L.A. City Councilmember Joel Wachs unveiled the "latest, toughest" version of his ballot proposal that would require voter approval for publicly subsidized sports arenas, according to Ted Rohrlich of the L.A. TIMES. To gain exemption from a vote, arena developers and Kings Owners Edward Roski and Philip Anschutz, would "have to convince" both the city attorney and the city controller that "all public money" used for the project "would be repaid." The TIMES' Rohrlich writes that two "catches" for the developers under the initiative are that it defines the term subsidy "broadly," so that it includes "more than" the $70M in municipal bonds that developers would use to acquire land, and that they have "pledged" to repay. Second, the developers "would not be allowed" to count the extra sales and property taxes the arena is expected to generate as part of their repayment. Developers "have been planning" to use these additional taxes, along with ticket surcharges and parking revenue, to repay the $70M in bonds. John Semcken, spokesperson for the developers, on Wachs' version: "We don't have anything to say in response to him. He's getting entirely too much attention as it is" (L.A. TIMES, 9/12).
