Stadium Facts

Help the effort for a referendum!

2012-01-10T23:59:00.000-08:00

Santa Clara Plays Fair is organizing a referendum petition drive to give voters the right to determine whether or not the stadium deal is good for Santa Clara. The costs outlined in the Measure J campaign are VERY different from the deal the City Council approved last month. The current deal calls for the 49ers to pay NOTHING towards the construction costs, and calls for the Stadium Authority to take responsibility for $850,000,000 in loans from Goldman Sachs and Bank of America.

Contact Santa Clara Plays Fair to find a place to sign the petition or to volunteer to help.

Their website is: www.santaclaraplaysfair.org

49ers' Stadium Subsidy Ticker: We've Passed the 'Century' Mark!

2011-12-04T22:40:00.001-08:00

Dear Santa Clarans,

We've now passed the 'century' mark: Our elected City Council has met in secret with the San Francisco 49ers over ONE HUNDRED TIMES since May 1, 2007. The very reason that you have only 96 hours to review the 421-page draft of the DDA before this Tuesday evening is a direct result of those Closed Sessions.

Background: In late April of 2007, the San Francisco 49ers demanded that our City Council sign a "Confidentiality Agreement." Without a peep, and with minimal public inputs: Our elected leaders took virtually all dealings involving the stadium subsidy, the stadium site and parcels into Closed Session, out of the view of Santa Clara residents. The Closed Sessions are indicated - with no details - in the "Action Summaries" here.

Also, Santa Clara Agencies have paid cash to consultants on everything from the Feasibility Study to the Term Sheet - and now for the Disposition and Development Agreement, or DDA. A summary of those payments and to whom they have been made is here.

Finally, Santa Clara Agencies will be borrowing what they do not have in order to finance not only the make-ready work and the stadium's construction costs, but very possibly the costs of operating the stadium for the 49ers, too. Those dollar amounts will be reported here periodically.

As of today:

101: The number of secret Closed Sessions that our City Council or Agencies have held with the San Francisco 49ers or with JMA Ventures, LLC, concerning the stadium site and parcels since May 1st, 2007.

As of December 6, 2011:

$3,650,000: The total of Santa Clara Agency cash paid to 49ers consultants since April 3rd, 2007.

$6,000,000: The total that the Santa Clara Stadium Authority does not have for the stadium's "make-ready" work - which they must now borrow from the 49ers themselves and pay back with interest.

Best regards,

Bill Bailey, Treasurer,
Santa Clara Plays Fair.org

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The rules are rather straightforward. Our count of secret Council and Agency Closed Sessions above is in fact quite conservative and it's more than fair to the 49ers' Stadium Boosters seated on our City Council:

Only meetings actually held between the city and the 49ers or with JMA Ventures, LLC, for the purpose of discussing the "five parcels" are counted here.
Secret Council and Agency meetings called for the same time of day and held one right after the other are counted as only one Closed Session.
The "Sweetheart Hotel" negotiations with Joe Montana, Eddie DeBartolo, Jr., and Karl Wittek are not counted.
Scheduled Closed Sessions "Not Held" - and, of course, city employee CBU negotiating sessions - are not counted.

We're very serious about the secret Closed Sessions - and we're happy to clear the air about how we've been accurately tallying them.

If we chose to include "The Sweetheart Hotel" and to singulate the secret Council and secret Agency meetings, we would simply be stating truthfully how much worse things actually are. --- Bill Bailey -=0=-

49ers' Stadium Subsidy Ticker: 99 Secret Meetings - and the $6 MILLION we DON'T have.

2011-11-28T21:19:00.000-08:00

Dear Santa Clarans,

In late April of 2007, the San Francisco 49ers demanded that our City Council sign a "Confidentiality Agreement" - and that our elected leaders take virtually all dealings involving the stadium site and parcels into Closed Session, out of the view of Santa Clara residents. The Closed Sessions are indicated - with no details - in the "Action Summaries" here.

As of this date:

99: The number of secret Closed Sessions that our City Council or Agencies have held with the San Francisco 49ers or with JMA Ventures, LLC, concerning the stadium site and parcels since May 1st, 2007.

$3,200,000: The total of Santa Clara Agency cash paid to 49ers consultants since April 3rd, 2007.

The count of Closed Sessions above is in fact quite conservative and it's more than fair to the 49ers' Stadium Boosters on our City Council:

Only meetings actually held between the city and the 49ers or with JMA Ventures, LLC, for the purpose of discussing the "five parcels" are counted here.
Secret Council and Agency meetings held one right after the other are counted as only one Closed Session.
The "Sweetheart Hotel" negotiations with Montana/DeBartolo are not counted.
Scheduled Closed Sessions "Not Held" - and, of course, city employee CBU negotiating sessions - are not counted.

We're very serious about the secret Closed Sessions - and we're happy to clear the air about how we've been accurately tallying them.

Best regards,

Bill Bailey, Treasurer,
Santa Clara Plays Fair.org

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Why we keep count.

A Stadium Fact: There is NO cap on the 49ers' Stadium Subsidies

2011-11-21T23:56:00.000-08:00

Dear Santa Clarans,

There have been several claims in the media these last few weeks that Santa Clara's subsidy of the San Francisco 49ers is somehow "capped" at $42 million. Unfortunately, this claim is completely false.

Pull out a Sample Ballot or other any other materials you wish covering Measure Jed from last June - and note that the total debt down to the Santa Clara Stadium Authority is not limited in any way. The oversimplification being used by the 49ers' Stadium Boosters (this time) is that the Redevelopment Agency is only down for $42 million, and 'gosh, that's all.'

It's not.

Remember that the 49ers demanded our votes on Measure Jed by "estimating" that they'd be covering $493 million of a $937 million stadium. On June 7th, however, City Staff informed us that the team only wants to pay "15% to 25%" of the costs of a $987 million stadium.

This is the way the game is played: Euchre voters into signing a blank check, with meaningless (or broken) promises that debt is capped (or that the General Fund won't be touched, even though the Stadium Subsidy does cost it a bundle.). About a year later, trumpet the passage of the bill, Measure Jed, then tell city residents that the public debt down to another city Agency is no longer the $330,000,000 claimed a year ago, but in fact may nearly double.

Imagine a situation where a destitute brother-in-law swears he only needs to put $330 on one of your credit cards - then imagine the uproar when you get the bill from the bank at the end of the month, and when you find that he charged $626 to that card.

The same game is being played here in Santa Clara - the debt that the San Francisco 49ers won't cover is going to be shoved onto the Stadium Authority - and there's apparently very little that the five "49ers' Stadium Boosters" on our City Council are willing to do to stop it.

The 49ers also made a promise that they'd be covering all construction cost overruns. But who can tell what's an "overrun" if it's suddenly deemed not to be a 49ers Development Cost? When that happens, it's a virtual certainty that the Santa Clara Stadium Authority will be stuck with it.

In essence: Stadium Boosters continue to claim that the Stadium Authority is going to magically pay for all of this with just naming rights and Personal Seat License collections - and that it will then have enough dough to run a stadium for the 49ers for about $30,000,000 every year.

That claim sounds sillier all the time.

Thanks for all of your support,

William F. "Bill" Bailey, Treasurer,

SantaClaraPlaysFair.org

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Stadium Facts: Measure Jed does NOT Guarantee a Second Team

2011-10-11T23:17:00.000-07:00

Dear Santa Clarans,

Stadium Boosters, even on our City Council, do sometimes manage to stretch the truth to the breaking point. A prime example is the issue of any second team at a subsidized NFL stadium in Santa Clara, as this quote by Councilwoman Lisa Gillmor in today's paper shows:

" Santa Clara City Councilwoman Lisa Gillmor, however, was much more eager about having Oakland's Black Hole partner up in the South Bay.

" ' I would like to think that this improves the odds of the Raiders making a change to Santa Clara," Gillmor said. "Our citizens voted to have a second team...' "

Well, not exactly. Here's what the Term Sheet appended to Measure Jed actually stated in black and white:

"49ers Stadium Company [and NO Santa Clara Agency] will have the right to enter into a sublease with a second NFL team (“Second Team”), on terms and conditions consistent with and subject to the Stadium Lease..." (Section 16.1)

...and also:

"Although the terms of any sublease to a Second Team are not subject to approval of the Stadium Authority,..." (Section 16.3)

Now, any Stadium Booster is welcome to misrepresent who holds the power of the second team lease. However, any Santa Claran can read the Term Sheet itself, and know the truth.

The real truth is that we did not vote for a second team. Instead, we gave Jed York the exclusive right to decide for us.

Thanks for all of your support,

Bill Bailey, Treasurer,

Santa Clara Plays Fair.org

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49ers' Stadium Subsidies: Pure Lucre for the NFL in TV Royalties

2011-10-09T15:57:00.000-07:00

Santa Clarans,

One of the biggest delusions engaged in by the 49ers' Stadium Boosters is about the money.

The problem is, they won't admit to you that the money goes into the 49ers' very own cash box, and not into the accounts of our city's agencies.

The Real Stadium Facts: The Ground Lease payable to our city's General Fund is a pathetic $180,000 the first year. The rent payable to our Santa Clara Stadium Authority at this writing is a paltry $5 million against what will be a Stadium Authority operating tab of at least $20 million and possibly $30 million - every year.

Remember: NO operating overruns will ever be reimbursed by the San Francisco 49ers.

So: Where is all the money really going?

The bulk of the money to be made in fielding an NFL team - and not in a losing stadium operation - are what are known as NFL Revenues. The Term Sheet attached to Measure Jed from last June spells this out, and it draws a sharp, black line between those Revenues and the pittance that will go to us or to our Agencies.

A big part of those NFL Revenues, untouchable by us, are television royalties. To stay abreast of the dollar amounts, one can use a search engine to yield the usual pile of information - but in general, you may count on $4B to $6B per year, divided equally among the NFL owners.

Conservatively, that's over $100,000,000 to Jed York every year - for the broadcast rights alone. Consider the many other streams of NFL Revenue flowing out of a stadium - like the luxury box dough - and you have a lot of money that Santa Clara Agencies and Santa Clarans are simply not getting.

The 49ers and the NFL are extremely secretive about this. They really don't want you looking too hard at what they'll be scooping out of a stadium here.

However, just a little online searching will give you a good idea of why NFL teams make money - and why NFL stadiums don't.

All the best,
Bill Bailey, Treasurer,
SantaClaraPlaysFair.org

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ESPN - alone - Pays $63 million to each NFL team ($2B/32)http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Journal/Issues/2011/01/20110117/Media/Sports-Media.aspx:

Early, from 2007:

http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Daily/Issues/2007/09/Issue-238/NFL-Season-Preview/NFL-Media-Rights-Deals-For-07-Season.aspx

AdWeek took down their coverage of the NFL's TV money - but they published data from Barclays Capital Estimates showing that the NFL collected $4.04 BILLION from five networks in the 2010-2011 NFL season alone.

49ers' Subsidies: Measure J - and Measure Jed

2011-09-20T00:29:00.000-07:00

Dear Santa Clarans,

In November of 2004, voters in the Santa Clara Unified School District passed a bond measure to upgrade badly aged and seismically inadequate infrastructure at our middle and high schools. That bond measure?

Measure J.

In June of 2010, however, voters in Santa Clara voted to pay HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS in subsidies to the San Francisco 49ers, all for (1) $7,000-per-year jobs *, (2) economic activity less than that of the 49ers' own Training Center and (3) losses to our city's General Fund .

That bond measure was also called Measure J, but it could not be more different from the original Measure J.

This matters because of a couple of exchanges I've had in the last several months with "49ers stadium boosters" who should know better. They persist with the utterly false claim that the 49ers are somehow putting money into the Santa Clara Unified School District. Now, while it's true that the 49ers exploited a funding crisis in our schools to get what they wanted last June, please note they're not giving a single cent to Santa Clara schools.

It's downright deceitful of "stadium boosters" to be promoting confusion between the two ballot measures above in order to advance their cause of stadium subsidies for the San Francisco 49ers.

This also matters because of the SCUSD newsletter "School Days," for fall, 2011, which a great many of you have already received. The latest letter indeed describes the true, original Measure J projects, which are upgrading Santa Clara schools by using money from the 2004 bond measure. However, by providing no context, the article in "School Days" invites anyone unfamiliar with the 2004 measure to assume that the 49ers' "J" is somehow responsible for the upgrades in SCUSD classrooms and physical plant.

It simply is not.

When you read about the 2004 Measure J and what it's accomplishing for SCUSD schools, please remember that this is our $315,000,000. We authorized it. That amount and its debt service is being paid for out of our property taxes - and not by the San Francisco 49ers.

There's a better name for the 2010 measure, though. Let's just call it "Measure Jed."

After all, Jed York is the only one benefiting from it.

Thanks for your continuing support,
Bill Bailey, Treasurer,
SantaClaraPlaysFair.org

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* See footnote here .

The Truth about the 49ers' Luxury Boxes

2011-07-02T14:48:00.000-07:00

Santa Clarans,

On the evening of June 7, we learned that our costs to subsidize the San Francisco 49ers are going to increase greatly before we even see a stadium finance plan next summer.

But the most jaw-dropping part of the evening's meeting came in one of the 49ers' own presentations before Council. The team's representatives actually claimed that their contribution to the stadium's "development" was their costs for their own luxury boxes in that stadium!

Please note from the "Stadium Term Sheet", Section 11.2b, that ALL luxury box income for NFL events goes directly to the 49ers themselves - not to any Santa Clara City Agency. Not only that: The 49ers collect even their base luxury box fees for non-NFL events as well. (You'll find exactly this language in your Sample Ballots of June 8, 2010, too - Measure J gives that luxury box dough only to the 49ers.)

This is worth noting because of the media coverage this weekend concerning the team's sale of those luxury suite leases. At the same time that the 49ers are putting $138 million into their own pockets, they're forcing the Santa Clara Stadium Authority pay the PSL* marketer's fee of $6,000,000 - with interest. See here and here, Section 7b.

What the San Francisco 49ers raked in this weekend compensates them many times over for any 'development' costs they may have spent on their luxury boxes. But that isn't news, and it doesn't help Santa Clara's Agencies to raise a single penny for the stadium subsidy itself.

The real news is how much the 49ers will taking out of the stadium - and how little will be left for Santa Clara and for Santa Clarans.

Thanks for your support,

William F. "Bill" Bailey, Treasurer,

SantaClaraPlaysFair.org

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*Let's call them by their correct name: They are indeed Personal Seat Licenses.

Same as they were in Oakland.

49ers' Stadium Subsidy Ticker: Over Four Years of Secrecy - And For What?

2011-06-27T23:10:00.000-07:00

Santa Clarans,

Imagine that your city had loads of empty hundred-acre parcels. Imagine that it's thinking about locating an arena somewhere within its city limits. Imagine that the actual location is not yet determined.

Our elected leaders would seek to reduce to a minimum the public costs of the land, but the only way they can do that is to shield the ground lease negotiations from the rampant speculation which would drive up the costs to us taxpayers.

The Ralph M. Brown Act rightly allows an elected body to take negotiations over real estate - and personnel matters and bargaining-unit negotiations - into closed session in order to get the best deal for taxpayers. No one claiming to advocate "taxpayer value" could sensibly argue otherwise.

But now I'm going to pop that balloon.

If you look at our own City Council Agenda of May 1, 2007, you will see virtually the same wording as you'd see if you looked at the Agenda of two weeks ago. ** For over four years now, we have known exactly who the participants are.

But far more important: We've always known exactly which five land parcels are involved and where they're located.

The ultimate costs of the 49ers' stadium subsidies to Santa Clara residents, then, are far more dependent upon the giveaways awarded by our City Council's "stadium boosters" than they ever will be on the base costs of the land. Our "partners" aren't even a public corporation, in fact, but are the super-secretive San Francisco 49ers.

Now, consider: At the Council meeting of June 7th, we were finally told not only that our RDA will be taking cash advances from the 49ers and paying them back at up to 8.5% interest - but that our Santa Clara Stadium Authority will now be doing the same thing. Both agencies will be paying far more money to the 49ers to service that debt than they would with any bonds they could issue. In the case of the RDA, they'll be paying for it out of your tax increment money.

In fact, the costs of the massive 49ers' stadium subsidy to Santa Clarans are about to be greatly increased.

As taxpayers, the giveaways to the San Francisco 49ers are indeed our business. However, the Closed Sessions of the Santa Clara City Council give the clearest indication that the 49ers don't want us finding out about these cost increases until it's way too late to do anything about them.

If the secret, Closed Sessions of our City Council and our Agencies are in fact merely being held to conceal the increasing indebtedness of our Santa Clara Stadium Authority from us taxpayers, then they have no place in the All-American City.

Santa Clarans who contacted City Hall before the June 14th Council Meeting were entirely right to do so. Thank you all for speaking up.

In fact, the Councilman who went completely off-Agenda on June 14th in order to criticize your correspondence may have revealed a bit more about this entire process than he intended.

Please. Stay informed on the 49ers' stadium subsidy.

Demand more.

Thanks for your support,

Bill Bailey, Treasurer,

Santa Clara Plays Fair.org

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Annotated Brown Act - brochure from 2003. Dated, perhaps - but then again, something like the Brown Act probably shouldn't change much anyway.

** I mentioned the June 14th meeting on purpose - because it was "Not Held." When we count up the number of Closed Sessions, we specifically exclude dates such as June 14th. We count only the meetings that were actually held. June 14th doesn't count.

May 10th, May 24th and June 7th, however, do count. The total of secret, Closed Session Council/Agency meetings is indeed 91 as of this evening. Really.

49ers' Stadium Subsidies: Putting the Stadium Authority's $1.5M in Perspective

2011-06-19T13:57:00.000-07:00

Dear Santa Clarans,

Press coverage in today's Mercury News put quite a bit of ink on what the City Council would be paying itself to sit on the Santa Clara Stadium Authority. However, that may not be the big story.

The additional $1,440 bucks a year per Councilmember works out to thirty bucks each for 48 meetings - the critical portions of which are likely to be held in secret Closed Session, thereby concealing the true functioning of the Santa Clara Stadium Authority from Santa Clarans. We should be far angrier about that than about the dollar amount.

