Sacramento city shoulders burden of arena for suburban benefit.
It was interesting to read the reactions on social media to Sacramento mayor Kevin Johnson’s State of the City address about his drive to keep the Kings Basketball team with the building of a new city subsidized arena. While not a scientific sampling, very few of the people who supported the mayor’s proposal and encumbering Sacramento with more debt actually lived in the city.
The entire suburban region (Elk Grove, El Dorado Hills, West Sacramento, Roseville, Folsom, Rancho Cordova) whole heartedly supports Sacramento’s position to go into debt to subsidize an arena to keep OUR Sacramento Kings.
Sucking Sacramento’s retail business
The surrounding suburbs and cities also appreciate that Sacramento has pretty much allowed us to drain the city of their lucrative retail business. Even as the recession exposed the inherent weakness of the DownTown Plaza and retailers gave up on the location, Roseville’s Galleria and Fountains opened, expanded, and are doing great.
Big payroll, little support
Each morning, thousands of employees commute into the city of Sacramento to work city, county, state, legislative and federal jobs. Each evening those some folks exit downtown at 5 o’clock and head to the suburbs to shop. The city of Sacramento is left to grapple with the Downtown Plaza shopping mall that is beginning to resemble a flea market, a growing homeless problem, levy improvement and a transportation hub all in need of tax revenue.
Sacramento shoulders arena financing
On top of all the urban issues Sacramento faces, suburban areas watch as Sacramento tries to perform a magic trick of building an arena without destroying their finances. While Sacramento has stepped up to the plate to make the downtown area conducive to government tenants, regional museums and transportation hubs with Amtrak and light rail, the suburban areas have quietly siphoned off tax generating retail and business operations. With Sacramento shouldering so much of the social services and regional infrastructure shouldn’t some of the suburban areas be tapped to support a downtown arena?
Arena, YES, Taxes NO, Debt No
Many companies are perfectly happy to advertise in a subsidized Sacramento arena as long as they are not burden with any more taxes or municipal debt. You know how we hate taxes and debt in the red Tea Party regions around Sacramento. We are perfectly comfortable with Sacramento picking up the tab, incurring the debt and shouldering any taxes to keep OUR Sacramento kings.
Whales swim away
It can’t be ignored that the current majority owners of the Sacramento Kings, the Maloof brothers, don’t live in Sacramento. Consequently, they don’t have any real allegiance or incentive to keep Sacramento financially sound. To them, the city of Sacramento is just another partner they have to deal with, not invest in. Similarly, the “whale” investors of Burkle and Mastrov don’t live in Sacramento either, but at least they are from California.
Suburban estate values
Granite Bay Estates far from Sacramento taxes.
Of course, it is vitally important to the real estate agents out here on Granite Bay that Sacramento goes the extra mile to keep the kings. Professional sports athletes can really boost property values when they purchase those estates made possible by the extra cash not spent on financing an arena by the owners.
Sacramento should get a warm feeling inside knowing that when they subsidize an arena deal for the King’s, they are also subsidizing the economic health of the suburbs that bear no responsibility for the debt. By building the arena downtown, Sacramento helps keep the crime and congestion out of our precious suburbs. Once again, we thank you Sacramento.
Can you handle the weight Sacramento?
I applaud Sacramento’s efforts to keep the Kings and build an arena that might help revitalize the downtown core. The amenities that downtown Sacramento has to offer are available to everyone. The maintenance and associated costs with those amenities is not inexpensive. As Sacramento moves forward with attempting to retain the Kings and build and arena, I hope the outlying suburban communities understand how much they benefit from the city of Sacramento taking the risk to maintain an identity for the region.