{"id":228235,"date":"2015-08-21T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-08-21T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sdnews.com\/new-stadium-plan-would-be-bigger-taxpayer-investment-in-football\/"},"modified":"2015-08-21T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2015-08-21T07:00:00","slug":"new-stadium-plan-would-be-bigger-taxpayer-investment-in-football","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/new-stadium-plan-would-be-bigger-taxpayer-investment-in-football\/","title":{"rendered":"New stadium plan would be bigger taxpayer investment in football"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By Liam Dillon |\u00a0Voice of San Diego<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Mayor Kevin Faulconer\u2019s report touting <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sandiego.gov\/mayor\/pdf\/20150810_CityofSDChargersMissionValleyPresentation.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">a new stadium proposal<\/a> for the Chargers claimed it as \u201can opportunity to get a better deal for taxpayers\u201d than what we <a href=\"http:\/\/www.voiceofsandiego.org\/topics\/land-use\/mayor-about-to-trumpet-how-much-we-lose-on-qualcomm-stadium\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">already lose<\/a> on Qualcomm Stadium.<\/p>\n<p>But it did not say the plan would cost taxpayers less than what we\u2019re losing. If it is accepted and implemented, it will cost taxpayers more.<\/p>\n<p>And adding to public exposure, the county of San Diego \u2014 whose taxpayers have enjoyed the Chargers without sacrificing general fund dollars for the team \u2014 will now have its own payments to absorb.<\/p>\n<p>Importantly, though, it would cap the public contribution so there wouldn\u2019t be any unexpected hits to the budget in the future.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_1512\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1512\" style=\"width: 621px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/missiontimescourier.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/stadiumconcept009webtop.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1512 lazyload\" data-src=\"https:\/\/missiontimescourier.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/stadiumconcept009webtop.jpg\" alt=\"A conceptual stadium design has been created by Populous, an internationally known architectural firm. (Courtesy of sandiego.gov)\" width=\"621\" height=\"359\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 621px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 621\/359;\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1512\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Populous, un estudio de arquitectura de renombre internacional, ha creado un dise\u00f1o conceptual del estadio. (Cortes\u00eda de sandiego.gov)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Key facts:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The city\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sandiego.gov\/mayor\/pdf\/20150810_CityofSDChargersMissionValleyPresentation.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">proposed $200 million contribution<\/a> to building a new stadium works out to an annual loan repayment of $13 million a year for the next three decades, according to city financial officials. This year, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.voiceofsandiego.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/qualcommstadiumlosses.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">we\u2019re losing $14.1 million<\/a> operating and maintaining the old Qualcomm stadium. So the new deal already calls for us to spend basically what we do now.<\/li>\n<li>Nowhere in the new stadium plan does it mention the money we still owe on the last Qualcomm renovation. No matter what happens, we\u2019re paying <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sandiego.gov\/real-estate-assets\/pdf\/stadium\/cityexpensesanddeferredmaintenance.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">$4.8 million a year through 2027<\/a>. This means we have roughly a decade of $18 million annual payments toward football stadiums \u2013 money that would <a href=\"http:\/\/www.voiceofsandiego.org\/topics\/government\/stop-saying-the-chargers-stadium-study-didnt-cost-money\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">otherwise go to police, fire, roads and other general city services.<\/a><\/li>\n<li>On top of this, we\u2019d add $150 million in cash from the county\u2019s general fund. This is money that could otherwise go toward county services, like its libraries and parks.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Monday\u2019s plan does make three key assumptions that are necessary to keep the deal from being worse for taxpayers. It says that the Chargers should be on the hook for:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Operating and maintaining the stadium, which is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.voiceofsandiego.org\/topics\/land-use\/how-san-diego-loses-so-much-money-on-qualcomm-stadium\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">a huge loss for city taxpayers now at Qualcomm.<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Any cost overruns on the construction of the new stadium.<\/li>\n<li>Any failure of $188 million in personal seat license sales pegged toward stadium construction to meet projections.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Faulconer and other leaders described the split between the NFL and Chargers and taxpayer contribution to the projected $1.1 billion stadium as two private dollars for every public dollar. This is true, and it\u2019s the reason why <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sandiegouniontribune.com\/news\/2015\/aug\/10\/chargers-san-diego-stadium-plan-august-acee\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">there\u2019s lots of chatter about the deal<\/a> being unacceptable to the team.<\/p>\n<p>But make no mistake: This plan is a major taxpayer investment \u2013 one larger than city and county taxpayers are already making on football now.<\/p>\n<p>One other point. This shows how much land sales and development rights matters in this deal. City and county leaders took development dollars off the table for legal reasons when they decided to do a quick environmental review for the project. If land sales were still available, another quarter-billion dollars would go a long way toward reducing the direct taxpayer subsidy and potentially make the team happier, too.<\/p>\n<p><em>Correction: An earlier version of this post incorrectly said the city\u2019s total subsidy to the stadium this year was $12.8 million, which left out some capital costs. We\u2019ve also clarified the sections of the post related to the county\u2019s share of the project and the existing Qualcomm debt.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>\u2014Liam Dillon is senior reporter and assistant editor for Voice of San Diego. He leads VOSD\u2019s investigations and writes about how regular people interact with local government. What should he write about next? Please contact him directly at <a href=\"mailto:liam.dillon@voiceofsandiego.org\">liam.dillon@voiceofsandiego.org<\/a> or 619-550-5663.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Liam Dillon |\u00a0Voice of San Diego<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1025,"featured_media":228236,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11558","_seopress_titles_title":"New stadium plan would be bigger taxpayer investment in football","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11547,11558,11551],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-228235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-mission-times-courier","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1025"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=228235"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228235\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/228236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=228235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=228235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=228235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}