San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer blasted the Chargers Friday for not being upfront regarding recent moves that left them on the verge of partnering with the Oakland Raiders to build a football stadium in the Los Angeles suburb of Carson.
“The whole last 24 hours I think San Diegans are saying they feel betrayed, they feel and angry, and rightfully so,” Faulconer said. “We had the Chargers say they were monitoring — keeping an eye on what was happening in L.A. — we found out last night that wasn’t the case.”
ESPN reported that the Chargers approached officials in Carson about their long-running stadium search nine months ago, and the Raiders eventually joined in the talks.
“I think what’s interesting is we saw today the Chargers giving specifics of what they want to do in Carson but never specifics on what we needed to do in San Diego,” Faulconer said. “And that’s why a lot of San Diegans are shaking their heads.”
His comments came after a news conference in which Carson civic leaders touted their community and embraced the idea of playing host to a pair of National Football League teams.
Chargers special counsel Mark Fabiani told City News Service the Carson location has been on the NFL’s radar since the 1990s, and the league tried to buy the property three times.
“We were approached about buying the site last summer — which is where the nine months figure comes from, but we didn’t start work on it in earnest until January, when Stan Kroenke of the Rams made his aggressive move into Inglewood,” Fabiani said in an email, referring to the owner of the St. Louis franchise unveiling plans to build a stadium near the Los Angeles airport.
“At that point we retained a new architect and commenced work,” Fabiani said. “The land was not acquired until the end of January 2015.”
He said the Chargers have been very clear “ever since Kroenke made his move in Inglewood — that we needed to explore other options.”
He said he was “very explicit” about the last point when he met Monday with members of a task force exploring stadium options in San Diego.
Before the Carson news conference, he told NBC7/39 that he understands the angry reaction of San Diegans.
“But we’ve been working for 13 years in San Diego — we’re committed to working for this 14th year in 2015,” Fabiani said.
“If we get something done in San Diego that works, we’re not going to be moving,” said Fabiani, who attended the Carson news conference but did not speak. “But if we can’t, think of it, if it was your business, would you allow your business to be wiped out — 25 percent of it — by another team or two teams moving to Los Angeles and then being stuck in an ancient stadium with no other options? That’s something you need to ask yourself if you’re looking at this from a business point of view.”
The Chargers have said in recent years that 20 to 25 percent of their business comes from Los Angeles and Orange counties.
“I’m fighting for the 75 percent — I’m fighting for San Diegans and generations of San Diegans who have been true Chargers fans that support the team,” Faulconer said. “It’s a part of who we are in San Diego.”
The mayor said a meeting with Chargers President Dean Spanos to defuse recent tensions over stadium plans remained scheduled for early next week, though he’s hoping to move it up to this weekend. He also said his stadium advisory group, which is tasked with determining a site and developing a financing plan for a stadium in San Diego, will continue to meet.
The pep-rally-like news conference in Carson was short of specifics about financing, but backers of the proposed $1.7 billion stadium to be built near the 405 Freeway and Del Amo Boulevard said it would not be built at public expense.
Tim Romer, who runs the Western Region Infrastructure Group of Goldman Sachs, said the site is centrally located in Southern California, has great freeway access and is large enough for “one of the best NFL experiences” for fans.
“In our view, we’ve concluded that the financing of the stadium here in Carson is very viable and is doable, and we’re committed to help and get this done,” Romer said.
He said the financing plan would follow the model of $1.3 billion Levi’s Stadium, the new home of the San Francisco 49ers in Santa Clara. The facility in the Silicon Valley, however, is financed via a stadium authority made up of city officials, and received financing through a consortium of banks led by Goldman Sachs.
Rep. Janice Hahn, D-San Pedro, stressed that she did not want to steal NFL franchises from other cities.
“We want the Chargers to know and we want the Raiders to know if you can’t work it out with your cities, we welcome you with open arms here in Carson,” she said. “We will give you a beautiful new stadium. We will give you fans like you have never had before.”
“I just want to say that this opportunity for the people of Carson is an enormous opportunity,” Carson Mayor Jim Dear said. “It will change Carson for the better in a very dramatic way.”
The Chargers and Raiders announced Thursday they were working together on a 72,000-seat Carson stadium proposal on the 168-acre parcel, in conjunction with a coalition of business and labor leaders known as “Carson2gether.”
“We have both been working in our home markets to find a stadium solution for many years, so far unsuccessfully,” according to a joint statement issued by the teams. “We remain committed to continuing to work in our home markets throughout 2015 to try to find publicly acceptable solutions to the long-term stadium issue.
“… We are pursuing this stadium option in Carson for one straightforward reason: If we cannot find a permanent solution in our home markets, we have no alternative but to preserve other options to guarantee the future economic viability of our franchises.”
Numerous Carson council members attended the news conference — a sign that the project would face little opposition at City Hall.
The NFL responded to the Carson proposal with a brief statement: “We are in regular contact with all involved clubs. All clubs have been meeting their responsibilities to keep us informed.”
Earlier this month, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell reminded team owners that relocating a franchise requires “multiple approvals from NFL ownership,” and such a move “can only be granted by a three-fourths vote of the clubs.”
Meanwhile, St. Louis Rams owner Stan Kroenke has joined with the developers of the former Hollywood Park site in Inglewood to announce plans for an 80,000-seat stadium at the location.
The Hollywood Park developers have already collected enough signatures to have the stadium issue placed on the city ballot. The Inglewood City Council is expected to certify the signatures during its meeting on Tuesday.
The city of Los Angeles, meanwhile, has an agreement in place with the Anschutz Entertainment Group for an NFL stadium adjacent to the Convention Center in downtown Los Angeles. That deal is contingent on an NFL team agreeing to relocate to the facility.
Developer Ed Roski has also been pushing a stadium proposal in Industry.
An NFL team has not played in the Los Angeles area since 1994.
The Los Angeles Raiders played at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum from 1982-1994, before returning to Oakland in 1995. The Los Angeles Rams played in the Coliseum from 1946-1979 and at what was then known as Anaheim Stadium from 1980-1994 before moving to St. Louis in 1995.
The Chargers played at the Coliseum in their inaugural 1960 season when they were a member of the American Football League, then moved to San Diego in 1961.
—City News Service
