"CHARGING FORWARD"
In part 1 of this series, I spoke briefly about a close friend of mine who I turned to for their insight, opinions and their advice. They have been kind of a mentor to me through this difficult time. Mr. Jim Steeg and Jill Steeg, I simply say Thank you. Knowledge is power and they taught me two very valuable lessons I practiced throughout this process.
1. Everyone has an agenda
2. Keep asking yourself at certain times, What is their exit strategy? What is their end game?
"On behalf of the entire San Diego Chargers organization, we want to thank every registered San Diego City voter who signed the petition,” said Chargers Chairman Dean Spanos. “We also want to thank representatives of organized labor – and particularly the unions of the Building Trades Council – for their significant help and support during this process. And we are grateful for the volunteer signature gathering work coordinated by the fan groups, including Save Our Bolts and the San Diego Stadium Coalition. The fan groups did a great job, as did the hundreds of other people who contacted us and volunteered to gather signatures.”
1. Everyone has an agenda
2. Keep asking yourself at certain times, What is their exit strategy? What is their end game?
In mid March, as the fan groups were gearing up for the big announcement that was going to start our campaign. We were in deep discussions about the Measure C campaign website with the Chargers. We were discussing how we could use social media to our advantage. We thought we should come up with a catchy slogan for the measure and what would be the best strategy to get it out into the pubic so we could began to accept volunteers for a project of this magnitude.
It became noticeable that the team was fumbling their way through the early days of the campaign. They were rushed with legal timelines and deadlines in order to get the measure on the ballot. There were times it became crazy to think these are the same people that run a NFL team. Of course, it's just as crazy to think of the way the people who run this city actually conduct themselves behind closed doors as well. Things are not always what they appear to be.
It became noticeable that the team was fumbling their way through the early days of the campaign. They were rushed with legal timelines and deadlines in order to get the measure on the ballot. There were times it became crazy to think these are the same people that run a NFL team. Of course, it's just as crazy to think of the way the people who run this city actually conduct themselves behind closed doors as well. Things are not always what they appear to be.
Frustration was growing with Dean Spanos because he couldn't get any business leaders to come out and support the measure. What you might not know is in those many "9 proposed proposals" that Dean and Mark talked about in all those TV interviews and radio interview. Those proposals ultimately failed because Dean HAD to bring in a developer/ business partner before moving forward on many of the discussed proposals. However he never could get one on board.
If you ever worked with or for the Chargers before then you know how extremely arrogant they can be. As we got closer to releasing the details of Measure C it seemed as if nothing could go right on our side. The early poll numbers showed us with an approval of around 35%. A Mt. Everest of questions we would have to overcome.
IMPORTANT...San Diego Voters didn't trust Dean.
If this was going to be a vote on the Chargers we would win.
If this becomes a mandate on the Dean Spanos name then we would lose badly!!!
IMPORTANT...San Diego Voters didn't trust Dean.
If this was going to be a vote on the Chargers we would win.
If this becomes a mandate on the Dean Spanos name then we would lose badly!!!
Sometimes it is not what you do but what you are not doing that can lead people to be skeptical of your intentions truly are. The mantra around San Diego at this time is the downtown location was a no go with almost everyone. The residents of East Village started a group opposing downtown and soon another group of Barrio Logan resident formed a group as well. Remember Johnny warning them many times to not ignore that community fears? Yep, to late. The Padres were also concerned with what would become of tailgate park and how the plan was going to address the parking. Comic Con wasn't against the stadium they just preferred a contiguous expansion of the convention center. Comic Con makes the city the most amount of revenue and our opponents shamelessly used that as a scare tactic to their advantage. Comic Con was never and will never leave San Diego. That was a hoax.
I was working almost daily with Fabiani on the legal requirements of the signature effort. We had to get 67,000 verified in just 6 weeks. All of them had to be registered city voters living and registered in the 9 districts. If you obtained a voter who didn't qualify you could lose 1,000 signatures for every unqualified signature. This is normally a 6 month process but we only had 6 weeks to accomplish our goal. This was a rush job by the team planning measure C and sadly it showed with all the unanswered questions hidden in the language of the measure.
