The public vote on the San Diego Chargers owners’ $1.15 billion stadium subsidy request is about two months away, and the prognosis remains “good luck with that“: A court has ruled that the measure needs a near-impossible two-thirds majority to pass, a hotel industry study projected that the city would only get three cents of revenue for every public dollar spent, and last week a group of local business leaders wrote an open letter to Mayor Kevin Faulconer urging him to oppose the measure. If Kevin Delaney and Rick Eckstein’s Public Dollars, Private Stadiums can be summed up in one phrase, it’s “stadiums happen when the business classes are unified in support of them,” so yeah, this seems extra-doomed.
But in an article mostly focused on what position Faulconer will take, the San Diego Union-Tribune’s Michael Smolens notes that there could be a long game at play here:
There’s some thinking, as laid out in a column this past week by the Union-Tribune’s Nick Canepa, that a Faulconer endorsement would help facilitate new stadium negotiations after the November election. Yes, even some notable Measure C backers don’t think it stands a chance to gain the two-thirds majority needed for approval.
Sounds like they’re planning the post-war world. Or seeking to get Measure C over the 50 percent mark in hopes that a case pending before the state Supreme Court could be decided in a way that would lower the threshold to a majority.
Even after reading that Canepa article (which is pretty hilarious, coming down to, “Hey, Mr. Mayor, just endorse the stadium, it won’t cost you your job, probably”), I’m not entirely clear on what that “post-war world” is supposed to look like — Chargers owner Dean Spanos needs to pull the trigger on a move to Los Angeles by January 15, so that doesn’t leave a lot of time to negotiation an alternate deal after November, especially since any tax increase would require another public vote. Maybe they’d get a state Supreme Court ruling overturning the two-thirds requirement by January, but that seems like a longshot.
All of which makes me think one thing: Man, Nevada really should be holding off on that $950 million Oakland Raiders subsidy request, since there’s a pretty good chance that by January, Raiders owner Mark Davis will no longer have moving to L.A. as an option, increasing Las Vegas’s leverage in cutting a better deal, if that’s what they want. I’d argue that no stadium deal in Vegas will work for Davis and partner Sheldon Adelson unless it’s a disaster for taxpayers, but as those guys know, can’t get if you don’t ask, right?
I don’t believe even a state Supreme Court decision would remedy the measure if it surpasses 50% but falls short on two thirds. Retroactively changing the outcome of a completed vote would likely spur numerous lawsuits, as the conditions provided at the time of the election would have been inaccurate. Best case there is that the Chargers would get a “do over.”
More likely, the Chargers will probably exercise their one year extension by claiming that the results of the election are “promising” and merit more discussion with the city. Then the real ugliness begins…
Technically it would not be “retroactively changing the outcome of a completed vote.” The vote would still be X% for, Y% opposed. The court would simply be ruling on what threshold the state constitution required and again the constitution would not have changed (well, I guess it would have because the California constitution changes every election as it’s a mess, but not in any way germane to this measure).
That said, while this is probably not an issue, the fact that the law is fairly clear that a 2/3 vote is required would be the big issue. The chances the State Supreme Court would overturn the lower court ruling is small. It’s not like this is an unprecedented ballot initiative–tax measures for public works happen literally every election somewhere in the state.
When the Mayor offered $350M for Mission Valley way back when, I always thought that was a good enough offer that the League would block Spanos from moving. It wouldn’t surprise me if the League forces the Chargers to take a similar deal after Measure C fails.
God knows we do not need a new stadium for a losing team. Hey a least if they won a Superbowl all these years. Last time I saw a girl asking people to vote on for new staduim around the Petco Parking lot. She told me she was not from San Diego too…. If the Chargers really loved San Diego, they would not ask so much of it’s city and hardworking citizens.I saw a cover that the homeless rate is up… God if the Chargers loved the city from which they represent they would take a pay cut and stay in San Diego and be satisfied with the Staduim they already have. Meanwhile the city focuses on investing the money on things that are actually more important. Like building affordable housing. Career centers, Drug rehabilitation centers. New homeless shelters and day centers. It makes me angry that they would use taxpayer money to build themselves a new staduim.. Take a look at the petco staduim parking lot and see how much it helps people. What a waste of space. A beautiful park could of been there in the middle of the city where it is accessible to everybody! New staduim fuck that shit.
You can tell Las Vegas how to negotiate all you want. Those pols aren’t any brighter than the dummies everywhere else. They wouldn’t know leverage if hit them in the face. Thank god!