Chargers stadium task force to meet with team rep
SAN DIEGO (KUSI) – On Monday, the stadium task force met with Chargers representative Mark Fabiani to make recommendations for constructing and financing a new football stadium in San Diego.
The city and the Chargers have been working towards finding a solution that would bring a new stadium to San Diego for 14-years.
On behalf of the team, Mark Fabiani presented four principles to the task force to help guide its work:
1. The task force should resist the political pressure it will feel to make a proposal simply for the sake of making a proposal.
2. The second principle, the Chargers present no intention of quietly participating in any effort to provide political cover for elected officials.
3. The Chargers have asked that any proposal that emerges from the task force’s work should be subjected to serious, real world stress tests. Further, the proposals by the task force should pass three real world tests: 1) Have a strong chance of being approved by two-thirds of the voters, 2) The mayor and a strong majority of the City Council should be prepared to support the recommendations of the task force and finally, 3) The proposal should be able to recognize the economic realities of the local marketplace and of the NFL.
The third test is perhaps the one that carries the majority of the weight because the true cost of a new stadium must be taken into consideration. Across the country new NFL stadiums, from San Francisco to Minnesota to Atlanta, are costing from $1.2 billion to $1.5 billion to build.
4) Any plan the task force recommends should be one that can actually be implemented by the people now in elected office in the City of San Diego.
The Chargers have made it clear they would not support a tax-raise like the one imposed for the Convention Center, which was defeated in the courts.
The set of principles and guidelines come at a time when the Chargers franchise is faced with a delicate situation with the events unfolding in Los Angeles. There have been two NFL stadium proposals for the Los Angeles area, and the possibility of a NFL team moving in.
Currently, the Chargers have a 25 percent hold on the Los Angeles/ Orange County market. A percentage that would easily slip away should a new NFL team move into the Los Angeles area, according to the Chargers.
In an effort to work alongside the task force, a website has been set up for task force members with electronic copies of original documents and other materials on the different proposals over the course of 14-years. Here is the link to the website: http://www.sandiego.gov/real-estate-assets/index.shtml.
The team will help arrange a meeting with NFL executives in order to allow dialogue between the two groups.
