The Mercury News is hypocritical

This is a letter to the editor of the San Jose Mercury News from one of our neighbors:

I was much disappointed in the Mercury News’ endorsement of the San Francisco 49ers proposed football stadium. Disappointed, but hardly surprised. The Mercury has a long history of backing projects that will improve the national standing of the San Jose area, and, by extension, its own circulation. That the Mercury demands transparency from politicians, governments and private organizations but fails to disclose its own interest in this issue is distressing at best and hypocritical at worst.

The Mercury backs such a project in spite of the overwhelming evidence that most such projects do not bring in the purported economic benefits touted by the projects’ supporters. In fact, the same day the Mercury came out in favor of Measure J, Scott Herhold wrote a column basically admitting that the project does not make economic sense. Instead, he argues, Santa Clara should foot the bill simply out of civic pride.

Civic pride? In a football stadium? I’m sorry, but my civic pride derives from our otherwise well run city. Santa Clara is a city that pays attention to its general fund, and socks away cash for those years when revenues cannot meet expenditures. It is a city that has the wherewithal to fund its own library system, and its own utility with rates that are the envy of the rest of the valley. It is a city where the public parks, pools and other amenities aren’t closing because of fiscal mismanagement, unlike our bigger neighbor.

The Mercury correctly points out that, ideally, a project with such a regional impact should have the costs borne by the entire region. For example, even though Santa Clara has to foot the bill, less than 10% of the jobs generated will go to Santa Clara residents. It then says that the political realities make such regional cooperation impossible. Would those be the same political realities that make Caltrain, BART, the MTA, various water agencies and other regional governing structures impossible?

The Mercury’s slanted coverage of this issue also extends to other issues facing Santa Clara. In a story on Yahoo’s proposed new campus in Santa Clara, Lisa Fernandez pointedly remarks on the lack of opposition to such a large project, in direct contrast to the stadium. Left unsaid is that the city doesn’t need to invest public money in such a project on the scale of the stadium; that the jobs being created by Yahoo’s expansion will be better paid than the minimum wage, concession-type jobs of the stadium; and that the taxes generated by such a project will far outstrip any revenues generated by the stadium.

The Mercury’s coverage and editorial also leaves out a very important footnote. $20M of this funding is to come from the city utility’s emergency fund, to help move a substation to a different location. Recently, every Santa Clara resident should have received a notice where this same utility wants to increase our rates, the second such increase in as many years. If our utility has the money to spend on a stadium, then why do our utility rates need to rise – again? And perhaps this isn’t a tax increase to support the stadium, but at this point, that’s all semantics. Residents will be paying more, one way or another.

KJ