I was working almost daily with Fabiani on the legal requirements of the signature effort. We had to get 67,000 verified in just 6 weeks. All of them had to be registered city voters living and registered in the 9 districts. If you obtained a voter who didn't qualify you could lose 1,000 signatures for every unqualified signature. This is normally a 6 month process but we only had 6 weeks to accomplish our goal. This was a rush job by the team planning measure C and sadly it showed with all the unanswered questions hidden in the language of the measure.
Pressure was being applied to the Mayor to take a stand for or against the measure. It seemed the leadership from the Mayor in 2016 disappeared when the ball dropped on New Years. Of course this is the same time he was meeting quietly with the FS investors about a plan for Mission Valley and Soccer City.
San Diego Mayor is not just a coward but a sneaky lying coward. The Mayor and the city council members talked a really good game throughout this. In reality though they were snakes in the grass lying in mud with the pigs!
The real name of the popular character Boltman was also a member of Save Our Bolts. Dan Jauregui spent decades entertaining the fans on Sunday inside the stadium. He bought a domain for the team to use to promote the measure. He spent $500.00 out of his own pocket on it. The team turned him down afterwards and told him they wanted to get their own domain.The name of the website they choose was too long for it to catch on, "VoteYesOnC.com".
They never used the power of social media either as we discussed with them. In the entire campaign their Facebook page for measure C only had 2,216 likes. In not taking advantage of the instant impact of today's social media showed a true lack of effort on the teams part to the measure. You can compare the time and effort spent on VoteYesOnC facebook page and compare it to the Fightforla.com website. Seriously, go look it's worth your time. Actually I'll do it for you. They spent so little attention to the VoteYesOnC Facebook page they forgot to close it down. https://www.facebook.com/VoteYesOnC/ https://fightforla.com/
Mic Drop!
They hired a architect guy named David Manica to work on the renderings for the new stadium. It was slated to be released at a later date after the details of the measure would be released.
(Great! No vision for the voters to imagine, just hand me over $1.2 billion dollars. That should go over really well with an already skeptical voter.). Everyone and their mother is so far against the plan this early. Slowly and over time they leaked out details of the measure to the media.
San Diego Mayor is not just a coward but a sneaky lying coward. The Mayor and the city council members talked a really good game throughout this. In reality though they were snakes in the grass lying in mud with the pigs!
The real name of the popular character Boltman was also a member of Save Our Bolts. Dan Jauregui spent decades entertaining the fans on Sunday inside the stadium. He bought a domain for the team to use to promote the measure. He spent $500.00 out of his own pocket on it. The team turned him down afterwards and told him they wanted to get their own domain.The name of the website they choose was too long for it to catch on, "VoteYesOnC.com".
They never used the power of social media either as we discussed with them. In the entire campaign their Facebook page for measure C only had 2,216 likes. In not taking advantage of the instant impact of today's social media showed a true lack of effort on the teams part to the measure. You can compare the time and effort spent on VoteYesOnC facebook page and compare it to the Fightforla.com website. Seriously, go look it's worth your time. Actually I'll do it for you. They spent so little attention to the VoteYesOnC Facebook page they forgot to close it down. https://www.facebook.com/VoteYesOnC/ https://fightforla.com/
Mic Drop!
They hired a architect guy named David Manica to work on the renderings for the new stadium. It was slated to be released at a later date after the details of the measure would be released.
(Great! No vision for the voters to imagine, just hand me over $1.2 billion dollars. That should go over really well with an already skeptical voter.). Everyone and their mother is so far against the plan this early. Slowly and over time they leaked out details of the measure to the media.
(EDITOR NOTE) In politics and especially in today's new world of social media interaction and it's instant impact, when you have bad news or details of something negative and pretty sure it will get you negative reaction. You want to release everything all at one time. You take the hit all at once and then you can began to move on and focus on changing the narrative in the public by answering their questions with your total honesty. Late on a Friday is a popular time for what is called a news dump. People are distracted by the upcoming weekend and not following the news as often. The Chargers could not have fucked this 1 point up anymore than they did. This was the first act of the shitshow.
Mark Fabiani said in his own book "It's not about winning the news cycle, it's about winning the war of the news. It is about rebuilding lost trust" he adds, "Be clear when admitting your mistake.Take personal responsibility and do it in a meaningful way. When responding to a crises the mission is to restore trust. Sometimes it is best just to suck it up and say I'm sorry."
None of this was done by Dean Spanos nor by the people who work for him!
