Sacramento officials happy after initial talks with NBA authorities - NBA Update
The Sacramento City officials met with the National Basketball Association (NBA) authorities on Wednesday to discuss their plans for the creation of a new arena for the Sacramento Kings.
That was the first meeting between two parties since Sacramento City has proposed $387 million for financing a new arena. The meeting was held in Dallas where NBA officials discussed regarding the development of that proposed financing
plan for a new sports and entertainment arena in downtown city.
Although, still no progress has been made regarding how the Sacramento City officials will generate this huge amount of money, but Mayor Kevin Jonson is still very optimistic and extremely hopeful on making progress before end
of year.
After the meeting, Kevin Johnson and City Manager John Shirey also issued a statement, “All sides expressed a desire to continue to work collaboratively, our focus is on putting in place a public-private partnership that will put
the taxpayers first and generate more than 4,000 jobs and $150 million in annual economic activity in the city.”
Sacramento’s Councilman Steve Cohn also released a statement that says, “I am pleased that preliminary discussions are starting right away, we are working on a quick timeframe and need to have all facts so that we can protect the
taxpayers and, if it makes sense, move this project forward.”
No statement was made by the NBA officials. However, Sacramento City officials including Assistant City Manager John Dangberg told the media via a memo as the NBA representatives were very pleased over a new state law. This new
state law will increase the speed of legal procedures if the arena project is cancelled due to an environmental issue. The NBA representatives and City officials will meet again during this month but no official dates were given in the media.
Currently, Mayer Johnson is facing many difficulties to create a viable financing for the new arena. This is a huge amount and the City has no feasible ways to generate the money. But last week, venue giant A.E.G. has expressed
some interest to run Sacramento’s project of a new arena. Later, some reports also confirmed that Kevin Johnson has talked to representatives of A.E.G which is seriously considering becoming an operator for that arena.
However, nothing has yet been decided and all the City officials are still waiting for the approval from the Sacramento City Council for a financing plan of the new arena. The time is running fast as the March 1st 2012
is the last date for the city officials to show a viable plan for building a new arena in downtown Sacramento.
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