Ever since the 49ers came out with their stadium info for Santa Clara, things have been rather quiet.  There is an election to be held in the spring to get voter approval and hopefully get things going for a new 49ers stadium.  In the meantime, the folks in SoCal have seen some interesting developments in the never-ending process to bring football back to Los Angeles.

The folks at Pro Football Talk provided some interesting links indicating a stadium might be closer to getting built in Industry down near LA (really not sure where that is exactly).  The way I'm reading it, individuals filed a lawsuit claiming the stadium project in Industry would have violated state environmental laws.  This past week, the California Senate approved, and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger will sign, a measure that would exempt the project from state environmental laws.

Schwarzenegger has indicated he feels this is a great opportunity to create new jobs and economic activity.  In fact, LA Stadium officials have stated the project would create more than 6,700 new jobs, it would create an additional $21 million in tax revenue, and it would generate $762 million in economic activity.  For the purposes of this post I won't get into the fact that I'd likely call BS on those figures.  I haven't looked into in detail so I can't say for sure, but usually those figures end up incredibly inflated.  Believe what they say if you want.

So how does this affect the 49ers?  Well the second article linked above included this paragraph at the end:

Schwarzenegger hopes developer Majestic Realty Co., the driving company behind the project, doesn't poach any California teams to play in the proposed venue. They have indicated their plan to approach seven teams in hopes of luring one to LA. The list includes the three California teams: San Diego Chargers, Oakland Raiders and the San Francisco 49ers.

The 49ers are in the midst of their own potential stadium deal so it's certainly way too early to infer anything too substantial.  The 49ers probably don't end up back in play until after next year's elections.  I believe the 49ers are pushing to get on a March ballot, but nothing is set in stone yet.

Wouldn't it be ironic if Governor Schwarzenegger's goal of getting a new stadium indirectly led to the poaching of another California team?  The Chargers are often discussed as a potential move, and the Raiders...well I don't think I can make any more jokes about that that haven't already been made.  And even if it's not a California team that moves to LA, there are several other teams that often seem to be itching for a move.  Florio pointed to a few of them including the Bills, the Jaguars, the Rams and the Vikings.  If it ends up being the Raiders or Rams, I'd be highly amused.

Early last week the San Francisco 49ers and Santa Clara City Council reached an agreement on a new stadium.  Details were a big vague as they were to be released today, prior to a city council vote June 2 on whether to back the deal.

While many folks just want to see a stadium get built, others (like myself) have a bigger interest in the details and the nitty gritty of the proposed deal.  As this is going to go before the voters in Santa Clara, the primary interest is in the financing of the stadium.  Football stadiums are not cheap and the money has to come from somewhere.

Rather than link to the individual PDFs, I thought I'd link to the 49ers stadium section of the SantaClara.gov website.  It includes the agenda for the June 2 meeting, as well as 16 exhibits to go with it and a report of additional correspondences.  If you don't feel like reading them, at some point this summer I'll read everything over and provide a relatively clean summary for everybody.

I would like to point out one extremely interesting clause in the term sheet the two parties agreed too.  If it's in all stadium deals it's no big deal, but if not, it's quite interesting in regards to our brethren across the bay.  Article 16 of the term sheet is titled "Second Team."  Section 16.1 says:

49ers Stadium Company will have the right to enter into a sublease with a second NFL team (“Second Team”), on terms and conditions consistent with and subject to the Stadium Lease to allow the Second Team to play its home games in the Stadium, subject to the following conditions...

What follows is repayment issues in the event a second team subleases from the 49ers.  However, it's the first part of that sentence that appears rather huge.  The second NFL team would be the Oakland Raiders.  Again, I don't know if this is standard language, or if it's something team is more seriously considering.

Section 16.2 discusses a temporary second team occupancy (no more than 2 NFL seasons).  I suppose that could be if the Raiders were able to work out a new stadium deal, they could use the 49ers stadium while it's being built.  This would be most notably if it involved bulldozing the Coliseum and building on the same property.

I don't know about you, but I find that pretty interesting.  Of course maybe I'm just a nerd about these kinds of things.

