49ers' Stadium Subsidies: "Let's go on a spree with the city's credit cards!"

Dear Santa Clarans,

We're already getting some diversionary spin on the outlandish debt which five City Councilmembers and the 49ers want to pile on the Santa Clara Stadium Authority.  Let's look at two of them, one unimportant, but the other one vital to the fiscal health of our city.

The first bit attributes to our group some imagined false focus on the increase in the total construction costs of the 49ers' stadium.  Well, yeah, it has increased from $937,000,000 to $1,020,000,000 (That's $1.02 BILLION).  That's an unadjusted increase of about 9%, but (maybe) 2-4% in "June, 2010 Dollars".

For us, that's not the real story.

The real story is that second bit of pap:  The utterly false claim that the 49ers and the NFL are somehow contributing "revenues" for the stadium.  They are not.  They are instead heaping an additional $520,000,000 worth of loans onto the $330,000,000 already down to the Santa Clara Stadium Authority.

That's public debt, and it's public money.

This should never have happened.   But there is a hard number of true out-of-pocket 49ers' contribution that the team, the NFL and their financiers can't hide:  The 49ers sent us to the polls last June with their own bought-and-paid for 'citizens' initiative.'  At the time, they "estimated" that they would be contributing $493 million toward a one-billion-dollar stadium.

Eighteen months later, our "business partner" now wants to pay only $152 million - and they want a Santa Clara Agency to service $850,000,000 in debt for a stadium that only benefits the team and the NFL.

You're entitled to ask the question:  Why are the 49ers now paying only a mere 15% of the total costs of their stadium?

Why are they not paying the 53% they told us when we went to the polls last June?

Santa Clara Plays Fair urges our City Council to take this DDA back to the drawing board.  The 49ers should at least be paying for their own stadium themselves, if they insist upon grabbing up all of the NFL Revenues.

They also owe Santa Clara MUCH more in Fixed Rent payments to the City's General Fund - a miserable $180 THOUSAND in the first year is unacceptable.  

Finally, they should most certainly be turning exclusive control of the Second Team Sublease over to our own Stadium Authority.  They shouldn't be calling the shots on the Second Team - we should be.

The five 49ers' Stadium Boosters on our City Council are letting the San Francisco 49ers go on a spree with Santa Clara's credit cards.   That's simply not the answer - not for our city, and not for Santa Clarans.

Please:  Come to City Council Chambers this Tuesday evening, December 13, at 7:00 pm - and speak out against the outrageous stadium subsidy.

Demand more from the San Francisco 49ers.

Thanks for all of your support,
Bill Bailey, Treasurer


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49ers' Stadium Subsidies: The 49ers get Cafeteria-style financing from Santa Clara

Dear Santa Clarans,



From Friday evening, you were given 96 hours to review the 421-page Draft DDA on the City's website.  We've gone through it as thoroughly as we can.  It's complex, but an analogy might help clear the air about what it really means:


You've engaged a partner to help build a new home.  Your business partner controls nearly all of the negotiations with the architect and the General Contractor, so your partner's design demands come first.


You also thought that you and your partner were going roughly "halves" on the total construction cost of $937,000.00, with $444,000 down to you and $493,000 down to your partner.


You now learn that the cost to build is now a million and change.


Worse, at the eleventh hour, your partner is shoving much more of his cost onto your $444,000 line of credit.  He has the unmitigated gall to tell you that, since he doesn't drive, and because he eats out and shaves at work, he isn't going to pay for the construction of the home's garage, kitchen or bathrooms.


So, after four years of dickering, your partner says that he's only liable for $152,000 of the cost of a $1,020,000 new home.  He expects you to pay the other $850,000 - and he still expects to take 30-minute showers, set the thermostat to 78 degrees and use your microwave oven and flat-panel TV.


Sound bad?  It gets worse:  Multiply the dollar amounts above by 1,000 and that is exactly what the San Francisco 49ers are doing to us right now.  What the 49ers are saying is, "We'll pay for the locker rooms and our Team Store - but we don't use the rest, so we're not going to pay for it."


We must have missed something.  The 49ers will take well over $130,000,000 out of that whole stadium every year - but they won't pay for the bleachers, seats or club lounges that paying fans will be using?  Consider the billions they will gross from a stadium we're paying for, and then ask yourself why the total net present value (NPV) of their payments over forty years into our city's General Fund remains at a mere $8 million.


What's even more pathetic than the lousy $8 million:  The five 49ers' Stadium Boosters on our elected City Council actually give every indication that they're going to agree to the 49ers' outlandish "cafeteria-style" financing - even though it's much worse than the 49ers' own Measure J from last June.


It should be clear now why the 49ers' "J" put no limit of any kind on Santa Clara Stadium Authority debt.


