CHARGERS: Council thinks team is relocating despite approval




CHARGERS: Council thinks team is relocating despite approval

Some San Diego officials think approval of an environmental impact report for a new stadium to replace Qualcomm Stadium won't stop the Chargers from leaving town.

Even as the San Diego City Council authorized on Tuesday a controversial $2.1 million environmental impact report on a proposed $1.1 billion plus Mission Valley stadium, there were further signs that even the city’s political leaders are resigned to the Chargers relocating to Carson.

A month after the Chargers walked away from the negotiations with city officials and a stadium task force, the council voted 6-3 to approve the EIR and provide a lifeline to efforts to build a stadium and keep the Chargers in San Diego. San Diego mayor Kevin Faulconer and stadium backers said they hope to present preliminary EIR results to NFL officials and league owners during an Aug. 10 meeting in Chicago and are confident the entire EIR process could be completed in time to set up a January special election on the stadium proposal.

San Diego officials said they have been assured by state assembly speaker Toni Atkins that she would enact legislation to guarantee an expedited EIR process.

“San Diego’s stadium plan continues to move forward, and today’s vote demonstrates that we are committed to keeping professional football in our region,” Faulconer said. “Regardless of what ultimately happens with the team, this environmental impact report is valuable to taxpayers. Whether a new stadium is built or Qualcomm Stadium is simply demolished, this environmental analysis can be used.”

But some council members said with the Chargers partnering with the Raiders in efforts to build a $1.75 billion stadium in Carson, it’s time to face the likelihood that the team is leaving town.

“The Chargers made a business decision that is right for them,” said council president pro tem Marti Emerald, who criticized the EIR proposal, describing it as “rushed ... so the city can rush a ballot measure.”

“What part of ‘no’ do stadium backers not understand?” Emerald said. “It’s time to listen and let them go to Los Angeles.”

“The Chargers,” council member Todd Gloria said, “don't want to stay.”

The Chargers broke off negotiations with the city and a Faulconer-appointed stadium task force last month, charging that the stadium plan was not legally viable under the California Environmental Quality Act and the state’s election laws.

“No matter what, it is impossible to conduct a legally valid EIR in a few weeks,” Chargers senior special counsel Mark Fabiani said. “AEG took 17 months on Farmers Field; (real estate developer Ed) Roski took 14 months (for an EIR on a proposed City of Industry stadium); the (Sacramento) Kings took a year; the 49ers took 11 months; the Warriors’ EIR has been underway since last fall and won’t be finished until 2016. And the list goes on. The City of San Diego politicians are now officially operating in the CEQA Twilight Zone.

“The city is proposing to complete an EIR in just a few weeks – something that in the real world takes 12 to 18 months (to complete),” Fabiani said. “The city’s quickie EIR will be full of holes and will be thrown out by the courts. The Chargers will simply not hitch the future of the franchise to the city’s misbegotten legal strategy.

“Sadly, this situation is similar to the clearly illegal scheme that the city proposed to fund the convention center expansion. Four years and 10 million wasted tax dollars later, the city’s plan was invalidated in court. The Chargers have no intention of being part of the city’s sequel to its convention center debacle.”

City officials also revealed that the stadium plans no longer call for the land on the 166 acres around the proposed stadium to be sold to finance a portion of the project. While the move could help expedite the EIR, it also leaves a $225 million hole in the proposed financing of the new stadium, Chargers officials and some council members said.

“The city says it has abandoned the ancillary development because not even the city of San Diego could pretend to do an EIR on the stadium AND a development in three weeks!” Fabiani said in an email.

“The problem with this abandonment is that there is now a $225 million funding hole in the CSAG plan – a plan that had a lot of other holes in it already. And the city has no way of filling that hole."

Chargers officials weren’t the only ones concerned about a potential financing gap. Council members and city officials backing the EIR approval said the move was necessary to show the NFL that San Diego was doing everything it could to keep the Chargers.

“The Chargers have been trying very hard to go to Los Angeles,” said council member Scott Sherman, who was wearing a blue Chargers tie. “Trying very hard to show the city doesn’t have its political act together.”


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