The question STOP won’t answer

Mar 5, 2013; Sacramento, CA, USA; Sacramento Kings fans hold a sign for mayor Kevin Johnson (not pictured) to build the crown downtown arena and keep the Kings during the second quarter against the Denver Nuggets at Sleep Train Arena. Mandatory Credit: Kelley L Cox-USA TODAY Sports

This is the one and only time I’m going to give this anti-arena group any of my attention. STOP has been garnering a lot of press lately because apparently the word, at least from Ryan Lillis of The Sacramento Bee is that they are on pace to meet the signature requirement needed to put the downtown arena funding on the ballot for June 2014.

From Ryan Lillis’ Twitter account (@Ryan_Lillis)

"The more people I speak to, the more it sounds like the arena ballot measure campaign will collect the signatures they need”"

Additionally STOP has been spreading lies during their attempts to get the signatures. It’s all been documented and probably will continue to be documented…because well when you’re grasping at straws, you might as well just say anything you please! #YOLO

I could care less but since I’m giving these folks the attention they are craving, I would ask them the following question…

Do you have an alternative way where the city can create increased revenue streams for the public services, that by the way,  you are complaining about being leveraged?

…

The mere fact that STOP has no rational, if any, answer to this question shows how backwards their whole vision for the city is. You complain about the lack of funding for schools, teachers, the fire department, the homeless, police, etc. but when asked about what you would do, you present no answer that is alternative to the status quo, which is to do nothing. Sorry, but those times are over. You can find as many economic studies as you want that tell everyone, arenas don’t benefit cities financially but it still doesn’t take away from the fact that the sports and entertainment complex is a tangible asset that the private sector is willing to invest HEAVY cash into to create a vibrant synergy of consumers, events, and most importantly a higher quality of life. No private companies are investing in schools, the police, fire department etc… it just doesn’t create revenue. That doesn’t mean it’s not important, but it’s just not something folks can get excited about.

So how do you create additional revenue in your general fund? The simple answer to me (probably much more complex for economists), is that you invest in yourself and you have to take risks but also mitigate those risks by accounting for a couple of items…

1) Are property values going to rise due to this new investment?

2) Will we be receiving additional tax revenue that we would never have seen had we done nothing?

The bottom line is that STOP really has no ground to stand on when complaining about public services being cut or remaining the same, but proposes no solution to improve the status quo. They still won’t answer that important question.

I’m just going to venture a guess here and say that, it probably would look pretty bad for them to say that they are in favor of doing absolutely nothing.

One more thing… you can’t have anything without putting in a little something. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?