49ers Stadium: A Santa Claran speaks on the so-called "Citizens' Initiative"...

"I had a strange experience while entering Lucky's (Saratoga and San Tomas Expwy) on Monday - a young guy standing outside was trying to get signatures on a petition relating to the Stadium. I naturally assumed it was the "Santa Clarans for Economic Progress" (aka the 49ers) so I talked to him a bit. He spouted what I thought was pure misinformation, namely: "the Santa Clara City Council has decided to rescind their support of a vote on the stadium and instead just wants to go ahead with the stadium. By signing this petition you will be restoring our right to vote on the stadium." This seemed to imply that if I was *against* the stadium (which I am), it would be a good idea to sign the petition. I did not sign the petition, because I believe it does an end-run around the EIR, but I did hear him state that the City Council, except one dissenting member, had decided they no longer wanted a citizens' vote. I went into Lucky's briefly and when I came out he was gone (or perhaps at the other entrance), which was too bad because I hadn't actually looked at the petition ... which would have allowed be to confirm which petition it was.

This guy was fairly young, and perhaps he was getting paid for each signature he collected, but he sure mangled the information he gave ... I could easily see some Lucky's shoppers saying "Yeah sure, whatever, kid ... can't hurt to sign it if it allows me to vote on the stadium."

That's from a Santa Claran who saw the 49ers' very own paid signature gatherers in action this last weekend.

The 49ers' claim that their so-called "citizens' initiative" somehow 'restores' our right to vote is simply an outright FALSEHOOD. We already had the right to vote with the City Council's own measure - and the 49ers along with their paid name-getters know this very well.

Sure, it's a free country: The 49ers can do this - even though we all know that its only purpose is to keep them from being held to account for their "Do-nothing-EIR".

After all, their "initiative" is identical to the Council's own measure (they promised), and also binding (they promised) - so there's no reason why we can't vote on the Council measure instead of on the 49ers initiative on June 8th.

Is there?

It also looks like the shoe is finally on the other foot: When, in 1997, a real citizens group tried to challenge the original San Francisco stadium measures from that year, the 49ers sued the Registrar of Voters in S.F. to halt that petition drive:

http://www.mediastudies.org/templates/document.asp?documentID=9733

Regardless of the merits of "49ers v. Nishioka": It might just behoove the San Francisco 49ers to adhere to the same standards here in our city to which they held San Franciscans twelve years ago.

With that, I would like to call upon Santa Clarans to please drop us a line:

Tell us of your own experiences with this so-called "citizens' initiative" petition, and of claims made by any of the 49ers' name-getters.

Those claims won't be hard to debunk.

The 49ers are welcome to do what they're doing - but after the Confidentiality Agreement, the hijacking of Senate Bill 43 and now this "49ers initiative", they've earned themselves a lot of scrutiny.

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And now, a postscript:

"BTW - my wife just told me the exact same thing happened to her at Save Mart on El Camino last night. She actually signed the petition because she was told she was protecting her right to vote, although she is strongly against the stadium ! These folks are underhanded."

Enough said.

Thanks again for your support!

Bill Bailey, Treasurer

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