The Chargers Wait for Consent
Thursday, Jan. 17, 2008 | The Chargers may be well known in the NFL these days as having a, let's say, confident way of talking. A Denver newspaper recently noted that though the team is talking an inordinate amount of smack, it has actually backed it up.
But as the football team heads to New England, its overseers continue to monitor things in the South Bay. The players may be full of trash talk, but the guys in suits are being quite polite with South Bay officials who hold the team's new stadium hopes in their hands.
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I talked to Chargers Special Counsel Mark Fabiani, who wanted to clarify the most recent news that emerged in the team's push to put together a proposal for a stadium on the Chula Vista Bay Front. The other day, the Union-Tribune reported that the Chargers wanted the Chula Vista City Council to "consent" to the team proceeding with a financial analysis -- a look at just how much a new stadium with bay views would cost.
I, and others, took that word -- "consent" -- to mean a vote. After all, how could the City Council consent to anything without a vote?
Fabiani said there was a way. The team had no need for a vote, he said. On Tuesday, the team is making a presentation to the City Council. All it wants to do is make the presentation and watch how it's received.
Fabiani had told the U-T that whether or not the team got its "consent" would give the Chargers a "hint" about the city's commitment to this idea.
Fabiani said what he meant wasn't that he would take a hint from how the City Council voted, but from how the City Council reacted in public: what kind of questions they asked, what kind of things they said and what kind of body language they sent out. In other words, if the City Council scowled and shouted at Fabiani, he'd take that as a hint.
As would anyone, I suppose.
Fabiani said he didn't expect any scowling and shouting from the City Council.
"Our impression after talking to them individually is that the majority of them remain open minded and they have a lot of good questions about the project and they're willing to listen to whatever answers we provide," Fabiani said.
Which brings up another question: If the Chargers have talked to the City Council members individually and if they've gotten good vibes, what more of a hint did they need?
Maybe they did want a vote. But last week Mayor Cheryl Cox put the kibosh on that idea telling me she had no intention of getting her colleagues on the City Council to vote on the Chargers' desires.
Cox is interested in the stadium, but she's more interested in Gaylord Entertainment's proposed resort and convention center. And there is at least enough of a concern that the two don't quite mix yet. Gaylord and the stadium may someday be neighbors there on the bay front but Chula Vista and the port of San Diego only want to plan now for Gaylord. If they start to seriously consider a new stadium, then they'd be forced to redraw all of the crucial environmental reviews they've been laboring over for some time now.
But what is it the Chargers really want right now from Chula Vista?
Fabiani said the next steps in developing a stadium are simple. First: There's a big power plant right smack dab in the middle of the only really plausible plot on which the Chargers could build a new football fortress. The Chargers would like to do some investigating to get a clear idea of the likelihood of this plant coming down. Lots of people have been talking a good game about tearing down the eyesore, but talk is, truly, cheap. Tearing down a power plant and ensuring that we have an adequate replacement is not.
The Chargers' owners Alex and Dean Spanos also want to know how big the gap is between how much a stadium will cost to build ($1 billion at least) and how much they can put up both out of their own pockets and out of the profits of a related development.
This is most likely where a government would come in. Other places in the country do what's logical at this juncture: They call a vote and ask residents if they want to pay a fee or levy a tax on things like rental cars.
But here, you'd need a two-thirds vote to get something like that passed.
Anyway, the Chargers want to put all these numbers onto paper. You can't ask for money until you know how much you want.
Mayor Cox told me that the Chargers are welcome to go ahead and spend their own money to find these things out.
The Chargers are politely not pushing the matter. And everyone's waiting for Gaylord to emerge from its secret discussions with the port and announce some kind of new deal to get the project back on track.
On the sidelines sits the labor unions. Labor has enough power to kill Gaylord's plans -- if not on the local level, on the state level through the California Coastal Commission. Labor union leaders do not like Gaylord.
But they do like the Chargers.