I was going to post this in the links, but I think it's worth it's own story.  According to the San Francisco Examiner, yesterday, Mayor Gavin Newsom signed a draft financial plan for a $2 billion redevelopment of Candlestick Point and the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard.

Newsom and his staff can now move forward on negotiations with Lennar Corp. to reach a final agreement on the project, which is scheduled to include homes, parkland, retail space, office and industrial space, and, if needed, a new football stadium.

I'd imagine the 49ers are still working on their Santa Clara stadium, but for now, a San Francisco-based stadium would seem to still be alive.  The upside to this continuing forward?  More opportunities to keep the 49ers in the Bay Area.  Still plenty of chances to [site decorum] it up, but hopefully Jed York will take care of business.

As we continue towards the dog days of summer and the return of football in the fall, I wanted to pass along some information.  Since the 49ers stadium issues have been more prevalent lately, I've created a new page for the site that will be a compilation of new information.  I'm still trying to decide where to put it, so far now it's right below Mel Kiper's enormous noggin.  Currently on the page are five pdf documents related to the issues, as well as links to some old Niners Nation posts that address the stadium.  

I'm still planning on posting here when there are new developments, but the new Stadium page will act like the draft preview page, a veritable one-stop shop for 49ers stadium news.

Enjoy!

I certainly hope that the clown that overlooked this is not making any prominent decisions in free agency or the draft!  This is truly an ironic moment.  How do you starting putting together plans for an $800 million stadium and somehow overlook the fact that part of the land is owned by the city you're LEAVING.

It really seems like anything the York's do off the field blows up in their faces.  I'd feel bad if it wasn't so pathetic.

Two questions now exist: 1)How can the city of San Francisco leverage this in their favor? and/or 2) How can the 49ers work their way out of this little jam over the next few years?  Even if they do work something out, another problem exists in the coming years.  The pipes are scheduled to be replaced as part of the Hetch Hetchy system overhaul in 2009/2010.  The work is scheduled to take upwards of 2 or 3 years, which could run into the deadline of a 2012 stadium opening.  

Nonetheless, the first issue will be resolving this with the city.  We'll see how willing the Board of Supervisors is to negotiate.  Nothing is EVER simple when it comes to Bay Area politics.

Personally, I think this is so crazy it could work.  The 49ers and Raiders sharing a stadium year-round...why not?  

I had heard suggestions about this idea in the past, but nothing ever really went beyond just the suggestion of it.  Now, there is smoke around that idea, and where there's smoke, there's fire.  The 49ers have quickly denied that they approached the Raiders about this idea.  But the two Chronicle writers say that sources within the Raiders indicated the matter was brought up in an informal setting.

Whether you're a 49ers fan that hates the Raiders, or vice versa, the idea clearly makes sense.  If they got NFL funding anywhere near what the Giants and Jets got for a joint Meadowlands stadium, it would help the financing situation tremendously.

So what are your thoughts on this?  Clearly it's tough to consider when you're talking about a rival, and particularly one owned by someone who makes your blood curdle.  However, it makes all the sense in the world from a business standpoint, as long as you can avoid the required Al Davis lawsuits.  No matter what, they would make for seriously strange bedfellows.  If it took this to get a stadium done, it'd certainly be a fitting end to this whole bizarre saga.

So, with all the uproar over Senate Bill 49 and its affect on the 49ers, I decided to email State Senator Carole Migden to get her opinion on the issue.  For those who don't know, Senator Migden represents District 03-San Francisco in the California State Senate.  After the information came out about the 49ers looking to move to Santa Clara, she introduced SB 49.  As the legislative counsel's digest describes it:

So this afternoon, I was checking my email and I had a response from the Senator.  In order to provide the full context, below is my initial email, followed by her reply email.

