By Robert Haugh
For the second night in a row, the Santa Clara City Council held another long meeting to review a critical Civil Grand Jury report.
On Wednesday night, they voted on an official response to “Outplayed” the June report that evaluated the 10-year-old stadium deal. Here’s the basic summary of that report:
The Stadium Authority Board/City Council, both past and present, have compounded the issues by 1) allowing changes to the already 49er-friendly terms in Measure J to be adjusted in the Stadium’s legal agreements to further and materially benefit the 49ers; 2) giving away what little leverage and control they did have in settlement agreements; and 3) relinquishing its power to the 49ers over the last decade. By taking a passive role in its oversight duties, the Board has undermined Stadium Authority staff.
The 49er Five rejected most of the Grand Jury’s recommendations to improve stadium oversight for the future.
The Grand Jury recommended that Santa Clara needs more expertise with stadium auditors, financial advisors, and marketing experts. But those recommendations were rejected on 4-2 votes.
Mayor Lisa Gillmor and Councilmember Kathy Watanabe voted for the recommendations to improve stadium oversight. The 49er Five (Councilmembers Anthony Becker, Suds Jain, Karen Hardy, and Kevin Park) voted against them.
Councilmember Raj Chahal was vacationing in India and did not call into the Wednesday meeting. Chahal called into the Tuesday meeting.
The Council majority also rejected a major recommendation from the report that they try to increase revenue since the City’s general fund has only received a modest return, according to the Grand Jury.
Surprisingly, City Staff did not agree with this goal. They suggested that the 49ers’ goal in managing the stadium for the City should be “not to maximize profits.”
Gillmor objected to the approach.
“I know everything goes into consideration when booking events,” said Gillmor. “But we tell them not to maximize profits? That’s a huge mistake.”
Park defended the approach that would allow the team to book money-losing events as they have in the past.
“I think that what (City) staff is going for is we’re going to maximize effects,” said Park.
Another major Grand Jury recommendation on revenue focused on what the Stadium Authority and City should be getting from surcharges and luxury suites.
The Grand Jury concluded that the City and Stadium Authority has not been fully paid these revenues for the last ten years.
City Manager Jovan Grogan that he and the City Staff have no way of knowing if this is accurate because the City in the past could not get information from the 49ers who refused to provide it.
Grogan said that he believes the last two years with a new financial management system has accurately captured revenue.
The City Council majority agreed with Grogan’s recommendation that they would not attempt to identify and capture revenue from the first eight years despite the Grand Jury recommendation. Wow.
It was another 4-2 vote with Becker, Jain, Hardy, and Park agreeing with the City Staff. Gillmor and Watanabe opposed.
The meeting took over 6 hours. Tuesday night’s review of the Grand Jury’s “Irreconcilable Differences” report about the 49ers Five’s “abusive and belittling behavior” lasted almost five hours.
That’s a lot of time and a lot of rejection of Grand Jury recommendations that were focused on making stadium management better.
Would anybody be surprised if another Civil Grand Jury did a report next year that’s entitled: “Outplayed Again – We Told You So.”
Editor’s Note: Park left the meeting early and then returned after a few hours. He announced at the beginning of the meeting that he had a “family meeting” to attend.
The time has come for Santa Clara to start monetizing all of its biggest assets in a way that puts more money in the general fund. For once maybe Santa Clara can “outplay ” someone instead of getting outplayed.
Levi’s Stadium, Great America, and the Convention Center should all be subject to a tax on attendees of every event in every price range. There should be zero exemptions. Every event that goes by is a missed opportunity.
Data centers should be targeted to find a way to tax their transactions so that they don’t get off the hook so easily. We have at least 50 in Santa Clara. They should be singled out, like a bullseye on a target, to provide more than they currently contribute to our bottom line. Find a creative way to get more money from them, like a tax on Software as a Service, or SaaS.
Big companies like Nvidia, AMD, Intel and others should be urged to voluntarily do more to contribute to make our city a better place. They make so much damn money and I can’t recall anything they have done to benefit Santa Clara in more than a small way.