None of this was done by Dean Spanos nor by the people who work for him!
The massive amount of work of getting the plan out in time and in legal term was causing them to become exhausted. Everyone who was drafting the initiative was with the lawyers at the complex working on the final details. Between the mayor who was avoiding taking a position on the matter and the city council members who were lining up to oppose the measure to appease the hoteliers who own them, and their henchmen of Tony Manolatos and April Boling out there crushing the Chargers every chance they got and Steve Cushman who was quietly working behind the scenes to oppose the Chargers' plan. All of this led to what I believe resulted in the team panicking and doing the unthinkable instead of the announcement as planned.
DEAN SPANOS JUST MADE A COLOSSAL ERROR
They made the biggest mistake you can make in a political campaign. The big announcement of the plan had turned into a giant fart. The chance for the media to question Maas and Dean to the questions that the opponents were out spewing everywhere they could. My belief is the lack of support from the Mayor who was being updated every 2-3 days from Fred Maas and having no business leaders supporting the measure up to this point. They just reacted and gave up.
On March 29th at around 5pm, the team called four local reporters into Chargers complex for a 5:30 meeting. They proceeded to leak the entire plan to the four media members. A week earlier it delivered to Steve Pitz at the Mayor's office. The measure which was asking the public for $1.2 billion dollars was relayed to the voters in a series of tweets! I found out the leak by a media member who's a close friend and he called me to tell me about how they leaked this out. He said to me "You won't fucking believe this. There is no presser. They are leaking the details to four of their favorite reporters instead of addressing the media ".
I wanted to quit right there on the spot. They just gave the opposing party all day and all night to to appear on tv and radio tearing the measure apart piece by piece. No chance for a rebuttal or nothing by doing this. You just gave your opponent free air time on the 5 and 6pm newscast instead of having both sides on.
All day they were on the radio, TV and on social media smashing the measure. Nothing but anti Dean, anti stadium and anti-public money. I don't know about the others in the fan groups did but I know I didn't talk to the team at all that night. I was livid.
I did email them the following morning. "Well, that was fun. I mean, that was a real anal raping. So, where do we go from here?" (sarcastic voice)
All day they were on the radio, TV and on social media smashing the measure. Nothing but anti Dean, anti stadium and anti-public money. I don't know about the others in the fan groups did but I know I didn't talk to the team at all that night. I was livid.
I did email them the following morning. "Well, that was fun. I mean, that was a real anal raping. So, where do we go from here?" (sarcastic voice)
The Chargers' big announcement was nothing more than a giant fart heard around San Diego. Why should we expect anything less from Dean Spanos? To make matters worse was within five minutes of releasing the plan. We got ambushed by pre-planned negative reactions setup by Tony Manolatos. Measure C is a 110 page document that was very complicated and detailed when first reading it. Yet, it was so easily being analyzed and in extreme detail on twitter and with prepared public statements from politicians ready to go. How the hell is that even possible to have an opinion on something that was just released?
I'll tell you how, just follow me here.
March 20th the plan is delivered to Steve Pitz over at the Mayor's office. The same office where Tony Manolatos worked at one year earlier. The same office where all of Tony's friends and his clients who are politicians throughout the city and clients of Apex Strategies, Tony M political consultant group. all had their prepared statements ready to go within minutes. This was a pre planned and pre-executed maneuver all setup to ambush and attack the Chargers. Not only were they waiting for the moment of the measure release to attack but then Dean walked right into their grenades by not having a press conference to make the announcement.
March 20th the plan is delivered to Steve Pitz over at the Mayor's office. The same office where Tony Manolatos worked at one year earlier. The same office where all of Tony's friends and his clients who are politicians throughout the city and clients of Apex Strategies, Tony M political consultant group. all had their prepared statements ready to go within minutes. This was a pre planned and pre-executed maneuver all setup to ambush and attack the Chargers. Not only were they waiting for the moment of the measure release to attack but then Dean walked right into their grenades by not having a press conference to make the announcement.
I'm going to link an article about the ambush below. Remember now, most of these people making these statements had supported the mayor and his $2.1 million dollar EIR a year earlier. The same EIR and 2.1 million spent on it is just sitting in the mayor's desk right now gathering dust.
These pigs claiming to be tax paying watchdogs supported raising the TOT on tax payers 3% to expand the convention center without even having a public vote! Yet they don't support raising the TOT 1% more and combining the cost for a stadium and expanding the convention center with a public vote?
