What do you do when your state is in a budget crisis and your voters rejected tax increases across the board in a recent election?

Simple, you ask your community to give you money to build another stadium. The people of Santa Clara, or California, for that matter don't need any more taxes. When the voters of Nancy Peiosi's district reject a tax increase or no new taxes, it is not the time for teams to go to the public asking for a handout.

While I don't necessarily agree with Santa Clara giving the Niners any direct subsidies, you're also overly simplifying the situation.

Santa Clara, unlike California, isn't having a budget crisis. In fact the city has a very large surplus in both their general fund and their redevelopment agency. One of the benefits of being a well run city with their own well run utilities and city services that are separate from the larger entities like PG&E. And last I checked this plan also doesn't call for any tax increases on the city's population. Just a hotel tax increase which frankly isn't out of line since the parking garage adjacent to the stadium will be utilized by two of the city's largest hotels and the convention center the majority of the year (and is being built with or without the stadium).

the devil is in the details...
almost no stadium/arena project in the last 15 years has come in "on budget" except privately built ones. are concrete assurances that the team/nfl will absorb all cost overruns?
will the city have to sweeten the pot for cedar fair to go along?

I agree with Paul W. on this issue. While Santa Clara may have a surplus, one could question the plan because all the 49ers will be doing is playing 10-11 games in the stadium. This includes 2 preseason games, 8 (or 9 if schedule is expanded) regular season games, and maybe one or two playoff games.

Get the Sacramento Kings to move to the area where the football stadium will be built, kick out the park, and maybe I'd vote for this project if I were a Santa Clara resident.

Yes the stadium could be used for area high school and college football games and the area's bowl game, but other events have to be booked as well and the area is considered just as wet as much of Northern California.

Dan and Jessy-Please get your facts straight. Santa Clara is currently 5 Mil in the hole for this year, and is projected to be 7.5 Mil in the hole next year. Those budget overruns are being paid out of our emergency surplus, which will then be all but depleted, meaning that unless we cut back, we will be running in the RED. Our utility surplus will be used to pay 20 million for moving a utility substation out of the parking lot the 49ers want for the stadium. We DO NOT have a surplus in our redevelopment fund-in fact, the RDA funds our city council plans to use for the stadium are not in hand, but will be sold as bonds with a BBB rating-just above junk bonds, and with a 35 million dollar debt servicing price tag added to that. On top of that, we will sell another 330 million dollars in bonds for the stadium, also BBB rating, to be paid for by personal seat licenses and naming rights. See how well that went for city of Oakland, which is currently paying 20 mil per year in stadium debt because they COULD NOT SELL the number of personal seat licenses they needed to sell to cover 225 mil in debt they took on for the Coliseum (less than our 330 million). And check out elsewhere on Field of Schemes to find out that other stadiums are having trouble selling naming rights. What happens to SAnta Clara when we can't cover the 300 million in bonds? This is a really bad deal for SAnta Clara. Just vote no on any stadium subsidy.

49ers are going to get that stadium