Let's set a few more decimal points:

From the June 7th City Council meeting, we learned that Santa Clara's subsidy of the San Francisco 49ers' stadium is now likely to be far more than the $444,000,000 we were originally led to believe.
Not one but two city agencies, the Stadium Authority as well as the Redevelopment Agency, will now be on the hook for high-interest cash advances from the 49ers themselves. Can't issue your own bonds at 5.75%? No sweat - borrow the dough from the 49ers at up to 8.5%. The 49ers can use that cash flow to pay for the construction cost overruns they promised us they'd cover out of their own pockets.
Take the $950,000 that the Stadium Authority will pay to lawyers and accountants in the coming fiscal year, and add it to the $2,800,000 in RDA money that our city has already spent. It's likely that we'll blow four million on those costs before a single shovel breaks ground. That's tax increment money, by the way - property taxes essentially unremitted.
The $550,000 for City Staff can be added to the $612K in staff expenses we know of so far. That latter amount is only a partial accounting, so we can probably count on those expenses easily exceeding $1.2 million.

Finally, bear in mind that this Stadium Authority budget is your money. Recall that the City Council "parked" $4,000,000 in RDA cash with the 49ers Stadium Company while playing that old game of "RDA keepaway" with Governor Brown. This $1.5 million should be coming back, and in fact, the remaining $2.5M should be put back in the accounts of Agencies our leaders told us were there to protect our interests.

The increased stipend to City Councilmembers should be noted, of course, as well as the cut they took earlier this season - but the costs of subsidizing the San Francisco 49ers are about to balloon for far different reasons.

That's the real news.

Thanks for all of your support,
Bill Bailey, Treasurer,
Santa Clara Plays Fair

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49ers' Stadium Subsidy Ticker: Secret Meetings and RDA Cash , Too!

2011-06-05T12:27:00.000-07:00

Dear Santa Clarans,

In late April of 2007, the San Francisco 49ers demanded that our City Council sign the "Confidentiality Agreement" with the team. This agreement forced our Council and Agencies to take certain dealings with the 49ers into Closed Session, out of the view of Santa Clara residents. The Closed Sessions are indicated, but not detailed, in the "Action Summaries" here.

Also, over roughly that same interval, the Redevelopment Agency has paid RDA cash to consultants on everything from the Feasibility Study to the Term Sheet - and now for the Disposition and Development Agreement, or DDA. A summary of those payments and to whom they have been made is here.

Santa Clara Plays Fair continues to track both the count of the secret Council/49er meetings, and the cash paid for "Stadium Studies." As of this date:

90: The number of secret, Closed Sessions that our City Council has held with the San Francisco 49ers and Cedar Fair since 5/1/2007.

$2,800,000: The total of RDA cash spent on 49ers consultants since 4/3/2007.

We'll publish this ticker periodically to keep Santa Clarans informed of the costs of the 49ers' stadium subsidy - both in dollars and in transparency.

Best regards,
Bill Bailey, Treasurer,
Santa Clara Plays Fair

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The 49ers' Subsidies and the Two-Team Myth

2011-05-15T10:47:00.000-07:00

The rash claim over two NFL teams in Santa Clara appears to be making the rounds in our city yet again.

The myth: "We're getting two NFL teams in Santa Clara."

Busted: Santa Clarans, you will get two NFL teams in Santa Clara ONLY if Jed York says you do.

Please remember that if you voted for Measure J last June, you handed the right of sublease to any second NFL team strictly to Jed York himself. NO Santa Clara Agency, and not one single elected official in our city, has the power to contract with any second NFL team. Only the 49ers and their goods-marketing brigades will be allowed to do that. Even if they do: The 49ers - and not our Santa Clara Stadium Authority - collect the lion's share of the money from that sublease.

The proof is in Section 16.1 of the Term Sheet.

You will find that the 49ers front office desperately needs to blame their own stadium financing problems on the NFL players they just locked out. However, that's just not going to work: For two years running, the NFL Commissioner himself has made quite clear that any NFL contribution to a Bay Area stadium will be to ONE Bay Area stadium, and not to two of them. As the San Francisco 49ers and the Oakland Raiders are in the bottom six of revenue producers in the NFL (see here), the other thirty millionaire owners are probably not very sympathetic to the Yorks - and certainly not to Al Davis. Putting the league off on this issue is another example of the 49ers' front office shooting themselves in the foot.

But in a broader sense, the "stadium boosters" - on and off of the City Council dais - might want to be real careful with their wildly inaccurate claims about any second team in Santa Clara.

They might finally be asked: "If you really think you're getting TWO NFL Millionaires in our city...

"...why are you demanding that Santa Clarans pay $444,000,000 to subsidize those TWO NFL Millionaires when the two of them together could obviously afford to build and operate their own stadium with NO public subsidy?"

Thanks for all of your support,
Bill Bailey, Treasure,
SantaClaraPlaysFair.org

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Why the 49ers' Term Sheet rips us off

The 49ers' Stadium Subsidies: Truth as a Casualty - Part II

2011-03-30T15:00:00.001-07:00

Dear Santa Clarans,

After public comments on a motion before City Council, the Council gets the last word with their own comments.

There's no rebuttal to those - even if they contain distortions or even untrue statements.

Last Monday night, March 21st, Councilwoman Patricia Mahan claimed that the San Francisco 49ers paid for "half" of the infrastructure costs of the Tasman Drive/Centennial Way area. She made a similar claim at the Muslim Community Association debates of May 16th, 2010.

We believe that this claim is as untrue today as it was then. On page 3 of the original Training Center Escrow Agreement of February 12th, 1987, you will find that:

Santa Clara ALONE paid to build Centennial Way.

Santa Clara ALONE paid to connect all utilities up to the front steps of the 49ers' Training Center.

Extracts of that lease are here. A concise summary may be found here, too.

We're entitled to far more truth on this "sweetheart lease" than we got last Monday evening. If we can't get it from the dais of our own City Council on this issue, we're in serious trouble.

Santa Clara Plays Fair urges our fellow residents to ask questions - hard questions - when "stadium boosters" make unsupportable claims for the massive stadium subsidy.

Especially when they do so in City Council Chambers.

Thanks for all of your support,

Bill Bailey, Treasurer,
Santa Clara Plays Fair

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49ers' Stadium Subsidy Ticker: Secret Meetings and RDA Cash

2011-03-20T00:44:00.000-07:00

Dear Santa Clarans,

In late April of 2007, the San Francisco 49ers demanded that our City Council sign the "Confidentiality Agreement" with the team. This agreement forced our Council and Agencies to take certain dealings with the 49ers into Closed Session, out of the view of Santa Clara residents. The Closed Sessions are indicated, but not detailed, in the "Action Summaries" here.

Also, over roughly that same interval, the Redevelopment Agency has paid RDA cash to consultants on everything from the Feasibility Study to the Term Sheet - and now for the Disposition and Development Agreement, or DDA. A summary of those payments and to whom they have been made is here.

Santa Clara Plays Fair continues to track both the count of the secret Council/49er meetings, and the cash paid for "Stadium Studies." As of this date:

88: Number of Closed Sessions, 49ers and Council, since 5/1/2007.

$2,800,000: Total of RDA cash spent on 49ers consultants since 4/3/2007.

We'll publish this ticker periodically to keep Santa Clarans informed of the costs of the 49ers' stadium subsidy - both in dollars and in transparency.

Best regards,
Bill Bailey, Treasurer, Santa Clara Plays Fair

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49ers' Stadium Subsidy: The "Naming Rights" Myth

2011-03-12T14:36:00.000-08:00

Dear Santa Clarans,

Myth: "We're getting a Farmer's naming rights deal in Santa Clara!"

Please don't believe it.

The $700M Farmer's Insurance naming rights deal is for a football stadium not even built and with no NFL team. It's also likely that most of that money will go not toward stadium construction, but straight into the pockets of the millionaire NFL owner who can be persuaded to move in.

Farmer's Insurance attached these strict conditions to the deal: The venue must book 50 events, total, every year, and each event must have see a minimum of 40,000 ticket-buyers.

That's a total fantasy for Santa Clara - even if Al Davis becomes Jed York's tenant.

The real yardstick for a naming rights deal in Santa Clara is still Candlestick - where Monster Cable paid San Francisco a miserable $6M in four years.

Santa Clarans, please ask hard questions of "stadium boosters" making reckless claims about naming rights for the 49ers here in Santa Clara.

The Stadium Authority here is going to need every penny it can get - and Los Angeles doesn't have a thing to do with Santa Clara.

Thanks for all of your support,
Bill Bailey, Treasurer,
SantaClaraPlaysFair.org

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49ers' Subsidies: The Private Investment Myth

2011-02-23T12:17:00.000-08:00

Dear Santa Clarans,

It's time for a Subsidy Fact.

The real truth about the 49ers' subsidy was unfortunately obfuscated by Mayor Matthews in a KGO-TV interview here. Mayor Matthews states: "What we're funding is a municipal stadium that has a very small public contribution when we have a one billion dollar private investment."

I'm sorry, but that is simply not the case. There is nowhere near one billion dollars in private money going into any stadium in our city. In fact, the Agenda Reports of our own City Council make abundantly clear that the public "contribution" is really a massive subsidy totalling $444,000,000 and which amounts to 47% of the the stadium's construction costs alone.

The $114M upfront plus the $330M to be raised by the Stadium Authority doesn't even include what it will cost us to operate the stadium for the 49ers.

"Investment"? The stadium creates jobs which will pay less than $7,000 a year**, and it generates less economic activity than the Training Center itself. The use of the word "investment" should imply some return - returns which are sadly lacking with this "deal."

"Municipal Stadium" is precisely what the 49ers stadium isn't. We aren't building a stadium for Santa Clarans - we're subsidizing one for the 49ers. You'll find out how true that really is as we get deeper into the Development Agreement process. The stadium will barely be useful - much less profitable - to our new Stadium Authority. In fact, the 49ers have virtually assured that Santa Clara won't even make a fair return from the NFL games themselves.

With the RDA Amendment, and later with the Development Agreement, there will be a huge volume of blather designed to persuade us that subsidizing a millionaire's NFL team is in the interest of the city of Santa Clara. It simply is not.

Please. Speak out. Demand more "Stadium Facts."

If you have any questions about what you're getting in the press, ask anytime. What we don't yet know, we'll find out.

Thanks for all of your support,
Bill Bailey, Treasurer,
Santa Clara Plays Fair

-=0=-
** The 49ers themselves managed to blow their own case in May of 2010 when they admitted in one of their slick Measure J brochures that they were creating 2,600 (!) stadium jobs. That and an annual payroll of $17M gets you jobs working about 8 hours a week and paying less than seven grand a year. There will be no benefits, and certainly no bargaining units, for those workers. The "jobs" claim is merely a buzzword for the 49ers and the stadium boosters - nothing more.

The "Final Word" before the November 2nd Election...

2010-10-28T17:21:00.000-07:00

Santa Clarans, please do turn out at City Hall on Monday evening. This will be one last opportunity to hear our candidates for City Council and for Mayor before we go to the polls on Tuesday morning.

Final Word Forum
Date: 11/1/2010 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM
Cost: FREE

Location: City of Santa Clara - Council Chambers
1500 Warburton Avenue
Santa Clara, California 95050

Also, here is the latest release from City Hall concerning the ongoing fiscal problems we Santa Clarans face:

http://santaclaraca.gov//index.aspx?recordid=560&page=50

We encourage all residents to stay informed on just these issues - and to decide if they're a fair yardstick by which to evaluate the candidates on Monday evening.

Thanks for your support and best regards,
Bill Bailey, Treasurer

-=0=-

Candidates' Forum for Council and SCUSD Trustees this Saturday!

2010-10-15T02:26:00.000-07:00

Saturday, Oct. 16 10:00 am -12:00 pm

Rivermark Community Candidates Forum

Don Callejon School ~ Multipurpose Room

4176 Lick Mill Blvd, Santa Clara

Santa Clarans, please turn out this Saturday to meet all of the candidates - and please vote on November 2nd!

City Council Candidate Meet & Greet: Teresa O'Neill, 10/14 at 5 pm

2010-10-10T20:09:00.000-07:00

Meet & Greet with Teresa O’ Neill

Santa Clara City Council Candidate Seat #5

Come and meet with candidate Teresa O'Neill

Host Ms. Pat Rupel

Thursday, Oct. 14th 5 pm- 7 pm

2877 Taper Ave, Santa Clara

RSVP

Check out my website: http://teresaoneill.org

City Council Candidate Meet & Greet: Teresa O'Neill, 10/9 at 4pm

2010-10-08T13:02:00.000-07:00

Meet & Greet with Teresa O' Neill

Santa Clara City Council Candidate Seat #5

Saturday, Oct. 9

4:00 pm - 6:00 pm

Come and join your neighbors for an afternoon with candidate Teresa

Host Alice Pivacek & Frank Kadlecek

597 Bancroft St, Santa Clara

Please RSVP

Check out my Calendar of Events http://teresaoneill.org

Televised City Council Candidates Forum: Monday, 7-9 pm, City Council Chambers

2010-09-19T23:25:00.000-07:00

Santa Clarans, if you can attend, please come to the:

Televised Candidates Forum 2010

Date: Monday evening, 9/20/2010 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM

Cost: FREE

Location: City of Santa Clara - Council Chambers
1500 Warburton Avenue
Santa Clara, California 95050

The Forum will also be simulcast on Comcast Cable Channel 15.

Newsrelease (PDF)

Agenda (PDF)

Best regards,

Bill Bailey, Treasurer,

Santa Clara Plays Fair

-=0=-

The 49ers Stadium: Subsidizing a Bad Project

2010-09-05T14:30:00.000-07:00

Dear Santa Clarans,

This Wednesday, September 8th, our Planning Commission takes up the Rezoning and Tentative Subdivision Map which will allow the San Francisco to use City lands for their stadium - nearly half the cost of which will be paid or raised by Santa Clara agencies. The four-part report to the Planning Commission may be found here.

The DEIR for the stadium was released last July 30th, meaning that the stadium project has now been separated from its first Environmental Impact Report by over a year! However, the gross faults with that EIR process - and with the final document, certified by the City Council on December 8th, 2009 - still remain. Virtually none of the stadium's impacts on our community will be mitigated in any way.

Santa Clara Plays Fair urges interested Santa Clarans - especially if you live north of U.S. 101 - to attend the Planning Commission meeting this Wednesday evening and speak out on the stadium project. To quickly locate bullet items you're interested in, here is a quick two-page index.

Please share this with your neighbors: The 49ers stadium subsidy is a fiscal issue for all of us - but it's also a quality-of-life issue for those of us who live in Zip Code 95054.

Thanks for your continuing support,

Bill Bailey, Treasurer,
Santa Clara Plays Fair

-=0=-

Why is Silicon Valley Power Subsidizing the 49ers?

2010-06-16T10:41:00.000-07:00

Dear Santa Clarans,

By approving Measure J last Tuesday, Santa Clarans have chosen to subsidize the San Francisco 49ers with our electric utility's money.

The cumulative electric rate increases from January, 2006, through next January come to 33.9%. While they're considerable, those were in fact necessary to ensure the viability of our city's electric enterprise.

But why are we paying a total of nearly $20,000,000 to move a substation which does not need to be moved? We're being told by the 49ers to put Tasman just north of a residential area for no other reason than the faulty siting of their stadium. By cramming a 14-acre stadium on a 17-acre site, the 49ers are essentially blaming us for their problems and telling us that we have to pay to fix them.

Not because Tasman's falling apart. It isn't.

Not because Tasman needs immediate upgrading. It doesn't.

In fact, the saga of the Tasman substation move is not a pretty one:

In the April 27th City Council meeting, members of the public were told that they could comment only on the motion to defer the Tasman agenda item - but not on the squandering of the $20 million itself.

In May, we finally heard that the costs of moving Tasman would then be concealed from us by shifting it into the Capital Improvement Project Budget - but with Silicon Valley Power still picking up the tab.

Last night, the Capital Improvement Project Budget for the coming fiscal year was approved, including the first $12,500,000 of this $20 million giveaway (Project #2401 in Fund 591).

I'm sorry, but our priorities are completely wrong on this: We learned in this same City Council meeting that Silicon Valley Power's Cost Reduction Fund, or CRF, has dipped to $84 million - far below its $120 million recommended minimum.

How on earth can we justify blowing $20,000,000 to subsidize an NFL football stadium when our electric company's most important reserve is missing its target by 30%?

The very fact that the 49ers are generating additional losses in our electric utility as well as in our General Fund should be ample proof: We certainly don't need an NFL stadium in Santa Clara all that badly.

Santa Clara Plays Fair urges Santa Clarans to continue to speak out on this issue. Please address your comments to the Stadium Boosters on our City Council any way you can:

MayorAndCouncil@santaclaraca.gov
Tel: (408) 615-2250
Fax: (408) 241-6771

Thanks for your support and regards,
Bill Bailey, Treasurer,
Santa Clara Plays Fair.org

-=0=-
Santa Clarans, please return all election materials - including yard signs and stakes - to 1009 Las Palmas Drive. I've learned from Recology that yard signs WILL NOT be accepted in the blue recycling barrels, so we're asking residents to please return them to Santa Clara Plays Fair. Drop them off anytime.

49ers: $444,000,000 -- Santa Clara: ZERO

2010-06-09T09:24:00.000-07:00

Dear Santa Clarans,

We'd like to thank all of you who gave, volunteered and shared in the drive to defeat Measure J. We would never have accomplished as much as we did without your volunteer efforts and contributions. We played it fair. We were right on the facts and we treated our fellow Santa Clarans with the respect they've earned.

But the disappointing loss on Measure J isn't merely a loss for Santa Clara Plays Fair.

It's also a serious loss to the City of Santa Clara.

Measure J tells us that we can spend money like San Jose - and like Sacramento - and that we can get away with it. We can't.

The worst part is that Santa Clarans might finally learn exactly why Dr. John York 'isn't in the stadium business.'

The subsidy of Dr. John York's stadium is still wrong. It will not deliver for Santa Clara. We ask that all Santa Clarans step forward and that they oppose that massive giveaway. Please continue your involvement with Santa Clara Plays Fair - and encourage others to join.

We look forward to hearing more from more of you.

With best regards,
Bill Bailey, Treasurer

-=0=-
One other little note: Would everyone please return all "NO on J" election materials - walking and tabling materials, as well as all yard signs and stakes - to 1009 Las Palmas Drive? Look for the "Burma Shave" signs on the east side of Las Palmas between Benton and Homestead. Otherwise, call 1-877-703-4300 for pickup.

And please accept our thanks in advance. ---- B**2

Your Last Chance to STOP the 49ers Stadium Subsidy: PLEASE VOTE NO ON J !

2010-06-08T07:38:00.000-07:00

Dear Santa Clarans,

As Santa Clarans, we have on this one ballot the most important issue that our city has ever faced.

