Sacramento Mayor Heather Fargo says she’s open to a new basketball arena on the Cal Expo grounds – if the money’s taken care of, that is.
 
The mayor and other city officials will be briefed Thursday by a consultant hired by the National Basketball Association to find a new home for the Sacramento Kings.
 
Cal Expo has jumped ahead of Sacramento’s highly-touted Railyards development project near downtown as the favored site for the new arena.
 
Mayor Fargo says she continues to prefer the Railyards site, but "the big issue is financing.  Where they can figure out a way to make it make sense and where it can be financed is probably at this point more critical than location. I’m not gonna reject another site if they figured out a way to pay for it.”
 
Cal Expo’s board will hear from the consultant at its meeting on Friday – and will likely give its staff permission to start talking with the NBA’s consultant.
 
NBA commissioner David Stern has said he wants to make an announcement about a new arena by the start of the basketball season in November.