Members of the Stadium Advisory Committee will meet with Chargers Special Counsel Monday for the first time to discuss building a new playing facility for the team.
The nine-member “Citizens Stadium Advisory Group” was assembled by San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer in January and tasked them with developing a plan by this fall.
Monday’s meeting will mark the first time the group will meet with Mark Fabiani, Special Counsel for the Chargers.
In an exclusive interview with NBC 7 Monday morning, Fabiani said this year is a "different year" for the Chargers.
"Staying in San Diego without any option for the future, without any hope of getting a new facility, and one or perhaps two teams moving into the L.A. market and gutting the team's business there," Fabiani said in the exclusive interview. "It's not really an option, unfortunately."
The team only has three options, Fabiani said. First, to block anyone from getting to Los Angeles, to be the first in Los Angeles, or to stay in San Diego.
Fabiani gave NBC 7 the Chargers' talking points during the meeting. The four main talking points Fabiani plans to discuss during the meeting are quoted from a PDF of the presentation below.
- "First, you should resist the political pressure you will feel to make a proposal simply for the sake of making a proposal."
- "The second guiding principle is this: The Chargers have no intention of quietly participating in any effort to provide political cover for elected officials."
- "The third principle: Any proposal that emerges from the work of your Task Force should be subjected to serious, real world stress tests. In particular, any Task Force proposal should pass each of the following three real world tests:"
- First, is the proposal one that has a strong chance of being approved by two-thirds of the voters?"
- "The second real world stress test should be this: Are the Mayor and a strong majority of the City Council prepared to support the recommendations of your Task Force?"
- "The third real world stress test for any proposal should be this: Does the proposal recognize the economic realities of our local marketplace and of the NFL?"
- "The fourth and final guiding principle is this: It should not be enough to suggest a plan that might succeed in the real world of San Diego politics."
Mark Fabiani Chargers Stadium Advisory Remarks (Text)
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Various documents related to the Charger’ decade-long search for a new stadium are now public and can be accessed by visiting this website and clicking on "Related Links" and then "Stadium Information and Research."
The Advisory Group held its first huddle on Feb. 6 and Adam Day, the group’s elected chair, said the group will meet regularly over the next several months and is optimistic about delivering a report well in advance of the mayor’s fall deadline.
Public input is key because the Chargers would likely need a two-thirds majority vote of approval if a proposal ends up on the 2016 ballot as planned.
Mayor Faulconer tasked the advisory group with finding the best answer to the two biggest questions in the stadium saga: where to put it? And how to pay for it?
