Neil,
The Mercury News hasn't been a good source of well researched accurate news in over a decade. And with the recent cuts to their news staff it's just getting worse. I'd take anything they print with a grain of salt until confirmed by a real news source.

There are real news sources? I thought we were all supposed to rely on the wisdom of crowds now.

As a long time (decades) SJ Merc subscriber, I have to say the SJ Merc took a precipitous drop a couple of years ago when it was sold. So many of the sections I used to read disappeared, and the reporting has become so baised (case in point the Santa Clara stadium coverage). All of the changes made were for the worse, and eventually the SJ Merc at our house was used only to line the bottom of our pet's cage. So we, like many other long time subscribers, canceled our paid subscription. A little while ago Mike Cassidy of the SJ Merc wrote an article asking for feedback. He got loads of feedback about how poor the reporting is and how biased the reporting is. The SJ Merc ignored that feedback. Their parent company has now filed for bankruptcy. I have lost all respect for the SJ Merc because they refuse to tell the truth about Santa Clara's expected $444 million contribution to the stadium-the SJ Merc refuses to write about the $330 million contribution from Santa Clara's agency, the Stadium Authority. Why? The SJ Merc sportswriters want the stadium and the paper wants the advertising. They don't give a hoot if Santa Clara goes into tremendous debt.

SCT, on the flip side they also fail to report on many local news stories stadium wise that are positive. Where they've refused to write anything about negatives about the Niners stadium, their coverage had been nearly all negative about the Earthquakes stadium project when it was going through the approvals process in San Jose. Even though the Earthquakes stadium project is using private money as opposed to the massive public $ infusion into the Niners stadium. Luckily one of the "cuts" recently was to layoff the biased reporter they let run roughshod over the Quakes.

However, it seems that gets to the root of the Murk's biggest problem. They're not so much a newspaper as they are a big opinion page for whichever reporter is writing about a particular issue feels about the topic. And they've also got a history of primarily letting the same person write about the topic over and over so that opinion never changes.

Whether its the San Jose Mercury News, or Santa Clarans for Economic Progress, not one publication has been able to refute the following statement:"NFL stadiums are money losing investments that taxpayers end up paying for."

Dan-and the SJ Merc refuses to publish letters to the editor that provide corrections to stadium articles and opinion pieces. 2 examples-First, when Elaine Alquist wrote an opinion piece defending her support of SB43, which took away the rights of Santa Clarans to vote on a change to our city charter (thereby allowing the 49ers to bypass our charter requirement for public bidding), a letter to the editor was written by a friend of mine that corrected the mathematical errors in Elaine Alquist's article. My friend's letter wasn't published. Second, I have written the SJ Merc letters to the editor, as well as written editors and reporters directly, about the $330 million the Stadium Authority will have to raise for the stadium. Letters to the editor about the $330 million aren't published, and requests to editors and reporters to correctly report the financial facts of the stadium are ignored.

I agree they are a big opinion page. Hence the complaints from readers about the bias in SJ Merc coverage. They also don't proofread.

Just as we're writing about bias in the SJ Merc, the article about the rally the 49ers are having tomorrow (Sat. Jan 23) was updated to include a link to the website of the 49ers astroturf group, Santa Clarans for Economic Progress. Looks like the SJ Merc just copied SCEP's press release. So much for trying to even maintain the appearance of impartiality.

I work for the Merc and I'll tell you its worse than any of you imagine. All departments have been gutted and its turned into Mc Paper. Read the CC Times and its got most of the same "news." It used to be a fine paper to read, now its an emabarassment.

Sorry Joe, I stopped reading the Murk when they decided their own home town SJ Earthquakes are not worthy of any positive news coverage (on or off field) regardless of how well they're doing. Only Bay Area paper I read is the Chron now.

