The 49ers' Subsidies and the Two-Team Myth

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

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

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

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

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

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** 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...

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

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Candidates' Forum for Council and SCUSD Trustees this Saturday!

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!