By Burt Field

I read with interest and amusement Councilman Suds Jain’s defense of his proposal to let the 49ers use the Youth Soccer Park for parking during games and events.

Of course, Jain has to start his defense by attacking Robert Haugh who simply stated the obvious in his column.

“Councilmember Suds Jain is requesting to place an agenda item at a future Council meeting to discuss making the Youth Soccer Park Parking Lot available to the 49ers. Jain says this would be when there are no events at the Youth Soccer Park. This sounds a lot like the first step in the 49ers’ attempt to take the park years ago.”

Nothing wrong with what Haugh wrote. It’s two factual sentences followed by an opinion that’s based on a historic fact.

What’s wrong is Jain’s negative style. It’s similar to his tone and demeanor at City Council meetings. It’s like Jain feels he got elected to tear down Santa Clara. 

Coincidentally (or maybe not a coincidence), Jain’s style mirrors the 49ers’ approach in dealing with the City of Santa Clara. Rather than follow the law or the agreements they signed, the team wants to have it their way and their way only. 

That’s why Jed York reneged on his promise to build soccer fields. That’s why they’ve sued the City multiple times. That’s why they purposefully violated our curfew laws. Then, when the former City Council stood up to them, the 49ers decided they would do better Councilmembers who act like team puppets.

And they were right. York wrote checks for $3 million to elect three new Councilmembers in 2020. Jain was one of them. (The other two were Anthony Becker and Kevin Park).

None of the three had ever successfully run for office in Santa Clara before. They collectively failed six times when they had to face the voters without York’s help.  What does that tell you?

York effectively bought our City Council.  Now, they’re in the process of repaying their political debt to him. That’s why our community calls Jain and his colleagues the 49er Five.

The 49ers wanted them to fire our City Attorney Brian Doyle. The 49er Five did it.

The 49ers wanted our curfew law changed even though they agreed to it when the stadium opened in 2014. They changed it for the team. 

The 49ers want the Youth Soccer Park for game day and event parking. The 49er Five are moving to give it to them.

Jain never talked to the Santa Clara youth soccer community before proposing his parking idea. If he had, he would have learned that we cooperated the first year the stadium was opened by not scheduling games during NFL games and believing that York would keep his promise. 

Since then, we learned that the team and its ownership are not trustworthy. So, we have no choice but to rightfully use our fields.   

Jain saw an empty field on January 2nd. He didn’t use common sense and figure out the obvious. It was a national holiday weekend. 

If he couldn’t figure this out himself, we would have educated him. But he didn’t talk to us.

So who did he talk to?  It’s no surprise. He talked to 49er executives at a 49ers game, he said.  

We can only conclude based on this fact and his votes over the last year, that Jain is scheming with the team to give them what they want: VIP parking. It’s something they’ve wanted for years. 

They were allowed to use our lot during the Super Bowl in 2016. But over our objections, the team and NFL also parked cars on our fields which have not been the same since. 

We’ve learned the hard way not to trust York and the 49ers. With his actions, Jain is also proving himself untrustworthy.

Editor’s Note: Burt Field is co-founder of Stand Up for Santa Clara, a grass-roots watchdog organization born out of the fight to save the Santa Clara Youth Soccer Park in 2015. He is also the Santa Clara Youth Soccer League’s Field Scheduler.