Shaquille O’Neal’s not just the latest whale in the Sacramento Kings’ ownership aquarium: The NBA legend was in town this past Monday meeting and dining with Gov. Jerry Brown.
This normally would be considered harmless elbow-rubbing. But this week the governor is considering whether to ink a special Kings bill that would significantly fast-track construction of the team’s proposed new downtown arena.
After announcing him as a new minority owner of the Kings, O’Neal, along with Kings majority owner Vivek Ranadive and co-owner Mark Mastrov (who the NBA star has opened 24 Hour Fitness franchises with) met with Brown at the Capitol on Monday afternoon.
Three boys and a man pic.twitter.com/hnikQ7Gyjh
— Vivek Ranadivé (@Vivek) September 24, 2013
Then, later that evening, the trio joined new Kings front-office member Chris Mullin and Brown’s wife, first lady Anne Gust, and others at Zocalo, a popular Mexican restaurant in Midtown. Kings center DeMarcus Cousins also was in attendance.
Good food, great company, balmy evening =great dinner party @SHAQ @boogiecousins pic.twitter.com/vvWWsO87tE
— Vivek Ranadivé (@Vivek) September 24, 2013
By the end of the night, a photo of O’Neal bench pressing Brown’s wife, Gust, above his head was making the rounds on Twitter.
Shaq gives me a lift! pic.twitter.com/m5l7J1w8lu
— annebgust (@annebgust) September 24, 2013
Too many margaritas, maybe?
Or perhaps it was strictly business: The Kings bill on the governor’s desk, Senate Bill 743, could make or break the arena’s construction.
Foremost, the bill—ushered through the Capitol by Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg—would speed up judicial review of any challenges to the arena’s environmental-impact report.
Say then if a group files a suit against the certification of the EIR, both the superior and appeals courts would have only 270 days to resolve any legal challenges, a significan fast-track. (Sure, the courts have told the Legislature that it cannot mandate such expeditious proceedings, but the bill includes such language all the same.)
Equally vital is that the bill provides injunctive relief for arena construction. This means that, unless there is a serious risk to public health or American Indian artifacts are unearthed, work on the arena will not be interrupted by any environmental suits or challenges.
This timeline is important: A signature-gathering effort to put an initiative on the June 2014 ballot challening the arena’s public subsidy will probably succeed. If it does, the Kings hope to complete the arena’s environmental-impact report and commence construction before any vote; experts say the EIR might be completed as early as late spring.
The special Kings bill also permits the city of Sacramento to engage eminent-domain proceedings against the owners of the Downtown Plaza Macy’s property, a New York-based real-estate firm. These owners have so far turned down the Kings offers for the Downtown Plaza Macy’s Mens & Home Store property. City Council green-lit the use of eminent domain this past summer.
The Steinberg bill also streamlines judicial review of all CEQA suits.
When Ranadive introduced O’Neal as a minority owner this week, turns out he was killing two birds with one stone: Shaq provided the star power in a private meeting with the governor and, two, the all-star would hopefully be the key to developing one of the league’s most-promising young talents, one Cousins, into an NBA superstar.
Mentoring troublemaker talents like Cousins is typical for retired NBA talents such as Shaq. But lobbying the governor himself is unconventional—and contentious.
After the dinner, O’Neal told local media members that he would be in Sacramento often. For the first time ever, Shaq has Sac’s back.
Information in this story has been corrected since its initial posting.
