By Santa Clara Mayor Lisa Gillmor and Councilmember Kelly Cox

Jed York’s 49ers are valued at $10.5 billion and bring in $752 million a year in revenue.

Since 2009, York has poured more than $13 million into Santa Clara politics, including $2.6 million this election.

Money for politics, it seems, is no problem. The team’s own office rent is another story.

49ers management wants Santa Clara to pay it. That matters to every resident.

Our stadium is supposed to return profits to the city to help pay for police, fire, parks and libraries. Every stadium dollar spent covering the team’s costs is a dollar that never comes home.

$620,000 a Year — and Growing

As the Mercury News reported Oct. 23, 49ers management has gone to arbitration — where an outside decision-maker settles disputes — to make the Santa Clara Stadium Authority, the public agency that owns Levi’s Stadium, pay its corporate office rent.

During our 2025 and 2026 budget reviews, we rejected roughly $620,000 a year in rent.

News reports indicate management now wants $1.24 million in back rent, plus future payments.

Arbitration filings are confidential, so we cannot disclose the full demands, and the public cannot independently verify them.

Management says the offices are needed to run the stadium.

Yet management moved business staff there without consulting the Stadium Authority. The stadium lease never included office rent. And no Stadium Authority employees work there.

Imagine renting offices for your business and then billing your landlord.

Most landlords would laugh.

49ers management filed for arbitration.

If an arbitrator sides with management, rent starting at $620,000 and rising 3 percent a year through 2074, including optional extensions, could total $64.7 million.

Office Rent Isn’t the Only Bill

In a separate arbitration, management wants the Stadium Authority to pay for armed security estimated to cost at least $400,000 a year.

We voted against that request last year because our own public safety officials did not establish a need for the additional armed guards.

All of this comes as stadium finances are already strained.

Over the past decade, 49ers management spent only about 25 percent of the money budgeted for stadium improvements. Projects were approved year after year and left unfinished.

Now the estimated five-year cost of those improvements has more than doubled, to $75 million.

The money set aside cannot cover it.

The result: Santa Clara is not expected to receive its share of stadium profits, beyond basic rent, for at least 10 years.

After a decade of unfinished work, management wants residents to pick up another bill.

Why Did Residents Learn About This So Late?

The timeline raises its own questions.

Management filed its claim in July.

But Stadium Authority staff did not tell the board — the elected officials responsible for protecting the public’s money — until the end of September.

Residents learned of the dispute only days before an election.

Meanwhile, committees funded by York’s organization are spending millions to influence Santa Clara elections.

Voters deserve to know what is at stake.

Whoever sits on the next City Council will have to answer this demand.

Santa Clara Must Come First

Holding 49ers management accountable, like any business handling public money, is not hostility. It is our responsibility.

Santa Clara residents will disagree on plenty. But we share a common purpose: putting Santa Clara first and standing up for residents, even when powerful interests object.

Jed York does not own Santa Clara. The residents do.

Lisa Gillmor is the Mayor of Santa Clara, and Kelly Cox is a member of the Santa Clara City Council. Both serve on the Board of the Santa Clara Stadium Authority.

This opinion piece is reprinted from the Stand Up for Santa Clara website.