Re: What's the official verdict? Plenty of other things to worry about like the latest RSL bungling and the fact we have 2 points in 4 league games and 3 of those being at home. The petition is dead and isn't going to come back, and it's sound defeat will just show the politicians how much people don't care about the thing outside of Salt Lake County where they got over 10,000 signatures.
Re: What's the official verdict? I agree. Not because some kind of court challenge of the petition will cause a problem. Not that. It is because of the problems with the soccer complex. Public opinion has been so badly managed that political opinion has swayed the other way. It is possible the governor will give up on the stadium, too. If that happens, a special session of the legislature could be called to rescind the money for the stadium (even if called for other reasons, this could happen). Right now, this franchise is on dangerous ground. I'm giving it about 30% odds (and rising) of the franchise not being in Utah in 2008.
Just because Rocky Anderson threatened to call for a special session does not 1) mean he will call for one or 2) mean that if he calls for one that he will get one. Especially since the facts in the matter don't support the claims made by Spatafore and his cronies. I am sure that Spatafore knows that if he loses the RSL money that his Soccer complex has a snowballs chance in hell of ever happening and by the time he finds other funding the cost over-runs and mismanagement will mean that there will be half a field and a snow-cone shack on the site! BTW that is the proposed site... because while the Spatafore and Anderson are crying about bullet points the County has not even granted the land yet! Let's try to keep things in perspective folks. The sky is not falling simply because a couple of yahoo's and a final term politician decide to make some noise and capatilize on bad public sentiment toward RSL! We are still waiting for that Business plan Spatafore! Maybe you should be working on that instead of alienating your only private investor.
The legislature will come into special session in a few weeks. That is already set to happen to pass a law to allow the school voucher referrendum to be put on the ballot in February 08. That same session could easily, legally, and with no direction either way from the Governor, rescind the money granted to RSL, and it may be legal for them to pass a new law putting the previous grant in abeyance awaiting a referrendum on the stadium money set for the same Feb 08 election. Just sayin: once they are in session, legislators can make all kinds of mischief.
Except maybe for the fact that despite yesterday's news conference, the public is still opposed to any stadium related funding by at least a 2 to 1 margin.
But even a special session bill has to be signed by the governor. They can over ride his veto, but as long as Huntsman is still on our side, which I believe he may be, plus enough Repbulicans (keep in mind, it's Rocky Anderson who's causing the stink about the soccer fields and the Republicans despise him) stay on the ship, then they are out of the woods. The key is keeping the governor on board.
The governor sets the agenda for special sessions. If he doesn't put it on the agenda, it doesn't get addressed.
