The city of San Diego can hold a special election on Dec. 15 for the stadium vote, ahead of the NFL relocation vote, the mayor announced Monday.
The election would only be held if the Chargers and city “can reach an agreement,” Mayor Kevin Faulconer said at a news conference downtown.
The NFL has said it will allow teams to apply to relocated to Los Angeles as early as January 2016.
The announcement is the latest in a series of steps the city and county have taken to keep the team in San Diego. Early this year, the mayor announced a special nine-member task force to find a location to build a new stadium and coming up with a plan to pay for its construction.
In May, the advisory group came back with a $1.1-billion proposal for a new stadium in Mission Valley — the current site of Qualcomm Stadium — that calls for a combination of public and private funding sources but does not call for new taxes.
Because no new taxes were needed to fund the stadium, a public vote was not necessary but Faulconer said a public vote would put some finality in the matter.
“A council vote can be referendum,” he said. “It’s very easy to reverse the council vote, we have seen it happened twice already.”
The mayor was referring the contentious One Paseo zoning and minimum wage vote. Business interests collected enough signatures to successful block the council’s vote on both issues.
There were talks earlier this year of a public vote involving residents outside of the city’s limit because the county committed some money for a stadium, but an after a meeting with the Chargers on Monday, Faulconer said only a citywide vote was needed.
The City Council would have to approve any ballot measures by Sept. 18 for the Registrar of Voters to put the issue to the voters by the end of the year. The vote would be a mail-in only ballot, which would save the city money. The county does not allow mail-in only ballot — another reason why the county voters will not have a say in this issue.
The team, city and county have put forth an “aggressive timeline” at the 90-minute meeting Monday.
“The city/county negotiating team, as you see us here, is prepared to meet as often as necessary with the Chargers to reach an agreement by that time,” Faulconer said. “We can get a new stadium approved this year if we work together to get it done.”
Faulconer, Supervisor Ron Roberts, City Attorney Jan Goldsmith and experts hired by the city and county met with Chargers Chairman Dean Spanos and special counsel Mark Fabiani last weekend to begin negotiations. After Monday’s meeting, a third get-together was planned for a few days from now, according to the mayor.
“We’ve had two very well-thought out and structured business discussions with the Chargers and their legal representatives,” said Chris Melvin, of the legal firm Nixon Peabody, one of the experts hired by the city and county.
“We have gone through a myriad of issues — we are working through them,” Melvin said. “We have committed to them, and I think they have committed to us, to try to get this done.”
The city and county officials said a lot of hard work was still ahead, and they might have to meet with the Chargers at least weekly to successfully conclude negotiations on time.
Fabiani told the San Diego Union-Tribune the team would not comment on the special election or the ongoing negotiations.
— City News Service contributed to this story