See the button on the right side of the Santa Clara Plays Fair website (get the Real Facts button) to
get a list of what is wrong with the 49ers stadium project:

http://www.santaclaraplaysfair.org/realfacts

We tried to kill the Merc at our house after my wife lost her job at KRI (when they got bought out.) Finally decided to keep Sundays only, as that had the Sunday ads and some unique content. A couple of weeks later, they called offering Sunday-Friday delivered for $.95/week--less than the cost of Sunday only! No matter how you look at it, they're actually spending money to keep subscribers. Sure, whatever--I never make it past Roadshow most of the time. As Joe said, it's just an embarrassment these days.

As for the Niners--if you Santa Clara residents fall for this one...

I think the 49ers/Yorks are worried. Why? First, they had a rally at the convention center on Saturday-they mailed invitations into the homes of Santa Clara registered voters. They did not get a good turnout. They were hoping for 800 people. The estimates I've seen online were between 200 and 400, and the one picture the SF Examiner showed of the rally had lots of empty seats. They used school kids at the rally (Santa Clara and Wilcox high school kids performed) which I think just stinks-to use public school kids as pawns in a political campaign being run by wealthy interests.

Second, one of the backers of the 49ers ballot initiative, former council member Aldythe Parle, and a member of the 49ers astroturf group, has withdrawn her support because she felt misled (her public withdrawal of support at a city council meeeting is on YouTube) just as many Santa Clarans felt misled/lied to by paid signature gatherers.

Third, I know of 2 phone surveys/research group polls being conducted about the stadium right now-neither one is paid for by the city of Santa Clara (so guess who must be paying?) If they weren't worried, they wouldn't be spending so much money trying to figure out how to coax people to vote 'yes' on the stadium.

Fourth-they are working awfully hard to keep Santa Clarans from knowing about the $330 million that Santa Clara's agency, the Stadium Authority, will have to provide towards construction costs. The 49ers website, their astroturf group's website, the mailers they send into our homes, the 49ers ballot initiative, the text of the Term Sheet--all of these do not mention the $330 million from the Stadium Authority. The press releases and mailers and 49ers website info all lump the $330 million into the 49ers contribution, to make it look like they are putting up most of the money for the stadium-they aren't. Santa Clara has to put up 47% of the funding plus give the land for free plus own the stadium. If the Yorks/49ers weren't worried, then why would they find it necessary to hide the Stadium Authority information from voters?

Fifth-they won't come clean about how much they are spending on the campaign for the stadium. It is a David vs. Goliath spending campaign, and they don't want voters to know what they are spending to try to convince us. If they weren't worried, then they would be honest with us.

Mark, Roadshow is the only thing I read from their online content anymore with any regularity. I've never found a similar column in any other paper I've ever read. And Gary Richards is very insightful and well connected when it comes to road issues. Oddly enough it's one of the most balanced and informative things the Murk publishes anymore.

I've been an inveterate newspaper reader since I was a child. I view what's happened to local newspapers in recent years a great tragedy. I really want to refrain from piling onto the Mercury when it's down enough; I can't imagine how dismal the staff morale must be. It's a sad course of events.

The Mercury is still probably the valley's newspaper of record; I still see it sitting on a lot of driveways when I'm walking in the morning. Therefore how they frame the issue is of importance to me.

For me, the real low light came early on, on a Sunday in the Spring of '07, when there was a banner headline splashed above an artist's rendition of the stadium: "How would you like two tickets to the Super Bowl!"

To be fair, some reporting has been largely factual, but to date there's been nothing by any columnist or reporter overtly critical of the finance plan. Even Scott Herold, who I've liked and thought was a good guy for years for his outing of corrupt government officials and greedy businessmen has written lamely on the issue.

Now I'm troubled by the fact that some people view large, avaricious entertainment behemoths like Disney or the NFL in an positive manner simply because they like the product. I've been disappointed by too many elections to take anything for granted and I certainly hope, even though recent events haven't seemly bode well for the stadium plan, that no one gets complacent.

