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.

Last week, Sacramento Superior Court Judge Eugene Balonon issued a tentative ruling in the lawsuit targeting the arena deal orchestrated by Mayor Kevin Johnson, a former NBA star. It supported petitioners’ requests that they be allowed to depose Sacramento Councilman Kevin McCarty and Sacramento Economic Development Director Jim Rhinehart about undisclosed dealings between city officials and the new Kings ownership group to help it buy the team.

The Sacramento Investor Group, led by tech entrepreneur Vivek Ranadive, purchased Sacramento’s NBA franchise from the Maloof family in May.

Arena deal: Many key issues remain murky

The arena deal has prompted questions over the lack of public debate about key details, dubious financial numbers from the city and the public subsidy the project requires. Also, last-minute legislation by Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, would let the arena’s construction proceed without a credible environmental impact review.

Plaintiffs Issac Gonzalez, James Cathcart and Julian Camacho are members of Voters for a Fair Arena Deal. They hope to put the arena subsidy issue on the ballot in Sacramento.

Defendants, who include Johnson, City Manager John Shirey, Deputy City Manager John Dangberg and other city officials, have sought to keep the deal behind closed doors and off the ballot.

The lawsuit accuses city officials of making a secret deal to provide an extra $80 million of public money to help the investors’ group beef up its offer against a well-funded Seattle group that wanted to buy the Kings and move them to Seattle, which lost its NBA team to Oklahoma City in 2008. Plaintiffs’ attorney Patrick Soluri said city officials have committed fraud because they have not fully informed the City Council and the public about details of the deal.

The city subsidy, according to the lawsuit, is actually $338 million — not the $258 million the city claims.

In response, the defendants insist the information the petitioners seek is “undiscoverable, privileged information” and contend there was no secret deal. Defendants’ attorney Dawn McIntosh said in in a Thursday court hearing there is not even any formal agreement in place about building the arena in downtown Sacramento. McIntosh said the lawsuit was “a waste of everyone’s time.”

However, the City Council voted Tuesday of last week to begin eminent domain proceedings to acquire the property necessary in the development of the new sports arena.

The lawsuit’s plaintiffs want to depose McCarty and Rhinehart because they believe the city officials have evidence about the city’s undisclosed subsidies. While Judge Balonon indicated in his tentative ruling last week that he favored authorizing a deposition of McCarty and Rhinehart, he also said he would issue his final decision this week.

Councilman McCarty opposes the city arena deal, and thus far, has not responded to deposition requests. I contacted McCarty several times for previous stories about the arena deal, but he did not return phone calls or emails.

Stall tactics until the deal is done

Deposition notices were sent to city officials in September. But according to Soluri, the mayor and city officials have engaged in various avoidance tactics, including filing numerous objections to deposition notices, rolling demurrers, and refusing to comply with a court order directing them to reschedule a further hearing. Soluri said these were stall tactics was designed solely to delay the inevitable discovery until after the city’s expected formal approval of the arena in April.

Those behind the lawsuit are not the only ones who think that Mayor Johnson and other city officials aren’t being honest about the real size of the public subsidy. Public policy watchdog Eye on Sacramento says that when all of the publicly owned assets being thrown into the deal are accounted for, the public’s contribution is actually $375 million — far higher than the city’s $258 million claim.

The city also agreed to give the arena’s private development group the city’s empty 100-acre plot next to Sleep Train Arena in North Natomas and six other city properties, five of them adjacent to or near the downtown arena site. City officials are also giving away the city’s parking lot at the site, and the revenue from parking meters, after claiming the parking lots have no value.

Beyond the legal challenge to the city’s deal, there is also a ballot initiative petition to require a public vote on any public subsidy for a professional sports franchise.  The petition signatures are currently being counted.

However, it appears Mayor Johnson and the City Council will attempt to moot the result of that vote by pushing up their approvals of the arena prior to the June vote that would thereafter require voter approval.  Approval of the deal and related bond sales were previously scheduled for summer or fall 2014.

Craig Powell, president of Eye on Sacramento, calls this “stealing the election.”

The files on the arena lawsuit are available on the Sacramento Superior Court website, case no. 34-2013-80001489.

On the steps of Sacramento City Hall Tuesday afternoon, I witnessed members of “Our City — Our Vote” announce the formation of “Voters for a Fair Arena Deal,” to help an arena initiative qualify for the June 2014 ballot. The group said it plans to vigorously advocate for a fairer arena deal for the City of Sacramento and city taxpayers.

And they stressed they want an arena built — just not on the backs of the taxpayers.

“Voters for a Fair Arena Deal,” was formed amidst unanswered concerns about the pubic cost of the current arena subsidy plan, which will require payments of $25 million per year for 27 years after the initial 8 years of “interest only” payments.  The state recently prohibited school districts from using similar long-term “capital appreciation” bonds. Ahem.

The new group has filed registration papers with the Secretary of State and the Fair Political Practices Commission. They expect to get some financial help from nonunion building contractors who have been cut out of the arena deal by the Sacramento Kings owners when the unholy deal ensured the use of only union labor on the half a billion arena project.

The Sacramento arena deal, led by Mayor Kevin Johnson, has suffered from a lack of public debate, dubious financial numbers from the city, along with a growing public subsidy, and last-minute legislation by Sen. President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, to let the stadium avoid a real environmental impact review.

“The City’s attempt to suddenly speed up the schedule makes it appear they are trying to circumvent the public’s right to be heard,” said Susan Patterson, Sacramento city resident and former SMUD Board member, “that’s not how you build public confidence.  We need to move past the angry twitter wars and campaign stunts — that’s why we’re adopting Our City, Our Vote’s campaign ethics code at the same time.”

Too many politicians seem to have one thing in common — they all are always willing and eager to put taxpayers in more debt on ego deals the cities do not need, and cannot afford.

Non-union contractors offer help

Voters for a Fair Arena Deal said non-union contractors will likely donate between $15,000 and $25,000 to help mount the campaign, along with other donations.

Interestingly, the largest area electrical contractor qualified to do the work on a new arena is non-union. Rex Moore Electrical Contractors and Engineers would probably rather see a project allow free and open competition for all construction contracts, instead of going out of the city for contractors — especially if this arena project is all about creating jobs for Sacramento, as proponents claim.

The “deal,” known as a project labor agreement between private developers, the city of Sacramento, and one big labor union, happens when the government awards contracts for public construction projects exclusively to unionized firms.

According to Eric Christen, executive director of the Coalition for Fair Employment in Construction, the Sacramento construction market is 85 percent union-free. In a September op-ed in the Sacramento Bee, Christian asked, “why would the owners agree to a PLA that will only make this project more expensive?

The Coalition for Fair Employment in Construction is a California-based organization dedicated to opposing project labor agreements. The CFEC called the arena PLA “a waste of taxpayer money and a payoff to unions to avoid baseless complaints and lawsuits under the California Environmental Quality Act.”

10 Principles of a Fair Arena Deal