By Robert Haugh
At Tuesday’s City Council meeting, we learned that the 49ers are making record profits from concerts at Levi’s Stadium but the City general fund is getting nothing. Zero.
We also learned that the City staff is spending a lot of time on preparations for the 2026 Super Bowl and the FIFA World Cup.
But they are not keeping track of their time.
According to City laws and policies, no general fund resources can be used for stadium operations. That includes staff time. City staff knows that.
“With regards to Super Bowl and World Cup, our payroll system is fully capable,” said City Finance Director Kenn Lee at the Tuesday meeting. “In fact, we have the codes set up to account for those times.”
Lee mentioned that the codes were used recently to keep track of staff time to visit the Super Bowl in Las Vegas to check out the operations.
But after a follow-up question from Mayor Lisa Gillmor, Lee would not say why the codes are not being currently used. He nervously pointed to City Manager Jovan Grogan.
(You can watch Gillmor’s question and Lee’s reaction here.)
Grogan jumped in to answer. He said the time is being charged to the Stadium Authority’s general administrative budget.
Grogan justified this by saying that the City doesn’t yet have key agreements in place.
“We are currently negotiating assignment and assumption as well as government services agreement that will fully outline all the costs that will be reimbursed,” said Grogan.
According to City Hall sources, Grogan has to direct City staff to use the tracking codes but has not done so.
According to a former City Hall staffer, the City would keep track of staff time for major events even if there wasn’t an agreement in place. Grogan is breaking from past practices for some reason.
Grogan said that next week, he would provide a comprehensive update on what City staff has done to prepare for the Super Bowl and FIFA.
In 2022, the Santa Clara Civil Grand Jury reported that the 49ers had not shared key information with the City about costs and public safety responsibilities regarding FIFA events.
The Grand Jury set a deadline for February. That didn’t happen.
In April 2023, Gillmor, Councilmember Kathy Watanabe, and Police Chief Pat Nikolai pushed the City Council to set a deadline to get relevant documents so the City would know the costs.
The 49er Five reluctantly agreed, especially Councilmember Karen Hardy who did not want to push the 49ers too hard. They set a deadline for May 2023.
It looks like the City staff still doesn’t have the documents or sufficient information to know about costs or liabilities for the City.
It’s been eight months since the City Council set a deadline to get the information. It’s been over a year since the Grand Jury’s deadline.
DA Rosen, where are you and your DA investigators to protect Santa Clara taxpayers????
Having spent a lifetime of working in finance, staff should provide NO work until the contract/agreement is signed. Period. SMH
Lee is Director of Finance and under his role are financial systems and Codes are a numbering system in a Chart of Accounts that organizes financial transactions. Lee is not head of payroll nor does he authorize T&M for Levi’s Stadium operations. When he said they are waiting for the “funding agreement to turn on codes” that is a general control policy in all organizations, so he and staff appear to be following policy.
I don’t view Lee’s gesturing towards Grogan as “nervous”, more of a redirection to the person who oversees authorization of T&M.
Thank you for that clarification assistant finance manager. But Robert is correct, he looked nervous as heck, and then some
That was very painful to watch. For me, I would not buy a used car from the city mgr. He said the codes are available to use but we are not using them because we are in negotiations. He says we are keeping track of all hours spent while we bill the wrong account. Lisa let him off too easily, IMHO. He looks like he is in over his head and going down for the 3rd time.
In no way did he explain why we were not billing the correct account, as if it doesn’t matter. It certainly does matter. How are we going to get it back when we have lost all leverage and Jovan and the niners will say we were in negotiations and can’t charge this. Wonder why your city services are slower or incomplete? They are working for jed york, on your dime. I ain’t buying any of it.
Codes shudda been turned on 2 years ago when council majority approved moving forward with fifa despite concerns with guido’s conflicts of interest. Who wudda done all that? Oh yeah, Deanna Santana who was fired for no cause by council majority after she brought the conflicts to light.
Shame on council majority for being sheepels and getting us where we are now.