city council updates

[sauce-26]

Can someone give updates on the council meeting?

 

[nebs]

You can watch it live right here..

http://sacramento.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?publish_id=26



It's also on channel 14 for those in the Sacramento area.

 

[JB_kings]

I watched most of it live. Other than the vote to negotiate with ICON-Taylor exclusively, nothing much official happened. They discussed the report on the recent finding about the railyards infrastructure upgrades required. Which it was refreshing to see that most of the council comments were of the "we will have to do them anyway" variety. The exclusive parking garage thing finally reared it's ugly head. Although I didn't see to much surprise over that. Overall there seems to be a willingness to go forward and go as quickly as possible. It's all good signs for now. The next three months, they have a lot of work to get this all into a plan approved. It's into the city's hands now and so far they are treating it with the attention and urgency needed.

 

[sauce-26]

I watched most of it live. Other than the vote to negotiate with ICON-Taylor exclusively, nothing much official happened. They discussed the report on the recent finding about the railyards infrastructure upgrades required. Which it was refreshing to see that most of the council comments were of the "we will have to do them anyway" variety. The exclusive parking garage thing finally reared it's ugly head. Although I didn't see to much surprise over that. Overall there seems to be a willingness to go forward and go as quickly as possible. It's all good signs for now. The next three months, they have a lot of work to get this all into a plan approved. It's into the city's hands now and so far they are treating it with the attention and urgency needed.

Thanks man.

 

[Mike0476]

I watched most of it live. Other than the vote to negotiate with ICON-Taylor exclusively, nothing much official happened. They discussed the report on the recent finding about the railyards infrastructure upgrades required. Which it was refreshing to see that most of the council comments were of the "we will have to do them anyway" variety. The exclusive parking garage thing finally reared it's ugly head. Although I didn't see to much surprise over that. Overall there seems to be a willingness to go forward and go as quickly as possible. It's all good signs for now. The next three months, they have a lot of work to get this all into a plan approved. It's into the city's hands now and so far they are treating it with the attention and urgency needed.

I was there and you pretty much said it all.

The public comments were in favor of a new downtown ESC 10-1.

One person was in support of a new ESC but he would rather have it in Natomas but still understands we do need a new one.

The lone non supporter was hard to comprehend at times because he mumbled on and got off topic. I guess you could call him a non supporter. I just wish I could have understood what he was talking about because others around me had no clue either.

Sadly, no CAVE people spoke up. Guess they were too busy on the Bee's forum proclaiming another victory.

 

[JB_kings]

I was there and you pretty much said it all.

The public comments were in favor of a new downtown ESC 10-1.

One person was in support of a new ESC but he would rather have it in Natomas but still understands we do need a new one.

The lone non supporter was hard to comprehend at times because he mumbled on and got off topic.

Sadly, no CAVE people spoke up. Guess they were too busy on the Bee's forum proclaiming another victory.

I was encouraged that so many spoke up in favor. I guess it just goes to show that they really are a small minority exclusive to the Bee comment section. They clearly don't have the nads to show up for their cause.

 

[ArcoKings]

The wheels are in motion. I feel good about a new arena this time around. Go Kings! BTW, Thanks Mike for all of your updates and information you post!

 

[Mike0476]

I was encouraged that so many spoke up in favor. I guess it just goes to show that they really are a small minority exclusive to the Bee comment section. They clearly don't have the nads to show up for their cause.

They are a very small minority and as far as their voices are concerned, it doesn't matter. That ship has sailed.

The angrier they get, the more this means it's going to happen. I mean why else would they get upset?

 

[Mike0476]

The wheels are in motion. I feel good about a new arena this time around. Go Kings! BTW, Thanks Mike for all of your updates and information you post!

You're welcome and there will be more on the way.

I also tweeted live from the city hall meeting and will do so again in the future.

 

[sauce-26]

What is the next step from here?

 

[JB_kings]

What is the next step from here?

I'll take a stab and others can add or correct me...

The city has a lot of research, decisions and tasks ahead of them. They will assemble a team of consultants to do the due dilligence on funding options and other key decisons.

Among them:

- Decide on options with their public parking spaces. One way to raise immediate funds needed to get this project started before bonds are funded, is to consider leasing options on the city owned parking garages. Lots of options there to consider.
- Purchase 2 acres of land from Inland. This is the odd shaped property directly east of the arena site. It will be needed for the intermodal facility.
- Hopefully get started on the final remaining toxic clean up at the site. Most of that has been completed over the years. It's not a superfund site or anything, just finishing up what has been a long ongoing process.
- Nail down AEG to see if they are willing to operate the facility for the City and how much capital they are willing to bring to the table.
- And of course, now that they have the "menu" of funding options, start "ordering"!

And many other items like the transit facility, new courthouse and making these all fit together in the same area. And if they don't have enough to do, help Natomas secure a replacement for Arco/PBP after the move.

 

[Capt. Factorial]

I'll take a stab and others can add or correct me...

The city has a lot of research, decisions and tasks ahead of them. They will assemble a team of consultants to do the due dilligence on funding options and other key decisons.

