Niners punt stadium deal
By: Ken Garcia
Examiner Staff Writer
March 6, 2009
As preseason moves go, the 49ers’ decision to make another pass at San Francisco for a possible stadium deal seems like a sign of desperation.
And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It might force the organization to actually get a deal done — something for which it has shown to be almost uniquely unqualified.
Team officials insist that its desire to build a $900 million stadium next to the Great America amusement park in Santa Clara is still its primary option, a goal that is continually amusing. The team has spent two years now going back and forth with the city over plans for the stadium — and it’s no closer to a decision now than when talks started.
More important, perhaps, is that with the nation’s economy in a tailspin, it appears ever more unlikely that the citizens of Santa Clara — a city of slightly more than 100,000 people — would take on the financial risk of building a new stadium.
San Francisco had always included a new stadium in its plans to rebuild the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard area, and it has a long-standing partnership with the Lennar Corp. for that purpose. It always made more sense to rebuild in a major city — but that idea didn’t jibe with team owner John York, whose indecisiveness and poor public relations skills all but jettisoned plans for a stadium here when he jumped the gun and announced that he was taking the team to the South Bay without any legitimate deal in place.
They still don’t have a plan. About the only thing going in their favor is that the reins of the team have been handed over to York’s son, Jed, who at least seems to be open to considering San Francisco again — either as the site of a new stadium or with a contingency plan to make major renovations at Candlestick Park, without a doubt the worst stadium in the National Football League. Somehow, fixing Candlestick seems like the NFL’s version of an oxymoron.
But one can’t help but think that it smacks a little of the contract dance recently undertaken by Cardinals quarterback Kurt Warner, who used his visit to San Francisco to try and get a better contract from his former club. In Warner’s case it actually worked — but Warner has skills, something that can’t be said for the 49ers, on the field or off it.
State residents served another reminder of budget woes
State voters must still decide the fate of the budget deal to bail California out of its fiscal woes, yet another reason it’s going to be hard for San Francisco to try and pass another wave of tax hikes onto its electorate this year.
In May, voters will go to the polls to decide a series of program cuts and tax measures designed to boost revenues to cover the state’s $41 billion deficit, something opinion surveys suggest they will support, albeit kicking and screaming.
But it’s just going to serve as a reminder to our local citizens just how much money they’ll be paying for the right to remain residents of one of America’s most expensive cities, further cutting into the concept that our local leaders need to pass more tax hikes to help them out of their free-spending ways.
At this point, plans for a June special election in San Francisco appear likely to be pushed back to November, but supervisors are going to be hard-pressed to make an argument for a new series of local taxes, especially since almost all recent attempts at new assessments have been resoundingly rejected. Not that that will stop them.
Will Villaraigosa throw his hat in ring?
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa easily won re-election this week, which means he will soon be free to announce for the race that he’s really eyeing — governor of California.
While he’s long been rumored to have his eye on the state house seat, Villaraigosa couldn’t, in any tasteful way, suggest that he had his sights on the governor’s job while trying to convince Angelenos that he really, really wanted another term as mayor.
Now that part is done. The only question is how long before he makes the announcement that he’s going to put together an “exploratory’’ campaign for governor, in much the same way that San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and Attorney General Jerry Brown are “thinking’’ about running on the Democratic Party’s ticket for governor.
Of course all the speculation and jockeying is still centered on whether Sen. Dianne Feinstein will run for the job she has long coveted, and so far California’s senior senator isn’t saying. But the thought has to be tugging at her, especially with a new Field Poll out this week that says she would all but blow away the competition.
According to the poll, if Feinstein decides to remain in Washington, Brown becomes the party’s choice, but holds only a 4 percent lead over Villaraigosa, who, as mayor of the nation’s second-largest city, is a natural force.
The survey found Newsom running in fourth-place, a spot to which he’s not accustomed, which is why he’s running a sprint in a marathon race.
Worst drought ever claim a bit exaggerated
If it keeps raining like this, we may have to find a dryer city.
While the Department of Water Resources has been insisting that we’re in the worst drought ever, it turns out that we’re actually, uh, not.
This is not to suggest a return to longer showers. But statewide reservoir storage is actually about 70 percent of normal now, less than halfway into the water year. And the snowpack has risen to about 80 percent of normal — with more Sierra storms on the way.
“The climate can change pretty fast,’’ Maury Roos, California’s chief hydrologist, told the Los Angeles Times. “Some of the statements have been pretty grim.’’
Or to put it another way, the state is dryer than it needs to be, but it’s still not that dry. The sky is not falling, but we can expect that some more rain will.
Weather is funny that way.
Check out Ken Garcia’s new blog at www.sfexaminer.com/opinion. If you’d like to dish the dirt, chew the fat or wag the tongue, e-mail kgarcia@sfexaminer.com
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