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City Opts to Not Meet With Chargers

City Opts to Not Meet With Chargers

BY MIKE ALLEN

Senior Staff Writer

Given the vote by the San Diego City Council last week, the Chargers will likely use a triggering clause in its lease that could result in the team leaving the city.

The council voted 5-4 on Dec. 10 against a motion to allow city officials to talk with Chargers representatives about its current contract with the team that expires in 2020.

Chargers consultant Mark Fabiani said the team has already showed the city it has met the triggering requirements, providing all the pertinent data to the city’s consultant, Dan Barrett.

“The team is so far over the (trigger) threshold it’s not even close, and the city has known it for months,” Fabiani said.

Under the lease, the Chargers can reopen negotiations with the city if the team proves its player payroll exceeds 75 percent of the average of all 32 NFL team’s shared revenues.

The contract includes language that allows the trigger to be pulled only during certain time periods. The Chargers are considering a specified contract window which began Dec. 1 and expires Jan. 29, three days after the Super Bowl, which will be played at Qualcomm Stadium on Jan. 26.

Fabiani wouldn’t say what the Chargers plan to do, but made it clear the city has pushed the team into a corner.

“The city has left us very few alternatives,” he said.

Members of a citizens task force on the Chargers issues said the council’s decision probably forced the team’s hand and could limit the options to the city.

“I didn’t see any harm in sitting down with Fabiani and seeing what they had to offer,” said Len Simon, an attorney and task force member.

Cards On The Table

Other members welcome the chance to prove that the team has not met the trigger and should enforce the terms of the lease.

“If the Chargers can trigger, then let them prove it,” said former city councilman Bruce Henderson, one of the task force’s 15 members.

Because of the council’s vote, the Chargers can effectively pull the trigger at any time, shortening the time the task force has to finish its job of providing the council with a number of options, Simon said.

The task force is expected to deliver a report to the council by mid-February or early March.

However, if the Chargers pull the trigger, it automatically sets off a 90-day period in which both sides must meet and determine whether the trigger is met, and if so, to renegotiate the 1995 lease.

Some observers say the Chargers do not want to incur further negative publicity before the Super Bowl and plan to wait until after Jan. 26 to notify the city the triggering elements have been met.

Chargers President Dean Spanos notified the city earlier this year that the Chargers could have pulled the trigger last season, and that the team needs a new stadium if it is to remain competitive and stay in San Diego.

‘A Deal’s A Deal’

The news has angered many elected city officials and others who recalled numerous efforts by the city to renegotiate the notorious ticket guarantee in the Chargers lease. Those attempts were always met with the owners’ response, “A deal’s a deal.”

The ticket guarantee requires the city to purchase any shortfall to a minimum 60,000 general admission seats for every home game from 1997 to 2007. The guarantee has cost the city more than $30 million since it’s been in effect.

Despite the escalating rhetoric, Fabiani said the Chargers intend to present a detailed plan of what the team desires, and what could be a more effective use of the Qualcomm Stadium site at a task force meeting Jan. 16.

The plan’s concept is similar to one presented by the San Diego International Sports Council earlier this month, and includes commercial and residential development in addition to a new stadium and more open space near the San Diego River, Fabiani said.

The concept should be compelling to the city in light of the Padres moving into its new stadium Downtown in 2004, leaving the Chargers and the San Diego State Aztecs football team as the sole regular tenants in Qualcomm Stadium, Fabiani said.

The Sports Council’s stadium proposal would require “little or no cash outlay by the city,” said consultant Jim Bailey.

Instead of causing a net drain to the city of $9 million annually, a redeveloped Qualcomm site could generate $15 million to $17 million annually in property and transient occupancy taxes, Bailey said.

Regarding the cost for a new stadium, Bailey said the Chargers and the NFL would likely contribute between $130 million to $150 million toward the stadium’s cost.

Bailey was formerly an executive with the Cleveland Browns before that team moved to Baltimore and changed its name to the Ravens.

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