Read that again and answer it. WTF! Welcome to the San Diego City Council.
These pigs claiming to be tax paying watchdogs supported raising the TOT on tax payers 3% to expand the convention center without even having a public vote! Yet they don't support raising the TOT 1% more and combining the cost for a stadium and expanding the convention center with a public vote?
Read that again and answer it. WTF! Welcome to the San Diego City Council.
The threat of Comic Con leaving San Diego was one of the biggest hoaxes in this whole saga. They were never going to go anywhere. Trust me, hell they just bought land in Balboa Park for like three million dollars. It was Tony M playing with voters fears and the fans emotions by using scare tactics. The same way he used roads and schools as a fear tactic.
Now that the measure failed, is your roads any better?
Are the local schools getting the much needed improvements that they need?
NO! Because it not the about stadium. If we keep electing the same imbeciles to run this city then this is all OUR fault! Don't give me that shit either that politicians are corrupt. except for my councilman. WRONG! We have elected people with character flaws over and over again and let them be bought out by special interest groups. It is embarrassing. My message to you is this November, Vote all 9 of these assholes on the city council out. As they pack their boxes after the election. We'll go tell them to shove a lighting bolt up their asses. Okay, my rant is over.
Are the local schools getting the much needed improvements that they need?
NO! Because it not the about stadium. If we keep electing the same imbeciles to run this city then this is all OUR fault! Don't give me that shit either that politicians are corrupt. except for my councilman. WRONG! We have elected people with character flaws over and over again and let them be bought out by special interest groups. It is embarrassing. My message to you is this November, Vote all 9 of these assholes on the city council out. As they pack their boxes after the election. We'll go tell them to shove a lighting bolt up their asses. Okay, my rant is over.
2009 PROPOSAL AND MEASURE C
What I'm going to now is share with you what has really never been brought up before. I didn't realize it until I was studying for a podcast and came across it. Measure C is word for word a rehashed proposal that was tried and failed before. The details are the same right down to the streets in the plan of Measure C. The plan you voted on in November had already been tried. It failed in 2011.
The team wanted a $800 million dollar stadium with $500 million taxpayers contribution using a TOT increase to be voted on by a countywide vote hopefully in Nov of 2012. The team's lawyers said it had to be a county vote if they wanted it to pass. Back then the hoteliers, the city council and the residents of East Village and Barrio Logan were against the plan. Interesting, it was set to be built in then councilman Kevin Faulconer district . Who ran the Centre City Development Group that was helping on this? That would be Fred Maas. Let's compare the two projects. It appears that all they did was pull out a file from 2009 and told Goldman Sachs to make it into a citizen initiative.
The team wanted a $800 million dollar stadium with $500 million taxpayers contribution using a TOT increase to be voted on by a countywide vote hopefully in Nov of 2012. The team's lawyers said it had to be a county vote if they wanted it to pass. Back then the hoteliers, the city council and the residents of East Village and Barrio Logan were against the plan. Interesting, it was set to be built in then councilman Kevin Faulconer district . Who ran the Centre City Development Group that was helping on this? That would be Fred Maas. Let's compare the two projects. It appears that all they did was pull out a file from 2009 and told Goldman Sachs to make it into a citizen initiative.
.You will see that Measure C was not new at all. The proposal called for a 225,000 square feet expansion of the convention center and a multi use stadium. The stadium would have seated 65,000 that could expand by 10,000 for Super Bowls. The expansion annex would be 6 blocks from the current convention center. It would have raised the TOT to pay for the project minus moving the MTS depot. The project was planned to be built at tailgate park and the MTS site. Plans included a inflatable roof with the materials coming from Asia and Europe made of membrane material called polycarbonate. The Kansas City based company Populous was working on the design that would eventually be released May 27, 2010.Turner Construction was studying the MTS site and the fault lines by tailgate park which houses 1,040 parking spaces.
It was billed by the Centre City Development chairman at the time Fred Maas as a Sports and Entertainment District plan. The reason for the location was a benefit by splitting the cost between the stadium and the convention center expansion and the infrastructure was already in place and no EIR was needed. It was studied that there are 57,000 parking spaces in a 1.5 mile radius of the proposed site.
