http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/73971.html
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Some say lost arena bid was calculated
Suspicions surround Maloofs, who insist 'we want to stay here.'
By Terri Hardy and Mary Lynne Vellinga - Bee Staff Writers
Last Updated 12:17 am PST Thursday, November 9, 2006
Story appeared in MAIN NEWS section, Page A1
Print | E-Mail | Comments (0)
In July, the downtown railyard was the site of a news conference promoting Measures Q and R. A drawing of the proposed development was included. Sacramento Bee/Randy Pench
The spectacular defeat of two arena measures at the polls Tuesday capped one of the most bizarre and disastrous campaigns in Sacramento County election history.
On the morning after eight out of 10 voters rejected the funding plan, arena proponents and political observers put much of the blame for the debacle squarely at the feet of the owners of the Sacramento Kings and their political adviser, Richie Ross.
The big question floating around town Wednesday was whether Joe and Gavin Maloof's actions in the campaign simply reflected their volatility and lack of political savvy, or whether they systematically sabotaged the campaign because they prefer that a new arena be built next to Arco in North Natomas or want to move the team to another city.
Veteran political consultant David Townsend said he thinks the sabotage was deliberate.
"I know a professional campaign when I see it, and this is a professional campaign," Townsend said. "This is not all by happenstance. ... This was an orchestrated, well-thought-out campaign to tube Q&R."
Whether Ross was behind it or the Maloofs were simply clients out of control, he doesn't know. Ross has not returned Bee phone calls about the campaign.
Gavin Maloof said Wednesday night he didn't "know where we are right now, but the whole process has been trying on all of us."
He added that he and his brother "appreciate all the elected officals who tried to get something going."
"We've said all along we want to stay here," Maloof said. "We've put eight great years toward establishing this fan base and 315 straight sellouts -- and that doesn't just happen."
Robert Waste, professor of public policy at California State University, Sacramento, also saw possible calculation in the Maloofs' stormy departure from arena deal negotiations and the brothers' decision to appear in a Carl's Jr. ad depicting them as billionaires washing down burgers with a $6,000 bottle of wine.
"If they were trying to sabotage (the arena plan) from Day One, I don't think they'd have done anything differently," Waste said.
Voters rejected Measure R, calling for a quarter-cent county sales tax increase, by 80 percent to 20 percent. Measure Q, a companion "quality of life" initiative to spend half the $1.2 billion raised on an arena and half on community projects, was advisory only. It failed 72 percent to 28 percent.
The Maloofs have insisted they were only trying to be honest with voters when Joe Maloof stood up at the Q&R kickoff press conference in the railyard in September and said the arena might have to go somewhere else -- a move that grabbed the day's headlines and undermined the campaign's message.
On Tuesday evening, the Kings owners issued a statement saying they'd done their best to come up with a plan for a badly needed
new arena in Sacramento. They attached a list of seven ideas that were explored since 2000. "None of these efforts have produced the desired result despite countless hours of work and effort," Joe and Gavin Maloof said in their joint statement.
They said they would seek guidance from the NBA on what to do next.
Both the Maloofs and officials from the NBA say the brothers' name and reputation were unfairly smeared in the campaign.
But Townsend, who has experience trying to negotiate with the Maloofs, predicted that no arena deal would get done while the family owns the Kings.
Townsend represented former Sheriff Lou Blanas in 2004 when he and developer Angelo Tsakopoulos were promoting a private plan to rezone thousands of acres in North Natomas for development and to use part of the proceeds for an arena. The plan fell apart after some landowners declined to participate.
"It's my opinion that as long as the Maloofs are in the mix, it will never happen," he said.
In the 2004 negotiations with North Natomas landowners, Townsend said, the Maloofs' "demands reached absurd levels, so the property owners basically said we're not going to pay for all that stuff -- plasma screen TVs everywhere, blah, blah, blah."
The failure of the most recent arena effort left plenty of bruised feelings and bitterness in its wake. Some of the Maloofs' most ardent political supporters now say they need to take a break before re-entering the fray.
"The Maloofs need to do outreach; some people's feelings are hurt," said Matt Mahood, president and chief executive officer of the Sacramento Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce.
