49ers Stadium: It's not about the parking spaces - Part 1

Dear Santa Clarans,


In the Planning Commission meeting this evening, an applicant for an 40-unit affordable housing project was run through the grinder because his project contained a mere 51 parking spaces onsite.

Then, the San Francisco 49ers presented their zoning change and subdivision map for a stadium requiring parking spaces for 20,000 vehicles - with only 404 of them on the stated development site. The Planning Commission approved both of those changes for the 49ers on 6-0 votes, with one absent.

Let's be clear: It's not about the 45,000 parking spaces any one of us could scare up within a mile and a half of a subsidized NFL stadium. And no one in Santa Clara Plays Fair has ever denied that they exist.

Rather, our objection is the complete disruption of the life of our city when we must drop 160 police officers - more sworn peace officers than Santa Clara has - into the middle of 31 traffic checkpoints to direct those 20,000 vehicles to those parking spaces.

No matter how the 49ers try to spin this: For a 13-acre stadium stuffed onto a 20-acre site, this is no plan. It simply isn't.

The reports actually presented to the Planning Commission are here.

For a quick index of their high points, see here.



Thank you for your support, and best regards,
Bill Bailey, Treasurer,
Santa Clara Plays Fair

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The 49ers Stadium: Subsidizing a Bad Project

Dear Santa Clarans,


This Wednesday, September 8th, our Planning Commission takes up the Rezoning and Tentative Subdivision Map which will allow the San Francisco to use City lands for their stadium - nearly half the cost of which will be paid or raised by Santa Clara agencies. The four-part report to the Planning Commission may be found here.

The DEIR for the stadium was released last July 30th, meaning that the stadium project has now been separated from its first Environmental Impact Report by over a year! However, the gross faults with that EIR process - and with the final document, certified by the City Council on December 8th, 2009 - still remain. Virtually none of the stadium's impacts on our community will be mitigated in any way.

Santa Clara Plays Fair urges interested Santa Clarans - especially if you live north of U.S. 101 - to attend the Planning Commission meeting this Wednesday evening and speak out on the stadium project. To quickly locate bullet items you're interested in, here is a quick two-page index.

Please share this with your neighbors: The 49ers stadium subsidy is a fiscal issue for all of us - but it's also a quality-of-life issue for those of us who live in Zip Code 95054.



Thanks for your continuing support,

Bill Bailey, Treasurer,
Santa Clara Plays Fair

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The 49ers' Stadium Subsidy: How to Buy an Election, Part 2

Dear Santa Clarans,


We filed our campaign statement today with the City Clerk, and with that, we owe you many thanks for your support.

Santa Clarans contributed nearly $19,000 to Santa Clara Plays Fair in the first half of 2010.

They contributed $35 to the Astroturf group.

But that sure didn't stop the Astroturfies - they turned right around took $4.427 MILLION from the York family and the 49ers. That's San Francisco money anyway you slice it.

As staggering a sum as that is to buy an election, it's actually good business for the Yorks because they just walked away with a $444,000,000 pot. That's the total that Santa Clara's public agencies will contribute or raise for a $1 billion stadium which benefits the 49ers - and Santa Clara barely at all.

In the coming weeks, those subsidies will be locked in with the Disposition and Development Agreement, or DDA. That's the binding contract which gives away the store, and it does that by incorporating the worst parts of the Term Sheet of last June 2nd.

We urge Santa Clarans to get involved. If you have questions about the Term Sheet and where the stadium subsidy is going next, please ask away. The city's own documents and Council Agenda Reports tell the whole story.



Thanks and best regards,
Bill Bailey, Treasurer

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$2.7 Million of RDA Cash - What it's Bought Us

Dear Santa Clarans,

On Tuesday evening, our City Council approved an additional $750,000 in consulting fees to be paid by our RDA for the 49ers' stadium subsidy "deal." That makes a total of $2,700,000 in we 've spent since April, 2007, for the Feasibility Study, the Term Sheet, and now, the Disposition and Development Agreement or DDA.

What now?

Well, it's time to convert the highly-defective Term Sheet from last June 2nd - and from your June 8th, 2010, Sample Ballots - into the binding DDA.

However, without some serious and much-needed changes, this DDA will set in stone a "deal" for a subsidized NFL stadium in our city which puts Santa Clarans at a gross disadvantage. See the actual sections of the Term Sheet, and please note:

• Section 9.1: The San Francisco 49ers, in fact, assume NO liability for any stadium operating cost overruns. They reserve to themselves the sole discretion to tell us what they will and will not reimburse to any Santa Clara Stadium Authority. This clause alone is a disaster for Santa Clarans.
  

• Section 4.3(a): The 49ers pay a miserable $180,000 in Fixed Ground Rent to our city in the first year, and only a million beginning in the year 2024. Our city gets only $8M in Fixed Rent during the stadium lease - a term over which the Great America theme park operator will pay us over $80 million.

• Section 16.1: The 49ers reserve to themselves the sole and exclusive right to sublease to a second NFL team - such as the Oakland Raiders. This right - and the dollars it generates - should be granted to the Santa Clara Stadium Authority, and not to Dr. John York.

