Dear Santa Clarans,
Unfortunately, your City Council decided last night by a vote of 5-2 that voting on changes to your City's Charter is not for you.
Instead, a "Santa Clara Stadium Authority" - identically this City Council, and acting by itself - will exempt the San Francisco 49ers from the competitive bidding requirements of our City's Charter.
What the 49ers apparently learned during some of their "push-polling" of Santa Clara residents is that two ballot measures - one for the $114 million subsidy and one to exempt the 49ers from obeying the Charter - are somehow....um....well....too "confusing" for us to handle.
Whereupon, one public speaker and one Councilman informed us, in the same breath, that it was OK to deny us voters a Charter vote - but that the voters were still intelligent enough to make the call on the stadium.
So, which is it? If we're smart enough to decide on a massive subsidy for an NFL stadium - and we are - we can certainly decide whether or not the 49ers are required to obey our City's Charter as any other applicant would.
As you can imagine, the rationalizations were flying thick and fast in Tuesday's City Council meeting.
However, there's that inconvenient truth that the Stadium Spenders cannot evade: If the 49ers would build their own stadium with their own money, the City's Charter would never have applied - and none of the subterfuge we've witnessed since June 23rd would ever have been necessary.
I'd like to thank the members of Santa Clara Plays Fair who contacted us this last week, and of course, those who stood up in Chambers on Tuesday to speak against our City Council invoking SB 43. Your support of one another and of the group was sincerely appreciated.
Best regards,
Bill Bailey, Treasurer
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Wednesday, October 28, 2009
49ers Stadium and SB 43: The Anatomy of a Hijacking - 2
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1 comment:
SB43 is a shame from the very beginning! Senator Alquist should be investigated WHY she even presented this to the State and hijacked . She LIED (and, yes, I mean lied!) about the impact of this bill throughout the entire process.
People ... PLEASE read the current Term Sheet AND the City's budget. When you put 2 and 2 together, you see that our City is in DEEP financial trouble and cannot afford to spend ANY more money. And giving it to billionaires should not even be considered!! Stop the giveaway! Stop the bleeding! Before it stops you and your city services.
And, there are SOOOO many issues and costs STILL not quantified nor even publically acknowledged!
Such as:
1) How much will it cost to service the numerous LOANS and BONDS??
The 49ers are LOANING the City some $40+ MILLION at 8.5% interest?? Who's going to be paying that and from what fund?? NO one has addressed this nor quantified it! Not to mention the $110+ million in bonds!! And, who is going to pay for the underbudgeting?? Cost overruns keep being touted ... that's great EXCEPT that you have to have enough money to start with!!! And WE DO NOT.
2) Number of jobs!
Lots of people are continuing to LIE (yes, I mean LIE) about the number of jobs!
518 FTE (full-time equivalent) jobs which means those jobs will be part-time/seasonal and probably without benefits.
Zero commitment that the 90 (yes, their report says 90!) construction jobs will even be LOCAL jobs!
3) Money NOT coming from the General Fund
Yes, technically this is factual, but the elephant in the room is that it comes from OTHER City of Santa Clara Funds!
The General Fund is used for City employee costs -- and is only ONE fund that the city has! Several OTHER funds WILL be impacted ... and hit hard.
Did you know that your electric/utility rate WILL be going up 11% next year already and that is WITHOUT the stadium costs. Such as infrastructure improvements and moving OUR substation! Read the 2009-2010 budget!
And, this is just, literally, a brief list of all the shortcomings of the current term sheet and some of the misstatements that are being spread.
I didn't even bring up the following: traffic, safety, water, sewer, garbage, police, noise, quality of life, lost income to city funds, impact on schools (lost revenue), cleanup, parking, closed roads, no commitment from NFL for funding ... and there are MORE!! PLEASE read the term sheet ... this entire proposal IS NOT in the best interest of the Citizens of Santa Clara, really it is NOT. The 49ers are leaving San Francisco because their city WOULD NOT commit public funds ... WHY are we?? Who's making money on this?? It certainly IS NOT the Citizens of Santa Clara!
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