NBC 7's Gene Cubbison offers this analysis on the latest dealings behind the Chargers' stadium scramble.
First, let’s all take a deep, deep cleansing breath.
Slow down the speed of the game.
No dancing around maypoles yet or dismissing things out-of-hand for, let’s say, 48 hours.
Wednesday is when this report was due anyway, but CSAG apparently thought it timely and prudent to push the deadline up a couple days.
Why?
Because NFL owners are meeting in San Francisco this week, and let’s face it, a “new, multi-use” stadium is for the benefit of The Shield and Bolts first and foremost.
Thoughts of new sugarplum stadia and “enhanced revenues”/profits in short order are twerking in their scheming heads – that’s why they’re moving up their own deadline for pulling the trigger on relocation decisions that later (maybe not that late) this year.
I’ve already received and zigzagged through the report’s 42 pages (including a most appealing cover) – under an embargo that doesn’t lift until 12:30 p.m.
But in my admittedly naïve opinion, the CSAG members seem to have acquitted themselves admirably.
No folks ‘born yesterday’ are aboard that ship, and the study deserves the Chargers’ most serious consideration before, if so inclined, declaring it a failure of ‘the smell test’.
Sure, it just might be a non-starter if in fact the team’s mind already is made up on other courses of action, so negotiations with One San Diego’s mayor would be a Fool’s Errand.
Early details from “informed sources” that still aren’t embargoed:
Local
No new taxes – so no two-thirds voter approval needed!
No taxpayer resources or land given away – just sold on the open market!
The City and County appear to have a Marriage Made in Heaven!
Or Hell, if things really go south.
But let’s not be so negative right out of the gate.
Just sayin’.
It’s not clear whether the longstanding promises of a public vote (even if a 55% voter majority is required to approved an “Enhanced Infrastructure Financing District”) will be kept – because legally speaking, they may not “at the end of the day”, because municipal bonds and other borrowing packages are routinely floated without direct citizen involvement.
However, such a move potentially could gaslight a groundswell of naysaying in this “World’s Smart City” (see National Geographic).
Natives are suspicious/paranoid enough as it is.
And given San Diego’s humiliating and outrageous history of being taken to the cleaners by the Chargers – we should expect early on to echoes of the Who’s great refrain “Won’t Get Fooled Again”!
Can’t reveal much more without betraying embargoes – but will update early this afternoon with as much “chapter and verse” as can be parsed and digested.