Santa Clarans, please demand more.  See the SCPF homepage for details on the Study Sessions this Tuesday and Thursday - and for contact information for Mayor Matthews and the City Council.  It is vital that you make your views on the massive stadium subsidy known.


Especially since that subsidy has more than doubled in eighteen months.


Not even Measure J justifies that.




Thanks for all of your support,
Bill Bailey, Treasurer


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Subsidizing the 49ers: That $10 million We Don't Have is just the Tip of the Iceberg

Dear Santa Clarans,

Very shortly, our City Council will have met behind closed doors with the San Francisco 49ers exactly ONE HUNDRED TIMES since May 1, 2007.

Publicly, however, there's been only four years' worth of total hype about the stadium's financing.  In early December, at least some preliminary Disposition and Development Agreement, or DDA, for the massive subsidy of the 49ers' stadium, will finally come before Council.  Can you residents, ratepayers and taxpayers attend some or all three of these meetings at City Hall, and speak out against the 49ers' Stadium Subsidy?:  

• Tuesday, December 6th, 2011:  "Council Committee of the Whole" Study Session I 
• Thursday, December 8th, 2011:  "Council Committee of the Whole" Study Session II 
• Tuesday, December 13th, 2011:  Public Hearing, City Council Meeting 

Time:  7:00 pm     Location:  City Council Chambers, 1500 Warburton Drive

Santa Clara Plays Fair urges Santa Clarans to attend as many of these meetings as possible - and to speak out.

So, what's a DDA, and what's a Term Sheet?

The DDA is the binding Development Agreement, which places massive amounts of public subsidies - and control over the stadium itself - in the hands of the 49ers.  The Term Sheet of June 2, 2009 is its predecessor document --- which gives away the store to the 49ers:

1.  The wretched Ground Lease with the City pays only $180 thousand the first year any stadium opens - but the 49ers will easily gross over $130 million in television rights and luxury box rents that same first year.  Not a penny of those "NFL Revenues" benefit our city or its agencies - it all goes into Jed York's pockets.

2.  We voted away any right to sublease to a 2nd NFL team - and we gave that exclusive right to Jed York and the 49ers.

3.  It's unlikely that the Santa Clara Stadium Authority can generate enough revenue to operate the 49ers' stadium for them year-round - so, on June 7th, City Staff acknowledged that the Stadium Authority will probably give up control of the stadium for six months of every year.  Calling the 49ers's stadium a "municipal stadium" is simply inaccurate - virtually every development we've seen since Measure Jed merely proves how little control we have over "our" stadium.

4.  We were assured that the team would be paying 'substantially' more than the pathetic $5 million a year that the Stadium Authority was supposed to get originally - but we won't know what the 49ers will be paying until the Study Session Agenda is issued, probably on Friday evening, December 2nd.

5.  The $10,000,000 in Stadium Authority money voted for "make-ready" work this last Tuesday?  The Stadium Authority does not even HAVE $10 million.  It may have most of the $4 million that it got from the RDA after our Council "parked" that four mil with the 49ers themselves - but the remaining $6 million will have to be borrowed from the 49ers themselves, with interest payable.  Make no mistake;  this is the start of a perpetual cycle of indebtedness for at least one Santa Clara agency.

It's become quite clear over the last seventeen months that the "deal" with the 49ers has only two purposes:  To saddle Santa Clara's agencies with all of the stadium debt - and to give the profits, power and control to Jed York and the 49ers.

If you can speak out on December 6th, 8th and 13th - will you tell our City's leaders that the 49ers are not paying nearly enough for their own stadium. ?  Public debt IS public money. 

Before they sign any legally binding "deal" with the San Francisco 49ers, the five 49ers fans seated on our City Council owe us Santa Clarans a much better deal that Measure Jed gave us over a year ago.

Nothing is stopping Council from fixing a horribly bad stadium deal - but they'll have to stand up to the San Francisco 49ers in order to do that. 



Thank you for all of your support, 

William F. "Bill" Bailey

Treasurer

1(877)703-4300 

Please visit our blogs at:
http://www.santaclaraplaysfair.blogspot.com/
http://stadiumfacts.blogspot.com/

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49ers' Stadium Subsidies: Sorry, they're not for you, Mark.

Dear Santa Clarans,

Gosh, will he or won't he?  Check out the pop press for the latest speculation on why Jed York will/won't agree to take on Mark Davis and the Oakland Raiders as his tenant.

That's the way the question should be phrased, because Jed York has far more power over the Raiders - and over Santa Clara - than any of us have over him.

The rule that never changes is a very straightforward one:  It's about the money, and it's never about the football. 

More than a few heirs of millionaire NFL team owners have learned that the hard way, as they've inherited fat assets with bare-bones cash accounts.  The children of Georgia Frontiere (St. Louis Rams) and Jack Kent Cooke (Washington Redskins) know exactly how this works.  They ended up selling controlling interests in their teams so that they could pay off inheritance tax bills for tens of millions of dollars that were due in mere months after the passing of the majority owner.

