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October 28, 2009
Santa Clara approves no-bid contract for 49ers
How a bill becomes a law, California version: First, a football team seeking an exemption from competitive bidding rules for its new stadium gives $1,000 in campaign money to a state senator, who then guts one of her own bills and replaces it with language that does what the team wants. Then the state assembly votes to approve it. Then the state senate, which didn't want to seem pushy by voting first on its own bill, approves it too.
This brings us to last night, when the Santa Clara city council voted 5-2 to take advantage of the new state law and hire a 49ers stadium contractor with no competitive bidding, and without the voter referendum that is usually required to do so. There will still be a vote, mind you, but only on whether to do the project as a whole, not on whether to give the 49ers a pass on competitive bidding for the stadium contractor.
And if you're still reading at this point, good for you. As a reward, here's a video of Dutch people singing on a boat.
At the June 2nd Santa Clara city council meeting, the term sheet between the city and the 49ers was approved. That term sheet specified that Santa Clarans would get 2 votes: one - whether or not to fund the stadium, and two-whether or not to allow the 49ers to bypass our city charter requirement for competitive bidding when public funds are used. I don't know when the behind the scenes shenanigans started, but the 49ers approached Elaine Alquist about writing state legislation to solely benefit them which does an end run around our city charter, she did so, and it has now been voted into law. Our Mayor Mahan and two councilmembers, Moore and Matthews, went to Sacramento in support of this bill in June and July, before our city charter review committee had even been established in August. So now our right to vote on a city charter change has been taken away. The San Jose Mercury News says that the team and city want to avoid a vote on whether or not to amend the city charter because it is a 'confusing' issue for voters. We are not confused. We understand that the 49ers want our money without having to follow our city charter rules. They want the consultant they picked 3 years ago. If they want to avoid the competitive bid rules of our city charter, then they can build the stadium completely with private money, as was done for ATT Park for the San Francisco Giants.
Posted by SantaClaraTaxpayer on October 28, 2009 08:00 PM
One correction: The Giants' ballpark wasn't entirely privately funded. There was about $20-30 million (I don't have the number in front of me) in land costs that came from the city.
Posted by Neil on October 28, 2009 08:32 PM
Neil,
Just further clarification on the Giants stadium. While the land was worth 20-30 mil, the city still owns it and leases it to the Giants.
There were other public costs, though - the city had to pay to relocate the previous tenant (I think it was a CalTrans facility), and there was a tax abatement as well.
Pac Bell was still overwhelmingly privately funded - more than 90%. Just not "entirely."
The recent approval by the Santa Clara City Council to invoke Senate Bill 43, which circumvents the democratic process to impose a change to our city's Charter without local voter approval, is just the latest attempt by the Santa Clara City Council, the San Francisco 49ers, and a cadre of "old guard" Santa Clarans to railroad Santa Clara residents into having a stadium in our city. They say we residents are incapable of voting on whether or not we want the Charter change because it would be too "confusing" for us. Or that we couldn't handle two ballot measures on the same ballot. Give me a break!
What confuses me is their willingness to blow $114 million of our City's money on this boondoggle.
Erinda and all ...
This boondoggle is going to cost the citizens of Santa Clara WAY MORE than $114 million!! If you compare the current term sheet with the 2009-2010 budget, not only will it cost more, BUT there is no money in the budget! And, the city is running through all their reserves WITHOUT this project.
The total cost is still unknown because the term sheet does not address the debt costs, traffic mitigations, infrastructure, financing terms and more!!
Anyone go to the games in SF? It would be nice to see WHO is sitting with the Yorks these days. Pictures please??
This project HAS to be stopped ... the City of Santa Clara is already running in the red ...
DJ
Posted by DJ on October 31, 2009 02:12 PM
Well the stadium itself still have to go before the voters before it's approved. Then we'll see if Santa Clarans as a whole are for or against it. But fear not, one way or another the people of Santa Clara will get their say in the end on whether they want to spend the $ of not.
Posted by Dan on October 31, 2009 06:36 PM
Yesterday, Nov. 3rd, was voting day here, and Santa Clarans rejected a parcel tax for Santa Clara Unified School District (SCUSD). Voters are not in the mood to approve new taxes, and some commmentators on the San Jose Mercury News comment boards are connecting voter rejection of the parcel tax with SCUSD's statements that the stadium will bring in millions to the schools (false). Bring on the stadium vote. Santa Clara has spent $2 million of our RDA funds on studies for the stadium, and taken away our right to vote on whether or not the 49ers should be allowed to bypass our city charter. An inexpensive telephone survey of Santa Clara's 42,000 voters should have been conducted before the city spent so much money on studies. Money which, I predict, will end up going down the drain when voters reject a public subsidy for wealthy NFL owners.
Posted by SantaClaraTaxpayer on November 4, 2009 11:22 AM