Can anyone tell me who is coming up with the $330M that the Sports Authority is on the hook for providing? It looks like the Sports Authority is made up of the Santa Clara City Council, City Manager and City Attorney. Are they supposed to provide the $330M via some public subsidy? Also, what happened to the Redevelopment Agency tax levy. Did that dissolve when they raised the hotel tax?

The DeBartolo's are so stinking rich, why don't they finance and own the stadium like the owners of PacBell Park? How come I haven't heard an answer from the DeBartolo's on that? If this is such a great deal, why don't they go it alone?

Bryan-those are excellent questions. First, the Redevelopment Agency will be extended in time for the stadium, so that property taxes that would have otherwise flowed into our General Fund over the next 40 years will instead flow to stadium RDA bond debt ($42 million in RDA bonds with $35 mil in interest on those bonds). Extending the RDA in time will bleed off $67 million in funds that would go into our general fund. And putting all of that RDA money into the stadium means that there won't be RDA money for other projects. I think this means we can kiss the much needed north side library goodbye, sadly.

Second, the hotel tax is a separate tax that has nothing to do with the RDA. The hotel tax is expected to raise $35 million, but because that money is needed up front to pay for construction,and the tax will actually be collected over many years time, the 49ers will loan Santa Clara $20 million at 8.5% interest to cover the hotel tax in advance of when it is actually collected. How will we pay that loan back??

Third, the $330 million that the Stadium Authority is supposed to come up with presents the greatest risk to Santa Clara's financial future. The $330 million will primarily be composed of BBB bonds (one step above junk bond status-i.e. a high interest rate). The $330 million is supposed to come from fundraising by the Stadium Authority-primarily the selling of naming rights and personal seat licenses. This has not worked for other cities with stadium authorities. Check field of schemes for info on Oakland, Cincinnati, and Indianapolis, for example, to see why many Santa Clarans are so worried about our Stadium Authority going into debt as the SA's of other cities have. FYI-when SA's go into debt, the host cities end up having to bail them out, even when the people were promised up front that there would be no new taxes for a stadium, no impact to the city's general fund, etc.

Fourth-Forbes dot com Sept 2009 estimated Denise DeBartolo's net worth at 900 million, not including the 49ers worth of 875 million. So why is tiny Santa Clara being asked to subsidize a building for a private corporation of millionaire owners and millionaire players - all for a game? I think it is because they found a city council majority that will not say no to the 49ers for anything.

Please check out:
www.santaclaraplaysfair.org

Go to the Real Facts button on the right side.

Santa Clara Jay: Sadly, that kind of boosterism for the local teams has been common since way before newspapers laid off all their reporters. When Connecticut briefly approved building a new stadium for the Patriots back in 1999, the banner headline on the Hartford Courant was "TOUCHDOWN!" Way too many newspaper editors have a hard time differentiating between rooting for the local team on the field and rooting for their owners at the state house.

More on the unholy alliance between media and sports owners (a decade old, but still relevant):

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1482

Hi, Bryan Wing,

In a nutshell: NFL stadiums don't make money - owning an NFL **team** is what makes money.

The NFL Millionaire's club learned a long time ago: Sever the money-losing stadium operation from all of that lovely NFL football money - then shove the stadium ownership onto some municipal authority.

That leaves more money for the team owners - and it almost completely eliminates their tax liabilities for any stadium.

As for the "Santa Clara Stadium Authority" - note that this "authority" is identically the current City Council. They'll raise that $330,000,000 by selling high-risk/high-coupon bonds, and by paying back their bondholders over 40 years.

Backing those bonds will be, among other things, Personal Seat Licenses, Naming Rights, and so on.

Not a perfect analogy, but imagine your neighbor demanding you open up a home equity line-of-credit so that *he* can build a swimming pool in *your* backyard. That's a rough idea of the rationale for even creating such a thing as a "stadium authority."

Any such "authorites" will have their work cut out for them: Take your best guess at what PSLs will cost for any stadium in Santa Clara (I say $5,000 to $7,500 - EACH - on the 'fifty') - then imagine trying to sell those in this market.

