A Detroit resident running for city clerk has filed suit against the funding mechanism for the new Detroit Red Wings and Pistons arena, claiming that the city’s development agency illegally siphoned off tax levies meant for another purpose without getting the public’s approval:

D. Etta Wilcoxon alleges in a federal lawsuit filed Thursday in U.S. District Court that the Detroit Downtown Development Authority and the Detroit Brownfield Redevelopment Authority have violated her right to vote by attempting to use tax revenue from an 18-mill DPS levy “for a different purpose” without first obtaining voter approval from Wilcoxon and the other registered voters. The grab violates Michigan’s General Property Tax Act, the lawsuit alleges.

This is confusing, because the whole Detroit arena deal funding scheme is confusing, so let’s revisit it briefly: The DDA has been collecting property taxes and using them to pay down school construction debt, but is now going to siphon off a chunk of that and use it to pay down arena construction debt instead. Then the state is reimbursing the DDA for the money, so really the subsidy is coming out of state coffers.

Still, the DDA is undeniably using money that was approved for another purpose, even if the state is paying it back, so Wilcoxon’s lawsuit has maybe a leg to stand on? Why she’s only filing it now, three months before the arena opens, is less clear — though it may have to do with that whole “running for city clerk” thing — and if she’s successful it’ll be the city and state scrambling to find a way to raise $300 million, not the sports team owners, but, sure, challenging maybe illegal use of public moneys is always fun.

In other news, the Detroit city council is still considering a tax abatement for a Pistons practice facility, which would cost the city about $20 million. Oh, and the teams showed some journalists around the arena construction site recently, leading the Free Press reporter on the junket to enthuse that the place will be “at once intimate and airy,” which is not strictly impossible — you could have an intimate seating bowl and spacious concourses, say — but is also exactly the kind of PR gibberish that teams tend to spout, so it’s probably best to be skeptical, especially when the actual photos accompanying the article show the exact same “wall of suites topped with cheap seats a mile from the action” design that every arena seems to have these days:

Basically, don’t believe anybody about anything, because people are horrible and will lie to your face, and most journalists will repeat whatever those people say because that’s what they see as their job, or at least all they have time for. The end of the world really can’t come soon enough.