This proposal was discussed between Dean Spanos, Fred Maas, Mark Fabiani, Jerry Sanders, and the mayor chief of staff Kris Mitchell on October 27, 2009 at the La Jolla Beach and Tennis Club. Although for 7 years the team said a stadium would not require public money, this was the first time they admitted it was only possible to include public money. An early projection was $800 million for the project and $500 million in TOT with either a 1 to 3% increase in TOT public money and 300 million from the NFL and the team.
The benefit to this project for the city was it freed up the Sports Arena land to be sold. That along with the mission valley land totals about 266 acres between the two.
As for the lack of tailgating that is so popular with charger fans? "It's something that's really important to people," Fabiani said. "What we've got to do is hopefully convince people that there are other ways to have that kind of experience other than having to maintain a 130-acre parking lot in the middle of the city of San Diego.
"That no longer makes sense for anyone. It doesn't make sense for taxpayers. It doesn't make sense for the team. It's the one thing I think that even people who could care less about football could agree with the Chargers on."
"Petco has proved that fans are smart," Fabiani added. "They're adaptable, and they will find other ways to have a great time."
The NFL wanted to get away from tailgating in the new stadiums. Similar situations existed in Chicago, Cincinnati, Detroit, Indianapolis, New Orleans and St. Louis. Two of these stadiums - in Detroit and Indianapolis - opened this decade as part of a league construction boom. Chicago underwent a major renovation.
Fabiani said the architects had been asked to design several hundred thousand square feet of convention space into the proposed downtown stadium Ð which would be east of Petco Park on the current city bus yard Ð and make it flexible enough to host major sports events, from the Final Four basketball championships to the Super Bowl, as well as other occasions to keep it busy 200 times or more a year.
The idea was to make room for convention uses in the end zones and to cover the grass as needed to provide exhibit space. The stadium also would include restaurants and meeting spaces usable for convention delegates.
The hope was for a county wide vote in November 2012 or 2013. The most recent figures from the Chargers, from the 2006 season, showed that 18,562 season ticket holders lived in the city, 8,498 lived in North County and 5,248 lived in South County. Fans from Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties accounted for 13,731 of the season tickets. "We think we would do better on a countywide vote than we would in just a citywide vote," Fabiani said according to the Union Tribune. "So our lawyers have already advised us, and will continue to, about the kinds of things that would justify a countywide vote."
The Mayor's Office retained Lazard Ltd. for less than $250,000, most of it to be paid contingent on a deal being worked out with the Chargers. After about 9 months Lazard would recommend holding off on the project till September.
That timetable left Mayor Sanders little more than two months to win City Council approval, not to mention the team's endorsement, before he leaves office because of term limits in early December.
Even though the plan failed at the time you'll see the exact same proposal word for word was released as Measure C except for changes to the overall cost of the project and the city wide vote instead of a county vote as recommended to the team by their lawyers.
Did Dean even intend to build a stadium in San Diego in 2016? I do believe he did.
It was going to be a take it or leave it offer and that was Measure C. THIS IS WHAT HAPPENED. I believe the city wanted to reject it and go back to the table to do a better deal. In other words, any chance for a deal in 2016 just wasn't going to happen. But that is knowledge we possess now. Back then, I thought and we at Save Our Bolts thought for sure we could mend the 2 sides to a last minute deal. City Hall called the Chargers bluff. They were wrong. You suffer with the team leaving by their incompetence.
It was going to be a take it or leave it offer and that was Measure C. THIS IS WHAT HAPPENED. I believe the city wanted to reject it and go back to the table to do a better deal. In other words, any chance for a deal in 2016 just wasn't going to happen. But that is knowledge we possess now. Back then, I thought and we at Save Our Bolts thought for sure we could mend the 2 sides to a last minute deal. City Hall called the Chargers bluff. They were wrong. You suffer with the team leaving by their incompetence.
Going back to early April 2016, we met with the team one final time before the downtown signature kickoff rally April 23rd. After the meeting with the team. I stayed back to talk to the Mark by myself. I can not express to you the urgency they impressed on me that the mayor needed to get behind this plan like yesterday. The mayor who used to meet with Save Our Bolts monthly for the past 13 months had gone MIA ever since we first met with the team in February. Our calls and emails went unanswered.
