49ers Stadium: Al Davis - The Devil You DO Know...

Last week, the commercial press gushed all over the millionaire Yorks coupling with the millionaire Al Davis on a joint 49ers-Raiders stadium. The budget disaster in Sacramento finally pushed it off the front page. But it's still worth looking at - hard:

First: How does a joint stadium eliminate the massive subsidy being demanded by the 49ers? Sorry, but if two multi-millionaire NFL team owners can build a joint venue, then all public subsidies should definitely be off the table. These two team owners - and not our RDA - should be covering the construction and the annual operating costs of any stadium. The silence of the press on this issue poorly serves Santa Clara and Santa Clarans.

Second: Why did Al Davis spend close to 27 years suing nearly all of his major partners? In 1980, Al Davis sued his own League to get out of Oakland. In 1995, he sued them and Oakland/Alameda County over his return there. In July of 2007, the last such legal action - again blaming the NFL for the fiasco in Oakland twelve years earlier - was finally tossed out of court. John Ryan of the Mercury News wondered: When do the costs of Mr. Davis' lawsuits exceed the total price of an NFL stadium?

Not funny.

This "shotgun stadium" is the second time NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has interceded in the badly-flawed stadium gamble - while managing barely to mention our city by name. (See below.)

This time, Commissioner Goodell isn't simply demanding that the San Francisco 49ers make Al Davis a partner. Without coming right out and saying it: He's really demanding that WE Santa Clarans make Al Davis a partner.

Talk about the Devil we do know: Imagine Al Davis ever agreeing (1) to share equal responsibility for a billion-dollar stadium, (2) to pay our General Fund a rightful Ground Lease - or even (3) to sign a lease lasting as long as the massive indebtedness that both teams are demanding of our RDA. That's until the year 2026.

Preposterous.

Conclusion: Stadium supporters should stop wasting our time with distractions such as this one. It's time that they told Santa Clarans - honestly - what they're really demanding: Public subsidies amounting to scores of millions of dollars.



Thanks for your support,

Bill Bailey
Treasurer

(Click here for more than you really wanted to know about our new "stadium partners".)

49ers Stadium: Other People's Money

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell's recent visit to Oakland was reported by the San Francisco Chronicle:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/12/15/SPDL14O310.DTL

When asked about concerns that either the 49ers or the Raiders would move to Los Angeles, Commissioner Goodell dodged the question - but he also inadvertently gave a pretty clear idea about the agenda of millionaire sports team owners in general:

"We're worried about the California market in general. If you look at our stadium situations - San Diego is trying to address (its) stadium situation, San Francisco, the Oakland Raiders ... I think collectively we have to try to address these matters on a statewide level as well as in the local communities," Goodell said.

What's "statewide" got to do with it? Don't outrageously-priced stadiums "serve" localities rather than State residents?

Californians, and not just Santa Clarans, may want to prepare themselves. As more and more communities challenge that old orthodoxy about high-priced athletic stadiums being "good for business", athletic leagues and not just the NFL are lobbying State legislators, and not City Councils, to get their heaping of public money.

My guess: Commissioner Goodell may well have taken a page from Seattle Seahawks owner Paul Allen, Microsoft billionaire. When Seattlites made it clear that they would probably never go for local bond issues sucking hundreds of millions of dollars out of the public purse and blowing them into sports stadiums - Mr. Allen simply went to Olympia, Washington, to get what he wanted:

http://www.fieldofschemes.com/news/archives/2005/03/promises_promis_2.html

Although quite a few Washingtonians may never have realized it: $300 million dollars in public monies were provided by all of them for the very Qwest stadium in which few of them will ever set foot.

Seattle City Councilmember Nick Licata even testified before the U.S. House Domestic Policy Subcommittee on Taxpayers Financed Stadiums, Conventions Centers, and Hotels on exactly this issue. The text of his testimony, a mere two pages worth, is very well thought-out and worth a read by all of us here in Santa Clara:

http://domesticpolicy.oversight.house.gov/documents/20070329144725-38118.pdf

If Commissioner Goodell is truly advocating an end run around local funding decisions controlled by local taxpayers, taxpayers should be deeply concerned. Expressed in starkest terms: If you don't give millionaire NFL owners like Dr. John York what they want, they'll go lobby in Sacramento and they'll take it from you anyway.

Now, it remains to be seen how even Commissioner Goodell and the NFL owners would even dare to ask for money at State level, especially with the State budget deficit now pushing some $42 billion.

But from what we've read and seen out of the stadium supporters - it sure wouldn't stop them from trying.



With best regards,
Bill Bailey
Treasurer

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

We at Santa Clara Plays Fair would like to wish all of you a very fine Christmas, and every success in 2009!

Decision '08: Follow-up

Santa Clara Plays Fair would like to thank all of you who contacted us and who volunteered for the candidates' campaigns in the November 4th election!

Although we did not get all of the changes we still firmly support: We're quite glad to see Councilwoman Jamie McLeod returned to her seat on the City Council. We believe that Councilwoman McLeod will be the one to carefully scrutinize any "deals" with the San Francisco 49ers requiring multi-million dollar subsidies from Santa Clarans.

During the precinct walks we did, many Santa Clarans asked us why the stadium subsidy issue wasn't even on their ballots.

That's a good question for our leaders - and for the San Francisco 49ers.

It's pretty clear that, with conditions in Santa Clara as well as across the nation, those attempting to make us help pay for a millionaire's NFL football stadium could not afford to have Santa Clarans expressing their will on this issue too soon:

http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_10968380

While we note that Councilwoman McLeod and challengers Emerson, Hardy, Lowery and Bouza were the most forthright on the issue, the rest of the incumbents only spoke of the stadium subsidy issue when they were specifically asked - or they completely ignored the stadium subsidy in their campaign literature. Surely this was no accidental omission.

