Conspiracy Theory: The Maloofs are funding Wburg's STOP campaign (Los Angeles: homes, neighborhood)

[bluevelo]

Originally Posted by Majin

I've already offered to pay for your plane ticket out of Sac. What are you waiting on?

I don't want to leave Sacramento. I want Sacramento be a better place, and not spending money on arenas for ghetto-ball.

[krudmonk]

You should burn a cross on KJ's lawn. That'll let him know how much you care about taxpayer dollars.

[bluevelo]

Originally Posted by krudmonk

You should burn a cross on KJ's lawn. That'll let him know how much you care about taxpayer dollars.

I think showing up at Council meetings and continuing to raise hell is a more effective way of getting the message across - although as last night's council meeting shows most of the City Council is corrupt to the core.

[Majin]

I wonder if bluevelo and wburg will ruin Sacramento's downtown and K street for the next 30 years?

Arena vote campaign says it’s closing in on signature goal - City Beat - The Sacramento Bee

Hopefully the STOP campaign is just blowing smoke.

[marland]

If you look at the polling, generally most likely voters still aren't willing to use tax payers money to subsidize the arena. Essentially if enough legitimate signatures can be collected to put it on the ballot, the arena deal will go down in flames. The big problem is that absent Chris Hansen, there wasn't anyone willing to write the check to pay for paid signature gatherers to force a vote. If you look at the politics of the decision to make the Arena project a closed union shop, it was mostly because the unions were another group that had the ability to actually pay for the signatures to force a vote, so agreeing to make the arena a closed union shop project was a way of buying them off from funding a signature drive to force a vote.

That said when all is said and done, I think their is an arena going into downtown Sacramento.

[wburg]

If it's a good enough plan, people will support it, just like we supported a tax increase last year. Paid signature gatherers are helpful to get enough signatures but not strictly necessary with the right level of organization, and a large number of small donors can substitute quite well for a small number of large donors.

I thought the union labor agreement only gave 70% of the jobs to union members? If it's 30% non-union is it still a closed shop?

I don't know about bluevelo, but I plan on continuing to ruin downtown and K Street for the next 30 years, supporting its conversion back into a residential neighborhood. By then I'll be in my 70s and might not want to deal with a whole house anymore, so a downtown condo would be nice. Especially if it was something like residential units on a top floor of the Senator Hotel facing Capitol Park, but a new mid/high rise condo in the Railyards might be nice. Maybe by then we will be up to 58,000 in the central city again (if not more) so there will be plenty of activity and stores open late, and a streetcar line to facilitate scooting over to West Sacramento or Midtown. Maybe there will be an arena and maybe not, it's just one thing in a city full of choices.

[ryuns]

Originally Posted by wburg

If it's a good enough plan, people will support it, just like we supported a tax increase last year. Paid signature gatherers are helpful to get enough signatures but not strictly necessary with the right level of organization, and a large number of small donors can substitute quite well for a small number of large donors.

I thought the union labor agreement only gave 70% of the jobs to union members? If it's 30% non-union is it still a closed shop?

I don't know about bluevelo, but I plan on continuing to ruin downtown and K Street for the next 30 years, supporting its conversion back into a residential neighborhood. By then I'll be in my 70s and might not want to deal with a whole house anymore, so a downtown condo would be nice. Especially if it was something like residential units on a top floor of the Senator Hotel facing Capitol Park, but a new mid/high rise condo in the Railyards might be nice. Maybe by then we will be up to 58,000 in the central city again (if not more) so there will be plenty of activity and stores open late, and a streetcar line to facilitate scooting over to West Sacramento or Midtown. Maybe there will be an arena and maybe not, it's just one thing in a city full of choices.

wburg, why do you hate downtown and Sacramento so much?

[ryuns]

Originally Posted by marland

If you look at the polling, generally most likely voters still aren't willing to use tax payers money to subsidize the arena. Essentially if enough legitimate signatures can be collected to put it on the ballot, the arena deal will go down in flames. The big problem is that absent Chris Hansen, there wasn't anyone willing to write the check to pay for paid signature gatherers to force a vote. If you look at the politics of the decision to make the Arena project a closed union shop, it was mostly because the unions were another group that had the ability to actually pay for the signatures to force a vote, so agreeing to make the arena a closed union shop project was a way of buying them off from funding a signature drive to force a vote.

That said when all is said and done, I think their is an arena going into downtown Sacramento.

Do you have a link to any poll numbers specifically regarding the deal hashed out? I can't find anything that would seem to indicate a reflection of what the voters would actually choose if this proposal specifically were on the ballet.

[Majin]

Originally Posted by marland

If you look at the polling, generally most likely voters still aren't willing to use tax payers money to subsidize the arena.

Where is your data to support this?

Originally Posted by marland

Essentially if enough legitimate signatures can be collected to put it on the ballot, the arena deal will go down in flames.

Again, where is your data to support this? It takes 22k signatures to get something on the ballot and 500k city population, lets say only 1/4 are registered and eligible to vote, that still 22k out of 125k population. And that assumes all 22k will vote no (I admit, a very good assumption).

And did you consider there are about 4k signatures (confirmed by the city clerk) that have already been petitioned to be removed from the signature list because the their signature was given under false pretenses?

Originally Posted by marland

The big problem is that absent Chris Hansen, there wasn't anyone willing to write the check to pay for paid signature gatherers to force a vote.

Doesn't that tell you something? That only out of area money is interested in stopping the Arena project? Doesn't that give you a clue that stopping the arena project only helps out of arena interests (Seattle, Anaheim, etc). Virtually all of the local businesses community and political heavyweights support the arena, while a few out of arena heavyweights want to force a vote (oppose it). Hmmm.... by signing the petition, who exactly are you supporting?

[Majin]

Originally Posted by wburg

If it's a good enough plan, people will support it, just like we supported a tax increase last year. Paid signature gatherers are helpful to get enough signatures but not strictly necessary with the right level of organization, and a large number of small donors can substitute quite well for a small number of large donors.

This is where you fail politics 101.

Lots of signatures to even put it on the ballot were gathered under false pretense from out of area interest groups (Hansen), and this is fact given the record amount of request of people to have their name removed (around 4k now, likely to be higher), and given the videos that have surfaced with lying signature gatherers.

Having a actual vote on this in June will bring these kind of special interest politics back and just slow down and throw monkey wrenches into the Arena processes instead of actually working to build the arena and focus on surrounding development.

And this is not unique to the Arena, the same BS happened with prop 8 in 2010, in which illegal campaign contributions are STILL being investigated.

And this, in general, is why there has been such criticism of California's initiative process, it allows out of area, and often times gray area/illegal campaign contributions to muck up the political process, especially in off-year elections (2014). Look it up, lots of articles written about Ca's initiative process.

Originally Posted by wburg

I don't know about bluevelo, but I plan on continuing to ruin downtown and K Street for the next 30 years, supporting its conversion back into a residential neighborhood

And how do you plan to do that? By have a dead DTP on K street and having no incentive for (residential) development long the K street corridor? What is your plan to restore vitality to downtown from I-5 to 12th street? We know KJ and the Arena developer's plan, and their funding source (private and city borrowing from future parking revenues), so what is yours? What is your plan and funding source? What would you do with DTP and neglected buildings on K street? Who do you think will tear down a building on 8th and K and build a residential building near boarded up buildings and a dead mall? C'mon, lets hear it.