San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer finally made up his mind about the Chargers‘ $1.15 billion stadium subsidy demand, and he’s for it, endorsing Measure C yesterday after getting team owner Dean Spanos to agree to what he calls a list of eight concessions:
- Covering any cost overruns for construction or land costs.
- Guaranteeing that city general fund money won’t be used.
- Promising the stadium project won’t impact tourism marketing spending.
- Letting the city collect all revenue from non-NFL events at the stadium.
- Promising to stay in San Diego until the initial debt is paid off.
- Reimbursing the city for any preliminary costs if the Chargers leave town anyway before construction begins.
- Replace parking that the Padres would lose on the stadium site.
- Address “quality of life” concerns from local residents.
A lot of these range from the vaguely defined (8) to the hard to enforce (2 and 3, and maybe 5 depending on how the lease is written); the most significant one is probably getting non-NFL revenue, though even that would be a tiny drop in the bucket on a $1.15 billion expense. Mostly, this is a pile of stuff that won’t cost Spanos a ton, but lets Faulconer show that he didn’t sell his endorsement of the stadium measure for nothing, but at least got a hefty pile of magic beans.
As for what Faulconer’s endorsement means for the actual vote, still nobody seems to think it has a shot of getting the required two-thirds majority, but there’s renewed talk that if it gets a slim majority but not the supermajority required by California law, Faulconer could step in afterwards and negotiated a new deal based on this “mandate.” That would be awfully tricky — the whole reason this plan requires a two-thirds vote is because nobody was able to find a way to subsidize a stadium that didn’t require raising taxes, which triggers the supermajority provision — not to mention a strange notion of mandate, when a public vote can lose but be used to justify a separately negotiated deal that may not require any vote at all. It’s hard to tell at the moment whether this is a serious backup plan or just grasping at straws, but at least Faulconer has a whole lot of straws to wave around this morning.
I watched a lot of the Chargers/Saints Game yesterday and the Keystone Kops play by the Chargers ( coupled with the Chiefs Game earlier in the year) only increases the chances that an Outright NO vote happens. I suspect they will be heading to LA soon enough ( to be the Clippers to the Rams Lakers). Of course, San Diego will be the new bargaining chip for the NFL to use for teams to use against Cities who do not want to build a New Stadium.
I think St Louis is going to be the new stalking horse not San Diego. If SD won’t even finance their own team hard to see how they’re a credible move threat unless the populace has huge buyer’s remorse after the Chargers leave which I doubt since they’ve had plenty of time to contemplate this decision. StL tried to throw money at the Rams so conceivably that money is still available
It’s possible, but St. Louis has “failed” twice as an NFL market (at least in the sense that the owner saw greener pastures and departed).
Whether that has anything to do with fan/local support I don’t know, but it’s possible the lure of sunny SoCal would outweigh any relative differences between local market support.
Entirely unrelated: I’ll try to get pictures of the big Paul McCartney show happening tomorrow for you. Well, the traffic, anyway. I’ve learned that no concert is worth what they’re asking.
I mentioned this last night on a much older thread, but I think it is just as applicable here:
Following yesterday’s loss to the Saints, the post game press conference took place in front of a Toyota/Charger backdrop. Gone was the “Yes of C” backdrop used following each of the previous games. So, yeah, sponsorship money apparently outweighs the November vote.
With regard to 2)…. does this mean that Dean Spanos is now in charge of how the general fund is used?
A lot of vague promises in this one. Just one example: How does “replace parking” work?
Must the Chargers pay all expenses associated and provide the spaces to the city/Padres free? Or are they able to build their own parking structure and charge for it? If so, will someone else have to reimburse the Padres for the loss of/replacement cost of the spaces they previously had available?
As is generally the case in these kinds of “negotiations”, professionals appear to be negotiating on one side while amateur elected hacks are negotiating for the other. It’s not a surprise that the professional side usually wins…
People in Sacramento are already doing exactly what I expected they’d do: Figuring out how to use the arena and avoiding the high-priced parking. And this is how “Revenues are falling short of projections” starts.
http://www.sacbee.com/entertainment/music-news-reviews/article105553081.html
http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/transportation/back-seat-driver/article105534846.html
Also unrelated: In today’s Reno-Gazette Journal there is a full page ad submitted by “win win nevada” that says, in part,: “Now, Southern Nevada has a big opportunity too. The new stadium and convention center expansion will bring thousands of jobs and generate millions of dollars in new education funding for all Nevada schools. And at no cost to you. Join us now at www.winwin-nevada.com. It’s a win win for Nevada.”
Thought you would like to know.
This “at no cost to you” thing… did they explain exactly how that works?
Did they mean “no-one will send you a bill with “your share of stadium construction costs” and a large number beside it?
John, the ad was remarkably short on details.
