[Elvis]

Me 2 : D

Chief Wiggum is in the house...

[Elvis]

http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2015/jun ... race-acee/

Mayor flexes, now must run right race

By Kevin Acee6 a.m.June 18, 2015


San Diego Mayor Kevin L. Faulconer

The words were wondrous, the tone tremendous, the delivery decisive.

But none of what was said at City Hall on Wednesday made a difference beyond painting a political picture.

Mayor Kevin Faulconer and the other two captains of San Diego's stadium negotiating team went on the offensive at a high noon press conference. They came as close as anyone in an official capacity has -- really, as anyone could -- to saying on the record that the Chargers are liars.

"We have been working diligently to keep the Chargers in San Diego,” the Mayor said, “while the team has been working on their plan to move to Los Angeles.”

Bam!

“I want San Diegans to know that at the end of the day, there are only two voices that matter,” the Mayor said later. “There's San Diego's voice. And our voice has been very clear. We are united in getting a fair deal done. And then there's the Chargers' voice, and they say that San Diego is their first choice. But actions speak louder than words. San Diego is offering solution after solution. The team has only offered criticism without any alternatives.”

Boom!

And … hmmm.

The city clearly thinks the Chargers are bluffing – about their environmental/legal concerns, for sure, and maybe about the viability of their Los Angeles project.

But was this really the time or the way to call that perceived bluff?

No, it wasn’t.

But at least Faulconer is flexing his strong-Mayor muscles.

He’ll need ‘em.

Those who would like to keep rooting for the hometown NFL team must hope His Honor has the backbone he says he does. Because this is a perilous approach, and how Faulconer & Co. proceed from here will determine whether he is remembered as the mayor who helped keep the Chargers in San Diego or the mayor who failed to keep the Chargers in San Diego.

The city/county coalition plans to back up its words by going on the offensive with the NFL.

Good. The Chargers told them to talk to the league about the parameters under which something could be accomplished here. The team maintains it doesn't know what the league will do about relocation in 2016, though virtually everyone from team owners to league staff believes it is highly likely one team moves to Los Angeles in 2016.

It seems the city wants to let the NFL know all it is proposing and get feedback from the league, because what San Diego is getting from the Chargers is not leading to anything productive.

And, y’know, it’s difficult to completely disagree that the Chargers are uncooperative negotiating partners at this point. It is easy to applaud the city/county coalition for its extensive efforts of late. (The resources they’re willing to commit to expediting a full environmental impact report in time for a December or January election is stunning.)

However, those things are beside the point. Always have been.

The Chargers and NFL have relocated the finish line multiple times, and San Diego’s officials have continually reached the tape.

Unfortunately, and unwisely, they’re running the wrong race.

So the best news to come out of the latest shots fired is that the city will seek direct feedback from the NFL. That should remind Faulconer, et al, that the race is fixed.

The league is inclined to back its member teams. But hopefully it will find it prudent to give San Diego officials honest answers.

Does the NFL agree with the Chargers that the city’s schemes for a 2015 vote are legally dubious? Would the NFL give San Diego another year to figure out how to get a stadium project approved?

If the latter is possible – and several around the league have indicated it is possible, though not probable – it will be time for Faulconer to make a bold move.

If he wants to win – which he appears to define as finding a way to keep the Chargers in San Diego – he will have to retreat.

He will have to say to Chargers chairman Dean Spanos, “OK. Fine. We can’t please you. Tell us exactly how we can make this work for you.”

Then, and only then, will he have forced the Chargers to show their willingness to work to stay.

The rest of us can argue about the merits of what the city has already proposed. But the only guy who really matters is Spanos, whose lawyers tell him he should have little to no confidence in any of San Diego’s stratagems so far.

Sorry. That’s how it is. (It’s surprising if everyone hasn’t realized the Chargers and NFL have the rule book and an ample supply of Wite-out.)

We can be angry about that. But that’s a different argument. We can talk about who is to blame when this game is over.

The only choice now is to play by the NFL’s rules. Or forfeit.

I'm rooting for the Mayor. I found his Wednesday performance riveting. But his next move needs to the important one. It needs to be the right one.

© Copyright 2015 The San Diego Union-Tribune. All rights reserved.

[ramfaninsd]

fyi ramsnation: the stadium being proposed in san diego will be built adjacent (qualcom parking lot) to the chargers current stadium (qualcom). parking and tailgating will be reduced significantly but getting there will not be a problem when the lot is full as there off site places with shuttles and the trolley/ buses drop you off at the stadium. the problem is fabiani and or the chargers reluctance to negotiate with the city they reject and criticize but off no alternatives. if i had been hired and my sole purpose was to get a new stadium deal done i would have been knocking on doors and talking to people of importance, fabiani shuts doors and has done so since his hiring many moons ago.

[Elvis]

fyi ramsnation: the stadium being proposed in san diego will be built adjacent (qualcom parking lot) to the chargers current stadium (qualcom). parking and tailgating will be reduced significantly but getting there will not be a problem when the lot is full as there off site places with shuttles and the trolley/ buses drop you off at the stadium. the problem is fabiani and or the chargers reluctance to negotiate with the city they reject and criticize but off no alternatives. if i had been hired and my sole purpose was to get a new stadium deal done i would have been knocking on doors and talking to people of importance, fabiani shuts doors and has done so since his hiring many moons ago.

Cool, thanks.

It really seems like The Chargers either want to come to L.A. or force SD to let them go downtown. But then again i'm really not sure what they're up to...

