Back to school

It's been almost three months since the City Council last had any public agenda item related to the San Francisco 49ers' request for the City of Santa Clara to contribute $222,000,000 in public funds for a football stadium (although it seems that they have been having plenty of closed-door meetings.)

Tonight, however, the proposal will be back in public session.

At this evening's meeting, the City Council will consider the request to spend an additional $185,000 in public money to continue to study this proposal.

In case you've lost track of the total to date, this new request will bring the total to an even $500,000. And of course that figure doesn't include all of the staff time that has also been spent on this proposal.

I'm certainly in favor of study and research in general, but before continuing to spend any more money studying this proposal, the City Council needs to get back to the Guiding Principles it established for itself back in January.

One of those principles was a requirement that Cedar Fair agree that they will not assert business interference or negative effects from the feasibility studies and that this agreement needed to be in place "prior to pursuing discussions with the 49ers."

The City does not yet have that agreement.

So, the problem with spending money NOW on a feasibility study is that conditions may change by the time Cedar Fair is willing to agree to moving forward with a stadium without any reduction in their payments to the City or any City agency.

Therefore, we shouldn't be spending money on a study now. We should wait until Cedar Fair has agreed in writing to not assert their own business interests. When Cedar Fair does sign such an agreement -- then we can take up the question of whether additional public funds should be spent studying it.

And there's one more issue.

The cost estimates in the San Francisco 49ers' proposal were based on the City Council approving the project in July 2007.

So once we have Cedar Fair's approval, the City Council needs to ask the San Francisco 49ers to submit a revised construction budget.

Once those two pieces are in place, then and only then should we even consider spending more money studying this proposal. Financial conditions can change, and there's no point determining whether or not the July 2007 estimate is feasible, since we are already well past that approval date.

What can you do?:

1. Attend the City Council meeting on TONIGHT at 7pm and speak out! Speakers will probably be limited to 2 minutes each.

2. Call the Santa Clara City Council at

(408) 615-2250

3. Write a Letter to:

Patricia M. Mahan, Mayor
City Hall
1500 Warburton Avenue
Santa Clara, CA 95050

4. Send an email to:

mailto:MayorandCouncil@ci.santa-clara.ca.us?subject=Concerns%20about%20stadium%20proposal

5. Spread the word! Tell your neighbors and friends and encourage them to get involved!