• Section 2.4: The 49ers are charging Silicon Valley Power $20,000,000 to move the Tasman electric substation out of the way of the stadium. We've seen enough electric rate increases; we shouldn't be paying to move Tasman for the benefit of the 49ers. Hand that bill to Dr. York, please.

Before the Stadium Boosters on this City Council form a Santa Clara Stadium Authority - and seat themselves on it - we ask that Santa Clarans sound off. The Term Sheet is truly a lousy deal - and it should not inform the DDA.

Please write to the City Council today. Email them. Call them. Fax them.



Thanks for your continued support, and best regards,
Bill Bailey, Treasurer

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49ers: $444,000,000 -- Santa Clara: ZERO

Dear Santa Clarans,


We'd like to thank all of you who gave, volunteered and shared in the drive to defeat Measure J. We would never have accomplished as much as we did without your volunteer efforts and contributions. We played it fair. We were right on the facts and we treated our fellow Santa Clarans with the respect they've earned.

But the disappointing loss on Measure J isn't merely a loss for Santa Clara Plays Fair.

It's also a serious loss to the City of Santa Clara.

Measure J tells us that we can spend money like San Jose - and like Sacramento - and that we can get away with it. We can't.

The worst part is that Santa Clarans might finally learn exactly why Dr. John York 'isn't in the stadium business.'

The subsidy of Dr. John York's stadium is still wrong. It will not deliver for Santa Clara. We ask that all Santa Clarans step forward and that they oppose that massive giveaway. Please continue your involvement with Santa Clara Plays Fair - and encourage others to join.

We look forward to hearing more from more of you.


With best regards,
Bill Bailey, Treasurer

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One other little note: Would everyone please return all "NO on J" election materials - walking and tabling materials, as well as all yard signs and stakes - to 1009 Las Palmas Drive? Look for the "Burma Shave" signs on the east side of Las Palmas between Benton and Homestead. Otherwise, call 1-877-703-4300 for pickup.

And please accept our thanks in advance. ---- B**2

Your Last Chance to STOP the 49ers Stadium Subsidy: PLEASE VOTE NO ON J !

Dear Santa Clarans,


As Santa Clarans, we have on this one ballot the most important issue that our city has ever faced.

Measure J will tell us whether our future will be in the hands of Santa Clarans - or in the hands of the San Francisco 49ers.

The 49ers and their "stadium boosters" used the Confidentiality Agreement of April, 2007, to deny us voters information on the stadium subsidy to which we are entitled. They hijacked Senate Bill 43 to take from us control of our own City Charter. When they couldn't get the language they wanted on the ballot, they paid hirelings to get what they wanted - and they weren't even truthful with Santa Clarans while they were doing that.

What Measure J really means: We're being told that we "need to" hand $444 million dollars in public wealth over to a private corporation.

In return, we will get crumbs.

I believe that Santa Clarans will support a fair process. But there is no way that the last three years have been in any way fair to us: Three years have gone by with seventy-seven secret meetings between the 49ers and our City Council. Two million dollars of RDA cash have been spent on consultants and lawyers. Our city's budget will close this fiscal year $15 million in the red - and the 49ers stadium subsidy will make those deficits far worse in coming years.

Some people in other communities might just throw in the towel - but we don't think that our fellow Santa Clarans are the sort to give up. It's for this reason that we urge all of you: Please don't leave the job of protecting Santa Clara to others. We really need your help to defeat Measure J at last and to restore our city to us.

Please vote NO on Measure J. Encourage others to vote NO.

More than at any other time, the future of Santa Clara truly depends on you.



Thanks for all of your support,
William F. "Bill" Bailey, Treasurer

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The 49ers' Stadium Subsidies: Your Sample Ballot says, "Let Silicon Valley Power pay for it!"

Dear Santa Clarans,


Please see the Term Sheet in your Sample Ballots:

• Section 2.4: Silicon Valley Power - and not the team - is being forced to pay $20,000,000 for the relocation of the perfectly-functional Tasman electric substation. Adding insult to injury: Tasman will be moved even closer to the residents of Gianera Street - while our electric rates increase 34% from January, 2006 to January, 2011.

Yes, we postponed rate increases longer than we should have. However, I support those rate increases completely, because presentations by our utility managers before City Council show me that I'm still getting a good deal from our City's electric utility.

But what I object to is the San Francisco 49ers making us pay $20,000,000 to move an electric substation that does not need to be moved. The Stadium Boosters have been double-talking this issue since May of 2007 - and they are just as wrong now as they were then.

Late news: City Council has approved the new Yahoo! campus - with Yahoo! paying for their own new electric substation.

If Yahoo! can do it - so can the San Francisco 49ers.

Santa Clarans, do you see how far the stadium subsidy for the 49ers really extends? Please vote NO on Measure J - and you will STOP the ripoff of our city's electric utility.



Thanks for your support and best regards,
Bill Bailey, Treasurer

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