[Hacksaw]

The quest for LA is the timeline they are driven by. They don't want to lose Carson to Inglewood so they have to keep up that appearance. What Fabiani and Policy never mention Inglewood (I could be mistaken) so it seems there agenda is all about LA. Blocking the Rams perhaps would be enough to keep him in LA but then LA loses and the league clearly wants the LA situation resolved.
Another year of this for 3 fan bases is going to be detrimental to the league because 100's of thousands of fans are going to be po'd as this in the public eye.
Rams to SL shocked everyone and I'm almost certain that if/when they return the sports talk around the nation will slip more than once stating out loud that 'this feels right' or 'Los Angeles Rams sounds better' or 'I still can't understand why they ever left LA in the first place'.
The league remembers and the Rams to LA is the easiest spin for PR. It also give the Chargers a year to work with SD and will likely get what they want there. Their best bet is to stay put ubless they can come alone which would be franchize suicide and another poster here so aptly put it.

[Elvis]

http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2015/jun ... -nfl-acee/

NFL, Chargers can make San Diego work

By Kevin Acee12:56 p.m.June 19, 2015

While the principles run around San Diego squawking and insulting each other, there is already work being done in New York to determine just what it is that can be done.

The NFL is aware of what San Diego’s city and county officials have proposed and is, before even being asked, forming an opinion.

There is no official word on what the league thinks of the latest plan, involving an expedited environmental impact report and an election in December or January. But the NFL has to this point been like-minded with the Chargers.

San Diego’s stadium saga certainly seems headed where it has been all along – into a wall.

If the decision has to be made this year, the Chargers are leaving.

Is there an echo here – one that San Diego can’t hear?

We need to stop waging a war that can’t be won. We need to find out if there is such a fight.

This is not a condemnation of the city’s plan. As City Attorney Jan Goldsmith notes, most of us aren’t environmental lawyers. I won’t even play one in the paper.

Simply put, though, the NFL is not going to make the Chargers comply with a plan the team’s lawyers have advised is faulty. The Chargers’ concern about the expedited EIR is the same as it was about the categorical exemption – that it will be ripe for legal challenges that will cost time and money and, ultimately, cost the Chargers their spot in Los Angeles.

There can be no doubt Mayor Kevin Faulconer wants the Chargers to stay.

Maybe he started slow. Maybe he's been slow to figure out the appropriate steps.

But if (when) we eventually do an autopsy to determine cause of death so we can definitively assign blame, we will have to consider that the Mayor who was on watch when the Chargers drove up Interstate 5 was sincerely invested.

This is evident not because Faulconer has repeatedly said so. I like MKF a lot. But he's a politician. I don’t trust a politician on his words alone any more than I trust my teenage son or Mike McCoy. (OK, I trust Faulconer more than the other two.)

The thing is, around town there are many folks who could hardly care less whether the team remains. That contention frequently crops up in conversations with various folks – business people, the kind with money and the Mayor’s ear.

Too, the polls the Union-Tribune has commissioned routinely show shaky support for the team. Our latest U-T/10 News poll of 600 adults countywide revealed that just 44 percent think it is “very important” the Chargers stay in San Diego. The rest were split between “somewhat important” (15 percent), “not very important” (14 percent) and “not at all important” (26 percent.)

You can’t ignore that kind of apathy, and I’m assured Faulconer is aware of it.

Thus, clearly, His Honor is making a strong stand when he commits a sizable portion of the city’s land use and development staff to getting an EIR done in what would possibly be record time for a major project in California.

But that's not what will keep the Chargers in San Diego.

And they can still end up in San Diego. The NFL can make that happen.

An NFL source with knowledge of retention efforts in San Diego, St. Louis and Oakland confirmed recently that there has been “talk about ways to solve challenges in existing markets that might get close to a good proposal and need some sort of extra help to get it done.” For clarity, the source further said the NFL could provide assistance beyond the standard G4 loan amount of $200 million provided for new stadium construction.

Is this anything more than a prospect? No. Even if it were a certainty, it doesn’t bridge myriad other gaps between the city and the Chargers.

However, it does indicate that the NFL does not have to be limited in its efforts to help. If it wants to.

In its upcoming talks with the NFL, the city must find out if the league really wants to have a team in San Diego.

If they do, it must be noted that several people around the league have said it is possible the league will put off relocation for another year. It is also possible, even slightly more probable, those sources said, that only one team moves in 2016.

County Supervisor Ron Roberts, the Goose to Faulconer's Maverick, said this week, “If the NFL and if Chargers would say, ‘OK, let’s do this with a June election, or let’s do this with a November election,’ we would agree to that in a minute.”

The city won’t surprise the NFL. Maybe the NFL will surprise the city.

© Copyright 2015 The San Diego Union-Tribune. All rights reserved.

[moklerman]

The Chargers have continued to balk at anything not a stadium downtown. It seems to me that the Chargers aren't willing to listen to anything other than their downtown goal. I'm not even sure why they're so obsessed with moving downtown. Is there even any room in downtown SD to put an NFL stadium and one that could accommodate tailgating?

[Elvis]

The Chargers have continued to balk at anything not a stadium downtown. It seems to me that the Chargers aren't willing to listen to anything other than their downtown goal. I'm not even sure why they're so obsessed with moving downtown. Is there even any room in downtown SD to put an NFL stadium and one that could accommodate tailgating?

Do they want downtown or do they want the subject to be downtown so it will fail and the Chargers won't be the bad guys?

Or maybe something else? I'm really not sure what Spanos is up to.

On a slightly different note, i heard someone on the Mighty 1090 make the point that the Spanos family likes to go on vacation this time of year and maybe Fabiani walked away because Spanos wants the next couple of weeks off...

[Hacksaw]

Hopefully Kroenke invited him to his island and they are hammering something out.

[moklerman]

Hopefully Kroenke invited him to his island and they are hammering something out.

I don't want the Rams sharing LA so hopefully that's what they're hammering.