Then, note that selling naming rights is by no means assured - for the new Dallas Cowboys stadium, Jerry Jones still can't sell his. See the Dallas Business Journal; search "Dallas Cowboys still wait for naming-rights sponsor."

At Candlestick: The Monster Cable naming rights got signed only for a pathetic $1.5M a year, and then, for only four years.

The City's OWN Agenda Reports show how bad a deal this really is for Santa Clara. Our group urges residents to keep asking questions about why we're squandering $114,000,000 - and why we're getting only crumbs in return.

Regards,
Bill Bailey, Treasurer,
Santa Clara Plays Fair

-=0=-

When someone goes to buy a home, the mortgage lender has to provide a good faith estimate of all costs-principal and interest being the primary costs to homeowners on an ongoing basis.

We Santa Clarans are being asked to vote on a stadium for which we have received minimal financial disclosure. The 49ers don't have to tell us whether or not they have funding for their 53% of the stadium-how many people would buy a business with a partner who refused to disclose how they planned to fund their half of the purchase? This is a huge problem for Santa Clara because we won't be contracting directly with the 49ers, but rather with the 49ers Stadium LLC. An LLC can close up and leave Santa Clara holding the bag.

We also have been provided minimal information about the $330 million the Stadium Authority is expected to raise-and most of this information comes from 2007. We should be provided with complete detailed financial information about how that $330 million is going to be paid for, the interest on the bonds, etc. And we should be told-what will the city do if/when the Stadium Authority cannot pay its debts, as has happened to so many other cities?

I believe the 49ers/Yorks and our city council aren't providing us with complete financial information because they know the majority of Santa Clarans will vote 'no' to handing over $114 million in direct subsidies plus providing another $330 million more in promised funding from high risk sources.

From the SJ Mercury comment boards:

"Check this out. On June 3, 2009 (the day after the Term Sheet was accepted) Jed York was interviewed by Greg Papa on chronicle live, and the pie chart of stadium costs he shows has the $330 million from the Stadium Authority, plus the $114 million from the city, plus the 49ers contribution, all shown accurately. Someone in the 49ers pr machine must have made the decision to lie to the public, because after that when the mailings started coming into our home, and Santa Clarans for Economic Progress created their website, nad Jed York's website,and the 49ers fan websites, all show an incorrect pie chart that lumps the stadium authority $330 million in with the 49ers contribution to falsely make it look like the 49ers are contributing way more than 1/2 of the costs. They aren't. Here's the way to the link."

http://www.csnbayarea.com/pages/landing?blockID=57145

Wow. Someone must have told Jed that they needed to start mis-representing the finances to the citizens of Santa Clara and to the media.

It's easy to counter the totally inaccurate nonsense coming out of the 49ers' propaganda organs.

The City of Santa Clara's OWN City Council Agenda reports correctly show the:

$114M Public Subsidy
$330M Raised by some "Santa Clara Stadium Authority"

...for a total of $444M, in cash and by the guaranty of public agencies.

Stadium Facts, our facts-and-debunk blogsite, put the "REAL Facts" here:

http://stadiumfacts.blogspot.com/2009/11/real-costs-of-nfl-stadiumgif.html

Regards,
Bill Bailey, Treasurer,
Santa Clara Plays Fair

-=0=-

Thanks everybody for answering my question(s) on the $330M the Stadium Authority is supposed to provide. Wow, this is a bad deal. This deal is worse than I thought (the $114M is bad enough). The state of CA is swamped in bond debt already, so it's a real bad idea to issue more bond debt for something for "fanatics". We've got basic services to provide for like the 10% unemployed right now (and for the foreseeable future). It's pretty irresponsible to expect the local taxpayers to take this risk especially during this recession. This is a pure bankers move and the Santa Clara taxpayers are on the hook for providing the TARP (and Santa Clara can't legally print money like the Federal Reserve and US Treasury). This stadium is only visionary if it's totally on the owner's dime and not the publics'. Thanks again.

