This open letter was addressed to Chargers fans attending the NFL forum at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Spreckels Theatre, 121 Broadway.
By Tony Manolatos
1. The initiative Cory Briggs proposed isn’t a real plan for a downtown stadium. Unlike the current Mission Valley plan, the Briggs initiative does not specify how the land for the stadium would be acquired or how the stadium would be financed. There is nothing in the initiative that guarantees a downtown stadium.
2. It muddies the water for the NFL owners and the league, who have to determine if San Diego has a viable plan to build a new stadium. The Chargers have announced they will file for relocation, which means NFL owners will be looking closely at San Diego’s stadium plan to decide if the Chargers can leave. They will only keep the Chargers in San Diego if they believe that the City has a solid plan in place that a majority of San Diegans support, not two competing plans.
3. Under the Briggs initiative, the City could be forced to abandon plans to build a future professional football stadium in Mission Valley for another NFL team if the Chargers leave. If Qualcomm Stadium is no longer used as a professional football venue, the initiative only gives the City the authority to sell the site if it were sold to a public university or college. Once sold, the land could never again be used for a professional football stadium.
4. The initiative says no public money could be used toward a stadium at all, which would be problematic for the Chargers. Some have said San Diego’s current proposal of $350 million in public financing is low compared to the public contributions to the five newest NFL stadiums. Reducing that number to zero would make it unlikely a stadium could be built. If a similar law was in place already, the City never could have built Qualcomm Stadium or Petco Park.
5. The initiative attempts to avoid a two-thirds vote of the people to raise taxes, and the Chargers are on record as saying the team would not take part in any such plan, including in Mark Fabiani’s February comments to CSAG.
6. San Diego’s best chance at building a new stadium and keeping the Chargers in San Diego in 2016 is to move forward with the Mission Valley plan. The City-County proposal is straight-forward, legally vetted and does not raise taxes, unlike the Briggs’ initiative. Furthermore, the City already owns the land, the project’s environmental review has been submitted to the public and Gov. Jerry Brown has certified the project for an expedited judicial review if legal challenges arise.
7. Legitimate legal challenges are not expected to surface. Only 18 comments were submitted to the City in response to the EIR for the proposed new stadium in Mission Valley. Other large development projects typically draw hundreds of comments, including One Paseo, which drew more than 400 responses. Only two of the responses to the proposed Mission Valley stadium were professionally prepared, each costing tens of thousands of dollars to produce, and both have ties to the Chargers.
8. The responses to the EIR that might have presented issues, from state and federal agencies like the Regional Water Quality Control Board and the California Department of Fish & Wildlife, never surfaced. Instead, the Water Quality Control Board wrote the City to say it did not have concerns with redevelopment of the site and the Department of Fish & Wildlife sent an initial letter when the City said it would be preparing an EIR, but after reviewing the EIR it decided not to send a comment letter because their issues were resolved by the City’s EIR. It’s worth noting that the Regional Water Quality Control Board oversees and monitors ground water contamination on the stadium property; the Chargers claim the site is problematic because of the ground water.
9. Mr. Briggs’ plan goes out its way to say the Mission Valley plan would not receive an environmental exemption. Why is that? Mr. Briggs’ sole purpose in releasing his plan is to block the contiguous expansion of the Convention Center and settle Mr. Briggs related court case.
10. Remember, the Chargers said many times this year they were agnostic, or site neutral, only preferring a workable plan, which is what the team received in the Mission Valley proposal. Still, the Mayor, Supervisor Ron Roberts, CSAG and others told the team and the NFL, on multiple occasions, that they would work with them on making downtown a reality if that’s what the team wanted. The Chargers never directed any of the decision makers downtown, and they mention it now to try and make their case to the NFL that they can’t get a stadium deal in San Diego. The Mayor’s office says a stadium downtown wouldn’t be complete until 2024 at the earliest, and would cost hundreds of millions more, and the Chargers would lose tens of millions of dollars a year in lost parking and concessions revenues because of the limited space downtown compared to the 166 acres of city-owned land in Mission Valley. The proposed stadium in Mission Valley could be up and running by 2019.
11. We now know, according to the Los Angeles Times and other news outlets, the Chargers began making their plans to relocate to LA in 2013, a year before Mayor Faulconer was elected. Essentially, all the team did this year was double-down on its decision to move to LA.
12. What I dislike most about Mr. Briggs’ plan is that it will give some fans false hope, and the fans don’t deserve that after everything the team has put them through this year.
Manolatos of Apex Strategies was chief spokesman for the Citizens Stadium Advisory Group, apppointed by Mayor Kevin Faulconer.
