By Robert Haugh
The Santa Clara City Council shot down the 49ers’ request for public funds to pay for their office space.
In a unanimous 6-0 vote, the Council acting as the Stadium Authority decided to remove from the Stadium Authority budget the $620,000 to $650,000 team request. It would have been an annual allocation that increased in cost each year. The team wanted it for a 52,000 square-foot office near Levi’s Stadium to house their 160 employees.
Last week, Mayor Lisa Gillmor made it clear she wasn’t on board when she pressed 49ers’ finance director, Alex Acton, on why the public should cover the cost of private office space.
Yesterday, ethicist Dr. Tom Shanks weighed in, calling out the bad idea.
“Residents should rightfully question whether their Council will prioritize the community’s interests over special, private, or personal agendas,” Shanks wrote on Santa Clara News Online.
It’s curious, though, that city staff didn’t reject such an obviously bad idea earlier. Why did it take this long to realize this wasn’t in the best interest of the community?
Maybe the 49ers have gotten too comfortable asking for whatever they want, assuming they’d always get their way. The team has control of the City Council and influence over City Staff, so it’s not hard to see why they thought they could push this one through.
For now, the 49ers will have to pay for the cost of their new offices, just like every other business in Santa Clara.
Editor’s Note: Councilmember Raj Chahal was vacationing and did not call in for the meeting.
Councilmember Raj Chahal take time off vacationing and call in to important meeting.
Wow….The Santa Clara Unified School District is giving the SC City Council 49ers Five a run for their money when it comes to shady ethical issues.
“SCUSD CRISIS OF LEADERSHIP & UNION SILENCE:
A CULTURE OF FEAR & RETALIATION
DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY!”
https://fairsantaclara.org/
It is about time that the city put a STOP sign to the 49ers outrageous requests. We the Santa Clara citizens are not benefiting by getting free tickets, special seating etc. We out number the ones that are reaping kickbacks.
CSC, your comment about outstanding debt neglects to mention about $130M in interest payments eventually due on the outstanding loans. Unfortunately, by contract terms the remaining loans cannot be prepaid easily if at all. On the Term A loan we are therefore still paying more for interest than for principal. The CFD advance is at a higher interest rate than the Term A loan but we cannot pay that by any means other than revenue from hotel room surcharges. Could be worse, but I would not celebrate too fast. The rate of further loan pay down will not likely be nearly as fast, both for those reasons and because SBL income is rapidly disappearing. See the annual KPMG report for more info.
@Yeah but… Thanks for doing some research and replying with some actual knowledge, which is a rarity on this blog!
The Community Facilities District (CFD) advance/loan does have a slightly higher interest rate and relies solely on special hotel taxes, however, it is a much smaller piece of the entire debt. See Tables 12 & 13 on pages 21 & 22: https://www.santaclaraca.gov/home/showpublisheddocument/84963/638616665620670000
Where are you getting information about Stadium Builder Licenses (SBL)? On Page 15 of the Santa Clara Stadium Authority Financial Status Report, and in Table 10 that follows, SBL licencing is reportedly healthy.
As usual, Brian Doyle was boring and ineffective. It was good to hear that the City Manager and staff did not recommend outside office space to be leased.
The budget highlights of the evening were revenue increases and that the Stadium Authority has paid down debt from $653M in 2014 to $210M today, a whopping 68%! Super Bowl LX and the FIFA World Cup are going to be great events, providing residents and local businesses with additional visibility and revenue. https://www.santaclaraca.gov/our-city/santa-clara-stadium-authority/super-bowl-lx-and-fifa-world-cup
like my momma always said to me, don’t count your chickens before they hatch! and boy does that hold true today!
Glad the mayor dug into the merchandize issue and the information shared by staff was mediocre. As usual stadium mgmt wasn’t available to address concerns. The whole deal sounded shady and why all of a sudden the change with one merchandiser when there are many others? Just because they deal with other stadiums? And they obviously have a monopoly on the sales of merchandize. Doesn’t sound legal and when that happens someone is definitely getting kickbacks. Glad the motion failed.
I’m with Burt on this one. It may just appear that the niners jumped the shark and even their shills had to vote no. I think it gave the shills a chance to vote against the niners in something, anything, to allow them a pseudo-legitimate talking point. “See, we don’t give them everything”.
I’m surprised Raj didn’t call in so he could get his ‘street cred chit’.
A good executive director/city manager would have never let this budget proposal get in front of the Board for consideration. It’s easy to read the tea leaves that this is not a good idea.
City staff’s interactions with the 49ers have been abysmal. It appears that they promote whatever the 49ers give them, without referencing the contracts or the law. Staff reflexively parrots 49er talking points without any explanation of how they are defending the City or Stadium Authority’s interests. The Council’s 6-0 vote against the ridiculous ask of the new office space is a good sign that they are finally waking up to the fact that they are politically vulnerable for these give-aways. Santa Clara still has a long way to go. Staff now needs to wake up to the fact that they will be vulnerable too, if they don’t start to challenge the nonsense that Jed York still seems to be serving up.
Hi Brian,
I wanted to thank you for being a lone voice in exposing this toxic and dysfunctional city council, and especially our City Attorney and City Manager. There are many of us out there in the city that are grateful you are using your legal expertise to point out the illegals and immoral actions by all of the above, and taking time out of your days to research and then present this at city council meetings. I hope you consider spearheading a grassroots effort of local attorneys and citizens who are willing to take this to court and I would be happy to donate to such a group to save our city.
Great news… but why do I feel like this is all a planned “Chess Move”, that still ends up costing our City Millions.
Sad to be jaded, and questioning this outcome, but let’s just say we still have just under 30 more years of this abusive treatment.
Think for one second.
Did this hurt the 49ers at all? Nope…
Did it cost them any money? Nope…
So what did it give them? Answer it gave them a point in time when they can tell the world, that they asked for something, and they did not get it.
Kind of like your drunk 16 year old asking for the keys to the car, and you tell them no!!!
This is good news. Question now is, “What’s next!
When you play Chess, you are never dealing with just the move that was made, but looking down the road to see how you can win the game.
Burt Field