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September 06, 2009
49ers no-bid bill moves forward
If you've been wondering what ever happened to that bill to get the San Francisco 49ers out of a Santa Clara stadium referendum, it passed the state assembly on Thursday. (No details that I can find on the vote tally.) Next up, the state senate, which has yet to vote on the bill even though its main sponsor, Elaine Alquist, is in the senate, not the assembly. California is weird.
Just to be clear, the 49ers will still need a public vote to approve the stadium project if the Alquist bill passes, just not one to evade competitive bidding requirements for selecting a stadium contractor.
This is a case of the state trampling on the rights of citizens in Santa Clara. We the people of Santa Clara were promised a vote on whether or not the 49ers could bypass our city's charter requirement for competitive bids on projects paid for with public dollars. Alquist's bill went through the subcommittee before Santa Clara formed a citizen's committee to review whether or not our city charter should be changed solely for the benefit of the 49ers. Our charter review committee has not finished meeting and making a decision on this, yet the state assembly saw fit to vote to eliminate the rights of Santa Clarans to vote on our own charter change. FYI-before Elaine Alquist modified SB43 to allow the 49ers to bypass a vote in Santa Clara, the 49ers conducted a poll of Santa Clarans (I was one of the people called). The pollster asked if we would support allowing the 49ers to bypass the city charter requirement for competitive bidding, I, and others polled, said 'no'. I'll bet that there were so many Santa Clarans saying 'no' on that poll, that the 49ers approached Elaine Alquist (a SJ Merc article said that she was approached at the behest of the 49ers about helping them out with legislation). Our state budget is in a shambles, and our assembly wastes its time stepping on the rights of Santa Clarans to benefit extremely wealthy ballclub owners and millionaire players?? Disgusting.
Posted by Santa Clara Taxpayer on September 6, 2009 01:47 PM
Yesterday, SB 43 passed the Senate Local Govt committee (5 ayes, zero noes) and now goes on to the full senate. Nice to know our elected reps will write legislation for the benefit of one wealthy private company. Also nice to know-Elaine Alquist was elected to represent the people of Santa Clara to our state govt, not the 49ers. Wish someone would tell her that.
Posted by Santa Clara Taxpayer on September 10, 2009 08:08 PM
SB43 has now passed the full senate, taking away the rights of Santa Clarans to vote on whether or not to amend our city charter.
Posted by Santa Clara Taxpayer on September 11, 2009 01:26 PM