Downtown has become a neighborhood of murals.
In the last few days, the central city's public art collection has expanded with a few new installations.
That includes the first couple of murals to be placed at the corner of 8th and K streets. The art is part of the Downtown Mural Project, sponsored by the Downtown Sacramento Partnership.
The lineup is set for Thursday's fan rally to celebrate the Kings' future in Sacramento.
Seven members of the new ownership group - including managing partner Vivek Ranadive - are scheduled to attend the free event, which runs from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. at downtown's Cesar Chavez Plaza. Ranadive will be joined by partners Paul Jacobs, Raj Bhathal, Mark Mastrov, Mark Friedman, Andrew Miller and Chris Kelly at the rally.
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Kings legends Mitch Richmond and Chris Webber will attend, along with current Kings Tyreke Evans and Isaiah Thomas. Former players Scot Pollard and Bobby Jackson are also slated to make appearances.
Vivek Ranadive is scheduled to make his first public appearance as the newly-approved owner of the Sacramento Kings at a fan rally Thursday at downtown's Cesar Chavez Plaza.
The event - dubbed the Long Live the Kings Rally - was originally planned for Wednesday. It is scheduled to run from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m.
Mayor Kevin Johnson is also slated to attend the rally, along with Kings mascot Slamson and the Kings dancers. Johnson had announced that homegrown rock band Cake would attend the Wednesday rally, but that announcement appeared to be premature.
By Dale Kasler, Ryan Lillis and Tony Bizjak
DALLAS - The NBA Board of Governors voted 22-8 to keep the Kings in Sacramento, League Commissioner David Stern has announced.
While the proposed move by the team to Seattle was turned down, the issue of who will own the team has not been settled.
"We will talk to the Maloofs and seek in the next 24 to 48 hours whether we can help facilities a deal between the Ranadive group and the Maloofs for the sale of the franchise in Sacramento," Stern said of the Kings owners.
READ THE FULL STORY: NBA Board of Governors denies relocation bid to move Kings to Seattle
City Hall took a step this week toward placing tighter regulations on gun sales in Sacramento.
The City Council's Law and Legislation Committee voted on Tuesday to recommend that new businesses seeking to sell firearms be required to obtain special use permits. The proposed ordinance will now be passed on to the full City Council for a vote.
Gun and ammo stores are currently classified as retail stores under current city code and can open in industrial or commercial zones. A special permit restriction would require the shops to get approval from the city's planning and design commission, which would analyze proposed sites and could place conditions on the establishments.
The City Council is expected tonight to approve the construction of a solar panel farm on about four acres of land at Sutter's Landing Park in midtown.
City officials had originally proposed placing a much larger solar farm atop the former landfill in the park. But that plan was opposed by environmental groups, who said the old dump is a pivotal feeding ground for the threatened Swainson's hawk.
The scaled-back solar facility will now be placed on 3.7 acres of asphalt next to the dog park at Sutter's Landing. Solar panels will also be placed in the dog park for shade and on a carport structure in a nearby parking lot.
Mayor Kevin Johnson is so confident that the Kings are staying put, he's got some advice for the guys trying to buy the team and move it to Seattle: back off.
While saying he understands why they are fighting, the mayor said today that hedge fund manager Chris Hansen and Microsoft executive Steve Ballmer should "take the high road and be gracious." Hansen and Ballmer have said they are still exploring their options after the NBA's relocation committee recommended by a 7-0 vote against their plan to move the Kings to the Emerald City.
"Once the relocation committee spoke as loud and as clear as it did, I would probably take a step back and understand that I'm probably not going to get this team, so how can I put Seattle in the best possible position to get a team moving forward?" the mayor said.
The Sacramento city manager has proposed hiring dozens of new police officers - but only if the city's existing cops agree to pay into their pensions.
In his 2013-14 budget released Monday, City Manager John Shirey proposed hiring 58 uniformed police officers with funding from a recent increase in the city sales tax. Those officers - hired over the next 18 months - would beef up street patrols and help the department investigate more violent felonies.
But Shirey said he would withdraw that recommendation if the Sacramento Police Officers Association, the union representing city police officers and sergeants, does not agree to have its members pick up the full employee contribution into their pensions by July 1.
New drawings of the proposed Kings arena at Downtown Plaza have emerged.
Some of the drawings - put together by architectural firm AECOM - showed up on display at the mall on Tuesday. The renderings show an arena on the L Street side of the current plaza, with a large, open pedestrian gathering area where the middle of the mall now sits.
The inside of the arena shows windows along the top of the upper bowl, much like Conseco Fieldhouse in Indianapolis. There's also a rendering of a VIP suite and a bar dubbed the Bunker Club.
What do you get when you combine a mayor who travels a lot with a vice mayor who's about to have a baby?
