By Robert Haugh
Yesterday, something strange happened at the Stadium Authority (SA) meeting. But these days, it seems like anything Jed York does is strange.
The 49ers negotiated a parking agreement with the Stadium Authority. It’s something that took the better part of a year to do.
But minutes before the SA meeting, Harry O’Brien, an attorney hired by the 49ers, sent a letter saying they wanted the agreement torn up. Yup. Torn up.
This caused SA attorney Brian Doyle to respond with some choice words:
“I consider this piece of paper to be an utter and disgusting use of bad faith on behalf of the 49ers. I’ve never seen anything like this done in my entire life — where someone requests a public entity to destroy public records which is a criminal act.
“We will not destroy signature-signed copies of this. These are now in the public record. State law forbids us from destroying such signatures.”
You can watch Doyle’s statement here.
O’Brien did not call into the meeting to explain his request. No one from the team did.
The SA Board voted unanimously to approve the agreement.
We asked some local attorneys to try to explain what O’Brien and the team was doing. Everyone said the team must have screwed up big time with their negotiations and just figured it out. And the SA was smart to approve it.
Bill Bailey is as wacky as Suds attorney, J Byron Fleck.
Who paid Suds legal bill?
When you can’t address a single fact I write, then I know i’m on to something. But keep trolling. Please.
Do you realize, in the last 8 comments before this, you had six (6) of them.
I’m new to all of this online stuff, but Is that how this “Troll” thing works?
Burt Field
You catch on fast.
Now: Try addressing the issues in the original article – as I did.
This is amazing, I’ve seen about 20 of these suits in council chambers, and that’s what they come up with? I guess the rule is, you can’t be smarter than Jed.
I thought the niners hired smart attorneys, it makes you wonder. Maybe they spent all their money on buying the council and had to let their smart attorneys go.
Howard, I think I read their lead attorney is named Bill Bailey. Mr. Bailey really strikes me as a genius. If you don’t think so, just ask him, he’ll tell you just how smart he is.
He should fit in well with the 49ers, except his ego may be too big. Remember Mr. York needs to think that he is the intellectual giant behind all the really smart moves with so far……
Look how well he has done so far!
Burt Field
I saw Harry O’Brien in our own Council Chambers before and during the Measure Jed campaign. Ten years on, and Coblentz, Duffy is still at it. Those Yorkabucks can be awfully seductive.
Things were pretty easy for all of the 49ers’ mouthpieces as long as they were dealing with a Santa Clara City Council with five “Stadium Friendlies.”
Now, though, after ten years of ongoing abuse by the 49ers’ front office, we finally have a Council much less credulous. For that I thank CMs Watanabe, Davis, O’Neill and certainly Mayor Gillmor. (Still voting Suds Jain in District 5, but thank you anyway.).
Now, guys like Harry O’Brien are going to have to start earning their billable hours. Good news.
If someone working for the 49ers screwed up on the Interim Parking Agreement, it may have something to do with the decline in Parking District revenues showed it at 40% of spaces unparked (Post-Meeting slidedeck, Oct. 13th, Council-and-Authorities. I believe that this brings in about $300k annually, but in the last SCSA report, it looks like it’s under $100k at present.
Also, in his letter to the City referenced here, maybe Harry’s slipping up just a bit – Council-and-Authorities did in fact meet on October 13th, but the Interim Parking District agreement wasn’t on the Agenda. The packet came to 875 pages, but a -F will let you search it, just a little bit.
Maybe the City Attorney went a bit over the top in the YouTube video, but he’s stone-cold right on this: In what alternate universe do the San Francisco 49ers count themselves as exempt from every last public records law plus the Brown Act?
Worse yet, if Jed York wants a squabble over Parking District proceeds on the order of hundreds of thou while he’s easily scooping $150,000,000 out of Levi’s every year, then our problem isn’t Harry O-Brien.
It’s worse.