SACRAMENTO, CA-Controversy continued to swirl this week around a planned new basketball arena that would keep an NBA franchise in the California Capitol.

A year ago, the Sacramento Kings had been contemplating a move to any one of several larger markets including Seattle, Anaheim and Virginia Beach. But more recently, the team's owners have forged a deal with Sacramento for private/public funding of a new $448 million arena at Downtown Plaza.

That plan has not been without opposition however, and just this week it was revealed that a petition drive to halt the arena (or at least allow more public input) was paid for by a decidedly interested party—Chris Hansen, a Seattle financier who would like to buy the team and move it up the coast to his home town.

Leaders of that petition drive say they still intend to use those signatures to put the controversial plan to a public vote. Proponents of the Sacramento arena say those signatures should be invalidated because Hansen's involvement. According to a report in the Modesto Bee, Hansen spent $100,000 to circulate the petition.

Sacramento officials say the deal, which makes the city the arena owner, does not involve a tax increase, which makes it different from a plan rejected by voters seven years ago. The funding would instead by generated by the sale of bonds based on future parking revenues.

Click Modesto Bee to read the full story.