STOP and Voters for a Fair Arena Deal said they filed the lawsuit against Sacramento City Council, the Sacramento city clerk,  and the city of Sacramento city over a decision to disqualify thousands of petitions that would have put the issue to a public vote on the June 3 ballot — a move many describe as government tyranny.

Jan. 24, the Sacramento city clerk announced that she rejected the petitions, along with 34,000 signatures, on the grounds some of the petition versions did not comply with election code.

“This is not a small number of people,” said Craig Powell, representing Voters for a Fair Arena Deal. “This is a significant contingent of Sacramento voters who’ve said ‘Let us vote.'”

Almost immediately after the announcement of the lawsuit, local Sacramento media reported the lawsuit is “by the group that doesn’t want the arena built.”

STOP and Voters for a Fair Arena Deal have said throughout the battle with the city, they are not opposed to an arena, and in fact are supportive of refurbishing the existing arena, or building a new one; they want the public subsidy of the arena project to be decided on by the voters of the city of Sacramento.

The attorney for STOP and VFAD said the errors the city clerk cited weren’t substantial enough to warrant disregarding 23,000 signatures, KCRA reported. “Nobody can claim they didn’t know what they were signing,” STOP attorney Bradly Hertz said.

“It’s really five mistakes that were really technical by the city clerk’s own admission, and (it is) almost silly that the city would rely on that as their way of trying to disenfranchise their voters,” said Hertz.

STOP is asking a judge to order the City Council to either adopt their petition, or place it on the June 3 ballot, and is hoping the matter will be heard by the Sacramento Superior Court immediately.

However, Judge Michael Kenny, the judge first assigned to the case, excused himself before a hearing in the case started, after it was revealed he had signed the petition to put the arena up for a vote, KCRA reported. The case was turned over to Judge Timothy Frawley.

Petition ‘errors’

STOP and Voters for a Fair Arena Deal said the five errors that the city clerk originally cited are not “substantive” and were just technical errors. Members of STOP told me they had a top elections attorney in the state review the petitions, and were told they complied with the law.

“The4000, a group representing the new downtown arena plan, responded to Friday’s decision by saying, ‘For STOP, this has never been about a vote and democracy; it has always been about tricking voters and stalling the arena with a two-part vote designed to blow up the project,’” reported Fox 40 news recently

The4000 was created by Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, a former NBA player, and the lead proponent to build the new arena.

“We all support the clerk and the city’s efforts to protect the public interest, especially given what’s at stake,” Johnson said in a statement.

Read all of CalWatchdog stories on the Sacramento Kings’ arena deal HERE.

Friday, the city clerk announced that she rejected the petitions, along with 34,000 signatures, on the grounds some of the petition versions did not comply with election code.

“Due to technical issues identified in the submitted petitions, I find the petition noncompliant with significant provisions of the California Elections Code and the Sacramento City Charter, and therefore insufficient to move forward,” Shirley Concolino, Sacramento City Clerk, said in a press release.

Yet, just last week, the Sacramento County Registrar certified there were enough verified signatures on the petitions to qualify the measure for the ballot.

The signatures were collected by STOP, Sacramento Taxpayers Opposed to Pork, and Voters for a Fair Arena Deal, to put the decision of whether a public subsidy for the new arena project downtown, should be on the ballot in the city of Sacramento.

“The4000, a group representing the new downtown arena plan responded to Friday’s decision by saying, ‘For STOP, this has never been about a vote and democracy; it has always been about tricking voters and stalling the arena with a two-part vote designed to blow up the project,’” reported Fox 40 news.

The4000 is a group headed up my Mayor Kevin Johnson, a former NBA player. “The downtown arena is an extraordinary, once-in-a-generation project with a profound potential to generate catalytic economic benefits for the downtown, city and region,” The4000 claims.

In the letter Concolino sent to STOP about her decision, she cited the nine different petition versions as being problematic. Concolino said even though the petition’s signatures are valid, they were gathered before STOP officially filed their notice of intent with the city clerk’s office.

It’s now threatening the validation of 35,000 ballot initiative petition signatures that would halt the proposed subsidy of a new arena for Sacramento’s Kings basketball team.

The ADS gripping Sacramento has infiltrated most of city government, and made it all the way to the city’s top ranking officials. ADS started in the office of Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, himself a former NBA star, then spread like a communicable disease through the Sacramento City Council, senior city management and city hospitality and convention agents. ADS thrives in a host of labor unions and crony capitalist business owners that would benefit from constructing the arena — and, of course, in the super fans.

ADS has divided friends and neighbors, even caused riffs in families.

In December, after the Sacramento City Clerk’s Office is done counting the petition signatures, Sacramento county elections officials said a validation process would take weeks.

The anti-public subsidy group Sacramento Taxpayers Opposed to Pork only needed 22,000 valid signatures from registered city voters to qualify the anti-subsidy measure for the June ballot.

Shortly after STOP turned in the signatures, Johnson decided to turn up the heat on those who oppose the public subsidy, launching a new group called “The4000” (no space between the letters).

“We are going to do everything that we can, and everything in our power to protect the 4,000 jobs we are going to create in this community,” Johnson said at the Dec. 12 launch.

The4000 what?

The4000, co-chaired by Senate President pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, and Sen. Ted Gaines, R-Roseville, now is claiming that several of the petitions the anti-subsidy group used are invalid.

The Sacramento City Clerk’s Office and the Sacramento County Registrar said different versions of the petition were submitted, and could be invalid.

The4000 filed a complaint with County Registrar of Voters over the petitions, demonstrating they will do absolutely anything to see that this issue doesn’t get on the ballot.

Fox guarding henhouse

In what could be the fox guarding the hen house, Sacramento County Registrar of Voters Jill LaVine said she is giving the issue to the city and its attorney for their determinations. “I’m tossing it back to the city and their attorney for their determinations,” she said. “Whatever the city and their attorney decide it is up to them,” she said in a recent Sacramento Bee story.

And just in case the County Registrar, the city of Sacramento, and city attorney aren’t effective, Johnson has one more ace-in-the-hole.

Why no vote on “economic game-changer?

The entire planned Downtown Plaza arena project, which Johnson says is “a once-in-a-lifetime economic game-changer that has an opportunity to transform downtown forever,” will be punted to the Sacramento Planning Commission.

The owners of the Sacramento Kings also want to build a 250-room hotel, 550 apartments, new offices, and more retail shops on the blighted K Street Downtown Plaza — property now mostly owned by the city of Sacramento, obtained through eminent domain from previous redevelopment efforts that failed.

The Planning Commission is expected to make its recommendations on the arena project in February.

And … drumroll please … the Planning Commission Chairwoman is none other than Kiyomi Burchill, a former legislative staff member to Steinberg. Kiyomi was appointed to the planning commission by Mayor Johnson.

Burchill, now 29, was appointed assistant secretary of the Health and Human Services Agency by Gov. Jerry Brown in 2011. Prior to that, Burchill was a policy consultant, legislative aide, and California Senate Fellow for Steinberg, going all the way back to 2006.

This is a cartel

It appears Mayor Johnson has this cartel locked up. A cartel is an explicit agreement among often competing business interests, and formal organization of stakeholders who agree to fix prices, marketing, and production, among other business processes. Every which way STOP turns, city officials and local politicians are standing in the way of the taxpayer having a vote in how they want their tax money used.

With Steinberg and Gaines in Mayor Johnson’s cartel, along with the city and county officials, the taxpayers and voters don’t appear to have a chance to avoid being part of Arena Derangement Syndrome.