“So Many Questions-Very Few Answers”

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Add a couple of more pages to the book you are writing on the Chargers-Stadium issues.

Now the City Council has made an offer to lure Dean Spanos back to the bargaining table, a lease deal of just $1-per year on a new stadium at the Qualcomm sight.

The last proposal, via all the work done with CSAG, would have had the Chargers pay a rent of 1M to use the new facility.

The City wants Spanos to come up with the developer for the Stadium also.

Unsaid is whether the $1 lease offer is just for the stadium, or does it mean all 166-acres of land at the Mission Valley sight? I don’t believe they would ever give the land away, makes no sense.

A bigger question is this. Can City Council turn around and do a financing deal, without putting it up for a vote?

The CSAG proposal would have needed a City-County vote of 50% plus one, to have the two governing bodies donate money into the pool.

How much did politics play into all this? Mayor Kevin Faulconer now has a City Council President Myrtle Cole heading up that side. They need six votes to get a deal like this approved, and she may hold sway to have other council members change their feelings and vote to get the deal done.

How could two of the most vocal critics, council men Scott Sherman and Chris Cates, change colors so quickly?

Both were opposed to Measure C-downtown, but both now believe the Q-site is the right site. Both were scorched by citizens for their anti-Chargers stance leading up to the November election, and now both are pro-Chargers, because it’s Mission Valley.

Both villified Dean Spanos and Mark Fabiani in the past for refusing to meet and negotiate, and now they want bygones to be bygones, and invite them to the table.

And now Spanos’ people leaked a response about being embarrassed the city would make the letter public before telling him, “infuriated” was the description a Chargers source used. Guess he can now feel how the city felt when Spanos let his mouthpiece Mark Fabiani unleash blistering criticism against city leadership earlier this year.

Again the question, how does that taste Dean?

Is Team Spanos in a bad financial way?

Seems to be, with reports Spanos is asking the NFL to waive a ‘debt-load’ rule, that would allow them to borrow the money needed to make a 550M payment, a transfer fee, for moving into the LA market.

Does Spanos go to the meetings today with hat-in-hand, asking for league help, since it does not appear he has real money to do real projects of this magnitude?

Where does Roger Goodell sit in all these negotiations?

Is he willing to vacate the San Diego market, 8th in size in the country, to allow a second team in LA, or does he really want to keep LA as a chip as an expansion franchise city, thereby creating another revenue stream for owners?

Is Goodell willing to vacate the huge San Francisco-Oakland TV market, by allowing the Raiders to move to the 40th TV market in the country, Las Vegas?

Will Goodell and other owners creatively come up with additional loans to help both San Diego, and the Oakland situation?

A 2-page letter from City Council is just the beginning of the volume of work that needs to be done.

And the biggest question of all. Will Dean Spanos tell the NFL he is not invoking his option to move to LA this January, but will retain the option to tell them on Janaury 15th in 2018?

I think he should. It would truly be a sign of faith he really wants to stay here, not take the money and run to LA.

So many questions, so many answers needed, so many complexities and agenda’s to work out.

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