Apparently conservative campaign consultant Brandon Powers and professional campaign treasurer Lysa Ray were dragged into an FPPC investigation of a hedge fund manager named Chris Hansen, who settled a $50,000 fine with the FPPC due to failure to properly disclose the source of funding behind the ballot measure to force a public vote on the City of Sacramento arena subsidy, according to Allen Wilson over at the OC Political blog.
The bigger story here is that the Sacramento Kings ownership, the Maloof Family, is dead broke – they owe over $200 million dollars and the Kings are only worth, at most, about $300 million. The City of Sacramento made a deal to build them a new arena, which was supposed to be built by union contractors only, but that deal fell apart.
I think the Maloofs rather leave Sacramento, which they perceive, rightly, to be a cow town. I can’t blame them for wanting to move to Seattle – a town full of high tech yuppies and hipsters.
As for Powers and Ray, the source Wilson quotes, the Sacramento Bee, indicates that the real culprits were Loeb and Loeb, the attorney’s for the Maloof family. I have a feeling that Powers and Ray were just following orders.
I think Wilson’s real beef is that Powers and Ray are currently the campaign consultant and treasurer, respectively, for GOP Assembly candidate Diamond Bar Councilwoman Ling-Ling Chang – who is not favored by Wilson. Apparently Ling-Ling is a moderate – which is probably a positive in the Open Primary Top Two system we are stuck with.
For me though the bottom line is that city governments should not be involved in owning arenas or paying for them. The voters always get screwed by these bad deals. Here in Orange County, for example, the City of Anaheim is about to give away development rights to the Angels Stadium parking lot to Angels owner Arte Moreno. They ought to just sell him the stadium and walk away from the whole mess.
I wonder if the FPPC inserted into itself into the Sacramento Arena campaign at the behest of liberal Democrat Kevin Johnson, the former NBA player turned Sacramento Mayor who got punked by the Maloofs?