Sorry don't have a fully worked up article here ready to go. With 180+ comments in the old one it is time for something new. This is NOT a Sac Free thread and in fact I doubt my friends in Sacramento will like my opinions at all.
I was pretty floored that they missed their deadline yesterday. In truth I was really floored. I think it says a lot that even as they were saying "we think we will have it done in an hour, no 2 hours..." that they really didn't know. They had elements that they were so confident about agreement on that they were willing to commit to a date but when the lawyers put them down on paper and one side or another refused to sign.
I also think it is quite odd that all the discussion around the new third investor seems to completely skip over the fact that Mastrov, who is the guy who has been leading this for months and was the hero just 48 hours ago is now willing to step aside and be second fiddle. What did he see out there? Why wasn't he able to get it done? Those questions aren't going to be answered now or ever.
I think their concept of forming a non-profit to bond against parking revenues is going to be really ripe for litigation. I don't know the exact legalities of it but my understanding is that the reason they were going to sell or lease those parking revenues to a third party operator as opposed to just bonding against the revenue themselves was that they are prevented from issuing bonds on that money by a recent California law. Even with limited information I think it seems that they will be at some risk of accusation of circumventing that law by forming a straw entity and deeding the revenue over to them for the sole purpose of being able to bond against it.
And lastly I would say that we all know that both cities are going to have to go into the NBA on April 3rd and say "We know that there are some things here that are speculative but you can count on us to deliver on our projections. You can have faith that whatever we say we are going to do we will deliver on it." whether that is parking revenue forecasts, construction cost, permitting or anything at all related to the project.
How can they credibly make this claim when they have fallen short of every deadline they have set? That is the problem at the end of the day.
"I know we said we were going to have our Whales by March 1 but at least we got to them on March 13."
"I know we publicly claimed our offer was competitive but it was in fact $100 million short."
"I know we said we would have a term sheet with Mastrov by March 21 but at least we got to one with Vivek by March 27th"
There is a pattern here and the pattern shows that they are scrambling and that no matter how much they want it and how hard they are willing to work they simply may not be able to deliver on the things they promise. No matter how much their media tries to cover it up do not think that these shortfalls and setbacks won't be noticed.