Everything I’ve asked for is fair and reasonable. Ideas like mine deserve massive support in the community. Demand things like this from your local leaders.
The time has come to say “Fair’s fair”
To pay the rent now, to pay our share.
Thomas, you’re so deep into the ‘tax everything’ hole that you don’t appear to see ramifications of such a suggestion. Firstly, your ideas are flirting with communism.
Second, not the 49ers team but a charitable family foundation associated with the team’s owners donated money to councilperson campaigns and initiatives to bring diversity to local government. The all-Caucasian opposition have label them ‘dark money’, continually beat on their charitable reputation, and have labeled proponents the “49er Five.” Neither Nvidia, Intel, or AMD likely want to deal with a population that will just spit in their face unless those companies bow down to polarized local politics. Instead of demanding the 49ers pay more, why don’t you just asked them to consider voluntarily contributing to the betterment of Santa Clara?
And lastly, Intel has a massive campus in Hillsboro, OR and most of AMD’s employees and operations are in Austin, TX. If the City of Santa Clara were to entertain this ignorant ‘tax their revenue’ idea, their Santa Clara offices would be quickly vacated. Go figure out something else to wrap your emotions around, nobody wants to be taxed to death.
It appears many here don’t understand how crass it is to just focus on the term “maximizing profits.” Maximizing revenue opportunity is a goal of any well thought marketing plan and an experienced organization will weigh proposed opportunities against liabilities which then produces estimated profit. Maximizing profits isn’t accomplished solely by selling more tickets for higher consumption or greater attendance, it can also be accomplished by reducing operating costs such as staffing.
We saw public and law enforcement response to the indecent a few months back when a sporting patron walked through security with an edged weapon. SCPD was quick to point fingers at lack of third party security. The City’s response to Recommendation 8 was appropriate and should be supported.
This meeting was a fine example of why a tax on attendees is badly needed and appropriate. I have spoken about this many times over the last two years and made it clear why it is appropriate for Santa Clara. I was under the impression that I had enough support to move forward, but no alternative to the bond measure was ever discussed. It’s apparent this timid group will not put what is best for Santa Clara above anything else. How dare you get in my way of helping Santa Clara. You put the $400 million bond measure on the ballot, but nothing else. Unfortunately it will not meet the 67% threshold to pass and I will do everything in my power to make sure it is defeated to make you look like the failures that you truly are.
The above is directed at Karen Hardy who came and criticized me to my face after I presented at a meeting. Anthony Becker who does not deserve to play any role in anything that I bring forward to the council. Kevin Park, who I spoke to ,asked for his support.
Mr. Calvello, I would most likely be in favor of the tax on tickets for events at the stadium. I do think at this time having multiple tax proposals on the ballot is not a good idea. I think it would lead to the failure of both. There are infrastructure issues that are in dire need of being addressed in our city. While I am not generally in favor of
Bond measures, there are some I will vote for and this is one of them. I don’t think being against something to punish the 5 49er sock puppets is reasonable though. That punishes the city and its residents as a whole. I hope that you would reconsider your support of the bond measure by looking at the bigger picture. I’m betting also that the 49ers would push back against any tax added to tickets. I’m guessing this is why their sock puppets are not in support either. They have their marching orders.
So remind me why we got rid of Ms. Deanna Santana and Mr. Brian Doyle?
What were those two individuals trying to do?
That’s right, they were just trying to hold the S.F. 49ers accountable for their actions / and or lack of actions. Trying to hold them accountable for what they agreed to when they became one of our city’s tenants.
Kind of sounds to me like they were just trying to do what they’re jobs. You know… the jobs they were hired by our City to do?
As one concerned resident has posted under…..
NOVEMBER CAN’T COME SOON ENOUGH!
Burt Field
The Five sold their souls for what amount to the crumbs on the table at any 49rs meeting and sold out the people they are supposed to represent. They are the very bottom of the barrel amongst those with aspirations to being included in the Political Class.