Sacramento Taxpayers Opposed to Pork (STOP), the group seeking a public vote on the city’s plan to subsidize a downtown arena, "received a pivotal boost over the weekend when it obtained 18,000 signed petitions financed by Chris Hansen," according to a front-page piece by Ryan Lillis of the SACRAMENTO BEE. Those petitions likely place STOP "within just a few thousand signatures of what it needs to qualify a measure for the June ballot that would require voter approval of public contributions to sports facilities." STOP needs 22,000 "valid signatures from city voters -- and it has three more months to reach that threshold." Hansen "requested in a letter Tuesday that STOP return or destroy the petitions, which he said were both financed with his money and given to the campaign without his consent or knowledge." Hansen stopped "short of threatening legal action against STOP if the petitions are filed with city election officials." However, he said the group "does not have any legal right to them." Hansen wrote in part, "Please do the right thing." But STOP said that it would "deny Hansen’s request to return the petitions" (SACRAMENTO BEE, 9/18). In Sacramento, Marcos Breton writes, "I honestly don’t care if Seattle ever gets an NBA team. But I do hope Hansen is forever frustrated in his bid to be an NBA boss for the smarmy stunt he pulled in Sacramento." Hansen "opposes a public vote on the arena he wants to build in Seattle, but essentially finances one in Sacramento -- all because he got his fancy pants in a bunch at being passed over for the Kings" (SACRAMENTO BEE, 9/18).