This isn't a bad joke. It's actually a question the Sacramento City Council faced tonight.
The council took the unusual - and maybe even unprecedented - step of appointing a mayor pro tem to run council meetings when Mayor Kevin Johnson and Vice Mayor Angelique Ashby aren't around. Councilman Jay Schenirer earned the honor, which comes with the added benefit of a couple of extra words in his title but no more money.
A local watchdog group is criticizing Sacramento for including a "Public Sector Suite" at the arena being planned for Downtown Plaza.
That suite was included in the 18-page "term sheet" approved by the City Council that lays out the financing for the $448 million facility.
According to the term sheet, the city "shall have an option to use one complimentary, furnished luxury suite at the" arena "including tickets and preferred parking to all (arena) events included as part of a typical license agreement." The suite could be used "for any official city purpose."
Mayor Kevin Johnson and state Senate President Darrell Steinberg arrived home today following their presentation to a panel of key NBA owners in New York, during which they made their case for keeping the Kings in Sacramento.
The pair was greeted by a cheering crowd of about 15 Kings fans in Terminal A of Sacramento International Airport. They quickly departed the airport to begin the final two-week push to convince the league to keep the team here and reject a deal the Kings' owners have to sell the franchise to a group in Seattle.
Johnson said "we don't really know yet" what will be asked of the Sacramento contingent by NBA officials over the next two weeks. NBA Commissioner David Stern said Wednesday the league needed time to investigate arena plans and team purchase offers in both Seattle and Sacramento before making a decision over the fate of the Kings.
The Sacramento delegation sent to New York to make a pitch for the Kings will begin its campaign this afternoon with a rally in the Big Apple.
The group has planned a party at the Public House on East 41st Street. Among those in attendance will be City Councilman Allen Warren; prospective local Kings investors Phil Oates and Kevin Nagle; Mike Tavares, a leader of the Crown Downtown fan club; and Kings fans who live in New York.
The rally is also scheduled to coincide with the arrival in New York by local radio personality Carmichael Dave, who has spent the past two weeks travelling the country in an RV promoting Sacramento as the home of the Kings.
The city still hasn't nailed down a plan to finance the project, but today it released what it is calling a conceptual drawing showing a new Kings arena at the Downtown Plaza site.
The drawing, by architectural firm AECOM, show the arena facing L Street between 5th and 6th streets.
It also shows a line of new towers along J Street along the northern border of what is now the mall and a tree-lined pedestrian walkway area on K Street on the western edge of the plaza.
As of 3 p.m. today, city officials had not come to an agreement with billionaire Ron Burkle over the financing of the arena. City Manager John Shirey is still aiming to have the financing term sheet completed in time for the City Council to vote on the plan Tuesday night.
City officials remain in negotiations with the investors trying to build a new arena at the site of the Downtown Plaza, but have still not reached an agreement on the project's financing terms.
Amy Williams, a city spokeswoman, said at noon today that the talks were ongoing but that no deal had been reached. City Manager John Shirey had initially said he wanted an arena "term sheet" to be finished by Thursday in time to post it on the agenda for Tuesday's City Council meeting.
Shirey still wants the arena plan to be voted on by the council on Tuesday.
Despite missing his self-imposed deadline to reach a deal for an arena financing plan, City Manager John Shirey said today he remains optimistic an agreement will be reached.
Shirey said top city negotiators and representatives of billionaire Ron Burkle were still talking this afternoon about the financing of an arena at Downtown Plaza and that those talks were expected to continue. He said the sides have not reached an impasse.
Shirey would not say what sticking points remain between the sides.
By Tony Bizjak, Dale Kasler and Ryan Lillis
tbizjak@sacbee.com
In an apparent effort to add more financial heft to their bid for the Sacramento Kings, Mark Mastrov and Ron Burkle have recruited Vivek Ranadive, chairman and chief executive of a $1 billion-a-year Silicon Valley software company, to be the new leader in their bid to buy the team.
Ranadive is also a limited partner and vice chairman of the Golden State Warriors - the team Mastrov tried to buy in 2010.
A source close to the arena effort, but who is not authorized to speak on the record, said Ranadive has been talking with Mastrov for several months about joining Mastrov's bid to buy the Kings.
City officials said late today that they expect the details of an arena financing plan to be made public Thursday.
"There is nothing new to report," City Manager John Shirey said in an emailed statement. "We have been in discussions all day with the Investors, and those discussions will continue. We anticipate that the Term Sheet will be made public (Thursday) afternoon."
Shirey wants the arena financing plan to be included in the agenda for Tuesday's City Council meeting, giving the council and the public five days to examine the plan before a council vote on the proposal. The city has scheduled a 5:30 p.m. public forum Thursday at City Hall to discuss the plan.