Measure J will tell us whether our future will be in the hands of Santa Clarans - or in the hands of the San Francisco 49ers.

The 49ers and their "stadium boosters" used the Confidentiality Agreement of April, 2007, to deny us voters information on the stadium subsidy to which we are entitled. They hijacked Senate Bill 43 to take from us control of our own City Charter. When they couldn't get the language they wanted on the ballot, they paid hirelings to get what they wanted - and they weren't even truthful with Santa Clarans while they were doing that.

What Measure J really means: We're being told that we "need to" hand $444 million dollars in public wealth over to a private corporation.

In return, we will get crumbs.

I believe that Santa Clarans will support a fair process. But there is no way that the last three years have been in any way fair to us: Three years have gone by with seventy-seven secret meetings between the 49ers and our City Council. Two million dollars of RDA cash have been spent on consultants and lawyers. Our city's budget will close this fiscal year $15 million in the red - and the 49ers stadium subsidy will make those deficits far worse in coming years.

Some people in other communities might just throw in the towel - but we don't think that our fellow Santa Clarans are the sort to give up. It's for this reason that we urge all of you: Please don't leave the job of protecting Santa Clara to others. We really need your help to defeat Measure J at last and to restore our city to us.

Please vote NO on Measure J. Encourage others to vote NO.

More than at any other time, the future of Santa Clara truly depends on you.

Thanks for all of your support,
William F. "Bill" Bailey, Treasurer

-=0=-

Those that pay the piper get to call the tunes

2010-06-07T07:33:00.000-07:00

I read with great interest Patty Fisher's SJMN opinion piece, in which she bemoans the fact that she doesn't get a vote on Measure J. All I could think was:

Where was Ms. Fisher 3 years ago, when a very small City first contemplated underwriting all the risks for a 68,500 seat, $1B, open air, NFL stadium?

If the fine Cities of Palo Alto, San Jose, and the rest of the South Bay -- together with the County of Santa Clara -- had chosen to participate in the process, I'm sure they could have influenced the outcome, resulting in a proposal in which the entire region could participate in all the risks associated with running a professional football stadium, rather than only getting a cut of the potential benefits.

In that case, Ms. Fisher, Larry Stone, and everyone else would have an opportunity to weigh in on this weighty matter.

Instead, we have a proposal with a far greater risk per capita than any stadium subsidy in history, for a mere .1% growth in economic activity.

The following says it all:

And if you are in the mood for watching movies, there are quite a few more at:

SCvoter

The 49ers' Stadium Subsidies: The Truth becomes a Casualty - Again

2010-05-18T10:30:00.000-07:00

Dear Santa Clarans,

Since 1987, the San Francisco 49ers have paid a pittance for the 11.2 acres of prime Silicon Valley real estate under their Training Center on Centennial Boulevard. Their payment last year? About $26,000.

The Hyatt Hotel just up the street paid nearly $1,500,000 for 1.8 acres.

At a debate at the Muslim Community Association debate on Sunday afternoon, Mayor Patricia Mahan made the breathtaking claim that this "sweetheart lease" (her words) was justified because the 49ers contributed "hundreds of millions of dollars" to improve the infrastructure in and around the Training Center site.

However, I have before me the 1987 lease for the Training Center, and I believe that it shows the Mayor's claim to be simply untrue:

Escrow Agreement of February 12th, 1987, page 3, Paragraph B: "...public funds have been budgeted for and allocated to the construction of Centennial Boulevard as a two (2) lane....half street..."

Escrow Agreement of February 12th, 1987, page 3, Paragraph C: "All connections for utilities, including without limitation storm sewers, sanitary sewers, water, electric, telephone and gas (the "Utilities"), have been made available to the Property boundary at no cost to LESSEE other than the development fees..."

(Emphasis mine. Click here for extracts from the lease.)

So, in fact, our city - and not the 49ers - made the Centennial Blvd. infrastructure a reality.

Yes. Sunday's gathering was a debate, not a City Council meeting. But as electors, taxpayers and ratepayers in Santa Clara, we're entitled to far more honesty on the issue of the Training Center lease than we've been getting. Material misrepresentations such as the ones we heard on Sunday - from an elected official, no less - don't add to our understanding. Rather, they make us less trustful of the institutions that are supposed to be looking out for us.

We've been subsidizing the 49ers since 1987 with that Training Center lease. However, the five Stadium Boosters on our City Council, instead of correcting that inequity, turn right around and demand that we extend it with Measure J!

We urge all Santa Clarans: Please stop the Stadium Subsidies - all of them.

Please VOTE NO on Measure J on June 8th.

Thanks for all of your support,
Bill Bailey, Treasurer,
Santa Clara Plays Fair

-=0=-

==========================

Sunday Night at the Movies

2010-05-09T22:39:00.000-07:00

There was a spirited crowd at Peterson Middle School on Wednesday night, eager to learn more about the most important City-wide initiative of the century -- Measure J, the Stadium Subsidy.

And, learn they did. Kolstad & Kennedy covered topics as varied as the technical minutia of redevelopment law, school financing, game-day public safety measures and the stadium's potential impact on our perilously overdrawn City budget.

They even discussed campaign finance reform:

While we were not able to capture every moment of the evening's proceedings, we have posted as much as we could on youtube, where you will find discussions on:

Stadium jobs
Traffic
School funding
Taxes
Economy & economic stimulus
Public safety
Stadium financing

Sit back, grab a bag of popcorn & let the good times roll!

The Mayor says: "Twice the mess!"

2010-04-30T07:21:00.000-07:00

There is a possibility that the Raiders will also use the proposed stadium.

Even some strong stadium supporters are lukewarm on the Raiders moving south. Mayor Patricia Mahan, a leader in the pro-stadium campaign, said doubling the days that would have football games in town brings twice the traffic, noise and parking issues for city residents.

"If I multiply by two, I have some hesitation about that," she acknowledged. "I really don't know."

But we have no say!

Councilman Will Kennedy, a Measure J foe, points out that the 49ers, not the city, control whether to sublease the stadium to the Raiders.

Source: San Jose Mercury News, Apr 30 2010

Stop the Bleeding -- Vote No on J!

2010-04-25T09:48:00.000-07:00

With this year's $13.5 Million deficit (expected to grow further next year) the City of Santa Clara is sinking from the ranks of fiscally sound, well-managed cities. It's saddening that we may lose yet another guaranteed $5 Million per year in rent from our fabled theme park, Great America.

Saddening, but not surprising. We already provide an annual give-away of $2.5 Million to the San Francisco 49ers' in the form of below-market rent on their training center.

Measure J extends that deal and expands the loss. The San Francisco 49ers would rent a brand new, state-of-the-art stadium for 25% of fair market value of the land it sits on!

Worse, they'd pay only 14% of the land's fair market value during the first 10 years of operation. Over the next two years, as our deficits sky-rocket, they'd pay nothing.

The Mercury News is hypocritical

2010-04-22T23:51:00.000-07:00

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

"Net Present Value" vs. "Actual Dollars"

2010-04-18T09:19:00.000-07:00

Mayor Mahan & Councilmember Matthews have revolutionized the housing market with their discovery that "net present value figures ... are based on outdated economic assumptions" and that we should focus on "actual dollars" paid over 40 years!

Madam Mayor, I'll buy your home for $1 million -- a good $100,000 over the current market price. I'll pay you in 2050. Do we have a deal? Can you vacate by next Tuesday?

Fair Market Rent for the proposed stadium site is currently over $1.8 million per year. Even with the new Mahan-Matthews Math, that should be worth over $72 million in "actual dollars." Too bad the 49ers LLC only signed up for $40 million.

This is a bad deal -- with or without the lies the Mayor is spreading.

The 49ers Stadium WILL raid the General Fund - Two

2010-03-30T10:20:00.000-07:00

Santa Clarans,

Last June 2, the San Francisco 49ers made a terrible mistake. They allowed this slide to go on the public record:

http://www.santaclaraplaysfair.org/docs/General_Fund_RIPOFF

The City Council's five "Stadium Boosters" voted to accept the entire Term Sheet - as defective as that document is - and that includes also the City Staff report containing the above facts.

In other words: City Staff told us - truthfully, and on the record - precisely how the 49ers' stadium subsidy damages our City's General Fund.

But the "Stadium Boosters," on and off of our City Council, really can't tolerate having Santa Clarans in possession of the truth. They're now trying to deny this General Fund loss.

Note, however, that the "Stadium Boosters" aren't willing to present anything in front of City Council, nor can they afford to be challenged on their claims publicly. They want to deny the truth by whisper and rumor - but they don't want to do that in a public forum where they would be forced to prove their case.

Santa Clara Plays Fair asks all Santa Clarans: Shall we trust in a City Staff who has done more than any other group to get the facts of the stadium subsidy before us? Or are we going to be fooled by the glib promises and slick propaganda coming out of the San Francisco 49ers?

The upfront "corporate welfare check" of $114,000,000 to the 49ers DOES cause the General Fund to LOSE $67,000,000.

Please: Don't be fooled by the hype and false claims of the "Stadium Boosters." Please VOTE NO ON MEASURE J on June 8th.

Thanks for all of your support,
Bill Bailey, Treasurer,
Santa Clara Plays Fair . org

-=0=-

The 49ers' Stadium Subsidy: Santa Clarans, Please VOTE NO ON J!

2010-03-15T14:27:00.000-07:00

Dear Santa Clarans,

If you visited the main webpage, you know it's official as of this morning: The Registrar of Voters has given us a letter for the 49ers' Stadium Subsidy Measure which will appear on our ballots on June 8th.

That giveaway is Measure "J," but we promise you, it's "No Joke!"

It's deadly serious, in fact. Tucked away in its bland, feel-good, "not-a-single-dollar-sign" language is a scheme to:

Hand the San Francisco 49ers $114,000,000 upfront,
Raise $330,000,000 more for them, and
Lose $67,000,000 out of our City's General Fund.

Unfortunately, this is a ballot measure bought-and-paid-for by the San Francisco 49ers themselves, and it's built on myth-making. Let's debunk those myths by adding a few dollar signs:

SAY NO TO THE 49ERS SUBSIDY!

If you have any questions about the real numbers behind Measure J - the numbers that the San Francisco 49ers are terrified you'll find - please contact us anytime, and we'll prove them with the City's OWN data and reports.

VOTE NO ON "J"une the 8th - Protect our City and its General Fund!

Thank you for all of your support,

William F. "Bill" Bailey, Treasurer,
Santa Clara Plays Fair

-=0=-

The 49ers and their Scare Tactics

2010-03-09T10:26:00.000-08:00

Dear Santa Clarans,

Dismayed that the facts simply won't support their case, the 49ers' stadium boosters have resorted to scare tactics:

"You'd better subsidize our stadium - or you'll lose your Redevelopment money to Sacramento."

Santa Clarans, when that walker for the 49ers stands on your doorstep and repeats this, please know that it is completely FALSE.

When you vote NO on the stadium subsidy on June 8th, you will not lose a penny to Sacramento. Your "RDA money," or tax increment, stays exactly where it is.

I've heard the above scare tactic personally - once in the Citizens Advisory Meeting of February 22, and twice more on my own street - and I've fielded at least a half-dozen telephone calls from residents calling me to inquire about it.

It's quite clear that the true story simply isn't going to come out of the San Francisco 49ers. Please contact us anytime if you have questions about this or any other issue involving the massive stadium subsidy.

We'll be happy to refer you to the actual City Staff or Agenda reports with the REAL Facts.

Thanks for all of your support,

Bill Bailey, Treasurer,
Santa Clara Plays Fair
1(877)703-4300

-=0=-

Aldyth Parle does NOT support 49ers initiative!

2010-01-12T20:45:00.000-08:00

Breaking news! Live from Santa Clara City Council!

Councilwoman Aldyth Parle has clarified her position. Ms Parle had previously appeared to support the 49ers' astroturf ballot initiative. She has now explained her intentions. Due to an illness in the family she missed some council meetings, and was not aware that Council was on track to put a measure on the ballot. She only agreed to support the initiative because she was led to believe that it is the only way that the voters will have a say. Now that she is aware of the facts, she wants her name removed from the list of astroturf supporters.

Updates:

Here are a copy and a video of Ms Parle's remarks:

Do NOT sign the 49ers petition!

2009-12-20T12:18:00.000-08:00

Click here for more videos.

Don't Sign the Petition!

2009-12-13T11:08:00.000-08:00

In Santa Clara, it takes something like 6,000 signatures to get a measure on the ballot. The SF 49ers have stated they will pay to get the signatures (generally those nice signature-gatherers in front of the Safeway, etc., are paid per signature.) This is stated in a letter from the SF 49ers for Tuesday's agenda.

The letter also includes a copy of their petition & proposal.

It all looks pretty innocuous. The verbiage of the proposed change to law is likely to be almost (if not completely) identical to what the City Council will put forward.

The pernicious aspect of this move is that with the SF 49ers' backed initiative, they can bypass CEQA.

The California Environmental Quality Act safeguards only apply to projects which are put forward by the City Council. So, the City Council could not put this on the ballot until everyone is satisfied with the Environmental Impact Report, proposed mitigations, as well as the City Council's acceptance of certain things that won't be mitigated (e.g., "Yeah, it will be loud & disruptive -- deal with it.")

This Tuesday's City Council (15 Dec 2009) has one agenda item (6B-1) which is basically a proposal for the City Council to step away from performing the due diligence for our city.

From the agenda report:

The Council can consider various options in how they review the stadium related materials on this evening's agenda:

Option 1: Take under review the staff's report dealing with the EIR's required Mitigation, Monitoring or Reporting Program and related ballot measure funding; or

Option 2: Have the 49ers present the initiative petition filed with the City Clerk and briefly address the substance of the initiative. If Council is satisfied with the community initiated petition process then it would not be necessary for Council to take action on the MMRP and related findings. Additionally, if Council determines that the Ordinance portions of the community initiative petition and the Council initiated ballot measure are sufficiently similar, then Council could continue discussion of their ballot measure language and the EIR's MMRP and related findings to a later date in January/February 2010 to allow the initiative petition process to proceed to qualification for the June 2010 ballot.

In other words, Tuesday night, the Council can vote to abdicate their responsibilities.

What can you do?

Come out & speak against this end run around our rights!
Send email to let the Mayor & City Council know you are outraged by their actions!
Send letters to the editor!
Spread the word!

49ers Stadium: The REAL costs of a $937M NFL stadium...

2009-11-30T22:27:00.000-08:00

Dear Santa Clarans:

Here are...

A member of Santa Clara Plays Fair helped me put together the above pie chart.

Now, you've already seen the team's own sleight-of-hand : Lump the contribution of a "Santa Clara Stadium Authority" in with the team's own contribution - and then try to tell Santa Clarans that we're only paying some 'fraction' of the stadium's cost.

Sorry, but it's not true. Not one penny of the 49ers' own money will go into the $330,400,000 contribution being made by any "Stadium Authority".

That joint-powers authority will be issuing some handsome pieces of high-risk, high-coupon paper - yes, that's more bonds - in order to raise a good deal of that money.

After that, they'll be squeezing concessionaires for deposits and selling fans some very expensive Personal Seat Licenses to raise the rest.

This is still very much a publicly-subsidized NFL stadium - and a "stadium authority" contribution to that is anything but 'funny money'.

Thanks for all of your support - as well as for contributions like this one,

Bill Bailey, Treasurer
Santa Clara Plays Fair

-=0=-
Ref.: City Council - Term Sheet of June 2, 2009 - Exhibit 14

Ref.: "The $800 MILLION MYTH"

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

SB 43: Putting a Spin on the Hijacking...

2009-10-12T14:13:00.001-07:00

Santa Clarans,

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.html

If 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

-=0=-
======================================
**$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
======================================

The 49ers Stadium WILL raid the General Fund!

2009-09-26T17:17:00.000-07:00

Santa Clarans,

During our visit to Sacramento on September 9th to voice our opposition to Senate Bill 43, we happened to expose yet another "Stadium Subsidy Myth".

Stadium Spenders have apparently given up on that throwaway line, "No New Taxes" - but they've unfortunately put a falsehood in its place: Before the Senate Committee on Local Government, one stadium supporter actually stated - falsely - that the stadium won't affect Santa Clara's General Fund.

Nothing could be further from the truth - a 49ers stadium in Santa Clara WILL raid Santa Clara's General Fund, and it will do so in two ways:

1. The RDA has previously bought land from the City, and it is paying the General Fund back for it. That payback agreement is referred to as the "Cooperation Agreement". However, if the Redevelopment Agency issues construction bonds for a stadium, RDA proceeds will have to be diverted away from paying back our General Fund and toward paying off those stadium bonds. The result is less proceeds to our General Fund, compared to what we would see if we never built an NFL stadium.

2. In order to issue those stadium bonds, the Redevelopment Agency - which is our current City Council - must pass an SB 211 amendment which will divert even more RDA passthroughs away from the General Fund. The cost to the City, the County and the Valley Water District was estimated at over $17M over the term of the bonds:

http://santaclaraca.gov/pdf/collateral/49ers-20090602-Report-on-Tax-Benefit.pdf
(See page 5 of 5.)

To see the true impact of a subsidized stadium on our General Fund, please see:

http://santaclaraca.gov/pdf/collateral/49ers-Term-Sheet-Presentation.pdf

...and page down to slide 48-of-55.

Over the long term, the Net Present Value of building NO STADIUM AT ALL is a $98 million increase to our General Fund.

Actually building a stadium REDUCES this to $31 million.

And settling for $67,000,000 less in our General Fund than we're entitled to?

Unfortunately, on June 2nd, our City Council approved exactly that when they voted 5-2 to accept the Term Sheet "as-is".

Santa Clarans, the City's General Fund was running a deficit of at least $5 million for the fiscal year just ended, and this deficit is only expected to grow in years to come. Subsidizing a one-billion-dollar stadium for the San Francisco 49ers doesn't help that situation. It makes it worse.

So, when someone falsely claims that a stadium won't affect our City's General Fund - the fund through which we pay our police officers, firefighters and librarians - you will always be able to point to the truth above...

...and it's in the City's own Agenda Reports.

Thanks for all of your support,
Bill Bailey, Treasurer
Santa Clara Plays Fair

-=0=-

49ers Stadium: The $800 MILLION MYTH

2009-07-09T13:52:00.000-07:00

Santa Clarans,

We're sure grateful to have met more of you in Central Park last Saturday before the fireworks display.

And we appreciate also the kind of City leadership that enabled our own city's fireworks to proceed while so many municipalities around us were forced to cancel their own. So, welcome to the visitors who took a place on the lawn and celebrated right along with us!

