Welfare for rich people

The York family, who own the San Francisco 49ers, are leaving San Francisco in a snit after the City of San Francisco refused to give them corporate welfare to replace the perfectly functional but "obsolete" Candlestick Park. The deal being that Candlestick has too many "cheap seats" and not enough expensive corporate sky boxes that could be auctioned off for millions per year to enable the Yorks to pay their mediocre on-field "talent" more millions than they're worth.

So here come the Yorks into little Santa Clara, who they're trying to con into building a new football stadium for the 49ers on a patch of city-owned land near Great America Theme Park. In the process, they're spending millions on glossy lies and bullshit to gull the small-town Santa Clarans into mortgaging their future for the sake of a gigantic white elephant that will be used eight (8) times per year and otherwise sit empty.

Lies? Well, yes. Lies like:

• "It will put Santa Clara on the map." Yeah, like the Dallas Cowboys put Arlington, Texas, on the map? Hello, can any of you find Arlington on the map and tell me any benefit it's gotten from having the Cowboys stadium there? Santa Clara has a nice high-tech center in that area, Oracle/Sun, Yahoo, Nortel, etc. all have major facilities there, how will a stadium help Santa Clara gain more high-tech business than it's already achieved? Ain't happenin'.
• "It won't cost tax money." Bullshit. The 49ers are leaving San Francisco because San Francisco refuses to spend tax money on their stadium, and they think Santa Clara is gullible enough to go for that? The 49ers are raiding taxpayer funds big-time -- the city proposes raiding redevelopment funds intended for redeveloping depressed warehouse areas (funds that will need to be replaced via, duh, TAXES) *plus* raiding the municipal utility's capital improvements fund, which will need to be replaced via, duh, raising electrical rates (same damned thing as a tax).
• "It will create jobs". For eight weekends a year. Low wage jobs. And for four of those weekends, it will *destroy* jobs, because Great America will be forced to close down on game days. Great America currently earns a large amount of money on late summer / early fall weekends, and will be forced to lay off hundreds of workers on those days that the stadium has streets clogged and Great America's parking lots full of cars illegally parking there. And if this eliminates Great America's profitability altogether, Great America will close altogether -- which will cost thousands of jobs. If you want to create jobs, use that parking lot to lure the corporate headquarters of some major technology company, not for a white elephant stadium.
• "It will generate millions in property taxes for local schools." Yeah right. Pull the other leg. Like I said, you want millions in property taxes, get another high-tech company in there to complement the dozens of other high-tech companies that have their corporate HQ or U.S. offices in the vicinity, such as Yahoo, Sun/Oracle, Marvell, Nortel, etc.
• "It will be good for the city." Yeah, like that stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, where two major league teams play, which has turned East Rutherford into paradise on Earth... well... maybe not.

The reality is that every single NFL stadium in America built over the past three decades has been a gigantic boondoggle. They've all made promises like the 49ers are making, and they all broke those promises and left taxpayers with the choice of paying hundreds of millions of dollars in cost overruns, or having a half-completed construction site cluttering their city. Every single team has promised that there would be no taxpayer dollars used to operate or maintain the stadium, and every single team has broken that promise. The 49ers are leaving San Francisco because the city won't subsidize them with taxpayer money, yet they promise they will stay in Santa Clara without needing taxpayer subsidies? Bullsh*t. They're lying. Their past history -- and the past history of NFL teams in general that have made these same exact promises -- shows that it's going to be an expensive drain on the city treasury and that public services like police, fire, etc. are all going to suffer because of the money drain. They make all these promises in these glossy brochures, but promises are cheap, and promises are empty. Look at their history, people. These rich NFL owners are welfare whores, and once they get their hooks into your city, they will suck your city dry with their incessant demands for corporate welfare and their threats to leave if they don't get the welfare they want. San Francisco is showing these welfare whores the door, and Santa Clara wants to be their next victim? Talk about small-town rubes! Siiiiiiigh....

-- Badtux the Welfare-sniffin' Penguin

For more information:

• Save Santa Clara.
• Santa Clara Plays Fair
• SCPF Blog
• Stadium Facts blog