Chargers Again Have San Diego on Its Feet

SAN DIEGO —  The discussion at the City Council was a dry one: bonds and debt service and construction schedules and blah blah blah . . .

And then a councilman used the dreaded C-word.

“We don’t want to be a Cleveland here in San Diego, and that’s what you’re asking us to do,” fumed Councilman Juan Vargas.

The Cleveland reference was designed as the ultimate squelch to three political activists who oppose the publicly financed expansion of San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium. Vargas called their opposition “mean-spirited, misdirected and disgusting.”

But the contrarians will not be squelched or insulted into silence--even by the specter that San Diego could join the ranks of Cleveland, Los Angeles and other cities that watch in anguish as their National Football League teams slink away to municipalities offering nicer playing venues and other multimillion-dollar inducements.

What should have been--pardon the mixed sports metaphor--a slam-dunk in this city that is gaga over its highflying Chargers has now become a political and legal fight.

At stake may be the future of the last remaining professional football team in Southern California.

The City Council is ready to spend $66.6 million to expand the stadium’s seating capacity by 10,000 (to 71,422), install two new scoreboards, create additional sky boxes and build a practice field for the Chargers.

In exchange, the Chargers promise (more or less) to stay in San Diego until 2020. The current lease expires in 2003.

The price is a bargain, officials say, compared to what it would cost to get a replacement team if the Alex Spanos family took their team and left town.

“The Spanos family is committed to San Diego, but there are a lot of tremendous deals being offered by cities without teams,” said City Manager Jack McGrory. “You have to deal in the real marketplace.”

The three opponents--two Libertarian Party officials and an iconoclastic former councilman--want the matter submitted to the voters, an idea the council has so far resisted. The council is set to vote on the bond issue today.

“I take the position that taxpayers should not be financing millionaire sports teams,” said Richard Rider, a retired San Diego naval officer and stockbroker and the 1994 gubernatorial candidate of the Libertarian Party.

Rider would like to strike a blow against the modern phenomenon of sports teams playing cities against each other to get the sweetest deal. “It’s just time that some city stand up and say this is a crazy system that has gotten out of control,” he said.

Rider is no ordinary gadfly. When the county and city governments devised a plan to finance the construction of jails and courts with a sales tax, he went to court and ended up getting the tax declared unconstitutional.

Former Councilman Bruce Henderson has his own merit badge for standing up to the collective wisdom. When the City Council was willing to bow to a demand from the Environmental Protection Agency and build a new sewer treatment plant, Henderson convinced a federal judge that the billion-dollar plant was unneeded.

Mayor Susan Golding has already warned that unless the expansion begins forthwith, the city could lose the 1998 Super Bowl because the stadium will not have the requisite seating for 70,000.

KFMB-TV, the CBS affiliate, warned in an editorial that failure to expand the stadium could jeopardize the Chargers’ future in San Diego and that, horrors, “Los Angeles is desperate to capture a replacement team.”

Rider and Henderson are fighting back with radio commercials. “This expansion is the very definition of corporate welfare,” intones Rider amid a drumroll.

Vargas has characterized the opposition of Rider, Henderson and Steve Green nothing less than a “naked attack” on the Chargers, the civic equivalent of treason. He held a “Save the Chargers” rally in the parking lot before the Dec. 31 game with the Indianapolis Colts.

Henderson says he has never seen such anger over a civic issue. “The emotions have been so intense, so venomous,” he said, “that if this was Argentina 10 years ago, I think the three of us would just be picked up one night and disappear.”

The bonds would be issued by the city’s Public Facilities Financing Authority, which has already been used to sell bonds to patch up the city’s leaking sewer system.

The debt would be repaid by an increase in rent paid by the Chargers, a greater return from Service America (which runs the food and trinket concession at the stadium), and an increase in parking fees. If, however, there is a shortfall, the burden falls back on taxpayers.

The council has gone to court to ask if the bond plan has any legal problems with Proposition 13 or the city charter. A hearing is set for Feb. 16, at which time Rider and company will ask the judge to order the bond measure on the ballot.

If they lose in court, the next step for opponents would be a referendum.

Two parts of the proposed agreement between the city and Chargers could be sticky politically. In one, the city agrees to guarantee an attendance of 60,000 for every Charger regular and preseason game.

If the team does poorly and attendance drops, the city would be stuck with picking up the difference for the unsold tickets. About 10,000 prime-seat tickets out of the new capacity of 71,422 are not included in the calculation.

So, in effect, the city is guaranteeing that 60,000 of about 62,000 general admission seats will be sold. McGrory said he is already looking for corporate backers.

Secondly, the agreement does not absolutely bind the team to San Diego. After the old agreement expires the 2003, the Chargers are free to shop for new offers from other cities if the team’s payroll cap has exceeded 5%.

If the team finds another offer, San Diego has the right to match the offer. If it cannot, the Chargers are free to leave as long as they pay two-thirds of the remaining portion of the bonds.

And there is nothing to keep a team-less city that covets the Chargers from helping the team pay that bond debt. Remember that, among other inducements, St. Louis provided Rams owner Georgia Frontiere $30 million for her debts, Baltimore arranged a $50-million line of credit for Browns owner Art Modell, and Oakland loaned Raiders owner Al Davis $42 million.

For the record, Chargers owner Alex Spanos has shown no indication that he is looking elsewhere. ‘This is the place the Spanos family wants to be,” said Chargers spokesman Bill Johnston.

Still, McGrory freely admits that there is a “fear factor” whenever a city renegotiates its agreement with a pro team.

San Diego, more than most cities, has had its share of pro sports disappointments. Five basketball teams have come and gone. (The minor league Wildcards folded Friday midway through their first season.)

The city has lost four hockey teams (it now has the minor-league Gulls), a tennis team, an outdoor soccer team and two volleyball teams. The Padres almost moved to Washington until the team was bought by McDonald’s magnate Ray Kroc.

Much has been made by some expansion opponents of the fact that Spanos is a political backer of Mayor Golding: that he held a political fund-raiser for her in his stadium sky box and that he has pledged a hefty contribution to the Republican national convention this summer in San Diego.

Of course, political agendas are in the eye of the beholder.

Vargas, Charger fan nonpareil, is trying to get the Democratic nomination for Congress in a working-class district where sports fever is thought to be high. And Henderson, a Republican, is running for Assembly on a platform of being a fiscal conservative.

Even if the stadium expansion is approved and the Chargers stay put, that does not end San Diego’s insecurity vis-a-vis pro sports.

The Padres owners have hinted they would like a new baseball-only stadium sometime soon after their lease at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium expires in 1999.

And then there is a proposal for the city to build a downtown sports arena to attract a professional basketball or ice hockey team.

But that’s another story.