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http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/new ... time-acee/

It's time mayor shows he wants Bolts to stay

By Kevin Acee | 3:05 p.m. Oct. 9, 2015

We are nearing the end.

We need to start over.

It is time to get real about the possibility of a stadium in San Diego, and that possibility’s only chance of becoming reality is if we get more time from the NFL. We are only getting more time if the NFL believes something can be worked out between the city and the Chargers. San Diego's current proposal will never be agreed to by the Chargers. We need a new proposal.

I feel like I’ve been saying these things for months. What makes it all worth talking (screaming!) about again is that those months have passed. We don’t have any more time to kick the ground, look at each other and shrug.

If Mayor Kevin Faulconer means it when he says he wants to keep the Chargers, he has to have the courage to change course. Immediately.

Faulconer is a good man with many constituencies to satisfy. His job does not hinge on making a deal for the Chargers to stay in San Diego. There are plenty of people opposed to public funds being used to finance a stadium and others who simply don’t care if the team leaves.

Those are facts Chargers fans must recognize.

But the fact is, too, the mayor is saying he wants to keep the Chargers.

Well, anything short of scrapping the mirage of Mission Valley and its accompanying environmental impact report that so deeply troubles the NFL and the Chargers means the mayor is merely pretending.

Is there a solution out there? No one knows. But there might be.

What’s on the table now is not it.

That’s a status update gleaned from two days in New York, where NFL executives and team owners were focused on how they get the league’s impending return to Los Angeles right.

The vast majority of owners believe now is the time to put at least one team back in the nation’s second-largest market. There is a split on exactly how to proceed.

It is true that the lean by a number of owners, key among them Dallas’ Jerry Jones, is toward the Inglewood site put forth by St. Louis Rams owner Stan Kroenke. However, discussions with owners and others in New York indicated Dean Spanos has strong allies within the Committee on Los Angeles Opportunities as he pushes the proposal for a Carson stadium that would house his Chargers and the Oakland Raiders.

It is the L.A. Committee – along with Roger Goodell and his staff – that will make the ultimate recommendation expected to decide the direction in Los Angeles.

At this point, both Kroenke and Spanos believe they have the votes to block each other. Going to a vote of the ownership with no one getting approved is an untenable result for the NFL.

Two-thirds of the owners are not intimately involved in this process. In terms of hard facts, they know what they are told, and the L.A. Committee members have hardly begun telling them. That process is intensifying now.

That’s not to say a decision has been made. What the committee and NFL have communicated so far to the owners is that they aren’t close to that. There remain moving parts.

Among those is coming to terms with the situations in San Diego, St. Louis and Oakland.

“We still have the home cities that are putting together their final proposals,” said Steelers president Art Rooney II, one of six owners who make up the L.A. Committee. “That’s a piece of the puzzle we need before decisions are made.”

That is more than lip service. The league has to find a way to get to L.A. while also helping one or two teams stay in their current market.

But if the NFL already has San Diego’s puzzle piece, San Diego’s days as an NFL market are all but over.

To get the time necessary, San Diego must present something that looks like it will fit.

One possible solution – a new piece – is burgeoning.

It’s a doozy. It’s out of left field. As far as the city is concerned, it may be coming from the pits of Hades.

Attorney Cory Briggs, a man whose litigation has tied up billions of dollars in local projects, is spearheading an effort to launch a signature-gathering campaign for a citizens’ initiative that would place two measures on the June ballot.

Essentially, one initiative would lower the local hotel tax from 12 percent to 10 percent. The other initiative would raise the tax to 15 percent and direct that money to the city’s general fund. Also, according to sources, the initiative would prohibit the contiguous convention center expansion currently favored by Faulconer and permit a non-contiguous expansion that could include a stadium.

You see where this is going.

It is basically what the Chargers proposed in 2011 and again in 2014 (and still would go for).

Asked about the initiative, Briggs said he could “neither confirm nor deny what you’re telling me.” Chargers stadium crusader Mark Fabiani also declined comment, as did a mayoral spokesman.

The team is not championing Briggs’ initiative. Word is, Briggs doesn’t want them involved. Not yet, not publicly. This is about more than a Chargers stadium. Briggs has long crusaded against the contiguous convention center expansion. His initiative would also provide for the Mission Valley site to be used as parkland and an educational institution (San Diego State).

Because it would be a citizens initiative and involve money for the the general fund that would not be specifically earmarked for a project, approval would require a simple majority. The City Council could designate money from the general fund toward construction of the stadium/convention center. More likely, there would be a ballot measure in November 2016, for which approval again would hinge on a simple majority.

Sources say Briggs is seeking financial backing for the initiative. It makes sense that would come from JMI, the company seeking to build the non-contiguous convention center expansion.

It is possible Briggs could launch the initiative in a matter of days. In fact, he pretty much has to in order to get everything done in time for the June ballot.

If he does – Briggs isn’t doing something without the backing that would give it a chance – it will then be incumbent on the city and the Chargers to declare their intentions. No stadium initiative would have a chance without the backing of both.

The NFL and Chargers continue to say that the problem is a lack of an actionable plan in San Diego. So let's give them one and force them to back up their words.

Even if it means the city aligning with one of its greatest adversaries.

If the Mayor is serious about keeping the Chargers, he has to. Unless he has a better plan.

A better plan is the only way San Diego is getting more time.