A Santa Clara stadium, with Jed York as his landlord, doesn't really solve that problem for Mark Davis.

Also, the subsidy that Santa Clarans are going into debt to pay?  It's up to at least $500,000,000 and will likely end up being much more than that.  Other than giving the Raiders a place to play, the subsidy - as well as that sublease - benefit the 49ers far more than it will ever benefit the Raiders.  Or us.

Note also that the 49ers will be making sure that any stadium they're in will be geared to market their brand - not Raiders jerseys.  The sale of NFL gear is big business, and all of the profits from those bobble-headed dolls go into the pockets of the 49ers (and not to a single Santa Clara agency).  It doesn't pay Jed York to have any brand-dilution going on in a stadium he controls.

Silly fan emotionalism doesn't mean a thing in any discussion of the Raiders' future (It certainly doesn't in any discussion of our futures).  When millionaire NFL team owners do that thing that they do, it may be an accidental sop to one fan constituency or another - but that is never the priority for the millionaire NFL team owners who are really calling the shots.

It's about the money.  Always is.




Thank you for all of your support,

Bill Bailey, Treasurer,

Santa Clara Plays Fair.org

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49ers' Stadium Subsidies: A Cult of Secrecy

Dear Santa Clarans,


This writer asked at the July 5 meeting of the City Council and Agencies that any dollar amounts taken in by the Santa Clara Stadium Authority in the sale of stadium Personal Seat Licenses, or PSLs, be public information.  Santa Clarans in Chambers that evening, plus television viewers on Channel 15, were told by City Staff that this is confidential information - even though those PSLs are being sold by a Santa Clara City Agency and not by the 49ers.

Some months ago, I asked in Chambers that the dollar amounts actually committed to in any Letters of Intent for the parking overlay on private lots be disclosed publicly.  Santa Clarans were denied that information also. But what was most disturbing on that occasion was that we were refused not by our own City Staff, but by Lisa Lang, VP of Communications for the San Francisco 49ers - who had no business even speaking for the Stadium Authority.

A few weeks ago, CalAware petitioned City Hall for the release of the public safety report for gameday security in a billion-dollar-stadium paid for mostly by us.

And they were refused.

(A correction  --- Neither CalAware nor the First Amendment Coalition were refused this report because they were not the ones who requested it.  But you can still follow the trail in the link above to find out just who that shy party was.  We might even find out why the source of the original request is mentioned virtually only in the last sentence.  Thanks to several members of Santa Clara Plays Fair for pointing this out.  -- BB, 10/11/2011)

This is a big deal.  After the shootings, beating and parking lot brawl at Candlestick Park on August 20th and September 18th, we as residents are absolutely entitled to know that, of 160 police officers handling a massive traffic jam of over 20,000 vehicles, some portion of them will be protecting members of the public, and in particular residents on the north side of our city.

The refusal of the Stadium Authority even to tell us how they're going to protect us during NFL events at a stadium we're paying for simply isn't acceptable.  The 49ers - and the NFL - have no business telling us what we can and cannot see.

The use of the Closed Sessions of our Council and our Agencies to conceal this as well as the true costs of the stadium subsidies from us is simply another nail in the coffin of open government.  We have a culture of secrecy that's rapidly becoming a cult.

Surely, the All-American City deserves much better. Will you please speak out?  Contact the Council directly .

Demand more.




Thanks for all of your support,

Bill Bailey, Treasurer

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49ers' Stadium Subsidies: Selling out Great America does not help Santa Clara

Dear Santa Clarans,

We can quickly put the sale of the Great America theme park to JMA Ventures in perspective.

The San Francisco 49ers are pulling the strings, of course, and they've solved their legal problems with Cedar Fair with a $70 million grease job.  But based on our city's treatment of Cedar Fair these last several years, I'm not surprised if CF is glad to be out from under the Great America theme park.

The upshot is this:  None of what happened today makes the 49ers stadium subsidies a better deal, or even a good deal, for Santa Clarans.  We're still down for what will probably be well over HALF A BILLION DOLLARS in corporate welfare for the 49ers.  We'll still be getting peanuts in return.

There are some other points to bear in mind.  The theme park still pays our city's General Fund of $5.3 million, minimum, every year.  Over the life of the proposed "give-away-the-store" stadium lease, the theme park will pay us TEN TIMES as much as the San Francisco 49ers ever will!  Whatever JMA - and the 49ers - are planning, we as residents should insist that the current lease continue to pay off at its current level.  Any renegotiated lease should be as good or better for our city - and NO development rights should be surrendered to JMA or to the 49ers.

However, based on the sweetheart deals that the Stadium Boosters on our City Council have already struck with the 49ers, both for the Training Center and for the stadium, any reasonable resident should be deeply suspicious of where the sellout of the Great America theme park is really going to take us.