A TOUGHER MESSAGE FROM FAN GROUPS
The primary was coming up in June and the mayor's approval rating was at 59%. He wanted to just coast past the primary by taking no tough stance on any proposals. Let alone one that was so intense as the stadium issue. But that didn't stop the people who used to work for him or his friends. Tony Manolatos, April Boling and Chris Cate were out and attacking at a furious rate. This was the point that Save Our Bolts had some very heated discussions in which way the group would move forward. It got VERY HEATED as we discussed the mayor and the timeline we had left. It was decided as a group that the mayor had till the end of April to take a stance. We would then have to go all out in exposing what the mayor was doing.
He was already getting heat for laying rocks down to try and move the homeless out of the area. So he would look good when ESPN came to San Diego for the All Star Game. Homeless kids sleeping on rocks, that is what kind of leaders we have in this city. The Mayor didn't come to the rally April 23. We held an event at Cali Comfort BBQ with fans making signs for the rally two days prior to the rally. The day before the rally, the union group SD Building and Construction Trade Council inked a deal for the project with the team. FINALLY, we had some friendly faces in the debate.
The rally which was fun for the fans also started off the signature effort for the initiative. Roger Goodell came down as did LT. LT and Rivers got the fans pumped up of course. It was one of the few times we actually saw LT helping to pass the measure. Back in February, I tried to get the legends of Charger past on board with us. I had zero success. Later, I learned from a former Charger employee that worked very high up with Dean that the majority of them refused to help Dean unless they were paid. Their dislike for Dean prevented them from helping the measure. Damn, if we only had Seau. What could have been?
San Diego is a very diverse city. We have many cultures and people of many different ethnic backgrounds. When observing the rally videos it was filled mostly with 35 to 50 year old white men. There is going to be a lot of groups that we would have to reach out too. In politics, you keep your base while recruiting new followers. This was not done for measure C however. The Chargers base was white males between the ages of 35 and 50. Our commercials had Dick Enberg and Dan Fouts (2 old white men) doing voice overs. Not exactly reaching out to woman, young people and voters of different races.
We know what the plan was so let spend a minute going deep into detail of what was in it.
We know what the plan was so let spend a minute going deep into detail of what was in it.
THE PLAN
"Only tourists will pay for the stadium. You pay nothing, not a penny! The general fund is never at risk" That was the slogan of the plan that they used over and over again. Talk radio, the media, and other outlets of information that goes out to voters were screaming for answers from those who actually read the plan.
We still didn't know for sure at this point if the vote would be a 50.1% or 66.7%. I've read this plan over 100 times and reviewed it with Goldman Sachs, JMI Realty, and the team over the phone more times than I care to admit. I knew the plan pretty damn good. So was it a good deal for the team-city? Depends who you are and what your beliefs are. If you believe that some sort of public financing is okay for the rule of civic pride that the team brings to the community, That is 1 thing. If you could care less about football and civic pride then it's not to appealing to you. Then the plan was very questionable. NFL teams are not profitable to a city. Stadium and convention center expansions when done together is very questionable as to the city profit.
What did Measure C not answer? This was written by Goldman Sachs so it is favorable with the team wording.
1. Rent is silent in the measure.
It is punted down the line with no amount given. Rent would be decided after the election yearly by a unnamed group the mayor appoints called the Stadium Authority Group. Remember, rent isn't a favorable topic with voters cause for years the team took advantage of the wording in the 1995 lease.
It is punted down the line with no amount given. Rent would be decided after the election yearly by a unnamed group the mayor appoints called the Stadium Authority Group. Remember, rent isn't a favorable topic with voters cause for years the team took advantage of the wording in the 1995 lease.
2. Who pays for over runs on the convention side? Who decides what is a stadium over run to convention over run?
Again, the lawyers left this silent. However, if it is more than 5% it would be decided again by the authority group. The general fund was at risk in this area if the over run was on the convention center side.
3. Is the 1.8 billion dollars a final number for the project?
No, The roof is listed as a possibility. That will add close to a million dollars to the project itself once they decided if there would be a roof and if so where it would be. They also left silent where the annex to the convention center would be. Could it be on top of the stadium or next to it? This was not addressed in the measure. The renderings weren't even released before the plan was released and when it did it was subject to change.
4. In 1997, the stadium went through renovations for the Super Bowl. A 60 million dollar bond with interest was taken out and 18 million came from Qualcomm for naming rights. The city now owes 50 million dollars on that bond today. What happens to that debt?