It's time. May I bust up another "Stadium Myth"?

This one cropped up several times in our outreach on the Fourth of July, and it bears some resemblance to the falsehoods previously published in the local press.

Looks like it's time to put a fork in it - again - to show that it's completely overdone:

Stadium boosters persist in the false claim that Santa Clara is getting a good deal 'because the 49ers are paying $800 million and we're only paying $100 million'.

That's completely untrue. The 49ers are not paying $800 million for any stadium, least of all for any stadium in Santa Clara.

Debunking this myth is a snap - we need only go to the actual exhibits from the Term Sheet vote by the City Council on July 2nd, 2009:

http://santaclaraca.gov/pdf/collateral/49ers-20090601-Exhibit-14.pdf

The true contributions to the construction costs of the stadium are:

$330 million: Santa Clara Stadium Authority
$114 million: City/RDA (Sum of $42M + $35M + $37M)
$493 million: Team/NFL

You can see the sleight-of-hand at work with this card trick: Stadium proponents still believe they're entitled to tack the Stadium Authority's contribution onto the Team/NFL contribution.

That's deceptive and it's untrue.

Let's be clear: The Santa Clara Stadium Authority will need to issue bonds in order to raise that $330 million - and not one penny of that money will ever come from the San Francisco 49ers or from the York family.

Let's be even clearer: Note that the Stadium Authority's bonds will almost surely have a much lower rating than the RDA's own bonds, meaning that the Stadium Authority will be under tremendous pressure to milk every possible revenue source to pay off their higher coupon, or interest: Naming rights, Personal Seat Licenses, an "Admissions Tax", concessionaire equity...

I have to ask - yet again: If a stadium has all the benefits claimed by its proponents, why do the 49ers and their stadium supporters feel the need to deceive us about the true costs of the stadium - and about who's really paying?

Thanks, Santa Clarans, for your support,

Bill Bailey, Treasurer of Santa Clara Plays Fair

-=0=-
For your convenience, here's a link to City Council Minutes and Exhibits, especially those from June 2 (Term Sheet vote) and June 23, 2009 (Convention Center Space Vote):

http://santaclaraca.gov/index.aspx?page=1359
(Page down to "June 2, 2009")

(December 4, 2009: Repaired link to new city website...)

49ers Stadium: A Yardstick for the "Term Sheet"

2009-05-26T13:42:00.000-07:00

Some Stadium Facts: It took over two years of secrecy with SIXTY-EIGHT closed-session meetings, not to mention spending $1.1 million of RDA money on consultants' fees.

But your City Council has finally set a date for a public session so that we can see the 49ers' stadium "term sheet".

At last.

This public session will be held on Tuesday evening, June 2, 2009, at 7:00 p.m. in City Council Chambers. Santa Clara Plays Fair urges as many residents as can possibly attend to be there - and that they make themselves heard.

Even if real numbers are going to be hard to come by until that City Council Meeting is held, there is a yardstick by which all Santa Clarans can "measure" the term sheet. That yardstick is the statement of "Guiding Principles", passed by City Council unanimously on January 9, 2007:

http://santaclaraca.gov/pdf/collateral/January_9_Agenda_Report_re_Proposed_49ers_Stadium.pdf

See page 4 and note the very first Guiding Principle: "No use or obligation of General Fund monies of the City of Santa Clara."

That means: There must be NO loss to the General Fund of any kind. Not only must a stadium deal not cause direct debits to the General Fund - but the stadium must not stop payments to the General Fund that we're entitled to.

That's another way of saying: Don't just look at the General Fund; look at the payments it is lawfully entitled to from the Redevelopment Agency, as well as any payments from a Stadium Authority we might choose to create. The General Fund should show only net gains.

Santa Clara Plays Fair urges all Santa Clarans to hold our City Council to the same standards that they agreed to over two years ago, and that they evaluate any "deal" with the San Francisco 49ers against these Guiding Principles.

Owing especially to the serious fiscal challenges that our City - and we ourselves - are facing - we shouldn't be settling for anything less than that.

Thanks for your support,

Bill Bailey, Treasurer,
Santa Clara Plays Fair

49ers Stadium: The Truth about the 'Lion's Share'...

2009-02-08T16:22:00.000-08:00

Concerning the true costs of an NFL stadium in the City of Santa Clara: One preposterous claim ** printed in the San Jose Mercury News on November 17th, 2008, told us that "well over 70 percent of the bill will be borne by the 49ers and the NFL."

The City's own figures prove that to be utterly false:

$222.0M: Santa Clara Public Equity
$330.5M: Santa Clara Stadium Authority
$363.3M: 49ers and NFL
-------------------------------------------
$915.8M: TOTAL

Note that the team-and-league contribution is a mere 39.7% of the total - but that our RDA and a Stadium Authority - a joint-powers authority not yet formed - will be forced to cough up the remaining 60.3%.

Late news even reveals that the NFL is now pleading poverty, and will not contribute to any stadium here. That will put even more pressure on the public contribution being demanded by the 49ers.

Unfortunately, Tim Kawakami, sportswriter for the San Jose Mercury News, also repeats the same math-challenged assertion *** by referring to some "potential $600 million to $800 million share" down to the 49ers. This is also false.

Both of these distortions rely on a little sleight of hand: Lumping the Stadium Authority contribution in with the team's minority share.

Stadium Facts urges Santa Clarans to read the City's own reports - and to be very careful when evaluating claims by stadium fans. As 2009 goes forward, there will be a war of words waged by stadium subsidizers - and not all of their output is going to be truthful.

If the stadium is as good a deal as its supporters are claiming: It shouldn't be necessary to distort the truth about who's paying for most of it - should it?

Best regards,
Bill Bailey
Treasurer, Santa Clara Plays Fair
http://www.santaclaraplaysfair.org/

** Update on February 24th, 2009: The link to the original Letter-to-the-Editor is dead. However the original can probably be had from the Mercury News' archival service (for a fee). I stand by my citation of that letter as quoted above. The link to the Kawakami article is still active.

*** Update on April 26, 2009: It took a few months, but the link to Tim Kawakami's article finally aged and is no longer active. But his original opinion piece can still be had from the Mercury News' archives.

Environmental Impact Process

2008-08-20T10:48:00.000-07:00

The long-awaited Environmental Impact process for the proposed SF 49ers stdium has begun. You have until Sept. 15th to voice specific concerns with the proposed stadium's impact to the environment and our quality of life.

The first step in the EIR is for the public and interested agencies to provide input on specific concerns they have with the physical aspects of the stadium. These concerns can include noise, traffic, parking, light pollution, visual concerns, impact to the environment.

There will be two public scoping meetings held on Sept. 2. These meetings are an opportunity for the public to provide verbal input on specific areas the EIR should cover. Written input can also be provided. All input is due by Sept. 15th, 2008.

This input, together with regulatory requirements and input from staff, will form the basis for the EIR. The EIR will assess the risks and impacts of the identified concerns, and propose ways to mitigate those concerns.

The outline for the EIR is posted at:

http://santaclaraca.gov/pdf/collateral/49ers-20080818-Stadium-Project.pdf

Now is your time to act.

Read the outline, write down all your concerns. In addition to the meetings on Sept. 2nd, comments or questions may be directed to the project manager, Jeffrey Schwilk, at 408-615-2450 or jschwilk@santaclaraca.gov or by postal mail at:

City of Santa Clara
Planning Department
c/o Jeffrey Schwilk, AICP
1500 Warburton Avenue
Santa Clara, CA 95050

Mary Emerson for City Council

2008-08-16T12:16:00.000-07:00

"We must be the change we wish to see in the world."

-- Mahatma Gandhi

After watching city politics for the past few years, I have come to realize that our city and our communities are the direct result of what we put into them. I would like to serve the City by representing you on City Council.

My analytical skills and business experience complement the other skills on City Council. I will fight for fiscal accountability, ensure community involvement in decision making processes, work for transparency of City Government, and advocate for green initiatives.

Please check out my website at:

maryemerson.org

If you like what you see, please help spread the word by talking to your friends and neighbors, endorsing me, contributing or volunteering to work with me on the campaign.

I would be deeply honored to have your vote & your support!

Regards,

Mary

Held Hostage by Ghosts of the Future

2008-06-06T04:19:00.000-07:00

The SJMN reported Wednesday that the likelihood of seeing the SF 49ers Stadium proposal on the November ballot is increasingly remote.

"[Y]eah, it's looking like that may not happen in November," Councilman Will Kennedy said.

We've spent over a year of blood, sweat, tears (not to mention big bucks) on this project. Over $1 Million in consultants, unknown hours of City Staff time on analysis, and almost weekly Closed Session meetings chaired by Senior Staff -- all while other RDA projects are effectively put on hold.

Questions Santa Clara residents should now be asking themselves and their City Government are:

How much more money & valuable (albeit unaccounted for) staff time can we afford to put into this project?

What good is the SF 49ers' promise to cover construction cost-overruns only through 2013, when the multi-year project won't break ground until after 2010?

How much longer can we NOT fund RDA projects vital to the city's well-being because $136 Million is being held hostage by the increasingly unlikely prospect of negotiating a n acceptable deal with the SF 49ers.

The City's dirty little secret is that while RDA money may be earmarked to partially fund a number of important projects, those projects will not go forward until they are fully funded.

To illustrate the point, look at just one highly visible RDA project: the long-awaited Northside Library.

The city has reserved $17.7 Million in the RDA budget for the Northside Branch Library. But an additional $3.365 Million is needed for LEED certification and the expanded Community Room. Despite the City's stated commitment to this project, they have made it clear that until all funds are identified, there will be no library in the Northside.

And what is competing for a library to enrich the education and lives of our Northside neighbors?

$136 Million reserved to subsidize the SF 49ers stadium.

I wish the SF 49ers good luck with their other prospects -- San Francisco, Brisbane, maybe even LA. Because Santa Clara voters are too smart to trade in our infrastructure and mortgage our hard-earned future for the profit of an out-of-state corporation.

It's the subsidy, stupid.

2008-06-02T07:39:00.000-07:00

San Francisco voters will go to the poll tomorrow to decide whether the City of SF should "encourage the development of a site in Hunters Point Shipyard for a new stadium."

Note that the text of this Proposition G says nothing about SF residents having to pay for any part of the stadium.

San Jose Mercury News columnist Ann Killion essentially called Prop G a lose-lose proposition for the 49ers:

If Proposition G wins, ... [it] could compromise the team's appeal to Santa Clara voters: Why should the small pool of Santa Clara voters pony up $160 million for a stadium when San Francisco voters have approved a measure that would cost [SF] virtually nothing?

If Proposition G loses, ... it ... would weaken the team's leverage with Santa Clara: removing their most viable alternative, while creating an anti-stadium climate.

This is why concerned residents of Santa Clara have been opposed to the deal all along: it's the subsidy. Thank you Ann!

The fiancé keeps his options open

2008-05-12T11:41:00.000-07:00

On Sunday, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that the SF 49ers are talking to Brisbane city officials about a new stadium. They "are just looking to add some insurance in case" other options don't work out.

That engagement ring is looking more tarnished all the time.

StadiumFigures.com

2008-05-07T21:58:00.000-07:00

Stadium Figures, a website published by another concerned resident, examines something that hasn't got a lot of coverage: the proposed stadium is directly on the flight path of airplanes in and out of San Jose Airport.

This raises a few issues:

Noise. The predominant wind direction around here is out of the North. Airplanes take off into the wind. They will be at full power when they fly over the stadium. This stadium doesn't have a dome.
Accidents. The stadium is within the "General Aviation Aircraft Accident Location Pattern"

And unlike all the big bad wolves who are huffing and puffing for NFL football, Stadium Figures are not blowing hot air. They've got references to back up all their facts and figures. Check it out.

Make that a box of Cracker Jacks

2008-04-02T21:58:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I spoke prematurely in accusing the San Francisco 49ers of giving the city a cubic zirconium engagement ring. At least that would be pretty, unlike what this deal is turning into.

We just learned that the initial project applications filed by the San Francisco 49ers is not yet complete. Without a complete application, the city can not even start the ball rolling on the environmental impact report...

It kind of makes you wonder if their heart is really in this, no?

Cubic Zirconium

2008-03-16T17:48:00.000-07:00

"It's kind of like getting the engagement ring," Mahan said regarding Santa Clara City Council's decision January 15th to move forward with negotiations to subsidize a stadium for the San Francisco 49ers.

"I'm ecstatic," Jed York, son of team owners John and Denise DeBartolo York, said after the 6-1 vote.

San Francisco 49ers officials stated that paperwork would be filed first thing in the morning to start the Environmental Impact Report required for the stadium.

But something seemed to have been lost in the translation from ecstasy into action, as the billionaire's corporation did not submit paperwork first thing the next morning.

In fact, it was 8 long weeks before the SF 49ers made the very first move in getting the paperwork done for a stadium. March 14th, they ponied up a paltry $14,113 to start the review process for building a 68,500-seat stadium in Santa Clara.

It would appear that Santa Clara's suitor is treating us like the dumb cousin of our exotic neighbor to the north.

And Mme. Mayor, you might want to check your finger. That engagement ring just might turn it green.

"An all-out blitz"

2008-03-10T06:53:00.000-07:00

... an all-out blitz to win a multimillion-dollar sweetheart deal from [elected officials] ...

Is this Stadium Facts ranting about the recent wave of glossy mailers from the San Francisco 49ers to voters in Santa Clara? Nope.

Despite making an eye-popping $20 billion from TV deals ... [this football operation] desperately wants to make $600 million more by taking eight games a year off of free TV and hiding them on the ... new NFL Network.

Is this some football-hater, carrying on about corporate greed and politicians with questionable ethics? Nope.

This is Duriel Harris, former All-Pro wide receiver for the Miami Dolphins, in his letter to the editor of the San Jose Mercury News. He concluded:

This only hurts the fans who love our game the most... It's not too late for the NFL to resolve to treat fans right in 2008.

You can read the full letter here.

All that and the Brooklyn Bridge, too?!

2008-01-24T19:17:00.000-08:00

Editorial cartoonist Steven DeCinzo won 1st Place for Best Cartoon from the Association of Alternative Weeklies in 2000. He has penned a number of incisive panels on the 49er's proposal. The latest appeared in this week's Silicon Valley Metro:

The Brooklyn Bridge has of course been the scourge of gullible people since 1901. A hundred years from now, will cartoonists be drawing NFL stadiums instead?

Here are some earlier commentaries from Mr DeCinzo:

Feasibility Study: $111 million Impact to the General Fund

2008-01-13T20:28:00.000-08:00

The numbers are in, and the proposed stadium subsidy adds up to be a big fat loser for the city of Santa Clara. The city's General Fund would lose $111 million in cash, lost revenues and opportunity costs. To see where all that money goes, check out this presentation.

You will see that NFL events will provide no financial benefits to the city. In fact, in this proposal, the City would have to subsidize NFL events with revenue from non-NFL events. Rather than enriching a for-profit enterprise, let's focus on the needs of real Santa Clarans.

We can do better than this. We must do better than this.

What about the schools?

2008-01-13T19:45:00.000-08:00

Redevelopment Agencies (RDA) divert the majority of property taxes collected in an RDA district to development, with the net effect of starving cities and schools.

At some point, the state realized how damaging this can be, and passed SB211. Under SB211, any minor change to the RDA forces the RDA to relinquish some of their sheltered money back to specific groups -- notably schools. This is called an SB211 amendment.

The stadium subsidy would require the RDA to borrow $65 million, thus forcing them to do an RDA amendment.

SB211 doesn't require a stadium. In fact, the RDA could pass an SB211 amendment today, triggering those pass-through payments, but has chosen not to do that.

Moreover, if the RDA borrows more money, they will not be able to repay their RDA debt early (which the city is currently on track to do in 2020.) Once the debt is paid off and property taxes revert to normal distribution, schools will actually get significantly more than they get with SB211.

So, if you take the long view, an SB211 amendment would not be good for the schools. But if you feel the schools are really hurting today, and that they need a near term injection of cash, you don't need a stadium. You just need to pass an SB211 amendment.

Subsidy opponents interviewed on KPFA

2007-12-28T08:33:00.000-08:00

This morning KPFA, 94.1 FM, interviewed Byron Fleck, a founding member of our sister organization NotWithMyMoney.org. You can listen to a recording of it here -- fast forward to about the 33'42" mark.

Also on the show was Neil deMause, co-author of the seminal book "Field of Schemes: How the Great Stadium Swindle Turns Public Money Into Private Profit," and the wesbite of the same name.

KPFA is listener-sponsored, and has been broadcasting from Berkeley, CA since 1949.

Just barely above junk bonds

2007-12-05T12:11:00.000-08:00

The 49ers would like Santa Clara taxpayers to believe that building, owning and operating this stadium will be a fabulous investment of our money. Better than buying Google stock at $100, or Sunpower at $25.

Some members of City Council are all but ready to put on Gold Rush outfits to repeat that chant.

But if it's such a screaming good deal, why haven't the 49ers themselves scooped it up yet? Or the city of San Francisco, which has been looking this over even longer than we have?

Well, one source for impartial opinions turns out to be the bankers, because to build a 68,000 seat stadium, the city will have to borrow a lot of money. The bankers are the ones who will have to take a hard look at the deal and decide how risky it is. The bankers have no personal attachments to this, only their money. And money itself is neutral.

At the November 20 City Council meeting, David Brodsly, the city's own bond consultant struggled to spit out the cold hard facts: the Stadium Authority bonds will be BBB-rated -- just one step above junk bonds!

Besides the bruised egos ("They think our pride and joy is junk!") there is also the practical matter of bond interests. Safe loans have lower interest rates. Risky loans have higher interest rates (think pay-day loan.) Higher interest rates drive up the total cost of borrowing of money. Ultimately this will make it harder for the stadium to break even.

Nobody on City Council batted an eyelash at this. Here we are, mortgaging our future for this white elephant, but nobody even registered a reaction when a disinterested bystander calls it a turkey.

Here's a video clip of the remarks, with a transcript:

Santa Clara resident Don Buchanan: "What kind of a rating do you think this bond will receive?"

David Brodsly, Managing Director, KNN Public Finance (the city's bond consultant): "The two bond issues that are ... umm ... being contemplated by the Stadium Authority ... they would be the [inaudible] ... the ... the admissions bond would probably be in the BBB level which is the bottom of the investment grade range, that's ... it's ... that ... it's the less certain area of the market, but that's ... that's a good guess standing here today."

