Our schools are in bad shape, the roads. I don't think public money should be spent to underwrite millionaires, billionaires, whatever."
Dumont said she has been put off by the stormy negotiating style of owners Joe and Gavin Maloof. "I think they need to grow up a little bit," she said.
Proponents insist they have time to persuade enough voters to support Measures Q and R. Supervisor Roger Dickinson said revitalizing the railyard would be the centerpiece of the campaign.
"We are making headway on acquainting people with what can happen from an economic development standpoint when you have this kind of project," he said.
Katz said that although awareness of the arena issue was very high, residents were not convinced they wanted to raise their sales taxes to pay for the project.
"Most voters already seemed to have made up their minds," she said. Only 11 percent of those polled were undecided about how they would vote on both ballot measures.
Barbara O'Connor, director of the Institute for the Study of Politics and Media at California State University, Sacramento, said even if proponents provide a strong ad campaign, she believes it could only boost numbers by 10 to 15 percentage points.
O'Connor said she believes the yes campaign will have a tough time turning public opinion. The failure of the Maloof family to join the campaign has hurt the effort, she said, and the proponents haven't provided a clear message.
Said O'Connor: "People don't vote for things they don't understand."
About the writer: The Bee's Mary Lynne Vellinga can be reached at (916) 321-1094 or mlvellinga@sacbee.com.
