"Ignorance is Strength"

When is an office development a winner, and when is it a loser?

If you're Councilmember Moore or Casserta, that depends on whether it's a project that competes with the stadium, or a project to make money for building the stadium. The San Jose Mercury News highlighted this Orwellian double-speak today. Here is a quote:

A few weeks ago, consultants said the city of Santa Clara could generate $3.3 million in annual rent if it built office buildings instead of a proposed San Francisco 49ers stadium.

Councilman Dominic Caserta challenged how legitimate the idea was, given the empty office buildings in other parts of the city.

And Councilman Kevin Moore, one of the first to approach the 49ers, joked that a sign advertising a strip of real estate across from the stadium site has been up so long that it's faded.

Last week, the same city consultants researched the idea of developing that very slab across the street and found it could generate as much as $2 million a year to help support the stadium or other city projects.

So why didn't Moore and Caserta have questions this time about how viable the option is?

You can read the full article here.

Note also that Councilmember Moore finally admitted that the stadium will sit empty and unused 300 days a year. Is that really what we want to spend $287 million to subsidize?