No sooner had the ink on SB 43 dried last night than the Stadium Spenders were out in force, claiming that SB 43 somehow gives us 'options'.
It does no such thing.
The Stadium Crowd is perpetuating the myth that SB 43 somehow 'preserves' Santa Clarans' right to vote on a "Sweetheart Charter Exemption" being demanded by the San Francisco 49ers. The phrasing is always expressed in this way: 'Well, we're not taking away anyone's rights - the City of Santa Clara, in the end will decide.'...
...Which, on its face, is real nice happy-talk. But the truth is that SB 43 allows a compliant City Council to DENY Santa Clarans a vote on exactly that Charter exemption. - The very language of SB 43 itself proves that:
"This bill would authorize the Santa Clara
Stadium Authority to let a design-build
contract without utilizing a competitive
bid process for the stadium construction
project..."http://info.sen.ca.gov/pub/09-10/bill/sen/sb_0001-0050/sb_43_bill_20090915_enrolled.htmlIf the intention of our City Council were truly to protect Santa Clarans' right to vote on any exemptions to their own City Charter...
...then there would have been no need for SB 43 to begin with, would there?
Sorry, but SB 43 is designed to preserve "flexibility" only for the 49ers - not for Santa Clara. If this 49er-Friendly City Council is truly interested in getting Santa Clarans to support their squandering of a $114 million subsidy** for an NFL stadium, then they should have no problem putting both the "Massive Stadium Subsidy" AND the "Sweetheart Charter Exemption" on next June's ballot.
They don't need SB 43 in order to give us Santa Clarans the TWO ballot measures we're entitled to have.
Santa Clarans, thanks again for your support,
Bill Bailey, Treasurer
Santa Clara Plays Fair
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**$114 million subsidy: This is shown clearly in Exhibit 14 to the Term Sheet as approved on June 2 by our own City Council. See this one, single page...
http://santaclaraca.gov/pdf/collateral/49ers-20090601-Exhibit-14.pdf
The $114M is simply the sum of $42M + $35M + $37M. ALL of that is public money - including advances from the 49ers which will have to be paid back with public money, plus interest. ---WFB
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2 comments:
If the current US and even world wide financial crisis has told us anything it is that the unbridled pursuit of money by high level commercial interests does not always operate in the best interests of the society as a whole, Adam Smith's "invisible hand" does not always function to correct the abuses. One valuablae restraint is submitting controversial issues to public scrutiny and vote. This is an important element in protecting us al from unrestrained pursuit of mney by large interests. Let the people of Santa Cclara decide their destiny.
I can only agree with the reference to Adam Smith's "invisible hand".
No way that the massive power of the multi-million dollar California corporation - in this case, the San Francisco 49ers, Ltd. - could have been forseen in the day of Adam Smith.
Thanks,
Bill Bailey, Treasurer
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