Forgot to ask... If no City General Funds can be used in the development of the stadium, where is the $114M public subsidy going to come from? Please don't tell me more bonds.

I'm afraid I've got some bad news:

More bonds. And every penny of the Redevelopment Agency's cash.

To see the breakdown of the $114,000,000 subsidy, visit the 49ers stadium subsidy page on the City's website, go to "Past Reports", page down to "June 2, 2009", and then open up "Exhibit 14."

The total upfront subsidy is the sum of "RDA", "CFD", and "III. Related Costs", or $42M+$35M+$37M.

Contact us directly at Santa Clara Plays Fair - link below - and please share what you find with your friends and neighbors. The subsidy is a real ripoff and it badly needs to be exposed.

Regards,
Bill Bailey, Treasurer,
SantaClaraPlaysFair.org

-=0=-

Bryan-
The $42 mil comes from RDA (redevelopment district) bonds which will have an additional $35 mil in interest. In addition, the redevelopment district will be extended in time past its current expiration date to pay for stadium bond debt, so $67 million that was supposed to flow into our general fund from property taxes in the redevelopment area after the RDA expires will instead go to pay for stadium debt-that's $67 million our general fund will never see.

(FYI our city is running in the red-deficits are projected to total $55.5 mil from 2010 to 2015)

The CFD $35 mil comes from increased sales taxes on hotels near the stadium. This is tax the city has to collect and turn over to the stadium debt. The problem? The $35 mil is needed up front for construction costs and hotel sales taxes will be collected over decades. Plus hotel occupancy rates are down and so are hotel sales taxes (that's one of the reasons for Santa Clarans current budget deficit). The 49ers will loan us $20 mil at 8.5% interest as an advance on collecting those hotel sales taxes. So how are we to pay the loan off, especially with such a high interest rate?

The $37 mil in related costs comes from 2 places. $20 mil from our electric utility reserve fund, and $17 mil for a parking garage (that money comes from bonds sold already). The $20 mil is to move an electric substation adjacent to the Great America parking lot to create 300+ parking spaces at a cost of more than $50,000 each. The electric reserve fund comes from Santa Clarans payment of their utility bills to Silicon Valley Power. That's our money that SVP has already collected.

And our city has spent $2 million on studies for the stadium (consultants fees) plus countless hours of staff time that have not been accounted for.

For more information, see (and join the mailing list if you want to keep abreast of what's going on)
www.santaclaraplaysfair.org

Also, to clarify:

The stadium subsidy DOES rip off the City's General Fund for $67,000,000 through the year 2026.

That's because the RDA can't issue its high-risk, high-coupon "stadium bonds" without diverting its payback to the City to paydown of those bonds.

The "No New Taxes" thing was nothing more than a diversionary throwaway line. It's clearly meaningless, because the subsidized stadium raids our General Fund anyway.

Please visit our site, and please join us. It's time to expose the stadium subsidy ripoff for exactly what it is.

Regards,
Bill Bailey, Treasurer,
SantaClaraPlaysFair.org

-=0=-

Sorry, SCT, the "Also" was for Mr. Wing.

You hit the nail on the head, and five minutes ahead of me.

Bests,
Bill Bailey
SCPF

The 49ers astroturf front group, Santa Clarans for Economic Progress, has finally filed the required forms and - no surprise - they are almost completely funded by the 49ers!!! AT the helm of the front group is Dr. John York, his VP of Communications, and a lawyer from Burlingame. Not one Santa Claran! Out of the $364,000 they spent on the stadium campaign up until 12/31/09, only $645 has been donated by Santa Clarans.

The Yorks are spending massively to try to convince Santa Clarans to make Santa Clara into the Yorks personal ATM machine.

Santa Clarans, when those slick ads start pouring in to your mailboxes these next fews months, please make no mistake: They're not coming from other Santa Clarans.

For more information:
http://santaclaraplaysfair.blogspot.com/2010/02/49ers-stadium-front-group-files.html