Among them:

- Decide on options with their public parking spaces. One way to raise immediate funds needed to get this project started before bonds are funded, is to consider leasing options on the city owned parking garages. Lots of options there to consider.
- Purchase 2 acres of land from Inland. This is the odd shaped property directly east of the arena site. It will be needed for the intermodal facility.
- Hopefully get started on the final remaining toxic clean up at the site. Most of that has been completed over the years. It's not a superfund site or anything, just finishing up what has been a long ongoing process.
- Nail down AEG to see if they are willing to operate the facility for the City and how much capital they are willing to bring to the table.
- And of course, now that they have the "menu" of funding options, start "ordering"!

And many other items like the transit facility, new courthouse and making these all fit together in the same area. And if they don't have enough to do, help Natomas secure a replacement for Arco/PBP after the move.

Don't forget

- Determine how much money the Maloofs will be willing to pay on rent.
- Enter into an Exclusive Right to Negotiate with ICON-Taylor.

I'm sure there are a lot of small things on the table. The bottom line is that by December, they'll want to know how exactly much a facility will cost and where the money is coming from. Parking, bonds, private investments, user fees, sale of city land...how much will the city need to borrow, and will they find a way to spread out the responsibility on the debt service if something goes wrong? There's a lot to be done, but the city knows this, and they look serious about getting it done.

 

[kennadog]

One minor clarifiction. If the city opts to sell or lease rights to parking within a certain area to a private party, that money is usually paid up front. If the city chooses to go that route, it would lessen the amount of money thaey would have to get fropm bond proceeds. This would reduce the debt from the bonds and the city's general fund exposire.

Og course, there are a couple of issues. What is the parking revenue the city collects being used for now and what are the legalities of using parking revenues for a use such as this. Apparently, California may have some restrictions on the uses of certain types of parking revenue.

However, there are a number of revenue options, this could be attractive, because it means borrowing less money. Some cities have gotten fairly substantial amount of money in such deals. Sacramento is not likely to get a smuch as bigger cities, becsue it's worth less and becasue Sacramento will probably want a shorter term lease (more likely than sale of city asset).

Regional sharing of risk is likely to be in terms of some kind of joint powers agreement with other local governements. This is where other governements are going to have to stand up and be willing to reduce Sacramento City's general fund risk exposure, by sharing the risk. The example cited was the joint powers agreement between Sacramento City, Sacramento County, Yolo county and the City of West Sacramento to get Raley Field built.

 

[kennadog]

Things to be done include, but aren't limted to:

- Laying a timeline for what needs to be accomplished
- Identifying the consultants the city will need now for the next stage
- How to pay for those consultants
- Researching the technical and legal details of the funding sources (any restrictions)
- Negotiating with the Kings/NBA
- Negotiating with an arena operator and any other equity investors (likely AEG)
- Probably negotiating additional land purchase
- Figuring out how to get the current debt paid off (maybe not all up front)
- Amending the Railyard developent plan (might need some re-zoning, too)

KJ wants city staff to get going on the environmental (the arena means an update to Cal environmental (CEQA) and the move of the intermodal to a differnt site from previously planned requires an update to both CEQA and the fed environmental (NEPA). They usually wait until they have the actual project proposal and then it takes 16-20 mos. KJ wants it to be 8-10 mos with them starting now as much as they can.

All the infrastructure work going on right now is fully funded. The change to the plans means accelerating the original phasing of infrastructure, so they are going to have to idenfity funding for the additional necessary infrastructure work.

That's all I can remember off the top of my head. This is the really hard part and the city has a very compressed time schedule to get this done. Its not going to be easy.

Don't know how some of the negotiations will go, but right now I see two huge issues that are going to be difficult to deal with. Speeding up the environmental review process and finding funding for the additional necessary infrastructure.

As I said after the meeting last night, "This is where the rubber meets the road, folks." We have a rough plan, but can we really accomplish it and accomplish it in time.

However, I do feel really good about the whole thing at this point. I'm just glad I'm not one of the city staff. The city's going to be over-budget on midnight oil.

The next and most important city council meeting will be when they approve the funding sources and give the go ahead to the project. We really need people to turn out for that meeting as that will likely be the most crucial and most contentious meeting in the whole process.

 

[Glenn]

Is there any need to pay back the existing bond any faster than already scheduled which I believe is $2 mil a year?

 

[Capt. Factorial]

Is there any need to pay back the existing bond any faster than already scheduled which I believe is $2 mil a year?

The existing loan needs to be paid back in one form or another. The city is not going to let itself be on the hook for the bond payments.

I don't know all of the specifics on the loan (Kenna is a much bigger expert on that) but I'm not sure there's any reason that the Kings couldn't simply continue to pay off the debt on the existing schedule. What would be weird about that would be that they would be "renting" land they would not be using. If a future user for the Natomas land is identified, sale of the land could possibly go toward the debt on the loan, though there seem to be guesses that the value of the land is not high enough to pay off the loan.

At any rate, the answer doesn't seem to be known yet, but the solution won't be for the Kings to drop the loan and the city to simply pick it up.