Tough Love

2007-11-21T07:45:00.000-08:00

San Jose Mercury News sports columnist Tim Kawakami comments on an interview with SF 49er owner Denise DeBartolo-York:

HURRY UP SANTA CLARANS! Denise D-Y demands your fealty! You will watch her 2-8 football team and you will LOVE IT. AND HER! AND YOU WILL PAY HER! NOW!!!!

The 49ers are losing 2-8 this year, so far. They were 7-9, 4-12, and 2-14 in the last 3 seasons. And yet they want Santa Clara to subsidize their stadium to the tune of $287,000,000, by our estimates.

Compare and contrast...

The New England Patriots are 10-0 this year, so far. They were 12-4, 10-6, and 14-2 in the last 3 seasons. They built their stadium entirely with private financing. And Patriot fans did not need to buy personal seat licenses, either.

Support our Niners! Make them pay for their own darn stadium!!!

White elephant

2007-11-07T21:42:00.000-08:00

white elephant, n. 1. an Indian elephant of a pale color that is sometimes venerated in India, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and [Burma]; 2a. a property requiring much care and expense and yielding little profit; 2b. an object no longer of value to its owner but of value to others; 2c. something of little or no value. Merriam-Webster Online.

White elephants are rare albinos that are highly prized by the kings of Thailand, Burma and other Asian countries. Thanks to their special status, they don't have to work as beasts of burden, like their normally pigmented cousins. However, just like regular elephants, they are large animals with large appetites. Therefore giving someone a white elephant is considered both a gift and a curse.

According to Mahidol University (Thailand,) because of ...

... the inordinate cost of maintaining a white elephant ... [such a] gift could easily induce bankruptcy if not also accompanied by a grant of land. So singular an honor as a white elephant could obviously not be refused, but without land it was subtly barbed -- an indirect criticism which apparently cooled the heels of excessively ambitious minions.

So instead of "Oh boy, we are going to own a billion-dollar stadium, and it will only cost us a couple of hundred millions," maybe we should be asking "Why do we have to pay $222,000,000 to scoop up elephant droppings?"

The cold, cruel truth

2007-11-06T20:37:00.000-08:00

These words of wisdom are from Ray Ratto's recent article on the A's stadium — Time to call A's owner for crying wolf on stadium — but the analysis holds just as true for the current San Francisco 49ers' request for a massive public subsidy from the City of Santa Clara . . .

the cold, cruel truth, proven again and again by economists everywhere, is that stadiums have not paid off for anyone except for the team owners.

Starbucks on Mars

2007-11-05T23:53:00.000-08:00

The article is almost a year old — A stadium in Santa Clara? You'll be dead before it happens — but every time I read this line . . .

There will be a Starbucks on Mars before there's a 49ers stadium in Santa Clara.

. . I have just a little hope that fiscal sanity will triumph over reckless spending in Santa Clara. [And if it doesn't, maybe the latte run will be just a bit more exciting.]

Thanks Scott Ostler!

A quick thought

2007-11-04T01:43:00.000-07:00

If contributing $222,000,000 and 15 acres of land to a project AND assuming the risks of stadium operations were such a great deal, why can't the San Francisco 49ers find private investors willing to invest private money into this project?

The fact that they have turned instead to the City of Santa Clara to ask for a massive public handout for this project is perhaps the best evidence that this enormous gift of public money is a poor investment.

One of Silicon Valley's many claims to fame is its venture capital firms, and if the 49ers can't find private investors in this area (or anywhere else, for that matter) to partner with them, then they should not expect the City to provide the money for them.

The New England Patriots have proven that football stadiums can be built with little to no public assets. The 49ers should take a page from their play book.

Two teams, one stadium

2007-11-03T01:00:00.000-07:00

Mercury News sportswriter Ann Killion raised an interesting idea in a recent column — maybe the 49ers and Raiders should build a stadium together, just as the New York Jets and New York Giants are doing.

As Killion writes in her article "A's, 49ers trailing on stadium scoreboard"

Football stadiums are a questionable investment for everyone except a football team. Because of their size, they can be used only for NFL games, the occasional big soccer game, random bowl game or rare mega rock concert. NFL football stadiums are guaranteed for only 10 dates a year. Factor in the handful of other events suitable for such a venue, and you're lucky to push that number to 15 events a year.

And that's worth almost a billion dollars?

If it could be built and operated with private funding, a joint stadium would certainly make much more economic sense. Whether such a stadium — even one funded privately — would fit in Santa Clara, however, is still an open question.

What about the intangibles?

2007-11-02T07:07:00.000-07:00

"Your lovin' gives me such a thrill. But your lovin' don't pay my bills."

"Money (That's What I Want)" Written by Berry Gordy and Janie Bradford; made famous by four Englishmen from Liverpool

So far, most of us who are opponents of the stadium subsidy have focused exclusively on the financials, because it is after all our money, and it is a lot of our money -- about $2000 per resident!

At the SCPF press conference, we were asked "What about the intangibles?" In other words, what about the supposed prestige ^* of having an NFL team in our city.

In a nutshell, "Intangibles don't pay my bills!"

But as long as we're examining non-economic impacts, there are are plenty of other issues that we have not looked at. Here are just two:

Crime: two weeks ago, there were two shootings in the parking lot of a Bay Area football stadium, one before and one after a game.

Our neighbors in Sunnyvale looked at potential impacts of a stadium, back in February. Their report can be found here. They found that at Monster Park on 49er game days, the police have to deal with
... drunk in public, fights, and auto burglaries. During an average game, SFPD makes six arrests, issues three misdemeanor and 25 infraction citations, and reports one traffic collision. (page 7)
Is this what we want with a family-oriented amusement park next door? Or in the so-called entertainment district?
Traffic: Sunnyvale's report also found that:
Tasman Drive and Lawrence Expressway ... would likely operate at Level of Service “F” with severe traffic delays... Access between ... side streets and westbound Tasman Drive would be severely congested. (page 6)
If it's this bad a mile down the road in Sunnyvale, imagine what it will be like at the stadium gates. Forget about coming to or going from Great America, Mission College, the Mercado, or Rivermark.

Of course, all this additional crime and traffic will cost money. Sunnyvale concluded that

An increased need for traffic and public safety services is likely. (page 8)

The hit song "Money (That's What I Want)" is an interesting parallel to the stadium subsidy, on a couple of different levels.

It neatly sums up the uselessness of intangible benefits.
The people who put the most into it are not the ones who got the most out of it. Berry Gordy and Janie Bradford wrote it. The Beatles got all fame and fortune.

--

^* It's arguable there is no prestige because Santa Clara's name will not get top billing. The San Francisco 49ers have already said they will not change their name. This is not surprising -- the Arizona Cardinals and the Dallas Cowboys did not change their names either when they got new stadiums (in Glendale, AZ and Arlington, TX respectively.) If Santa Clara were known for anything then, it would be as a bunch of gullible patsies.

A cynical observer

2007-11-01T01:50:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, Mercury News sportswriter Tim Kawakami had some interesting observations on the San Francisco 49ers' Santa Clara stadium proposal.

As he wrote in his post "The 49ers’ Ashley Lelie: A weird symbol of a confusing franchise",

The 49ers are asking for about $200M in public money (which I believe will probably be jacked up to $250M at some point), and yet they can just go ahead and say, well, why don’t we just purchase and operate a theme park while we’re at it?

This makes sense? To whom? Perhaps in the near future the Yorks can just ask Santa Clara for $2 billion and then decide to buy SeaWorld, too. Lots of syngery there, I’m sure.

I hope you'll follow the link above and read the post for yourself (the stadium issue is about halfway through the post.)

Going turbothermic...

2007-10-28T21:47:00.000-07:00

In 1911, Ambrose Bierce, a San Franciscan journalist, wrote the Devil's Dictionary, a satirical book that lampooned political double-talk. It is fitting that we pay homage to Bierce today, when San Francisco and double-talk are very much in the news.

An updated edition of Devil's Dictionary might have an entry like this:

turbo·thermic, adj. From turbo- (to blow) and -thermic (of or related to heat.)
1. Blowing hot air.
2. Characterized by huffing and puffing, e.g. subsidy supporters trying to blow down Santa Clarans' house of fiscal responsibility.

Have you ever wondered where subsidy opponents get our numbers? The short answer is, they all come directly from reports produced by the city's consultants, or by city staff.

For a slightly longer answer, let's look at the three myths listed in the "Myth Busters" flyer. This flyer was handed out at the Art & Wine Festival by the Santa Clara Plays Fair coalition, of which StadiumFacts is a member.

Myth: the stadium project would create thousands of jobs.

Fact: the number of jobs is just over 500. Note the fine print: "FTE = Full Time Equivalent. Per CS&L." Because of the highly seasonal nature of the jobs, many of them will be part-time. Their sum total is equivalent to 515 full time jobs.

Source: report from Keyser Marston Associates (KMA, consultants hired by the city) dated June 1, 2007, page 8.

(Click on this small image for a larger version.)

By the way, KMA is in agreement with CS&L on this. CS&L are the consultants hired by the 49ers themselves. CS&L's job is to make the deal look as good as possible. If all they can come up with is 515, then anybody who tells you "thousands of jobs" is just going turbothermic, i.e. blowing hot air.

Myth: the stadium project would make a lot of money for the city.

Fact: the stadium would generate $650,000 of general fund revenue per year, from a city contribution of $222,000,000.

Source: KMA report dated June 1, 2007, page 8, and Implementation Plan and Timeline for the "City of Santa Clara Principles and Priorities for 2007-09," dated July 12, 2007, page 15.

(Click on these small images for larger versions.)

Myth: the stadium project will generate a lot of economic activity.

Fact: an office building would generate over 4 times the economic activity, while requiring no subsidy. Besides, if the city is going to "invest" $222,000,000 (assuming a subsidy can ever be called an "investment,") then the return-on-investment is the only bottom line that matters to the city. Keep in mind that the $650,000 annual return to the city discussed above already includes taxes on the $85 million in economic activity. How much revenue other private businesses might gain, or how much salary are being paid to football players, are secondary factors.

Source: KMA report dated June 1, 2007, addendum.

(Click on this small image for a larger version.)

Furthermore, subsidy supporters who cite the $85M as a benefit are being disingenuous because

they neglect to mention the comparison to an office building,
only $41M of the $85M is actually new benefits; the rest comes from the existing 49ers training center -- the colloquial term for this is "double-dipping." Here is the KMA report again, page 2:

(Click on this small image for a larger version.)

Notes:

The KMA report can be downloaded from here.
The Implementation Plan and Timeline for the "City of Santa Clara Principles & Priorities for 2007-09" can be downloaded from here -- click on REPORT under item 5F.

Last week, prominent subsidy supporter and former Councilmember Lisa Gillmor used the term "fuzzy math" to attack KMA's (and CS&L's!) numbers.

This is a curious phrase to use in this context, considering its history.

In the first presidential debate of 2000, George W. Bush repeatedly used the phrase "fuzzy math" to attack statements made by Al Gore, and to defend his own tax cuts for the rich. According to a CNN poll taken immediately after the debate, most people thought Gore won the debate, 48% vs. 41%.

Why are subsidy supporters jumping on this losing bandwagon?

Infinity not as infinite as it used to be

2007-10-25T12:57:00.000-07:00

The feasibility study is not done. No contract has been signed. But already the flip-flopping has begun. The issue is cost overruns, both during construction and operation of the stadium.

At a meeting with the community in May this year, SF 49ers Director of Strategic Planning Jed York tried

to convince skeptical Santa Clarans that they would not be exposed to financial risk, either during construction or once the stadium opens.
"The 49ers' risk is infinite," Jed York, son of 49ers owners John and Denise DeBartolo York, told church members and other city residents Wednesday night at a meeting at the Resurrection Lutheran Church. "In your doomsday scenarios, we are taking that risk."

In September, a flyer distributed by the 49ers at the Art & Wine festival says the offer is still good:

No, there are absolutely no hidden costs. The city and its residents will not be responsible for cost overruns or operational shortfalls.

Here is a picture of the flyer. Click on the image to see a close-up of the highlighted part:

Earlier this month, however, York took a giant step back from that claim. In an interview with Mark Purdy, a sportswriter for the Mercury News, York changed his mind about that willingness to assume all risks:

". . . if you're losing money, the 49ers are going to write a check to the city council at the end of the year to the city general fund to make up for any losses that occur at a football game.''

But since the 49ers only play at home 10 days a year, does that mean the city is on the hook for the other 355 days? What about maintenance costs? Will they be apportioned by the same ratio, i.e. the city is responsible for 97% of all maintenance cost overruns?

infinite, adj.
Having no boundaries or limits.
Immeasurably great or large; boundless.

Interview on KKUP 91.5 FM

2007-10-24T08:13:00.000-07:00

This morning Michele was interviewed by Don Cormier and Yolanda Reynolds on the Free and Clear show, KKUP 91.5 FM.

There were a report on our tabling at the Art & Wine Festival, as well as updates about the press conference to announce the formation of the Santa Clara Plays Fair coalition.

Click on the KKUP logo below for a recording (53MB MP3 file.)

"Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain."

2007-10-20T00:01:00.000-07:00

Former Mayor Gillmor, the power behind the throne in Santa Clara politics, publicly excoriated Cedar Fair this week. The owner of Great America apparently committed a whipping offense when it raised objections to the proposed stadium. Cedar Fair was "acting in [its] narrow self-interest," according to Mr Gillmor.

Let's draw an analogy.

Imagine you are renting a nice little bungalow. One day the landlord just shows up, unannounced, with a casino operator. They proceed to discuss building a card club, right where your garage is.

Would you be upset? Of course you would. You might even oppose the deal. Is that "acting in [your] narrow self-interest?" Most people would say, no probably not. Certainly nobody could blame you for your objections.

So here's Cedar Fair. The owner-operator of the Great America theme park has been renting land from the City for years. They have a long term lease. They pay a fair rent^*, which is more than their neighbor, the SF 49ers, can say.

Now this neighbor wants to build a stadium where Cedar Fair's parking lot is. Apparently nobody got their agreement in advance. Cedar Fair understandably doesn't think this is such a great idea. Nobody can blame them for that.

Or can they?

Mayor Gillmor thinks he can. But since when does a private business have to act in anybody's interest but their stockholders'? It sounds brutal, but that's capitalism, which Mr Gillmor surely knows a thing or two about.

If this episode says anything, it is that the 49ers stadium deal is on life support. Why else would the éminence grise himself have to come out from behind the scenes to stump for it? The simple fact is that the 49ers are demanding an exorbitant subsidy from Santa Clara taxpayers. Furthermore, they are so fixated on the feeding trough that they forget to say "Pardon me" to their neighbors.

In the words of City Manager Jennifer Sparacino, we Santa Clarans should strive to treat all parties "fairly and equally, without special favors."

--

^* Cedar Fair pays the city "at least $5.3 million annually in rent" for the Great America property. For their training camp next door, the 49ers pay "about $24,000 a year - less than what it costs to rent some two-bedroom apartments nearby."

Truthiness Illustrated

2007-10-12T11:45:00.000-07:00

Mark Purdy posted the full transcript of his interview with Jed York yesterday. It makes for very interesting reading.

There is one point in particular that caught my eye. Near the end of the interview, Mr. York made the following comment:

"... with the city's investment of $160 million, not only are they seeing revenue that's occurring from a 49ers game, they're also seeing direct revenue from the ancillary events, the 14 to 20 major events that can happen here. So the city of Santa Clara can see anywhere from $2 million to $10 million a year in net income going to their general fund because of the stadium being here."

Assume for the moment that his figures are correct. Is this a "good investment"?

$2 million per year over the 30 year life of the stadium would not even repay $160 million.
$10 million per year is equivalent to the 49ers Corp. making payments on a 30 year mortgage at 4.75%.

The really sad news is that the city's consultants and the 49ers' own consultants have yet to show the public how the general fund could net anywhere near $2 million per year. The Keyser Marsten report shows $700,000 per year. (Referenced below.)

Moreover, the initial subsidy from the city is $222 million -- $160 million cash plus $62 million for a new garage and moving the power substation. (Referenced below.)

As an MBA with experience in the finance industry, Mr. York surely realizes what a bad investment this would be.

References:
See the last page of the Keyser Marsten report at the following location:
http://ci.santa-clara.ca.us/pdf/collateral/49ers-20070605-Agenda-Report-Eval-49ers-Economic-and-Fiscal-Benefits-Study.pdf

For reference, see page 15 of the report under agenda item 5F on the July 17th meeting summary at:
http://cityclerkdatabase.ci.santa-clara.ca.us/wx/pubhtml/pubhtml/3010.html#July-17-07Regular

One wild ride

2007-10-10T18:51:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I wrote that the City Council should not spend any more money on studying the San Francisco 49ers' stadium subsidy request until the City had a signed agreement from Cedar Fair.

I didn't really expect the City Council to postpone this request for additional money, but today's press release from Cedar Fair — "Cedar Fair opposes proposed 49ers stadium" — is precisely the reason why the City of Santa Clara should have obtained a signed agreement with Cedar Fair before spending a dime of taxpayer money on studying the proposal.

Cedar Fair's opposition isn't a complete roadblock to the stadium proposal — in its press release, Cedar Fair states its willingness to "consider selling the remainder of its lease and all of its interest and assets to the City or 49ers for fair market value" — but its opposition completely changes the circumstances of the proposal. If the City Council still wants to move forward with this proposal, it needs to study the feasibility in light of these new conditions.

The San Francisco 49ers, however, were quick to provide an alternative plan — they'll just buy the theme park.

A couple of problems with this new proposal.

First, as Santa Clara's Deputy City Manager Carol McCarthy told the San Jose Mercury News "Any sale requires the city's approval and is contingent on having a class A theme-park operator . . . with proven financial ability to operate it."

So, to use a baseball metaphor, strike one.

Second, the San Francisco 49ers have asked the city for $222,000,000 in public assets plus 15 acres of land to build the stadium. If they don't have the money to build their own stadium, how can they afford a theme park? And if we the taxpayers are subsidizing their place of business, is our subsidy helping them to acquire more business assets? Should public money be used to help a wealthy team owner buy even more private assets?

Strike two.

Finally, in many of their presentations to city residents, the 49ers have tried to claim that they want the City to operate the stadium because they "are in the football business, not the stadium business." (My previous responses to that claim have been "our city isn't in the stadium business either" and "that's a little like Intel saying its not in the office building business." Intel certainly isn't in the office building business, but it didn't use that argument to try and convince the city to build an office for them.)

