SANTA CLARA, CA—The heated debate over the proposed $854 million 49ers football stadium in Santa Clara landed in the city's main library, this past Monday. The political debate involved supporters of the city-run stadium who gathered outside the city's main library where a group of residents revealed a plan to blast the project.
Ketra Oberlander, a resident of Santa Clara, has been a passionate critic of the proposed project and the required subsidy. According to Oberlander, Santa Clara will allot a huge public asset in land, put at risk citizens' credit worthiness, and will put a big amount of cash up front, so that the 49ers—a big business—can make even more money and have even greater value.
"This is a huge gift to a private company that doesn't have any value for us," said Oberlander. "The 49ers, which have been a Santa Clara business for years, came to the city with an outrageous proposal."
Other big businesses, according to Oberlander, have also operated in the city, such as Intel, and Applied Materials among many others, but none of those big businesses has asked the city for "such an egregious handout of $220 million (in subsidy) plus another handout of 15 acres of rent-free land."
"When this came up, we were astounded that our city council simply didn't laugh them out of the room."
Outside the library, supporters of the stadium expressed their vision and tried to sway citizens like Oberlander.
Stadium supporters included former Santa Clara Mayor Larry Marsalli and former councilmember Lisa Gilmor. The former Mayor said that he is a part of the Santa Clara 49ers Advisory and Advocacy Committee whose purpose is to ensure that what the city is doing is right for its citizens.
"In 30 years, the stadium will belong to the city. If we can do it without additional cost to the city, I don't see how we can miss," Marsalli explained.
Chairwoman Michele Ryan from Santa Clara Plays Fair (SCPF)—an organization opposed to the new venue—revealed plans to meet with community groups and individuals to get the word out about the subsidy and what it represents to the city.
"We are really concerned about the subsidy," said Ryan, who showed up to her first council meeting earlier this year. Ryan was concerned that the city requested a $160-222 million subsidy.
Ryan says that each Santa Clara resident will pay about $2,000 for the 49ers to move to the South Bay. This practice of providing subsidies for new sports venues has been used in other cities as well, but Santa Clara residents' indebtedness seems to be the highest in the nation, according to the SCPF's assessment.
In comparison, Seattle's residents paid a $92 subsidy per person for a new Seahawks stadium. In Glendale, Arizona, residents paid about $120 each for the new Arizona Cardinals stadium, and in Arlington, Texas, $900 per resident for the new Dallas Cowboys stadium.
Stadium supporters said that the new venue will not require new taxes for Santa Clara citizens and will only enrich the city's entertainment district and complement its Great America venue, movie theaters, and the city's convention center.
Some residents, however, said that they simply don't want to get involved. They say that if the city government wants to know their opinion and end the political fight over the stadium, the issue should be put on a ballot measure for people to vote.
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