Unfortunately, this will be the rule for the somewhat new City Council. It will be true for the next six months or so at least, due to the confidentiality agreement demanded by the 49ers after CFO Larry MacNeil's presentation to City Council of last April 24th.

It will be important for us as City residents to keep the issue alive while our City Council continues with the "Closed Session" meetings that it has been conducting since May of 2007 - some 41 such secret meetings as of September 30th of this year.

If you have any questions about this process or about the stance of Santa Clara Plays Fair on this issue, please contact us any time.


Best regards,
Bill Bailey
Treasurer

Decision '08: Meet Our City Council Candidates!

Friends of Santa Clara Plays Fair, the Candidate's Forum is to be held this evening at Santa Clara City Hall, 1500 Warburton Drive, at 7:00 pm in City Council Chambers.

Also, please take a few moments to meet our candidates for the Santa Clara City Council through their websites:


Seat 3:Mary EMERSON
http://maryemerson.org/wordpress/

Seat 4: (WRITE IN:) Karen HARDY
http://writeinhardyseat4.blogspot.com/

Seat 6: Brian LOWERY
http://www.lowery4citycouncil.com/

Seat 7: Councilwoman Jamie McLEOD
http://jamiemcleod.org/blog/


Thank you for all of your support - and for your support of these four fine individuals on November 4th!


Best regards,
Bill Bailey
Treasurer

Decision '08: Santa Clara Plays Fair recommends....

We were very pleased to meet as many of you as we did at the Art and Wine Festival.

But if you didn't get our endorsement cards for City Council Seats 3, 4, 6 and 7, Santa Clara Plays Fair endorses and recommends your vote for:

Seat 3: Mary EMERSON
Seat 4: (WRITE IN:) Karen HARDY
Seat 6: Brian LOWERY
Seat 7: Councilwoman Jamie McLEOD

Councilwoman McLeod, of course, is the incumbent who's been willing to analyze the stadium "deal" in great detail. She's done a fine job for us in Seat 7, and she should be returned to the Council so that she can continue working for all Santa Clarans.

The main issue we see is the massive subsidy of a millionaire's NFL football stadium with scores of millions of dollars of YOUR money. That's cash and RDA bonds which would be far better used for the benefit of Santa Clarans rather than for one NFL team owner.

We believe that the incumbent and three challengers above will go the distance to protect the wallets of Santa Clarans. We ask that all city residents take this opportunity to bring real change to our City Council on November 4th.

If there are any questions we can answer, about who we are and why we support these candidates, please use the comment or contact links. A volunteer will respond as soon as possible.

Thanks for visiting us!


- Bill Bailey, Treasurer

Lucas Oil Stadium operating costs mount - Indianapolis, IN

First: Santa Clara Plays Fair would like to thank everyone who volunteered, who donated, who joined us and who stopped by to speak with us at the Santa Clara Art & Wine Festival.

To be able to reach as many of you as we did in the run-up to the November 4th City Council election was very gratifying - and we learned much from all of you.


And now, a little story of yet another subsidy for an NFL stadium gone wrong:

Lucas Oil Stadium, new home to the Indianapolis Colts, opened amid "gee-whiz" tours and grandiose claims in late August, and with what should have been a final sticker cost of $700 million.

But just as the ticker-tape is being swept into the trash bins are we finally hearing that Lucas Oil Stadium has serious problems with meeting its operating costs. A very illuminating article in the Indianapolis Star of September 18 makes clear how serious this is:

http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080917/LOCAL18/809170383/1195/LOCAL18

This first came to our attention with a message from the Field of Schemes website:

http://www.fieldofschemes.com/news/archives/2008/09/the_stadium_tha_1.html

In a nutshell: Indy's Capital Improvement Board [CIB] has found that the $10 million estimate for operating Lucas each year is far too low: "Officials at the Capital Improvement Board, which operates the city's stadiums and convention center, plan to draw $25 million from reserves this year and in 2009, $20 million of which will go to higher stadium operating costs." [Indy Star article]

The Indy Star article reveals that a former CIB head urged that operating costs be rolled into the original construction costs - as was done for two earlier stadiums in Indianapolis. As this was not done, the City of Indianapolis, population 781,000, is now on the hook to cover the increased expenses of running Lucas Oil Stadium - abbreviated, appropriately enough, "LOS".

There was another scary item in that same article: The notion that Indy's CIB would use their Convention Center proceeds to cover the Lucas Oil Stadium shortfall.

If one could imagine the same scenario in Santa Clara, simply note that our own Convention Center already operates at a loss and that it requires its own subsidy. If the yet-to-be-formed Santa Clara Stadium Authority finds itself with an operating shortfall in an NFL stadium in Santa Clara, there will not be too many other sources to bleed for cash.

Finally, in closing, here's what a citizen's group had to say about the entire affair:

"Pat Andrews, vice president of the Marion County [IN] Alliance of Neighborhood Associations, said the public isn't interested in finger-pointing. She said state and city officials shouldn't have built a new stadium without a solid plan for how to maintain it.

"They're all to blame," Andrews said. "They went and paid for toys instead of food and rent. The operating costs problem is just the icing on the cake. This stadium will be an albatross across our necks for years." [Indy Star article]

There is a lesson in this for us here in Santa Clara - with our own population about a seventh of Indy's and while we contemplate a public subsidy for an NFL stadium which is likely to cost up to 40% more than Lucas Oil Stadium.

The election on November 4th may be a fine opportunity to apply that lesson.



Thanks for all of your support!

-Bill Bailey, Treasurer