Sometimes I think San Diego would benefit if some of our elected officials took a long “time out” and remembered that their job is not about “them” but about “us”. The latest moment of the absurd came last week when City Attorney Mike Aguirre and Deputy Chief Operating Officer Jim Waring made pensive public pleas to the Chargers to pay more money to the City.
Now I don’t know about you but if I wanted a business partner (and that is what the City and the Chargers are) to voluntarily make higher payments to offset my higher costs I would not communicate that desire at a press conference. Instead, I would pick up the phone and call them.
The City’s dilemma is neither complicated, nor is it the kind of problem that could not be resolved through meaningful dialogue. Because of an unfavorable lease negotiated under a former Mayor and City Manager, ADA-litigation and subsequent renovations to the stadium that reduced overall seating, an aging facility that requires increasingly expensive repairs, and game-day security costs (one shudders at how much police overtime it costs to host a Monday night game against the Raiders), the City claims it pays more to operate Qualcomm than it collects in rent from the Chargers.
One way of dealing with this problem would be to negotiate a win-win for both sides. That is what successful corporate leaders do when engaging in tough negotiations.
But there is a different modus operandi at City Hall where, it seems, one calls a Monday morning press conference, bemoans past subsidies, makes a call for more money, and sends reporters off to catch the team for comment.
The shame in all of this is that it precludes discussion of the stadium option that works best for the region – the existing Mission Valley site. In a recent SDI poll (www.sandiegoinstitute.com/baramoter) of 1,000 San Diego County residents, 43.5%, far exceeding any other location in the County, said that they would prefer seeing a new stadium developed on the existing site in Mission Valley. Citizens it seems, unlike some politicians, get it. They see that Qualcomm is served by three major freeways, a trolley extension that cost hundreds of millions of dollars, and two major arterial surface streets. They see that the site works to help the Holiday Bowl bring tens of millions of dollars into our region during a traditionally slow season for tourism. They understand that, while not as ideal as an on-campus facility, Qualcomm is close enough to SDSU to work as a facility for Aztec football.
That is why elected leaders as well as the Chargers need to ratchet down the rhetoric and take one last stab at negotiations. The City Attorney needs to stop threatening litigation and calling press conferences. Sander’s deputy Jim Waring needs to pick up the telephone rather than a microphone. And the Chargers need to take a deep breath and not respond to the antics that occur all too often at City Hall. The City deserves one last chance to see if there is any deal that could work to meet the needs of both taxpayers and the Chargers.
Critical to this will be the Mayor. In SDI’s poll we found that a whopping 87.2% of San Diegans think that having sports teams in our community contributes to the City’s quality of life. A recent study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia found that there is a statistically significant increase in property values in communities that have NFL teams. San Diego’s $6 billion visitors industry benefits from the exposure provided by the San DiegoChargers. Although Mayor Sanders has, in the past, said that he is too focused on other issues to engage the Chargers, he should multi-task to engage in negotiations to see if there is any arrangement that could work to protect taxpayer interests as well as meet the needs of the team.
And the Chargers, in turn, need to better understand that any deal will need to be sold to a public that is skeptical about the need for a new stadium and which is rightly concerned that the City should not be making financial commitments to a football team when other city services are under severe stress. Let’s face it, the Chargers have much room for improvement in their public relations efforts. If there is no arrangement that can work then both sides, without acrimony and discord, should jointly tell the public that they tried but that no deal was possible. But if there is a deal to be done, then the Mayor and the Chargers need to spend time explaining it to the public. The current limbo and failure to examine the existing site leaves the region poorly served.
Ultimately the outcome of both the Chargers and the Qualcomm site is not only about money but also about leadership. It is not about calling press conferences and spinning a juicy quote. It is time to move past the rhetoric and engage in mature negotiations and efforts to find a win-win outcome.
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