I gotta get a new banner photo. I hate the one I have.
First things first, are you coming to the Anchor Brewing night at Bows? I will be there hosting a screening of the episode of the Beer Hunter where he visits Anchor. Also, a rep from Anchor will be there giving out prizes and there will be Anchor brews. I gotta ask Olivia which ones. I'll let you know. I just looked at the Beer Week calendar for the first time. Beer Week starts Friday. It's weird, but Hot City Pizza is going to have a bunch of sours and barrel aged stuff. It says Friday night, but it will be available throughout the weekend. It's in the strip mall where OpaOpa is. Pangaea is having stout and oyster night. I don't really agree that those two things go together. Also, Swabbie's is jumping on the bandwagon. Track 7 is releasing a beer, that's cool. Iron Steaks is having.....fedora Friday? That's every Friday around my house. Yep, no pants and a fedora for everyone, even the cat.
Breton wrote a column today about how urgent it is that we quickly sell the city's parking assets to finance an arena. Surprise. Here was a little nugget buried in there:
Some say, why not use city parking assets to fund city services?
It's
simple: Cities get into trouble by using one-time assets to fund
ongoing expenses. The price you get for the parking is the price you
get, but the cost of services continues and goes up over time. What
happens when the parking money runs out? It's bad budgeting.
Ok, am I wrong here or did he just pull a fast one? He just reframed the debate as between a) selling the once and future assets to finance an arena or b)selling the once and future assets to "fund city services"
He's completely cut the option of the city just keeping the status quo and collecting ten million (and more as time passes and parking rates are raised) dollars a year FOREVER. Nice sleight of hand, Breton. Also, fuck you.
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The city could pull in so much more money from parking as well. Do you know that if you have a handicapped plate/placard you can park all day at the meters? Walk around the capitol sometime and see how many handicapped stickers there are. About 80%, I'd say. And those people are working. I think there should be a central city fee for people with handicapped stickers who are parked for more than 4 hours. Everybody else has to pay.
gbomb
Yeah, fixing the disable parking would make a difference. I say retain parking operations, raise the rates, call the NBA's bluff and watch them force the Maloofs to sell instead of allowing the Maloofs to move.
NM
You'll notice that every time Breton says something is "simple" or a "fact" in regards to an arena that it's usually neither. Discuss.
Little known fact about Marcos Breton: He is secretly a conceptual artist. He has working on a long-term project in which he slips obvious logical fallacies into a newspaper column. You've correctly identified a rather beautiful example of the fallacy of exhaustive hypotheses. His ultimate goal, I've heard, is to write a column that simply says, "Rooster crows; sun rises."
this sounds surprisingly similar to the theory that Herman Cain's presidential bid was actually a conceptual piece. just when i think i have my finger on the pulse....
To be fair, if you buy into the idea of an arena as an engine of economic revitalization, Breton's argument is perfectly logical. Liquidating an asset that pays a low return to make an investment that pays a much higher return is a good thing. The problem is, arenas don't produce an economic benefit. The experience of city after city bares this out. Now this isn't to say that the arena won't attract more businesses to downtown. It probably will, but at the cost of business elsewhere.
This is a hard point to drive home to people, especially when you consider that not building an arena will cost Sacramento the Kings in all likelihood. In essence, you're asking people to eat their peas. This is why the arena boosters will probably eek out a win.
if you buy into the idea of an arena as an engine of economic revitalization
If being the operative word. Wouldn't it be great if instead of Breton we had a columnist who pointed out how the "Creative Class" cities Sacramento wants to emulate, like Austin, has neither a stadium nor a major sports franchise.
First, in respect to the Austin comment: Austin has the University of Texas sports teams that bring in more money than the Kings ever could.
Second, I get the feeling that folks who don't support the arena think their lives will somehow be better and their wallets fatter if the arena is not built. Sorry, I just don't think that's the case.
I'm guessing that if parking is leased and an arena is built, that I really won't notice a difference in my quality of life, but at least I'll have a cool new venue to visit from time to time and maybe some good new restaurants to visit too.
That sounds ok.
Arena vote postponed until March 6.
NM
I just worry about getting more parking tickets and that my secret all day parking places downtown will be turned into 2 hour spaces. And will I have the right to dispute tickets?
Oh and the traffic because they are building at a place that has the power to tie up most of the local freeways in gridlock. (But I do support infill.)
And because they are lying so much to us and they won't let us vote.
And that maybe you won't take me to a comp game in the new arena because it's too nice for the likes of me.