But if the 49ers don't want to be in the stadium business, why on earth are they considering a leap into the theme park business? Shouldn't they stick a little closer to their core competencies?

I'll call that strike three.

Is this latest theme park idea just a last-minute desperation strategy? Are the 49ers merely clinging to any shred of hope that this proposal is viable? Do the San Francisco 49ers need to keep up the image that the Santa Clara plan is viable in order to put pressure on San Francisco to complete its proposal? Once the San Francisco proposal is in place, will the 49ers still be talking about venturing into the theme park business?

Time will certainly tell, but until then, be sure your seat belt is fastened and keep your arms and legs inside the car at all times.

It looks like it's going to be a wild ride.

UPDATE:

According to Julie Patel's article in the Mercury News today — Niners eye new spot for possible stadium — there may be another option. The proposed stadium site would be moved to an overflow parking on the other side of San Tomas Creek. But if they used this site, the 49ers would need to resubmit all of their site plans and traffic analysis, and the City would have to develop a plan to replace the parking Cedar Fair would be losing.

So this is yet another reason the City Council should have received Great America's approval in writing before spending any money even studying this proposal. As Ms. Patel writes in her article: "Whatever happens, the shifting debate is bound to cost the city of Santa Clara more time and money, on top of the $500,000 approved to research a stadium."

Back to school

2007-10-09T10:50:00.000-07:00

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!

The rich are different from you and me

2007-09-26T12:28:00.000-07:00

Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me. They possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft where we are hard, and cynical where we are trustful, in a way that, unless you were born rich, it is very difficult to understand. They think, deep in their hearts, that they are better than we are because we had to discover the compensations and refuges of life for ourselves. Even when they enter deep into our world or sink below us, they still think that they are better than we are. They are different.

F. Scott Fitzgerald, “The Rich Boy,” All the Sad Young Men (1926).

To which I might add, "The rich are greedier than you and me." Consider this:

When Forbes first analyzed ... the value of NFL teams in 1998, the magazine valued the 49ers at $254 million... A rising economic tide of network television contracts and new stadiums has been raising the NFL's boats ever since... Forbes pegs the 49ers' value at $799 million in 2007.

"New stadiums lift NFL teams' value," Mike Swift, SJ Mercury News, 09/20/2007.

That's more than 3X increase in 9 years, or about 13% per year. Try to find that in your neighborhood bank's CD offerings.

Even the stock market didn't do nearly that well in the same time period: not the Dow, not the S&P500, not even the NASDAQ came close to doubling between January 1998 and 2007.

So what would you call this?

greed, n. An excessive desire to acquire or possess more than what one needs or deserves, especially with respect to material wealth.

TheFreeDictionary.com

Commonwealth Club discussion on "The Future of the 49ers"

2007-09-18T23:31:00.000-07:00

Two weeks ago, I was invited to be a guest at a Commonwealth Club panel discussion entitled “After Further Review: The Future of the San Francisco 49ers.” The panelists were: Michael Cohen, Director of Base Reuse and Development, City and County of San Francisco; Ann Killion, Sportswriter, San Jose Mercury News; Patricia Mahan, Mayor, Santa Clara; and Carmen Policy, Former President and CEO, San Francisco 49ers and Cleveland Browns. The moderator was Dan Ashley of ABC7 News.

It was a fascinating discussion.

I was most surprised by two issues. First, the San Francisco stadium plan is quite serious and moving ahead quickly. Michael Cohen, who is in charge of the redevelopment efforts at Hunters Point, made it clear that while they were shocked at the Yorks' sudden withdrawal from negotiations last November, they quickly regrouped and developed an aggressive stadium development schedule. They met with the 49ers organization last December to present their new timetable, and to date they have met every one of the benchmarks on that new schedule.

The second surprise was the very strong sentiment expressed by three of the four panelists that the 49ers should stay in San Francisco. While I expected Michael Cohen to be in favor of the site, it was probably Carmen Policy who painted the most vivid picture of the possibilities of the Hunters Point location. Policy was clear in his belief that the 49ers’ first priority is a new stadium, but he was also clear that even if the San Francisco deal is not quite as good, the team should stay in San Francisco. In fact, Policy indicated that “if the NFL had its druthers, the 49ers would stay in San Francisco,” as Mercury News reporter Mike Swift noted in his article about the discussion – “49ers Decision a Year Away.”

Cohen answered many of the objections that I have heard about the site and outlined the plans for transportation improvements in the area.

Ann Killion also expressed strong support for the team staying in San Francisco, and she knocked down many of the myths promoted by stadium supporters in Santa Clara.

While Patricia Mahan talked about an “entertainment district” in Santa Clara, Killion replied that football stadiums are not like other types of professional sports facilities. She said that with a football stadium, 70,000 people come in 10 times a year to see the game, and then they turn around and leave. They don’t stick around and spend money.

She also noted that public subsidies for stadiums are a very hard sell in this area because we have the examples both of what can happen when public subsidy goes wrong (see Raiders, Oakland) and of how stadiums can be built without public subsidies (see Giants, San Francisco.)

Mayor Mahan started reading a list of cities smaller than Santa Clara that host NFL football teams, but the moderator interrupted to say that it wasn’t about the size of the city, it was about the money. [As we’ve discussed here before – "A tale of two cities."]

I would highly recommend tuning in for the broadcast of the discussion. It will be aired this Thursday, September 20, on 1590AM. Here are the full details:

Thursday, Sept. 20, 2007
KLIV-AM 1590 kHz
7:00 PM and 10:00 PM

If you miss the broadcast, you may be able to listen to it or purchase a recording of it at the Commonwealth Club website. It’s not yet available there, but I will update this post with a link as soon as it’s available.

If you want to learn more about the stadium issue, this discussion provides an excellent analysis of the situation and the state of the current proposals.

Three million Benjamins

2007-09-09T16:57:00.000-07:00

Photographer Chris Jordan has a new series of works entitled "Running the Numbers: An American Self-Portrait."

He created this portrait of Benjamin Franklin using images of 125,000 $100 bills — $12,500,000 representing "the amount our government spends every hour on the war in Iraq."

To depict the $222,000,000 subsidy that the San Francisco 49ers have requested from the City of Santa Clara to build a football stadium, we'd need about 18 of these expensive portraits. [And if you include the value of the land the City has been asked to donate — for a grand total of about $287,000,000 in subsidy— we'd need 23.]

Either way, that's a lot of Benjamins.

The 700 Pound Gorilla

2007-09-06T11:37:00.000-07:00

Funny you should mention Great America, and their parent company Cedar Fair.

Back in January, the Santa Clara Mayor and City Council formally adopted a set of principles for evaluating the 49ers stadium proposal. These included a requirement that Cedar Fair agree in writing to not interfere with the stadium feasibility study, and that this agreement was required prior to pursuing discussions with the 49ers.

Here it is September, with no agreement in sight. The Mayor is saying that Cedar Fair's opposition is "the most substantive" problem delaying the feasibility study. However, "We haven't come up against one obstacle, or one factor, that violates our principles for going forward," Mahan said. (SJMN, Sept 4 2007)

Hmm... I think we have a touch of selective amnesia going on here.

The Odd Couple, or Here We Go Again

2007-08-16T15:10:00.000-07:00

It's more than two months old this time and it's getting stale. But in fact, it's just a reprise of the idea that first floated to the surface back in January: A marriage of convenience between Al Davis' Raiders and the York family's 49ers.

Now, the problem isn't the Raiders themselves, but the team's owner, Al Davis, who has been hauling multiple parties into court and suing them since before the Raiders split from Los Angeles. Millions of dollars in legal fees have been squandered by all sides - and that level of litigiousness certainly makes this Santa Claran wonder why the idea is even being proposed - again.

We thought this was properly dealt with back in January by Raiders Chief Executive Amy Trask, who simply said in essence that the Raiders would be concentrating on the current season in a stadium they're simply thrilled with, and that they are not actively seeking out the 49ers as business partners.

But like a zombie, this 'joint stadium' idea has come to life once again, walking the streets by night and claiming more victims, many of them credulous 49er Faithful. This time, on May 29, a columnist from the Sacramento Bee blew some more zombie powder in the creature's face.

True 49ers-Raiders synergy? Not a chance - and to their credit, neither author above really attempts to make such a limp case. Rather, the 'sticker shock' of what will likely be a one-billion-dollar stadium proposed for our City of Santa Clara has some 49ers business-office people looking for more ways to make others feel their pain.

But what the article fails to underscore is that any such partnership of the Yorks and Al Davis makes Davis a partner of the City of Santa Clara as well. Santa Clarans should be looking at any such agreement with deep suspicion, based on Davis' past dealings with the County of Alameda. Such a cooperative venture involving Mr. Davis may turn out to be anything but "cooperative".

In fact, Al Davis' latest lawsuit against the NFL was finally thrown out by the California Supreme Court only on July 2. If all we have to look forward to in any future dealings with Mr. Davis is more frivolous litigation, this Santa Claran strongly suggests that our guest be handed his hat and escorted to the door.

Note also that the Raiders' lease at McAfee Coliseum is over in 2010; they'll have to do some real tap-dancing to keep themselves there year-to-year until 2012. But Alameda County and the City of Oakland are still on the hook for the $200M worth of debt they used to fix up the Coliseum in 1996 - and that debt, on which Oakland and the County pay roughly $11M per year, will not be retired until the year 2025.

The likelihood of the NFL allowing another franchise into McAfee, with two teams just down the road? Just about nil. If Lew Wolff does finally get the green light to move the A's to Fremont, only the Warriors will be left in the smaller Oracle Arena. We note a similar situation from the 1990s, when both the Rams and the Raiders left Los Angeles.

All of this makes one wonder how long the 49ers will commit to staying in Santa Clara. Now, that will be at least until Santa Clara pays off its obligations in the years 2033 or 2038, right? Hello?

You could also ask Oaklanders about their likely reaction to Al Davis and his Raiders skipping out on yet another dinner check in any move to Santa Clara - but you'll probably want your kids out of earshot first.

Now, there is an idea in the latest article that that should get honorable mention: Having Al Davis and the Raiders be full contributing partners in any stadium - as long as that lets the City of Santa Clara completely off the hook.

That's mere speculation on the part of one sportswriter right now. So kindly permit this reader to take his suggestion one step further: If the two teams prove they're serious about this - that they'll (1) finance the entire stadium cost privately, (2) assume total ownership of the stadium, (3) mitigate its use of all City services such as police overtime and (4) waive any and all tax abatements - this stadium opponent might get on board.

But if Al Davis, whose team is in financially worse shape than most of the other NFL franchises, jets down from Oakland demanding the currently-proposed level of corporate welfare from the City of Santa Clara, we residents should be up in arms: If the millionaire owners of the 49ers are not entitled to a public dole of over two hundred million dollars, the Raiders - after the litany of abuses by their owner in Oakland - certainly are not entitled to benefit from that giveaway either.

Al Davis could end up costing the City of Santa Clara a lot more than he's worth. Just ask the Alameda County Board of Supervisors.

Remembering Bill Walsh

2007-08-03T00:01:00.000-07:00

First, I’d like to express my condolences to Bill Walsh’s family, the San Francisco 49ers and their fans on the death of this great man.

Bill Walsh was a man I admired. He brought intelligence and creativity to football. Each game was like a carefully planned chess match, but with a difference. He taught his players to adapt quickly to changing situations and to take advantage of opponents’ mistakes. He motivated them to strive to be better than they ever imagined they could be.

In the early 80’s the 49ers under Walsh’s tutelage were truly golden. I know; I was a fan. I saw “The Catch” and couldn’t believe my eyes. My then ten-year-old son and I bonded by planning and hosting a party for Superbowl XVI. I was a single mom and scored major “cool” points with my son and his friends for doing this.

However, we never attended any games; we couldn’t afford to. My salary barely paid the rent and other bills; we lived month-to-month. But we cheered for the team when we watched them on TV.

Now my son has a family of his own. He works in a blue-collar job in the Pacific Northwest. They can’t afford to go to football games either. Ticket prices are too high. Concessions are too expensive. Parking fees prevent them from parking anywhere near the stadium. And the kids get too tired walking long distances to and from the game.

Instead, they attend their local baseball teams’ games. The team offers “family packages” at an affordable price that include four tickets, hot dogs, and drinks. There’s a playground at the stadium for the kids. Parking is free. Players are accessible. There are even fireworks after every game.

So you see I’m not against sports, the 49ers, or football stadiums in general. I just don’t want my city to be burdened by even further debt when by 2012 (according to the city’s own budget projections-see note below) Santa Clara’s general fund will once again show a deficit.

And I want a stadium that is accessible to all, not just a few.

Using the new Arizona Cardinals stadium as an example I did a search for tickets in the “nosebleed” seats for the Cardinals vs. 49ers game in Arizona on Nov. 25, 2007. Single tickets cost $67.00 each. In addition, they add a $10.10 “convenience charge” and a $4.50 “building facility fee” for each ticket. That adds up to $326.40 for four people for one game not counting food or parking.

I understand, of course, that perhaps a ticket for a child may not cost as much, but the Cardinals’ web site doesn’t indicate that. And season ticket holders would pay a bit less per ticket. Still, that’s one heck of a lot of money for one day’s amusement. That would be far beyond the reach of many, many people in our community.

Surely in our pursuit of projects for our “entertainment district” north of Bayshore the city could be smart and creative like Bill Walsh. Let’s be flexible and wise and perhaps we, too, can be better than we could ever have imagined ourselves to be.

Erlinda Anne Estrada

Note: From the table “Twelve Year Resource and Expenditure Trend, General Operating Funds” in City of Santa Clara's Proposed Capital Improvement Project Budget 2007-08

The Primary Fuse - On the OpEd by Mike Swift, SJMN, Aug. 2

2007-08-02T14:23:00.001-07:00

Mike Swift's informative piece in this morning's Mercury News is a reminder that any decision on a stadium in Santa Clara for the 49ers won't be made in a vacuum. The politics of primary voter turnout will have an big influence on that question - and on all of us who live in Santa Clara.

I have not a clue of how Santa Clarans would vote on a stadium in February 2008 or next June. But I would urge all City residents: If you live in Santa Clara and you are not registered to vote, please do so with the County Registrar immediately. If you don't vote, others will be making the stadium decision on your behalf - and on behalf of future generations of Santa Clarans.

I appeal to residents North of U.S. 101 in particular. I note that no one from the North Side is seated on our City Council. One way to assure that your neighborhoods are not treated as mere extensions of an overblown entertainment district is massive, all-out participation in any election that is held.

Finally, as to any question of an 'advisory' vote - which would simply permit our City Council to do anything it pleases after merely tolerating the noise and haste of citizen input - please write, email, telephone the City Council, and make abundantly clear that any 'advisory' vote is completely unacceptable:

MayorandCouncil@ci.santa-clara.ca.us

For the sheer size of the commitment on the part of us as Santa Clarans, and due to the several generations of Santa Clarans who will end up paying for our folly today, we have earned nothing less than a BINDING resolution on any billion-dollar public project - a project which includes a $222M sudsidy to a private, profit-making corporation owned by a millionaires. It doesn't matter whether the City Council raids the Utility Reserve Fund or it makes Silicon Valley Power move the Tasman electric substation out of the utility's own pocket - we're absolutely entitled to a binding vote on any expenditure for a stadium.

We can only repeat what we have long held, and what the pro-stadium forces refuse to address: The Yorks should be buying their stadium themselves, and not demanding welfare from the City of Santa Clara merely in order to squeeze more out of the NFL. And if stadium ownership were the generator of jobs and income that they claim, they would have no problems owning and running such a facility themselves. But this they will not do - and Santa Clarans are asking them just why they will not.

Please. Get involved. Register. Join Stadium Facts and our sister organization, Not With My Money. Make your voices - and your votes - heard.

Many thanks.

From the inbox

2007-08-01T00:25:00.000-07:00

It's been a few weeks since we've had the opportunity to open up our inbox and post an email from one of our readers, but I'm glad we have the chance to do so this week.

Today's letter comes from Santa Clara resident Susan H., who lives in a neighborhood very close to the location of the proposed stadium. She sent us a copy of the letter she sent to the Mayor and City Council, and we are posting it here with her permission:

Dear Mayor Mahan and Council Members,

We have been living in the area near the proposed stadium site for the past 30 years. We’ve seen changes such as new housing developments in place of where the stable used to be, and erection of the power stations, the Niners training camp and soccer field, as well as improvements to this area, especially the addition of Rivermark Plaza. All was fine and added value to a quality of life to the area residents.

However, I cannot see the benefit of having a stadium near our residential area because facts have always shown that property value will decrease in areas near any stadium, not to mention the noise pollution, environmental pollution, and excess wear and tear on our local roads, not to mention the decrease in the quality of life in our neighborhood. We certainly do not welcome the sound of construction going on for the next few years as well.

Since the City is planning to subsidize this project with public money, then it should be put up for a public vote. You need to allow the public to decide, not just amongst the Council. I urge you to place this up for a public vote for the sake of the residents in Santa Clara, as well as your integrity. This is a republic country and we should have a say so in how our tax dollars are spent. If you do not allow us to vote, then it would be no different from a dictatorship. I urge you to give this much reconsideration and thoughts. I am sure that you would want to leave a positive legacy, not a negative one. Thank you.

Sincerely,
Susan H.

It's no surprise that all of us at Stadium Facts share Susan's concerns about the impact a stadium would have on Santa Clara, and Susan summarizes these concerns well. For those residents who live in the immediate vicinity of the proposed stadium, those impacts are even more significant. The years of construction would be just the start. Once the stadium is opened, anyone who lives anywhere near the stadium will have to contend with street closures and restrictions, increased noise and traffic, and increased crime.

NFL football stadiums are not an asset to a neighborhood, and if property values in these neighborhoods fall, the city will collect less in property taxes. In fact, at least one study suggests that simply announcing plans to build a publicly-subsidized stadium can cause property values in the entire city to decrease.

In their study The Impact of Stadium Announcements on Residential Property Values: Evidence from a Natural Experiment in Dallas-Fort Worth, economists Carolyn A. Dehring, Craig A. Depken, II, Michael R. Ward found that

. . . a series of announcements regarding a new publicly-subsidized stadium in nearby Arlington, Texas, had a deleterious effect on residential property values in Arlington. In aggregate, average property values declined approximately 1.5% relative to the surrounding area before stadium construction commenced.

Every property owner in Santa Clara, especially those who live closest to the proposed stadium, should be concerned about this evidence.

