Chargers slam San Diego's latest stadium proposal -8-10-2015
Chargers slam San Diego's latest stadium proposal
SAN DIEGO (AP) — The city
and county's updated plans for a new $1.1 billion stadium were
immediately trashed by the Chargers, making it look increasingly
doubtful the long-running, contentious issue can be solved by City
Hall's Sept. 11 deadline to have a deal in place to qualify for a
January vote.
The city and
county unveiled the updated plans Monday, a few hours after a local
contingent made a presentation to the NFL's Committee on Los Angeles
Opportunities in Chicago. The Chargers, who appear eager to move to Los
Angeles, will update all owners on Tuesday on their joint plan with the
archrival Oakland Raiders to build a stadium in Carson. St. Louis owner
Stan Kroenke will give an update on his competing bid to build a stadium
in Inglewood.
At a sun-drenched news conference overlooking aging
Qualcomm Stadium, Mayor Kevin Faulconer unveiled a financing plan,
architectural renderings for a new stadium and a 6,000-page draft of an
environmental impact report.The proposal includes contributions of $362.5 million from the Chargers, a $200 million loan from the NFL, $187.5 million in personal seat licenses, $200 million from the city and $150 million from the county. The public contribution will be capped at 32 percent of the total project, and the team would be responsible for overruns, Faulconer said.
Chargers point man Mark Fabiani was quick to criticize City Hall, as he has since the stadium push was revived in January.
"Never before in California history has a controversial, billion dollar project relied on environmental review documents hastily prepared in three weeks," Fabiani, a former deputy mayor of Los Angeles, said in a statement. "The Chargers have been clear from the start that the franchise will not be the City's guinea pig for this inevitably ill-fated legal experiment. Remember, these are the same politicians who told us, with disastrous results in court, that the convention center expansion could be financed by a vote of the hoteliers rather than a vote of the people."
The
Chargers walked away from negotiations in June, saying they doubted the
city could produce an EIR that will hold up in court.
The city and county have continued to work on the project.
"The NFL knows that San Diego is
a great sports city," Faulconer said. "We're a great city that supports
the NFL and the Chargers. They have said all along it is their clear
desire to have teams stay in their home city, and we have said, very
clear, regardless what may or may not have happened in San Diego over
the last 10 or 13 years, that we have the ability to get across the
finish line now, and I think we demonstrated that today.
"It
will be up to the NFL and working with the Chargers here in the coming
days to determine a path forward," he said. "We are ready, the
negotiating table is open, and we'll see in the next couple of days."
The two sides have one month to agree to a deal so a special election can be planned."We will not have an election in January unless we have a final deal that has been agreed to," Faulconer said.
Eric Grubman, the NFL's point man on relocation, declined to comment on San Diego's presentation.
There's
been a perception the Chargers are slow-walking San Diego's proposal to
eventual failure in order to move on with their deal with the Raiders.
"It's
tough for the Chargers to show movement in San Diego when they're vying
for the Los Angeles market, to be a team in Los Angeles," city attorney
Jan Goldsmith said. "We get that. But right now you've got three teams
vying for Los Angeles in a city that hasn't had one team in 20 years.
We're in the game. "
The Chargers and Raiders announced plans for
their joint Carson stadium after Kroenke announced plans for a stadium
in Inglewood.The Rams, Raiders and Chargers shared Southern California from 1982-1994. After the 1994 season, the Raiders returned to Oakland and the Rams moved from Anaheim to St. Louis. The Chargers played their first season in Los Angeles in 1960 before moving to San Diego.
San Diego County
Commissioner Ron Roberts said he believes the Chargers "are trying to
convince the NFL owners that San Diego can't make this happen. ... If
you look at everything that's happened over the last year, not just over
the last few months, the Chargers have tried to almost insult everybody
involved with this: the efforts of the city, the prior mayors, the
current mayor, the convention center. They've gone down a road of
casting aspersions on every possible reason why this can't happen.
"We
want to show the NFL, as much as show the Chargers, we're ready to move
ahead with a new state-of-the art facility in San Diego."
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Follow Bernie Wilson on Twitter at http://twitter.com/berniewilson
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