Ugh...

Sometimes I reeeeaaaaalllly hate the Republican Party - and I'm not afraid to say it openly

Sacramento's New Arena

Here in Sacramento, CA, there have been talks on and off for a while about building a new arena for the local basketball team, the Kings. In the last year or so, these talks have picked up significantly to the point where once a week or so, the plans will be mentioned in the paper. Recently, the city and the owners of the basketball team (Joe and Gavin Maloof) came to an agreement on the terms of the deal. This arena is to be conveniently located in the middle of downtown where the city council has been reducing traffic capacity for years. It will be a logistical nightmare. Now, while the current arena requires a 10 minute longer drive to get to, I think that once traffic is figured in, it's probably about 20 minutes shorter.

The details of the deal can be found here, but I will outline the basics. The Maloofs pay about 25% of the cost over the course of about 30 years, but take in a lot of the arena revenue. The rest of it will come from a quarter cent sales tax in the city. The tax will generate much more money than is needed for the arena, so the local politicos say they will use the rest for other improvements.

I'm no tax naysayer, and think that if it was just money for other projects without an arena attached, I would vote FOR the tax, come November. However, the public is getting a pretty raw deal out of it - as proven by one of the local city council members. In fact, with the interest the Maloofs won't be paying they end up paying only about 15 percent of the cost. In addition, Arco Arena, the current facility in the area that hosts events of all types, was only built in 1988. 18 years isn't all that old for a facility of this type that still serves its purposes well.

Now, the people who are putting the arena deal on the ballot are trying to circumvent the state of CA's requirement that all taxes for a specific purpose pass with a 2/3 majority by making it two things to vote on at the ballot. The first is whether to have a tax increase, and the second is an advisory measure on whether it should be used for the arena or not. This confused me for a while, but my current understanding is that they can ignore the advisory measure and if the tax passes they can use it for whatever they like (even an ARENA!).

This whole thing is ridiculous. I know I'll be voting "NO" come November. I don't know a single person who will be voting "yes." When it's this stupid, who can justify anything else.

Who Knows

We'll see if I actually do anything with this blog. This is the place where I'll write more about the world than my own life. I do that elsewhere. Thus, this will probably end up being a rant blog.