We also support Susan's call for a public vote on any proposal that would require any public financing for or operation of a stadium. The City Council should WANT the support of the residents for any project of this size.

Thanks for writing Susan! I hope you'll continue to contribute to the discussion.

Cities and the stadium business

2007-07-30T13:55:00.000-07:00

At his blog Field of Schemes, Neil deMause, co-author of the book Field of Schemes, recently summarized an excellent special report from the Baltimore Sun of the pitfalls of stadium ownership for cities. As he writes in his post Aberdeen: How not to build a stadium deal,

It's an outstanding reminder that when it comes to stadium finance, it's increasingly less about who pays the initial bills than about who reaps the revenues down the road.

The experience of Aberdeen is a cautionary tale for any city considering the possibility of operating a professional sports stadium. As Aberdeen's current mayor said in 2005,

Municipalities, especially this one, shouldn't be in this type of business.

The San Francisco 49ers have requested not just $287,000,000 in public assets for the construction of the stadium. They have also requested that the City of Santa Clara create a Sports Authority, which would both assume an additional $330,464,000 in bond debt and operate the stadium.

And taking on debt and operating the stadium are two additional risks, as the experience of Aberdeen demonstrates.

I hope you'll read the full article at the Baltimore Sun website, but here are a few interesting highlights:

Every game has been a sellout since the 6,000-seat stadium opened in 2002. Companies such as Bank of America have paid to be sponsors. . . .

But even on days like this, when the city-owned stadium is packed, Aberdeen loses money.

This is an important cautionary note — a full stadium does not equal profit for the city.

The Harford County community owes $6.7 million in stadium-related debt, and millions in interest, on a payment schedule stretching to 2022. The city's stadium fund has posted operating losses that total more than $1 million since 2001, forcing Aberdeen to dip into its treasury.

And these debts and operating losses are for a small, minor league stadium. The debt and potential for operating losses will be much bigger for an NFL stadium.

In closed-door negotiations, Aberdeen signed over to the Ripken businesses most of the money to be made from the baseball games. City officials had intended to cover the bills in other ways, including fees, taxes and a deal with Nottingham Properties to develop adjacent land. But the city's contract with Nottingham contained no penalty for delay. The land remains mostly acres of dirt.

Under the current proposal from the San Francisco 49ers, the breakdown of revenue streams is the same, with the notable exception of stadium naming rights, personal seat licenses, concessionaire rights, etc. But these revenue streams are NOT profit for the Stadium Authority — the 49ers' proposal calls for the Stadium Authority to borrow against this expected revenue in order to build the stadium. Like the Aberdeen IronBirds, the San Francisco 49ers will make most of the money from the actual football games.

The city, with a general fund budget at the time of just $7.6 million, pledged $4 million.

Most minor-league stadiums are owned by larger jurisdictions that can spread the costs over bigger budgets - the situation in Prince George's County, where the minor-league stadium is overseen by a multi-jurisdictional authority.

What's particularly interesting to me about these numbers is that even in the case of a minor league baseball team, cities look to spread the cost over a larger region. And Aberdeen pledged a little over half of its annual general fund budget to the project. The current San Francisco 49ers' proposal calls for Santa Clara to take on FOUR AND A HALF TIMES its annual general fund budget for a stadium. The scale of the subsidy request is simply shocking.

The city was counting on a ticket tax and the potential for parking fees, advertising on a billboard and non-baseball events. The tax raised about $140,000 the first season, but the city had little success attracting concerts, banquets or similar functions. In 2002, those events brought in only $2,000.

The trickle-down profit scenario outlined in the 49ers' proposal depends on not simply attracting other events, but making a profit from these events. If there is no profit from outside events, no money will be set aside for capital improvements, and I'm sure we can all guess who will be on the hook for those expenses.

"The Ripken family has put Aberdeen on the map," said [Former Mayor Douglas S.] Wilson, after rattling off the names of major leaguers such as Orioles right fielder Nick Markakis who have passed through Aberdeen. "To create that in a small government, to be able to have a minor-league baseball team, I mean, it's pretty phenomenal."

We've seen the same sort of thinking here in Santa Clara. Instead of addressing the very real financial costs and potential risks, stadium supporters draw on such far-fetched comparisons as the Wright brothers and the moon landing.

Instead of such wishful thinking, we need to focus on the very real financial risks involved in the stadium business.

After all, if there was money to be made in operating a stadium, don't you think the 49ers would want to do that themselves?

What does Cedar Fair want?

2007-07-29T02:56:00.000-07:00

Mark Purdy, one of our more thoughtful South Bay sports commentators, wrote a neat essay in the San Jose Mercury early Friday morning on the current rumble between Cedar Fair and the San Francisco 49ers. However, only in his last couple of paragraphs does he touch on the concerns that we Santa Clarans have about subsidizing a billion-dollar stadium with $222 million of public money. We certainly have no such "money" lying around. It will be nearly all public debt which we'll be paying off for many years - all to subsidize a millionaire football team owner.

Getting back to the article itself, Mr. Purdy notes: "Well, what about the opportunity for a theme park corporation to partner with the NFL and one of its most high-visibility franchises?"

I seriously question what kind of partnership that would be, as you'll have a different breed of customers for each venue. The expense of a stadium is so great, it is difficult to imagine that season and individual ticket sales alone will close the gap. Some form of "Personal Seat License" could well be imposed - and Great America visitors won't see the inside of any new stadium unless they shell out for a seat license like everyone else.

Before PSLs for the Oakland Raiders were finally eliminated in late 2005, they ran from $250 to $4000. When 10-game season tickets first took the place of PSLs in Oakland, they ranged from $470 to $910. A current seat map of McAfee Coliseum shows those same ten-game tickets now running from $260 to $1510. How any new "Stadium Builder's Licenses" will be priced for a new stadium in Santa Clara - not to mention the season ticket prices - is the stuff of pure speculation. Simply start with Oakland's example and work your way up from there. In the end, boosters of any stadium in Santa Clara may be in for a rude shock when season ticket - and possibly SBL - prices are finally posted.

Now, Mr. Purdy is right to question Cedar Fair's flip-floppy statements on the stadium proposal. But he appears to be saying that the current agreement on parking spaces for Great America gives Cedar Fair unfair veto power over the stadium. It does not. If Cedar Fair has plans for the future of Great America that would bump up its attendance figures - and fill up a parking area they're contractually entitled to - then they're well within their rights to insist that their needs be honored. Changing that agreement could force the City to accept less in revenue from (or agree to some cash compensation to) Cedar Fair. Either has an immediate negative impact to the City's General Fund - at the same time that compensating revenues from any football stadium are far from guaranteed. In short: A deal's a deal, guys.

Maybe Cedar Fair is as shrewd as Mr. Purdy seems to suspect. With that, here's pure speculation from this writer: Could Cedar Fair also be holding out for televised promotion of Cedar Fair theme parks around the country during 49ers games? It's amusing to contemplate our "roller coaster company" trying to make sense of the NFL's television blackout rules - rules designed to compel local ticket sellouts. In short, sell out your stadium 72 hours in advance of a game - or no game goes on the air for 75 miles. I'm oversimplifying this, I know. But it would sure be a kick if Cedar Fair were to find itself unable to promote Great America on TV in its own city due to poor ticket sales at the football stadium next door.

We could speculate on these corporate intrigues all day.

As a Santa Claran, however, I still oppose the stadium in general - and any corporate welfare for the millionaire Yorks in particular.

Our city - we taxpayers - will incur a debt of approximately $222,000,000.00 in order to hand that tribute over to the 49ers. Our debt service per year on any such amount will certainly wipe out the paltry $5M in rent the 49ers are offering to the Santa Clara Stadium Authority. That, plus those parking tax revenues dangled before our eyes, all accrue to the Stadium Authority - and not to the City's General Fund.

It gets worse: Depleted G-3 Fund or not, the Yorks are squeezing us for money so that they can then squeeze the NFL for more money. They want to use Santa Clara's money to improve their own cash flow and also to make their own private asset - the team - more valuble on the open market. Other NFL owners likely see such a rising tide lifting all boats, and you can be sure that they are delighted at such a prospect. That's still no reason to build a one-billon-dollar stadium in our city, and it's certainly no reason to hand millions in public monies over to a millionaire team owner who should be funding any stadium on his own or with the NFL.

But the worst problem with giving corporate welfare to the San Francisco 49ers is that it sets a dangerous precedent: Once we issue debt - or steal from the City's Utility Reserve - and hand those proceeds over to a private, for-profit sports franchise, we'll never be able to stop future "needy" millionaire welfare clients from doing the same thing. Their rationalization will be that, since we subsidized the York family from the public purse in 2008, we will have to do it again. And again.

We should be as concerned about that precedent as we are about Cedar Fair's parking spaces.

I do urge fellow Santa Clarans to beware - this is not the deal we think it is.

What about housing?

2007-07-25T16:10:00.000-07:00

Sunday's Mercury News published a thoughtful and thought-provoking article. The author, John Conover, writes about the continuing and desperate need for more affordable housing in the Silicon Valley. No surprise there. What is of interest is that he writes from a business perspective -- he's a bank CEO. His argument is that more affordable housing is just plain good business:

In a global economy, business must be able to attract and retain top talent to be competitive. Yet with the median home costing $794,000 in Santa Clara County and $840,000 in San Mateo County, many middle-class workers are priced out of our market. Or they make a grueling commute for a few years, and then find jobs closer to where they can afford to live. Call it the "revolving door" of hiring. We've seen the quality of life in our communities erode as teachers, firefighters, police officers, and even our own adult children move away.

Given this obvious need, perhaps housing would be a better use of the land that many on our beloved council want to donate to the indigent York family. Talking just pure dollars and cents, would that benefit the city more than a massive multi-million dollar gift to a private corporation?

Increasingly, various communities have latched onto the idea of "smart growth," which according to Smart Growth Online "has a greater mix of housing, commercial and retail uses" than the sprawl that typifies much of the development of the past half century. By comparison, smart growth development is less costly to maintain, especially when the costs incurred by environmental and social problems are also considered. Some smart growth developments take the form of "infill" development, using underutilized land already serviced by many city services and thereby maximizing the investment of those services.

What would be the long and short term benefits of providing housing in an area surrounded by shopping, entertainment, employment and mass transit? I would think that such benefits could be quantified, especially in relation to our strapped city budget. I'd hope that when the city staff comes out with their recommendations on this plan, that housing was at least considered as an alternative.

Stadium proposal discussion on KKUP 91.5 FM

2007-07-24T12:53:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow morning — 7:00 am, Wednesday, July 25 — Don Cormier at KKUP 91.5 FM will be interviewing a couple of people regarding the proposed San Francisco 49ers stadium in Santa Clara.

I hope you'll tune in to the show!

Update: if you missed the show, click on the KKUP logo below for a recording (57MB MP3 file)

"A sense of compassion for the community"

2007-07-23T11:03:00.000-07:00

When Santa Clara Mayor Patricia Mahan was interviewed for Santa Clara Magazine (published by Santa Clara University) in 2005, Mahan, who received a law degree from SCU in 1980, had this to say about her alma mater:

“They just imbue you with such a sense of compassion for the community ... the higher values and the better values of why you’re doing what you’re being trained to do. It’s not to make a million dollars a year. It’s to be of service.”

Mahan's actions in recent City Council meetings, however, speak far louder than her words.

On several occasions in City Council meetings over the last few months, Mahan has used her position as Mayor to attempt to silence, demean, and disrespect Santa Clara residents who have taken the initiative to come forward and speak publicly about their concerns regarding the proposal to spend $287,000,000 in public assets on a football stadium for the San Francisco 49ers.

Usually, her biases are quite evident to everyone in attendance.

At the City Council meeting on July 17, however, the Mayor made an additional comment that was not heard in the Council chambers, but was quite audible to those watching from home.

"You're wasting your time."

The comment was directed at a resident who had wanted to speak to a report, but the Mayor rushed through the call for public comment without a pause. Instead of acknowledging that she had missed the resident's request, the Mayor blamed the resident.

You can see the full clip here:

Not only is such a reaction from the Mayor disrespectful, it's also a clear violation of Santa Clara's Code of Ethics & Values, which requires "all elected and appointed officials, City employees, volunteers, and others who participate in the city's government" to agree, in part, that:

3. As a Representative of the City of Santa Clara, I will be service-oriented. . . . :

a. I provide friendly, receptive, courteous service to everyone.
b . I am attuned to, and care about, the needs and issues of citizens, public officials, and city workers.
c. In my interactions with constituents, I am interested, engaged, and responsive.

6. As a Representative of the City of Santa Clara, I will be communicative. . . . :

a. I convey the City's care for and commitment to its citizens.
b. I communicate in various ways that I am approachable, open-minded and willing to participate in dialog.
c. I engage in effective two-way communication, by listening carefully, asking questions, and determining an appropriate response which adds value to conversations.

7. As a Representative of the City of Santa Clara, I will be collaborative.
In practice, this value looks like:

a. I act in a cooperative manner with groups and other individuals, working together in a spirit of tolerance and understanding. . . .

The real test of the City's commitment to ethics will be how they respond to the Mayor's actions, which certainly do not demonstrate "a sense of compassion for the community."

Just $62,000,000 more

2007-07-16T13:01:00.000-07:00

Since we started this website, we've consistently said that the actual public subsidy requested by the 49ers in their proposal is nearly $300,000,000 in total public assets. I explained that number in detail in a post entitled Real Money.

Of course, that amount doesn’t cover all the actual and potential costs — things like additional infrastructure improvements, property tax breaks, and lost opportunity costs — but it does include all of assets requested by the 49ers in their proposal.

While the Mayor, certain members of the City Council, and the 49ers have continued to claim that the requested subsidy is a mere $160,000,000, we have insisted that all of the public assets need to be counted.

Here is a video of Mayor Mahan using the incorrect $160,000,000 subsidy request figure on CBS5 TV, as recently as June 19. It's at the 1 minute 27 second mark of the report:

While the Mayor continues to use the incorrect number, the City of Santa Clara is beginning to agree with our estimates.

Buried in a report on the implementation plan and timeline for the "City of Santa Clara Principles & Priorities for 2007-09", which will be presented to the City Council tomorrow, is the City’s estimate of the requested subsidy.

$222,000,000

If you don’t want to do the math, that’s $62,000,000 — or about 39% — more than $160,000,000. This revised estimate of the subsidy includes the projected costs of both moving the electrical substation and the construction of a parking garage on the site, two items that were not included in the 49ers' $853,000,000 construction budget.

The new estimate still doesn't include the value of the land, but at least this number is closer to the true cost of the requested subsidy.

Pocket change, right?

You can view the report yourself from the city's own website:

http://cityclerkdatabase.ci.santa-clara.ca.us/wx/pubhtml/pubhtml/3009.html

It’s the report under Agenda Item 5F - Special Order of Business. The $222,000,000 is on page 15 of the report. Click on the image below for a PDF of the relevant page.

Once again, the City’s staff and consultants have provided a much-needed impartial analysis of this proposal, and we appreciate their hard work.

"Ignorance is Strength"

2007-07-15T22:18:00.000-07:00

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?

"Her own little rules"

2007-07-14T22:13:00.000-07:00

When Nancy Reagan was First Lady, she got into trouble for borrowing fancy clothes and jewelry to wear, but never reporting them as taxable income. After getting caught the first time in 1982, she promised not to do it again. When TIME magazine reported in 1988 that she was still doing it, her press secretary tried to downplay the tax evasion by saying "She set her own little rule, and she broke her own little rule."

Fast forward nearly 20 years later...

On January 9, 2007, Santa Clara City Council approved a number of Guiding Principles to be used in evaluating the 49ers' stadium proposal. Among them are the following:

Utility funds only used for utility purposes (electric, water, sewer.)
City Manager responsible for negotiations.
Vacant City lands must return revenue to General Fund.

Well, apparently some of our so-called "City leaders," elected or otherwise, are quite capable of selective amnesia like Mrs Reagan, even if they are not a size-4 fashion plate.

Let's see what's happened to some of these "little rules."

Utility funds only used for utility purposes:

On March 26, 2007, the SF Chronicle reported that
Last week ... 49ers officials were openly coordinating with former Santa Clara city staff members and elected officials, who publicly called on the city to study using some of city-owned Silicon Valley Power's money for a stadium project.
Maybe these Raiders of the Lost Utility Reserve think Santa Clara ought to have a taste of rolling blackouts and skyrocketing electric bills?
City Manager responsible for negotiations:

The first rule of negotiations is "Don't show your cards!" Anybody who has ever negotiated for anything more substantial than a waffle iron at a garage sale knows that. You most certainly don't go in bragging loudly about how big a wad you've got in your back pocket.

Yet that is exactly what Mayor Mahan has done with her infamous proclamations about the $160 million cash subsidy being "doable."

Besides being pure fantasy, this indiscreet flashing of the mayoral wad also showed the 49ers that they have clearly bagged a "motivated" buyer.

Even worse, it got Cedar Fair, the owner of the Great America theme park next door, thinking, "Hey, if she's so willing to throw money at them, where's ours?!"

So much for letting the City Manager do the negotiating.
Vacant City lands must return revenue to General Fund:

A report presented to the City Council on July 10 stated:
One of the possible financing options under consideration is the use of City-owned land that ... could be used ... for a portion of the stadium construction cost.
Ummm, what part of "General Fund" do you not understand?

If our City Council is just going to make their own little rules and break their own little rules, then what's the point of adopting these hallowed Guiding Principles?

Sources for Stadium Subsidy

2007-07-13T11:10:00.000-07:00

It was quite a shock to read in yesterday's Mercury News (Theme-park owner willing to consider 49ers stadium ) that:

Mahan said she's encouraged by how city officials and consultants have identified almost two-thirds of the $160 million that the city would need to contribute to help the team build the $854 million stadium.
"This is becoming more and more doable the more we get into it," she said.

We at StadiumFacts.org have been following this issue pretty closely. Without City Staff's capable services, we can not be completely on top of everything. Perhaps we missed a detail or two.

I kind of doubt we missed $100 million.¹

To date, only two sources for this cash have been identified:

Issuing redevelopment bonds. This would raise $13.1 million. If the city were to reduce the amount of money invested in affordable housing, they could raise $45.3 million by issuing redevelopment bonds.

Leasing out city-owned land. The 7.6 acres under consideration are worth about $20 million. By tying up most of the remaining city-owned land in a 99 year lease, the city could get $2 million per year. But the city needs the money now (stadium builders won't wait 30 years to be paid), so the city would have to get the renter to pre-pay the rent. Unfortunately, that would only get us something like the current value of the land -- $20 million.

