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Politi-Cal

Legislation would complicate Kings’ move to Anaheim

By Patrick McGreevy
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Anaheim would be prohibited from signing a lease with the Sacramento Kings before the basketball team repays a $77-million loan it received from its current hometown under legislation announced Tuesday by the leader of the state Senate.

Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) noted that the owners of the Kings have not missed debt payments in the past and have said they will repay the loan, but he wants to make sure that money is paid back if the team is going to move south.

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‘In the next day or two I’m going to introduce a bill that essentially says that no California city can sign a lease with a professional sports franchise unless that franchise has paid off its existing debt to another California city,’’ Steinberg said in his weekly appearance on Sacramento radio station KFBK.

‘We are one state,’’ he added. ‘We shouldn’t have one city picking off another.’’

-- Patrick McGreevy

Politi-Cal
Patrick McGreevy

Patrick McGreevy covered the California Legislature out of the Sacramento bureau until 2021. He joined the Los Angeles Times in 1998 and worked in the City Hall and San Fernando Valley bureaus, writing about subjects including Valley secession, LAPD reform and city government during the administrations of Mayors Richard Riordan, James Hahn and Antonio Villaraigosa. He is a native of San Diego and a graduate of San Jose State University.

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