From the beginning, the negotiations that led to Measures Q and R were characterized by an aggressive timeline and other demands by the team, and repeated setbacks when deal points they thought had been settled were reopened, local officials said.
The Maloofs aren't accepting the blame that the Q&R leaders are dishing in their direction.
The team owners -- backed by the NBA -- maintain the real problem was that the city and county hadn't nailed down a deal with railyard developer Stan Thomas to accommodate an arena. They say the city and county failed to follow through on a pledge to go "arm and arm" with the team to Thomas to try to obtain concessions, including 8,000 parking spaces from which the Maloofs would receive the revenue.
Harvey Benjamin, a high-ranking NBA official, said Thomas recently told him he may not even close escrow on the property from Union Pacific because the city hasn't committed the $300 million needed to build streets and crucial improvements in the first phase of the development.
Benjamin recalled Thomas as saying: " 'I'd like to sit down with you guys. We could work something out, but I don't even have the land myself.' "
Thomas could not be reached for comment, but his local vice president for development, Suheil Totah, said he was in the room, and the conversation did not resemble anything like what Benjamin recalls.
At the Tuesday night Q&R gathering, Totah stood shoulder to shoulder with Sacramento assistant city manager John Dangberg and said the developer and city are working together to come up with money for infrastructure -- and that the issue had nothing to do with why the negotiations with the Maloofs broke down.
"We thought we put a pretty darn good deal on the table," Dangberg said, referring to the city and county's offer to build the Maloofs a $500 million arena. "We put all we could out there, and it didn't work."
Opponents of measures Q and R downplayed the argument that the Maloofs had that much to do with the measures' defeat. They argued that the problem was arrogance on the part of the political and business leaders who assumed that spending more than $500 million in tax dollars on an arena was a priority with Sacramento County voters.
The opposition group Wednesday announced it would start holding town hall forums to unearth people's true concerns and priorities for their city. The first one will be held Jan. 11 at the Oak Park Community Center.
Grantland Johnson, a lobbyist for the Sacramento Central Labor Council, which opposed the arena plan, said the initiatives' creators were out of touch with the everyday lives of residents.
"If you go behind closed doors and have a caucus of the wealthy," he said, "you're going to come up with what they came up with."
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=======================================
Some say lost arena bid was calculated
Suspicions surround Maloofs, who insist 'we want to stay here.'
By Terri Hardy and Mary Lynne Vellinga - Bee Staff Writers
Last Updated 12:17 am PST Thursday, November 9, 2006
Story appeared in MAIN NEWS section, Page A1
Print | E-Mail | Comments (0)
In July, the downtown railyard was the site of a news conference promoting Measures Q and R. A drawing of the proposed development was included. Sacramento Bee/Randy Pench
The spectacular defeat of two arena measures at the polls Tuesday capped one of the most bizarre and disastrous campaigns in Sacramento County election history.
On the morning after eight out of 10 voters rejected the funding plan, arena proponents and political observers put much of the blame for the debacle squarely at the feet of the owners of the Sacramento Kings and their political adviser, Richie Ross.
The big question floating around town Wednesday was whether Joe and Gavin Maloof's actions in the campaign simply reflected their volatility and lack of political savvy, or whether they systematically sabotaged the campaign because they prefer that a new arena be built next to Arco in North Natomas or want to move the team to another city.
Veteran political consultant David Townsend said he thinks the sabotage was deliberate.
"I know a professional campaign when I see it, and this is a professional campaign," Townsend said. "This is not all by happenstance. ... This was an orchestrated, well-thought-out campaign to tube Q&R."
Whether Ross was behind it or the Maloofs were simply clients out of control, he doesn't know. Ross has not returned Bee phone calls about the campaign.
Gavin Maloof said Wednesday night he didn't "know where we are right now, but the whole process has been trying on all of us."
He added that he and his brother "appreciate all the elected officals who tried to get something going."
"We've said all along we want to stay here," Maloof said. "We've put eight great years toward establishing this fan base and 315 straight sellouts -- and that doesn't just happen."
Robert Waste, professor of public policy at California State University, Sacramento, also saw possible calculation in the Maloofs' stormy departure from arena deal negotiations and the brothers' decision to appear in a Carl's Jr. ad depicting them as billionaires washing down burgers with a $6,000 bottle of wine.