Niners Nation Email:

Madam Senator,

I've recently started a 49ers fan site at ninersnation.com, where we are a member of the SB Nation network of sports blogs.  There has been quite a bit of discussion about SB 49 and its impact on the 49ers.  The team has had their PR people on the offensive rather quickly in an attempt to condemn the bill.  I realize there are 2 sides to every piece of legislation and so I've begun my own research on SB 49 (including taking time to read the bill itself) in order to properly inform my readers of both sides' arguments.  In considering that, I was wondering if you'd be interested in discussing the bill, including your own reasoning behind authoring the bill and what you hope it will accomplish?  While I love the 49ers, I'm not here to condemn you or anything of the sort.  Rather, I'd love to have the opportunity to provide my readers with BOTH sides of the argument in a clear and logical manner.

Hopefully this is something that would interest you.  While my site is a month old and my readership is growing, my site is part of a broader network that has over 100,000 unique visitors each day.  Thanks for your time and I look forward to hearing from you.

Senator Migden's Response

Dear ____,

Thank you for your recent email regarding SB 49.  The San Francisco 49ers are an important part of the fabric of this city, and I will do everything I can to keep the team here.

SB 49 would prohibit a local municipality from using tax breaks and land giveaways to raid a neighboring community's NFL team/stadium, as Santa Clara is attempting to do in this case.

AB 178 (Torlakson, 1999) and SB 114 (Torlakson, 2003) were designed to stop these types of bidding wars between cities and counties, by prohibiting local agencies from using financial incentives to relocate big box stores & auto dealerships from other cities in the same market area.

SB 49 builds upon current law by adding sports franchises to this code.  Every public dollar is precious, faced with big deficits local governments should be using these public funds for services and real economic development.  It is not in the state's interest to use tax dollars to relocate these developments without a substantive economic benefit to the market area.

SB 49 will help to keep the San Francisco 49ers in the city, as well as to systematically address the potential economic problems caused by these issues throughout the state.

Again, thank you for your correspondence. Should you have any further questions about this or any other issue, please do not hesitate to contact my office.

Sincerely,

Carole Migden

Senator, 3rd District

I had some questions after reading her response so I emailed back.  This elicited a response from Hallie Tansey, Senator Migden's district representative.  Our 2 question Q&A is available in the extension of this post.  Simply click on READ MORE.  After reading through this, feel free to comment as you see fit.  The 49ers have had the primary opportunity to express themselves and I wanted to give the Senator her own opportunity.  Additionally, I still have questions so hopefully I'll be able to set up an in-person interview with her.  If so you can bet that interview will be posted.

Continue reading this post »

I don't know about the rest of you, but thanks in large part to my commute, I've become a big fan of the San Francisco Examiner.  I take BART to work and I can read through the daily issue of the Examiner in the amount of time it takes me to wait for BART, get on BART, get to my station and get off BART.  It covers local, national and world news in a very concise format and there sport section, while nothing compared to USA Today's sports section, feeds my local sports needs perfectly.

So today I was reading the Examiner and I found some interesting articles related to the team.  In searching their website for these articles to post here I found another interesting article.  I'd like the daily link dump to become a feature of the diaries here, but in the meantime, here are the articles that piqued my interest:

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• The most interesting piece was actually an editorial by Carole Migden, the author of State Bill 49.  All I know about SB 49 is what I've read in the papers and online.  I've decided to sit down this weekend and really look into the bill.  As with any political issue there are 2 sides to the story and I'd like to know BOTH sides before passing judgement.
• I'm planning on posting a poll this offseason to see how many games people will be attending at the Stick (it's my site, I don't have to call it Monster if I don't want to!).  For those planning on going to games, a combination of good and bad news: Ticket prices are going up AND down!  2,000 of the "cheap seats" are being lowered from $49 to $25 to encourage season ticket purchases, while 5,000 of the premium seat prices are increasing from $64 to $84.  Apparently 2006 saw a .5% decrease in season ticket prices, while most everywhere else in the NFL saw an average rise of 5.6%.  We'll see how the average changes this year.  Personally, as much fun as football is in person, I tend to enjoy it in the comfort of my inflatable 49ers chair!
• Finally, an interesting little article comparing Gavin Newsom and Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums, particularly the potential for both cities to lose a sports franchise.
  

If any Niners Nation member(s) is/are interested in getting a daily link dump going, I definitely want to encourage it.  News is a little slow for now, but the diaries are always there for you.  I'll try and get a link dump in when I get a chance as well.