MLS Meeting Today With Sacramento, Other Cities; What About Elk Grove?

November 20, 2014 | As announced earlier this week, Major League Soccer will be meeting with representatives from Sacramento, Las Vegas ...

November 20, 2014 |

As announced earlier this week, Major League Soccer will be meeting with representatives from Sacramento, Las Vegas and Minneapolis today to determine which city will be awarded an expansion franchise. In their press release regarding the meetings in New York, the MLS did not include any mention of Elk Grove's bid.

An artistic rendering of Elk Grove's proposed MLS stadium.
Elk Grove, which purchased a 99-acre parcel on Grant Line Road as part of its bid, verbally committed to building a professional-grade $90-million soccer stadium in hopes of luring the expansion club. Even though Sacramento is widely believed to be favored over Elk Grove based on the appeal of its proposed Downtown Sacramento Rail Yard site and the success of the Republic FC, Elk Grove Mayor Gary Davis has remained undeterred. 

To determine what Elk Grove's status is in relation to today's talks, Elk Grove Mayor Gary Davis, Council Members Steve Detrick and Pat Hume and City Manager Laura Gill were contacted to see if the city has been eliminated from consideration.

As of this posting, Davis, Detrick and Gill have not responded to the inquiry regarding the Elk Grove's status. The MLS has indicated that a decision as who will be awarded an expansion franchise could be made as early as December 6.  

Responding last night was Council Member Hume, who, as he noted, was not in the loop on the talks to bring an MLS team to Elk Grove. Hume nonetheless expressed optimism that the development of an athletic complex could commence 

"My hope still remains that we can move forward with the youth fields, absent any prolonged stadium ideas," he said.  









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16 comments

Anonymous said...

Too bad the athletic fields won't be located in the city of Elk Grove but rather in the county of Sacramento....oopps, unless the city uses the sham to reapply for an SOI expansion.

Anonymous said...

Another project to join the following:

Garish 70 - 100 foot tall lighted freeway monument signs

Sister city to the Kingdom of Zamunda

Octopus Civic Center

Amusement park right across from single family homes in Madeira "the Jewel of Elk Grove".

Visions of the Olympic Trials.

3,600 units of high density very low and low income housing on the way to "Meridian" (the Southeast Plan Area) - Hood of the future to be known as Mack Road South.

Chris P said...

It's a no-brainer that the city will re-apply for the SOI. City leaders and their developer friends have seen that the well reasoned and prudent staff on the LAFCO board have been removed.

Time to move forward on the short-sighted and self-serving SOI project.

On a side note, Dan, I really like your new mantra at the top of your blog; "Shooting spitballs at authority since 1958!"

At least someone recognizes his upbringing, questionable as it might be, and his calling in this life. No ego there, just the facts, gotta love it!

Keep up the good work!
Gotta keep those politicians on top of their games.

Connie said...

As an advocate for a youth sports complex for more than 10 years now, I am concerned about the recent addition of other projects on the city’s “wish list.”

The city had two workshops regarding the possibility of an animal shelter. The city also held a workshop regarding the Veterans’ Hall. By holding these respective workshops, the citizenry is certainly getting their hopes up that they will soon become realities, and rightfully so.

Bottom line, and in my opinion, the question that needs to be answered first and foremost, since we already had to borrow money from the drainage fund for the land for the youth sport complex, and the 14 million dollars of civic center money is already allocated to the aquatics center: Where is the money coming from to fund these projects?

The Council simply can no longer promise that projects will be built when the fact is there is no money.

And what is the Council's priority here, stated in alpha order:

A. Animal Shelter
B. Veterans’ Hall
C. Youth Sports Complex

Anonymous said...

Elk Grove has never been in the MLS' wildest dreams. Only Davis, Detrick & Cooper wanted to continue that farce with Nunez. How we will ever get the Youth athletic fields built is beyond me when I see "OLYMPIC" attached to Aquatics Center, Veterans Hall, Animal Shelter and Senior Center in the most recent news. We're going to be loaded down with Revenue Bonds until we never see daylight. That is not even mentioning all those Feasibility Studies that came before this. Where are we on the Civic Center and how much is the Whitelock Interchange going to cost us? Had to lower the speed limit on Waterman because the roads were so rough...guess there's no money to fix those and they're heavily traveled. Now the train station has been moved to Grant Line...???

Our City Council wakes up in a different world every day...now I hear Davis is opening his coffee business in Sacto. Gives you an idea where his head is...certainly not on anything big time! Just a CUPPA on the brain.......



Anonymous said...

Whatever happened to Fabian Nunez?

Moms Mabley said...

If they wait long enough, the soccer kids will be all grown up and they will have to build senior tournament fields instead--shuffle board and bocci ball fields, checkerboard tables, and prune juice vending machines.

Laguna Pete said...

Connie raises very good points. Our council regularly brings forth grandiose ideas to make EG "a destination city," when the fact is we have NO MONEY to fund any of it. We steal money set aside for infrastructure maintenance to fund these feasibility studies that will likely not happen in years due to the lack of capital.

The mayor and council plan to issue revenue bonds to pay for what ever they can justify and have us taxpayers foot the bill while they stand tall claiming they have done wonderful things for our youth.

Wake up people! Don't wait until we're all taxed into oblivion.

BTW: Love Dan's new mantra on the header of the blog; "Shooting spitballs at authority since 1958." - That's probably pretty accurate and shows a sense of humor and ability to laugh at himself. Maybe Dan should run for council.

Anonymous said...

I think a Destination City needs a Monorail. That way you can move all those visitors from the MLS Stadium to the Outlet Mall & the OLYMPIC Aquatics Center in a fashion they would expect. They provide fun, quick and convenient transportation. That would truly make us a Destination City. Yes, they are expensive. But heck that's no hill for our city...a Feasibility Study is in order and that's something we're good at.

Anonymous said...

Let's build a winter palace for the King of Zamunda while we are at it.

Anonymous said...

Bring back the ICE RINK!!!! Where is Mr. Starbuck when you need him???

Anonymous said...

Do we know how that 99 acre Grant Line property appraised?

Naomi said...

The property closed escrow last month. The city now owns it and they paid $4.4 million for it, despite citizen protests.

At this point an appraisal seems like putting the cart before the horse and likely a slap on the faces to all of us who pay our local taxes.

Gary Davis and his stupid ideas need to go away.

SteveB6509 said...

I'm going to throw out a really crazy idea - having a sports park outside the City boundaries might not be a bad thing. By freeing up that type of land from within the City, it allows for improvements that are taxable. Also, the land that has been acquired has better freeway access and therefore, would not be as much of a burden on surrounding communities. I doubt the City thought this far ahead on it but having a sports park on this land is probably better for the City than the original proposed location.

Anonymous said...

Steve, those are some good comments. I think people are still concerned about the cost of the land and poor negotiation skills by staff. We will likely not live long enough to see us recover the cost.
keep in mind the SOI will be resubmitted soon and the city will annex that land.

Don't trust the lot of them said...

So working off of Steve's comment, that would mean that the City of Elk Grove must pay property tax to the County of Sacramento. With property located within the city limits a portion of our property tax comes back to the city; remember the example of the dollar bill at prior city budget meetings? Therefore, being outside city limits means all tax will stay with the county. Additionally, if a project located at that site were to generate sales tax the City of Elk Grove would not receive the monies as again the property is outside the city limits. So while I do have to agree with Steve's comments, I also have to note that the City of Elk Grove is either very smart (think renewal of the SOI application), or very inept and stupid. Or perhaps it's all three.

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