"If they were trying to sabotage (the arena plan) from Day One, I don't think they'd have done anything differently," Waste said.
Voters rejected Measure R, calling for a quarter-cent county sales tax increase, by 80 percent to 20 percent. Measure Q, a companion "quality of life" initiative to spend half the $1.2 billion raised on an arena and half on community projects, was advisory only. It failed 72 percent to 28 percent.
The Maloofs have insisted they were only trying to be honest with voters when Joe Maloof stood up at the Q&R kickoff press conference in the railyard in September and said the arena might have to go somewhere else -- a move that grabbed the day's headlines and undermined the campaign's message.
On Tuesday evening, the Kings owners issued a statement saying they'd done their best to come up with a plan for a badly needed
new arena in Sacramento. They attached a list of seven ideas that were explored since 2000. "None of these efforts have produced the desired result despite countless hours of work and effort," Joe and Gavin Maloof said in their joint statement.
They said they would seek guidance from the NBA on what to do next.
Both the Maloofs and officials from the NBA say the brothers' name and reputation were unfairly smeared in the campaign.
But Townsend, who has experience trying to negotiate with the Maloofs, predicted that no arena deal would get done while the family owns the Kings.
Townsend represented former Sheriff Lou Blanas in 2004 when he and developer Angelo Tsakopoulos were promoting a private plan to rezone thousands of acres in North Natomas for development and to use part of the proceeds for an arena. The plan fell apart after some landowners declined to participate.
"It's my opinion that as long as the Maloofs are in the mix, it will never happen," he said.
In the 2004 negotiations with North Natomas landowners, Townsend said, the Maloofs' "demands reached absurd levels, so the property owners basically said we're not going to pay for all that stuff -- plasma screen TVs everywhere, blah, blah, blah."
The failure of the most recent arena effort left plenty of bruised feelings and bitterness in its wake. Some of the Maloofs' most ardent political supporters now say they need to take a break before re-entering the fray.
"The Maloofs need to do outreach; some people's feelings are hurt," said Matt Mahood, president and chief executive officer of the Sacramento Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce.
From the beginning, the negotiations that led to Measures Q and R were characterized by an aggressive timeline and other demands by the team, and repeated setbacks when deal points they thought had been settled were reopened, local officials said.
The Maloofs aren't accepting the blame that the Q&R leaders are dishing in their direction.
The team owners -- backed by the NBA -- maintain the real problem was that the city and county hadn't nailed down a deal with railyard developer Stan Thomas to accommodate an arena. They say the city and county failed to follow through on a pledge to go "arm and arm" with the team to Thomas to try to obtain concessions, including 8,000 parking spaces from which the Maloofs would receive the revenue.
Harvey Benjamin, a high-ranking NBA official, said Thomas recently told him he may not even close escrow on the property from Union Pacific because the city hasn't committed the $300 million needed to build streets and crucial improvements in the first phase of the development.
Benjamin recalled Thomas as saying: " 'I'd like to sit down with you guys. We could work something out, but I don't even have the land myself.' "
Thomas could not be reached for comment, but his local vice president for development, Suheil Totah, said he was in the room, and the conversation did not resemble anything like what Benjamin recalls.
At the Tuesday night Q&R gathering, Totah stood shoulder to shoulder with Sacramento assistant city manager John Dangberg and said the developer and city are working together to come up with money for infrastructure -- and that the issue had nothing to do with why the negotiations with the Maloofs broke down.
"We thought we put a pretty darn good deal on the table," Dangberg said, referring to the city and county's offer to build the Maloofs a $500 million arena. "We put all we could out there, and it didn't work."
Opponents of measures Q and R downplayed the argument that the Maloofs had that much to do with the measures' defeat. They argued that the problem was arrogance on the part of the political and business leaders who assumed that spending more than $500 million in tax dollars on an arena was a priority with Sacramento County voters.
The opposition group Wednesday announced it would start holding town hall forums to unearth people's true concerns and priorities for their city. The first one will be held Jan. 11 at the Oak Park Community Center.
Grantland Johnson, a lobbyist for the Sacramento Central Labor Council, which opposed the arena plan, said the initiatives' creators were out of touch with the everyday lives of residents.
"If you go behind closed doors and have a caucus of the wealthy," he said, "you're going to come up with what they came up with."
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