By Brian Doyle

As a 35-year Santa Clara resident and taxpayer, I am very concerned about the City staff’s report on the proposed Stadium Authority Budget for FY 2026/27.

Firstly, the fact that Staff would not tell ManCo (the 49ers’ Management Company) that any further requests that the public pay a private company’s rent for offsite space demonstrates a complete disinterest in protecting the public’s finances. 

The Stadium Lease clearly allocates large areas of the Stadium itself as exclusive tenant space for ManCo; it provides no legal basis for the public to subsidize more space offsite. 

This should have been the end of the conversation. Staff should not have even half-heartedly advanced the request.

Secondly, the request by Manco for $2,468,000 in SBL service fees to collect $5,154,000 in SBL proceeds is supported neither by prudent fiscal oversight nor by the controlling legal document. 

ManCo’s responsibilities with regard to SBL were not part of the original Management Agreement; it was the result of the Fourth Amendment to the agreement, which transferred the responsibilities from Legends. 

Section 3 of the Amendment limits the budgeted amount for SBL Management Services to “Stadium Manager’s actual costs and expenses in connection with services provided to the Stadium Authority.” 

If Stadium Manager’s actual expenses in providing SBL annual services is equal to 48% of the amount of the annual debt being collected, then there is something seriously wrong: either massive inefficiency or downright fraud. 

In either case, the Board has every right to know what these ManCo staff members are actually doing.

It is inexplicable that Stadium Authority staff has not reported on the wildly off-base request for this budget amount, especially since they even noted in Tables 3 and 5 of their proposed budget document that while the amount of SBL proceeds collected decreased from last year by 23.6%, but the amount of compensation being requested increased by 6.2%. 

What is going on here?

The Board should remove the budgeted amounts for both the offsite rent charges and the SBL services. The Board should direct that staff never include any request for offsite rent in future budgets. The Board can entertain a future budget adjustment for SBL services, if ManCo complies with the contractual requirement of demonstrating actual costs and expenses required for SBL services.

Brian Doyle is Santa Clara’s former City Attorney and is a longtime resident of District Five.