Hmmm.
What if the Chargers were to take over development of the bay-front convention center and resort as a financing tool for the new stadium?
What would labor think of that?
"Any proposal that protects the workforce, the environment and provides for living wages would be intriguing to us," said Lorena Gonzalez, the newly appointed secretary-treasurer of the San Diego - Imperial Counties Labor Council.
And would the Chargers be the kind of developer that could produce such a proposal?
Gonzalez said that the Chargers have historically worked well with unions.
Hmmm.
Right now, the Chargers are being polite. They are mindful that Cox and other Chula Vistans can't see a financial future without Gaylord in the picture. On Tuesday, they'll make their presentation and move on to the next step.
But the longer Gaylord delays and the more the Chargers win, the more traction ideas like this will start to gain.
Please contact Scott Lewis (scott.lewis@voiceofsandiego.org) directly with your thoughts, ideas, personal stories or tips. Or send a letter to the editor.
Reader Feedback
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Comments so far on this story: 1. Christopher Hall wrote on January 16, 2008 10:40 PM:
"Lorena said 'Any proposal that protects the workforce, the environment and provides for living wages would be intriguing to us.' // Now THAT'S leadership! And I would think that if it took some government support to pull off that much good, so be it -- I hope the Chula Vista voters get their chance to decide on the stadium. // On a related note, I want to point out that the Sunrise Powerlink would not fall under the criteria of 'protecting the environment' noted above...Not only because of its manner of routing but also because of its purpose to expand the amount of electricity produced by polluting gas power plants in Mexico and its purpose to indulge the power demands of the US citizenry at a time when we should all be focusing on conservation and sustainable moderation." 2. Watcher wrote on January 17, 2008 10:55 AM:
"Chula Vista and the Chargers should focus on developing the eastern site. The Spanos family could join up with the Baldwin family to build a regional sports complex that would put the rest of the country to shame. An NFL football stadium, surrounded by autosports facilities including a NASCAR oval, a road racing course, an NHRA drag strip, and an offroad CORR racing course. Now that would be something to get regional voters excited. When the football stadium is dark, we can still hold races throughout the year. Engineering students at SDSU's new sourhtern campus can get hands on experience wrenching on racecars." 3. Coast Watcher wrote on January 17, 2008 11:24 AM:
"I can't imagine a NASCAR track or extremely noisy drag strip near peoples' homes. As someone not from South county this project is the last thing in the world I will vote for. Besides Spanos is out to make money for his own corporation, not for the fans, the cities or the county. link Read the info and you'll find that football teams make little if any money for the host cities and indeed put a huge strain on their general fund and infrastructure." 4. Reality check wrote on January 17, 2008 4:09 PM:
"Christopher, how does it always come back to Sempra? Is the utility supposed to sit around and wait for consumers to get a clue? Sempra doesn't force people to buy their computers and big-screen tvs and build castles in the desert that require AC from March-November. People have clearly shown they're not willing to make the tough lifestyle choices that would make the Powerlink and new power plants unnecessary. Maybe if instead of building 5,000 square foot homes in El Cajon people would opt for a modest home in Clairemont and shell out $30,000 for solar panels, we'd be in a better position. But how is that Sempra's fault? It's our fault SDGE is always needing to add more power. We have to stop giving justification, and that means reducing energy use." 5. Billy Bob Henry wrote on January 20, 2008 9:48 AM:
"Hey Folks, I HATE to break the bad news to you about COPORATE WELFARE, but thi is how it works, if the Gov does not give away HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS of dollars (in cash, land ortax relief) then the Chargers simply are not going to do a deal. It is that simple. So anything the Chargers/Spanos Crime Family has to offer will come with big $$$ strings attached to it-I mean just look at the Q, supposed to stay put 20 years, then start backing out after 6, and the infamous ticket guarantee... it is a bis scam. DON'T bite on it. There is no free lunch folks, and the billionaire Chargers are not getting my lunch."
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