Note also that the theme park lease requires that a recognized amusements firm be the actual operator of the park.  JMA and/or the San Francisco 49ers most certainly do not qualify.  They better have a plan for theme park operation by a third party, paid for by either or both of them and not by us.

In fact, in view of the beating and shootings at Candlestick Park on August 20th - and in view of the brawl in Candlestick's parking lot Monday Sunday evening - we should be drilling the 49ers hard on this one point alone.

After that:  There will be the care, upkeep and improvement of the theme park so that it continues to be a credit to our city's Entertainment District rather than a gamepiece for the 49ers.  Let's face it:  The 49ers aren't going to pay football dollars to keep up a theme park with returns far less than an NFL team - so look for the whining, givebacks and bad deals to begin shortly after the press buzz on today's sellout wears off.

JMA Ventures and the San Francisco 49ers really do owe Santa Clarans some solid answers.  The 49ers and their "stadium boosters" have spent close to three years whining that Cedar Fair stood in the way of "their" stadium, so it's going to be very interesting to see how this crowd rationalizes the 49ers' treatment of that same theme park.

If they and JMA let Great America degenerate to the condition that Candlestick Park is in today, we Santa Clarans are going to find ourselves in a lot of trouble.

Thanks for all of your support,

Bill Bailey, Treasurer,

SantaClaraPlaysFair.org

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Traffic, More Traffic and the Cooked Numbers behind the 49ers' EIR

Dear Santa Clarans,




It's taken nearly two years.  But someone is shining some bright lights on the completely insupportable claims that the San Francisco 49ers have made concerning the massive traffic jams and private-parking mess they'll be causing in Santa Clara.  If you can, pick up a copy of today's Sunday San Francisco Chronicle, and see: 


49ers' stadium plan stirs debate over parking 


The Stadium EIR was the perfect example of consultants telling a client just what they were paying to hear - but those cooked numbers did a great disservice to Santa Clara and to Santa Clarans.  Now, a real traffic analyst from Walnut Creek, Mr. Steve Abrams, has analyzed the 49ers' claims the way this should have been before the team ever presented their EIR.  He's done so at no cost to anyone.


The issue of the massive traffic jams on NFL game days - and the use of a 160-officer traffic force to manage about 20,000 private vehicle-trips - is rooted in one of the biggest howlers we heard in the fall of 2009:  The claim by the San Francisco 49ers that mass transit utilization would be 26% at a stadium here at the same time that it was less than 19% at Candlestick Park.


Keep in mind that CalTrain at the time was going through a severe financial crisis.  Only this March, before that crisis had abated somewhat, CalTrain was actually proposing to close College Park, Santa Clara and Lawrence Stations - the three stations closest to the proposed Santa Clara stadium site!**


Bye, bye, mass transit crowd.


If you have a moment, please give a fair reading to what Mr. Abrams has written about the 49ers' traffic jam plans.  The increase in private vehicles packing our streets north of U.S. 101 is not merely incremental - it will have a serious effect on the level of service, or LOS, at intersections which even the 49ers themselves were finally forced to acknowledge are already among the worst in our county.


As for the statement that the 49ers took the issue up "conservatively," and that the infrastructure here is "equal to or superior to any in the NFL," I'll simply refer everyone to this one figure from the 49ers own EIR.    I'll then ask, "If our infrastructure is as good as you're claiming, why are you closing four streets, barricading 31 intersections, and demanding identification from residents in the Agnews area as they try to return to their own homes?" 


Note that none of this is required at Candlestick Park today.  Note also that the 49ers will be reimbursing us only a portion of what game-day traffic management - and public safety - will actually be costing us.  In view of the shootings and the beating at Candlestick last weekend, we're entitled to ask hard questions on that second point alone.


At any rate, four years from now, let's ask Santa Clarans who make their homes in the Agnews and Lafayette corridors if the 49ers told the truth in 2009.


By then, of course, it will be way too late.


Santa Clarans, you have a stake in this wherever you reside in our city - but if you live north of U.S. 101, this will affect just about every aspect of your daily lives, both during the construction of a subsidized NFL stadium and in its operations after that.  Santa Clara Plays Fair urges all Santa Clarans to inform themselves on just what the stadium subsidy is truly costing all of us, and not just in dollars.


Please take a moment to share your concerns with the Mayor and City Council here, and contact Santa Clara Plays Fair anytime if you have questions about the EIR or about the stadium subsidy itself.




Thanks for your continuing support,

Bill Bailey, Treasurer

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Ref. available early 8/29/11:  http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/08/28/SPV81KRMCC.DTL

** Front page, San Jose Mercury News, Feb. 4, 2011

Comments by Santa Clara Plays Fair on the 49ers's Draft EIR of July, 2009