So there isn't a vote on the arena until after the Kings deadline?
Gbomb
The March 1 deadline is extended by the NBA, too.
And I will take you as a comp guest but I'm not sure I'm allowed into the new arena if it's built.
I hear Breton and Carmichael Dave get statues, or maybe busts, near the entrance, though,
NM
Hey, you know what else would bring in some much needed revenue? Letting gay people get married. Just sayin'.
jamattack!
One way my quality of life would improve if the arena got built would be that I WOULD NEVER FUCKING HAVE TO LISTEN TO ANOTHER DEBATE ABOUT WHY WHERE AND HOW THE ARENA WOULD GET BUILT. They have successfully worn me down.
Don't say never; probably have to build a new one in 2045.
Becky has a bumper sticker that says "I'm already against the next arena"
-miller
Nick- The Arena is not the question: paying for the Arena is the question. It's not 'will the sale of parking rights screw up Downtown/Midtown?' It's 'HOW MUCH will it screw up Midtown/Downtown and will a successful Arena be enough to offset it?'
And, food for thought: These are the same 'pro-growthers' who thought that A) building Downtown Plaza was going to revitalize K Street and B) that Arco Arena was going to be profitable.
And, anyone who's selling this as something that will make money for this region is flat-out lying. Stadiums/Arenas are not profitable, which is why no private entities build them any more. Read 'Field of Schemes' if you have any doubts. In pure economics, the city could spend (or better yet, not spend) the money in MUCH more effective ways.
There are many reasons to consider building an Arena/arts complex, but it being an economic boon is not one of them.
-omf
I get the feeling that folks who don't support the arena think their lives will somehow be better and their wallets fatter if the arena is not built. Sorry, I just don't think that's the case.
Perhaps this is true, but it is irrelevant. The question before us is whether the city should subsidize the cost of building an arena.
It is quite true that building an arena will provide some people with a consumer opportunity, but we need to ask ourselves why that merits spending scarce public dollars.
Think about it this way. Suppose the city paid WalMart to build a store downtown? Most people on this thread probably hate WalMart, but most people in general, including most people who live downtown, value cheap retail goods. Not having to drive into the suburbs to shop for them would be a real benefit that would touch the lives of a lot more people than an arena would.
On the negative side, the Walmart would create competition for the Target on Broadway. Since this competition wouldn't drive prices down (i.e., the Chinese won't work for free), nobody would really benefit economically from the city paying Walmart to build a store downtown. Surely nobody would expect it to spur an economic revitalization. (WalMart might also harm local businesses, too, but there is evidence that this is more of a myth than a reality...but let's not open that can of worms).
The arena is like a really flashy Walmart that caters to people who have above-average incomes. Do you see now why the subsidy is not a prudent or fair deal?
Was I the only one who saw this last night:
http://www.kcra.com/news/30509623/detail.html
The guy who runs the water treatment plant explained it like this: if you have a car from 1934, you are going to have to do maintenance on it to keep it running. Yep, that's when Sacramento's water treatment plant was built.
So why doesn't Sacramento bring itself up to the level of these other cities it so desires to be, by keeping its infrastructure up to date? Fuck the arena.
We should take the money from the parking and renovate our water treatment plant with that, rather than raising water bills by 30% over the course of 3 years.
Dude, water treatment plants are boring. If the city doesnt waste the money on an arena, they're just going to waste it something dumber like a Reality TV Show Museum or city planners six figure pensions.
-hot dogger
Dude, water treatment plants are boring
They are boring right up to the point where your bath water runs brown and smells like shit. Then suddenly they become really interesting.
I've got it - we'll use the money to fund a study on how to make water treatment plants seem exciting.
Looks like the arena issue really brings out the anony-Trolls. I hear that anony-Troll 2 is hella funny if you're high.
-DB
"Keep Arco Janky"
Jed
rad!!
jesus christ the word things below are getting hard. i can't fucking read them!
An interesting take from the Seattle end:
http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/why-seattle-needs-a-stupid-new-sports-arena/Content?oid=12735183
C. Harvey
I had to hire a bot just to tell me what the words are.
Water Park -> water treatment plant. a water park thats really a water treatment plant. that would be awesome. and it could have shows, and plays and mermaid spawning pools. I heard they have one in Austin (3:16, what?)
-Jankity jank
I know it's expensive, but I think it's time Sacramento buys itself something nice.
Any of you non-arena supporters ever buy yourself something nice or are you only buying the bare bones basics all the time?
Let's live a little here!
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