Thanks Ted…. I thought it might be, somehow…
OK, So initially OUR major told Spanos and company that he would do whatever it took to keep the stadium here when Spano’s PR machine was on full tillt – give us our stadium (including a few hundered million) or we go to LA mode with no appologies. After the NFL told him he could play in LA for FREE!! but couldn’t do real estate development there he comes back to SD with a new nice PR machine that now says pleasant things to the pissed off SD citizens. So it appears Spano only only wants to play football where he can do a real estate development scheme backed by the tax payers or he will find a another city. OUR major then comes up with a half brained deal with the guy we did the stadium seat sales guarantee with. Remember that one! WE guarrantee a certain percentage of seat sales with no control over the price so Spanos immediately raises ticket prices to create an automatic shortfall so that WE the tax payers get to pay for the unsold seats. We now have a ballot in front of us that OUR major says will be modified by gentelmens agreement with no legal foundation so we should vote for the ballot which does not reflect his agreement with the Spanos of “ticket guarrantee” fame. REALLY!
Of course all this to subsidise a stadium for a billionare owner with millionare players so rich people can go to games and deduct the expense from their taxes. While supporting this billionare subsidy OUR mayor thinks that low wage workers should be left to the free market with no city involvement in mandating higher wage levels. If the free market works for the poor shouldn’t it work for the rich?
Too bad we can’t find a owner who just loves and wants to play football. Our current stadium is perfectly servicable and clearly would sell out if we had a winning team. BUT then Spanos can’t do realestate development and OUR major doesn’t get to grovel in front of billionares for money.
Not terribly unexpected. Faulconer is now in his final term as San Diego mayor and as a California Republican, that’s the highest office he can realistically ever achieve. There’s no downside in backing such stuff when you will be leaving politics at the end of your term.
Unless he has some magic plan to tap the general fund, which #2 would seem to preclude, it’s kind of meaningless.
If I were in Faulconer’s shoes I would avoid such endorsement for the very simple reason that last year the mayor spend a fortune to produce an EIR for the Mission Valley location and the hiring of consultants and attorneys (to negotiate with Spanos who refused to negotiate) which cost the city upwards of $5 Million.
So this means that as a mayor last year Faulconer made all the wrong moves and wasted city funds.
So now that Spanos decided to bypass him by going directly to the people on an issue the mayor previously opposed makes the mayor sort of a fool and out of his depth.
I have no idea why the mayor decided to be strong armed by Spanos and pledge a loyalty oath which only makes him unfit to lead the City.
Unless you have a better idea as to why I am kind of lost on this one.
Those consultants and attorneys are potentially future employers.
Wasting city funds and kowtowing to a team owner might have been issues for him before he was reelected. Now he’s reelected and needs to find his way to make some money after politics. It’s a feature, not a bug.
It’s hard to understand what the mayor is thinking.
This is a political year of uber anger against the elites and oligarchs like Spanos.
There is no way this Measure C even gets to 50%.
So what’s the point of attempting something under the worst possible timing?
The only thing which motivated Spanos to float this measure was the low voter turnout during the last election in CA and thus the lowest possible number of qualified voter signatures required to put this measure on the ballot.
I still don’t understand why putting a losing measure on the ballot is anywhere near smart politics. It looks like Spanos operates under some procedural inertia which dictates tactical moves but he is completely lacking the required strategy to win.
As others have mentioned, highly unlikely this even gets to 50%. It’s not only the public costs, but the location. Mission Valley is a much better spot for a seldom used stadium.
Maybe the chargers move to vegas instead of the raiders, get a cheaper transfer fee from the NFL and sell part of the club to the stadium builder. Raiders would work much better as team 2 in la
Any way we(L.A Rams fans) can contribute to the Measure C cause so chargers can stay in SD?
Good question!
You may not have to contribute, though. It’s still not clear to me that either the Raiders or Chargers as second (emphasis on second) fiddle in LA is a better bet for the owner than being primary tenant in their current markets.
Either team can extort “something” from their current markets. What they are arguing about is how much they think is enough.
Does being a tenant team (in Kroenke’s stadium) to gain access to a portion of a much larger market really mean improved finances for Spanos or Davis? If so, is it enough of an improvement to top what they could get from either SD or Oakland?
If the NFL was keen to make either team fully portable (to LV or elsewhere), I guess it’s possible a bidding war could erupt. But at present, the only indication the league has given is that they would support one of them moving to LA to share the stadium Kroenke is building.
It’s hard to get a bidding war going when you have only one potential destination and your stadium deal there has already been decided for you by others.
The only way a compromise deal w/out another vote could work after getting 50% but not 2/3 is if they returned to falconer’s original plan — a new stadium in mission valley that requires no new taxes. I’d be down for that!
Btw, all these “concessions” the mayor got, the initiative is already written and can’t be changed at this point. Do they have any legal standing whatsoever?