The flare-up during the past week over whether the NBA Kings must chip in for pre-development costs "has thrown the city's arena effort into doubt and exposed a fundamental problem: The two sides never were fully on the same page," according to a front-page piece by Bizjak & Lillis of the SACRAMENTO BEE. City officials "described the 'term sheet' negotiated" about a month ago as a "nearly complete agreement" at the time. But the Maloof family have said that they "disagreed with key elements of the term sheet from the get-go and that they had expected significant changes before any deal was signed." The "rift puts into question whether the Maloofs will agree to the next step in the process, which calls for them to sign a tenant lease agreement by April 15 with AEG, the company the city plans to hire to operate the arena." Kings attorneys "filed a voluminous request two weeks ago with the city to view all memos, emails, letters and other documents exchanged between the city and the NBA in the last year." The recent "acrimony provides a dramatic backdrop" for next week's NBA BOG meetings in N.Y., where Commissioner David Stern said that he will "brief owners on the Sacramento situation." The "fight over pre-development costs appears to be only one of several points of dispute." Sources said that the Kings have "disagreements with the term sheet involving parking issues, revenue streams, length of the deal and decision-making authority." The team also "expressed concerns in a letter Monday about the city's ability to pull off an arena in the tight time frame -- a 2015 opening date that the NBA has set as a target for getting the Kings in an updated arena" (SACRAMENTO BEE, 4/5).