This comes to a grand total of $33.1 million ($65.3 million if we decrease affordable housing) cash identified. This is far less than two-thirds of the $180 million cash subsidy demanded by the 49ers. [Despite the claim from the Mayor and the 49ers, the city would need $180,000,000 in cash for this proposal -- $160,000,000 for the stadium itself PLUS $20,000,000 for site improvements (moving the substation.)]

What's so doable about that?

¹ -- We have a query in to City Staff to confirm all the details of the proposed funding sources, and will update you once we get a response.

A fool's investment

2007-07-11T00:31:00.000-07:00

Dave Zirin, a sportswriter who writes for the Nation, SLAM magazine, and the Los Angeles Times, among many other publications, has just written a new book — Welcome to the Terrordome: The Pain, Politics and Promise of Sports — in which he explores the intersections of professional sports and social justice in the world today.

He will be speaking at 7pm tonight [Wednesday, July 11] at Cody's Books in Berkeley. (Check the end of this post for more details about the reading. )

Not surprisingly, one of subjects he analyzes in this book is public funding for professional sports stadiums. He wrote about the same issue in an article for last Sunday's San Francisco Chronicle.

The entire article — Are stadiums worth the high price? — is worth reading, but here are a few highlights:

Stadiums are sporting shrines to the dogma of trickle-down economics. In the past 10 years, more than $16 billion of the public's money has been spent for stadium construction and upkeep from coast to coast. Though some cities are beginning to resist paying the full tab, any kind of subsidy is a fool's investment, ending up being little more than monuments to corporate greed: $500 million welfare hotels for America's billionaires built with funds that could have been spent more wisely on just about anything else.

. . .

As Neil DeMause, co-author of the book "Field of Schemes" said to me, "The history of the stadium game is the story of how, by slowly refining their blackmail skills, sports owners learned how to turn their industry from one based on selling tickets to one based on extracting public subsidies. It's been a bit like watching a 4-year-old learn how to manipulate his parents into buying him the new toy that he saw on TV; the question now is how long it takes our elected officials to learn to say 'no.' " [emphasis mine]

We've already seen evidence of those refined blackmail skills in Santa Clara. The headline alone — Santa Clara risks losing more than a 49ers stadium: 49ers HQ in play if deal collapses — neatly summarizes the start of a campaign to blackmail the city of Santa Clara into approving this enormous public subsidy for billionaires.

Of course, the fact that the San Francisco 49ers pay the City just $24,000 PER YEAR to lease the 11-acre property should be evidence that the City already provides a significant subsidy to this team. Judging by the numbers presented at Tuesday's City Council meeting, the City should be getting closer to $2,500,000 - $3,100,000 PER YEAR for that land — that's over 100 times more than we're currently getting.

Later in the article, Zirin includes part of a conversation he had with Jim Bouton, a former Major League Baseball All-Star and the author of the memoir Ball Four. Bouton's assessment is even more damning.

It's such a misapplication of the public's money. . . .
It's going to be seen historically as an awful folly, and it's starting to be seen that way now, but historically that will go down as one of the real crimes of American government, national and local, to allow the funneling of people's money directly into the pockets of a handful of very wealthy individuals who could build these stadiums on their own if it made financial sense. If they don't make financial sense, then they shouldn't be building them.
If I was a team owner today, asking for public money, I'd be ashamed of myself. Ashamed of myself. But we've gone beyond shame. There's no such thing as shame anymore. People aren't embarrassed to take -- to do these awful things.

Of course, we certainly haven't seen any evidence of shame among the San Francisco 49ers and their supporters.

I've asked Dave Zirin if he could add a Santa Clara stop on his current book tour, and he's hoping to schedule a visit later this fall. But if you'd like to hear him sooner, the trip to Berkeley will be well worth it.

The talk starts at 7pm at:

Cody's Books
1730 Fourth Street
Berkeley, CA 94710
(510) 559-9500

Click here for the event page.

A fun-filled summer evening

2007-07-10T08:35:00.001-07:00

Tonight's City Council meeting might not be quite as much fun as a trip to an amusement park, but it's likely to be a whole other kind of wild ride.

This evening, the City Council will consider two reports related to the proposal to provide nearly $300,000,000 in public assets to help build a stadium for the San Francisco 49ers.

What are the items on tonight's agenda?:

1. In April, the City Council authorized spending $200,000 on consultants to provide analysis of the proposal. At the meeting tonight, City staff will recommended that the City Council authorize spending an additional $115,000 for consulting services.

2. The City Council will review KMA's report on developing an additional 11 acres to the east and west of Centennial Boulevard along Stars and Stripes Drive for the potential purpose of raising money to pay for the stadium.

The agenda is available here:

http://cityclerkdatabase.ci.santa-clara.ca.us/wx/pubhtml/pubhtml/3009.html

You can open the specific reports on these two items from the online agenda.

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:

MayorandCouncil@ci.santa-clara.ca.us

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

Who really profits?

2007-07-05T00:45:00.000-07:00

The San Francisco 49ers have been more than willing to talk about the potential economic benefits a stadium might have for Santa Clara and the surrounding region.

They haven't been quite so open about how they will benefit economically from that same new stadium.

Why not?

Well, it's probably because the value of their team will increase substantially if they get a new stadium — an immediate increase in value of somewhere between $250,000,000 and $700,000,000.

That's a much bigger increase than your average bathroom remodel.

How does the team's value increase?

Each year, Forbes magazine assesses the value of all 32 NFL teams. In their most recent list, the San Francisco 49ers are valued at $734 million — near the bottom of the pack (29th place.)

As Forbes states, this valuation is a reflection of the fact that "the 49ers have some of the lowest revenues in the league thanks to an antiquated stadium that features no club seating, and an onerous lease that forces the team to share concession, luxury-suite, naming-rights and signage revenue with the city."

A new stadium with a better revenue stream would increase the team's value. Could the new value go as high as $1.423 BILLION — Forbes' valuation of the Washington Redskins (and the team currently at the top of the list)? Maybe not. But it is certain that a new stadium with more favorable revenue stream would markedly increase the team's value.

Mike Swift at the San Jose Mercury News analyzed this very issue back in November 2006, shortly after the Santa Clara proposal was announced.

As he wrote in his article "Deluxe Stadium May Enrich 49ers"

. . . in many markets, a new stadium has produced a windfall for owners.

Patriots owner Robert Kraft paid $172 million for the team in 1994. Today, with the Patriots playing in a new suburban Boston stadium partly financed by the NFL, in a market with wealthy demographics like the Bay Area's, the franchise is valued by Forbes magazine at $1.2 billion. That is the second-highest among the four major sports (football, basketball, baseball and hockey), more valuable than even the storied New York Yankees.

By the way, it's worth noting that the new Patriots stadium (in Foxboro, MA, a town of about 16,000) was paid for ENTIRELY by the team's owner, Robert Kraft. [State taxpayers did finance about $75 million in infrastructure improvements, but the team is responsible for paying back that debt.]

As reporter David Copeland noted in his article "Patriots teach lesson about stadium financing",

By conventional "wisdom" for financing sports stadiums, Kraft should be crying poor. That conventional wisdom says that teams -- no matter what the sport -- can't possibly pay for a new stadium on their own and remain competitive.

The Patriots finished the regular season with an NFL-best 14-2 record. On top of that, Forbes magazine valued the team at $756 million [in 2003] -- in large part because of the new stadium -- up considerably from the $158 million Kraft paid for the Patriots in 1994.

We need to remember that professional sports are a big business, just like any other business, and the example of the New England Patriots is clear evidence that teams don't need public money to succeed.

Happy Fourth of July!

2007-07-04T10:18:00.000-07:00

Today, as we celebrate the founding of our nation 231 years ago, I thought the following quotation from Thomas Jefferson was particularly appropriate both to honor our national holiday and to describe our particular mission here at StadiumFacts.org.

As Jefferson wrote in a letter in 1789,

Whenever the people are well informed, they can be trusted with their own government; that whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights.

And here at Stadium Facts, we share Jefferson's confidence. We believe that once citizens of the community are well-informed about the stadium proposal, we can rely on them to set the Santa Clara City Council to rights.

Best wishes for a Happy Fourth of July!

"A gift of public funds"

2007-07-01T17:37:00.000-07:00

City Council voted last week to foot the entire bill for repairing the streets in the South of Forest neighborhood. It was a difficult decision for some Councilmembers. Besides the fairness issue, there are the ever-present concerns about fiscal health.

Fairness is an issue because there are similarly-annexed neighborhoods that had to pay for their own improvements. Fiscal health is a concern because the City has been running pretty lean since the recession of 2002.

Understandably, many public figures voiced strong opinions, on both sides. "Simply put, this is a gift of public funds," said former Mayor Bill Gissler.

What's remarkable is that there may be an even bigger gift of public funds going out on Santa Clara's next sleigh. Yet we have not seen anywhere near the same kind of outrage, from any public figure, elected or otherwise.

In fact, it's quite the opposite. Many have been very willing to fall on their swords to fawn over the would-be beneficiaries of this gift. By the way, the reindeers are headed for Ohio, because these lucky boys and girls are not even Santa Clara residents!

Exactly how big a load is Rudolph hauling? Here's a comparison to bring it home.

Joe Average is just getting by. His savings are cleaned out. He was maxed out on his credit cards a couple of years ago, but he just managed to pay that off with careful budgeting. Still, Joe and his family are pretty much going hand-to-mouth on their annual income of $70,000. Joe's wife needs to replace her 1983 Dodge Omni. Joe buys her a 3-year-old Dodge Neon for $8,000. He has to take out a loan, because he doesn't have that much cash. Credit counseling will probably frown on that, but hey, it's either that or she can't get to her job. Then Joe buys for himself a brand new Ferrari F430 for $178,000, on credit.

You think that's far-fetched? This comparison is not at all hypothetical. Joe's salary is the same as the median income in Santa Clara. Joe Average can easily be our City.

Santa Clara is just barely running a surplus, and the forecast is for zero surplus by 2012 ¹. We had a budget deficit from 2003 to 2006. The General Fund Reserves are low. There is a hiring freeze on 30 staff positions ². The SOFNA repairs cost $15M. City Council bit the bullet and committed to spending that money, even though it would probably mean deficit spending. Now the stadium proponents want Santa Clara to spend $297M to build a ballpark that will sit empty 11 months out of the year.

Look at the numbers in comparison:

The Neon for Joe's wife costs about 1/8 of their annual income. The SOFNA repairs cost about 1/8 of the City's annual revenues.
Joe's Ferrari costs about 20 times more than his wife's Neon. The stadium will cost 20 times more than the SOFNA repairs.
Joe's Ferrari costs 2.5 times their annual income. The stadium will cost 2.5 times the City's annual revenues.
Ferrari parts and labor are ... well, you don't want to know. The stadium operating costs are ... well, "Trust us" said the 49ers.

So which is the more outrageous "gift of public funds?"

--
¹ City Council meeting minutes, May 15, 2007, section 4: Special Order of Business, item E: Joint Study Session on the Proposed Five-Year Financial plan for 2008-09 through 2012-13 and Proposed Capital Improvement Project Budget for FY 2007-08. Report, page 8 of 18.

² Ibid, page 4 of 18.

Citizens speak out

2007-06-29T07:29:00.000-07:00

We've pointed out before that the 49ers are pouring a lot of money into this campaign to win over the "hearts and minds" of Santa Clara. The Support "Our" Niners website is run by the 49er's PR firm. The glossy stadium campaign flyer is distributed as an ad insert in the Santa Clara Weekly -- its publisher, Miles Barber, just happens to be a "truthy" stadium proponent.

We at StadiumFacts.org don't have that kind of money. But we do have lots of people on our side. There are the 55% of Santa Clarans who told CBS5 that they oppose a stadium if it means giving the 49ers a subsidy. Then there are the citizens who have published serious arguments against the stadium.

We have added a new section to our front page to link to these articles and papers. Scroll down and look for "Citizens speak out" in the column on the right. The first link is to a paper from Erlinda Estrada. Ms. Estrada is the retired Interim Library Director at Mission College, and a lifelong Santa Claran. The second link is to a SJ Mercury News opinion column from Kate Grant, a community activist.

We will add more links to this section as the groundswell continues. If you are aware of other papers from residents, please let us know.

Misplaced loyalties?

2007-06-26T16:20:00.000-07:00

I’ve been reading some disturbing quotes coming from our Mayor and certain council members. They make me wonder for whom they work, and ultimately where their loyalties lie.

Here’s a sampling from our Mayor, Patricia Mahan:

“I'm a 49er faithful going back to John Brodie and Kezar Stadium" (Nov 9, 2006)

“[T]hat's what it's all about: doing what's best for the 49ers and doing what's best for the fans." (June 19, 2007)

Really? I thought it’s all about doing what's best for Santa Clara residents and taxpayers. Does the Mayor’s “faithfulness” to the 49ers trump her responsibility to the city of Santa Clara?

Another quote, this time from council member Kevin Moore:

“It's really good to have the 49ers eating at your restaurant. You know why? They spend a lot of money, eating a lot of food." (at Seniore's Pizza in June 2007)

As the KMA report proves, a more cost-effective use of the land would be Class A offiice project. Not only would this generate more taxes for the city, but an office building full of workers would spend more money … and eat more food, I guess, if that’s council member Moore’s standard for success. Do the 49ers eating habits really impact the economy in any significant way? I know they're big guys, but geez.

But this is potentially the most disturbing: Dominic Caserta is running for the California State Assembly, District 22. This district covers parts of Santa Clara, but also Cupertino, Los Altos, Mountain View, and Sunnyvale. Will council member Caserta attempt to curry favor with this larger electorate by having Santa Clara residents foot the bill for the rest of his district? I've heard from non-Santa Clara 49er fans who would love to have the 49ers in town. Even better if they don't have to pay for it!

Also, one wonders about the funding for his campaign. I wonder if the Yorks might be willing to fund an office seeker who so generously greased the skids for their corporate welfare project.

So Santa Clara City Council, let's see you represent the people who put you in office. And not by simple platitudes whereby you pretend to carefully weigh the pros and cons of a huge white elephant of a stadium. Do it by not giving a dime of our money to a business that can fund their own project itself.

Life's little details

2007-06-26T06:51:00.000-07:00

Doing City Council's homework

2007-06-23T23:45:00.001-07:00

Since City Council is not doing much comparison shopping, everyone should help them out by examining other alternatives.

On June 1, Stadium Facts highlighted a successful development that was built entirely with private financing, Santana Row.

On June 5, the KMA report pointed out that a hypothetical Class A office project can generate up to 5 times the fiscal benefits, with zero public subsidy.

Here's another possibility.

Have you ever wondered where all the 1's and 0's of the Internet hang out? Those YouTube videos, the latest movie trailers, the satellite maps at Google Earth, your vacation pictures on Flickr -- they all add up to a lot more 1's and 0's than simple emails. All this data is driving up the need for more and more data centers to store the bits and bytes, and to handle the traffic when grandma wants to see the one that got away in Idaho.

According to the SJ Mercury News, data centers are

... a lucrative place to be. While prime office space in downtown San Jose costs about $2 a square foot per month, David Dunn, senior vice president of Los Angeles-based CRG West, said space in a data center rents from $15 to $30 a square foot per month. Even at that price, it took just nine months last year for CRG to fully lease its newly opened 16th-floor data center at Market Post Tower in downtown San Jose.

And the forecast is for more of the same:

"Do we think this is a gamble? Absolutely not. The forecast for the next 24 months shows demand is rising," [CRG vice president Jameson] Agraz said. "Every TV show you watch will be stored on hard drives so you can have video on demand."

Of course, your mileage may vary. But the point is, there is more than one way to invest $297 million. We would be fools if we didn't check out at least some of them.

A tale of two cities

2007-06-22T10:09:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, I analyzed the numbers from a Mercury News article Running 49ers stadium a costly pitfall. In my post A Costly Pitfall, I provided one crucial number that was missing from the initial article — the PER CAPITA cost of the subsidy.

Using just the numbers provided by the Mercury News, Santa Clara's subsidy of $180 million (the Mercury News did not include land value or the parking garage in their total), the PER RESIDENT subsidy of $1,651 was more than THREE TIMES that of the next closest project.

But the story doesn't end there.

Because I relied on the numbers in the Mercury News article, I calculated that the per resident cost of the new stadium for the Arizona Cardinals was $210 per resident.

That number is not exactly right for a few reasons.

First, the stadium is actually located in a suburb of Phoenix — Glendale, Arizona. The population of Glendale is approximately 258,677.

Second, the Mercury News article indicated that the public subsidy for this $455.7 million project was $310 million, but they didn't really break down either of these numbers.

The $455.7 million includes ALL costs related to the construction — including both land acquisition and site improvements. If these costs were added to the current San Francisco 49ers proposal, the total would be just shy of $1 BILLION [about $981 million to be more exact.]

Moreover, the city of Glendale's share of the $310 million subsidy was $9.9 million.

Yes, you read that right. Glendale spent $9.9 million on the project, for a per resident subsidy of about $38.

So where did they get the remaining $300.4 million of public money?

The rest of the subsidy came from the Arizona Sports and Tourism Authority [ASTA], a municipal organization created by the Arizona State Legislature to promote sports and tourism in Maricopa County, the county in which Phoenix and its suburbs are located. The funds for ASTA contribution came from a voter-approved county-wide tax on hotels and rental cars.

[To be clear, I'm not in favor of new taxes, especially to subsidize facilities for privately-held corporations, but the current claim that Santa Clara can provide $180 million in cash with no new taxes and no impact to the general fund or utility ratepayers is wrong. The money has to come from somewhere, and it WILL have an impact either directly or indirectly.]

Sadly, however, the unfavorable comparisons don't end with $38 vs $2,600.

You see, the stadium in Glendale was built with a special field that rolls out so that the stadium can be used for multiple purposes. It also has a retractable roof, again making it suitable for a variety of uses.

And it is.

From August 4, 2006 through January 8, 2007, it hosted events on 110 of the 157 days — about 70% utilization as compared to less than 10% using the most optimistic numbers in the current San Francisco 49ers proposal.

Maybe these numbers will help Santa Clara realize that it's time to do a bit of comparison shopping — and if we still decide to buy, maybe we can get a few friends, like Santa Clara County, to chip in on this purchase.

After all, if the claimed benefits are regional, then the costs should be shared by the region. Glendale didn't shoulder the cost for all of Maricopa County, and the City of Santa Clara cannot and should not assume the entire public expense and risk for this stadium.