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SACRAMENTO—

After months of duking it out in print and television, both sides of the downtown arena issue met at the Sacramento Press Club Thursday to debate the planned project and the proposed vote on the issue being pushed by the group Sacramento Taxpayers Opposed to Pork

It was 75 minutes of fierce questioning with big claims.

“Stop is a fiercely independent, local grass roots organization consisting of long term city residents,” said James Cathcart with STOP.

And blistering rebuttals.

“If we’re going to call a spade, a spade to be a vassal organization on behalf of Chris Hansen in Seattle Josh Wood with Downtownarena.org.

Political consultant Tab Berg, who had been working with STOP prior to the revelation Chris Hansen dropped in $100,000 to the campaign, had this to say about claims of job creation caused by building a new arena downtown

“The evidence, the data, the science tells us arenas don’t bring the jobs promised and don’t create an economic boom,” Berg said. “Denying these facts puts the subsidy proponents in the same category of those who deny the possibility of climate change.”

On the other side, Sacrmamento City Council Member Steve Hansen and Josh Wood from Downtownarena.org asked why STOP suddenly threw a fit over this particular public subsidy.

“The airport project was a billion dollar project, who remembers the initiative campaign to put that to a referendum?” said Steve Hansen.

And STOP finally answered a question that’d been swirling since last week’s Chris Hansen funding bomb – will they use the signatures Hansen paid for?

“And we’re going to get those signatures and the ones that have done by the, the paid signature gatherers we are going to give to the city clerk,” Cathcart said.