This is not addressed in Measure C. Even if the stadium torn down the debt has to be paid or the city credit rating is at risk. Alex set it up so after 2008 the team would no longer be accountable for the bond debt. He also back in 1995 set the lease up so the termination fee if they left would be reduced each year. In 2009 it was $52 million, In 2016 it was $15 million.
This is not addressed in Measure C. Even if the stadium torn down the debt has to be paid or the city credit rating is at risk. Alex set it up so after 2008 the team would no longer be accountable for the bond debt. He also back in 1995 set the lease up so the termination fee if they left would be reduced each year. In 2009 it was $52 million, In 2016 it was $15 million.
NFL stadiums are not a good investment for voters. So knowing that, cities came up with the multi use NCAA, Wrestlemania and soccer to sell the deal. But it takes generally about 5 to 7 years to book those at a good ration. Indy holds about 140 events a year but there mostly weddings and little Jimmy bar mitzveh. Not exactly bringing in thousands of new visitors.
5. The city profits off of all non NFL related events right?
Not exactly. The city profits off of non NFL related events however that money is transferred to the cost of construction for a stadium. The city never sees the profits.
6. Not all of the measure was questionable. The slander of what happens if tourism falls short of the budget argument was addressed.
What if higher hotel cost leads to less tourism? One, a cushion was provide by the team. They used a 1.5% higher interest rate to their calculations and included a great recession model of 2007 as well. They did not include any new hotels that would be their calculations as well. People are not going to go to Tucson, AZ because of a .5 cent on every dollar increase in their hotel bill.
What if higher hotel cost leads to less tourism? One, a cushion was provide by the team. They used a 1.5% higher interest rate to their calculations and included a great recession model of 2007 as well. They did not include any new hotels that would be their calculations as well. People are not going to go to Tucson, AZ because of a .5 cent on every dollar increase in their hotel bill.
7. Roads Schools not Stadiums.
The roads and schools and civic protection is general fund money. The general fund is protected as much as the team could in this plan. If your roads are screwed up before the plan, it will be after the plan as well. That is a city councilman problem not a developing projects. Roads have been screwed up for years. You want better roads? Elect better officials to the government. If the MTS move was to go over budget the whole project does not go forward. Kinda of a thing a voter would need to know.
The roads and schools and civic protection is general fund money. The general fund is protected as much as the team could in this plan. If your roads are screwed up before the plan, it will be after the plan as well. That is a city councilman problem not a developing projects. Roads have been screwed up for years. You want better roads? Elect better officials to the government. If the MTS move was to go over budget the whole project does not go forward. Kinda of a thing a voter would need to know.
How much for the land around the stadium? What is the price of that? Are you going to include the Wonder Bread facility in the design or eminent domain that owner for the second time? (She lost a property to eminent domain for Petco) Tailgate park and the Padres had to be addressed as well.
Bottom line is this plan was written with a timeline deadline for the initiative in mind. The plan left a ton of questions to be answered after the election with a "trust me" in good faith in mind. The problem here is going by the past agreements between the city and the team there is zero trust between the two. Each side had good reason not to trust the other. The measure could not be amended in any sort of way. It was to late for that. Even the promises to certain topics that Dean and the mayor worked out later was 100% unbinding.
Those are the reasons only to name a few why some people didn't vote for the plan. When asked about these in media interviews we normally skated around the issue because those are fair points. However, the lies and propaganda put forth by Cate, Tony and April was as equally disgusting. With all of this and a new poll that showed even hitting 50% was very unlikely we needed a game changer.
The city was too scared to make another deal with the team that could make them look bad. The ticket guarantee still was looming over the voters. Measure C was not so easily written as presented. With this many questions and the opposition growing day by day it wasn't looking good. The team could have gone to every city in the 9 districts and held town hall meetings. They could have used the Legend players. They could have fully addressed all the unanswered questions that were floating around and by going out and talk to the public one on one. None of this was done. It wasn't done it April and it wasn't done by November.
Remember when Johnny was at the February meeting with the team and us? He raised the concern of the people of Barrio Logan. It was either ignored or postponed by the team. This procrastination gave birth to the founder and community activist Brent Beltran group "Barrios Against Stadiums" or BASTA. The community of over 4,000 hispanics who had a history of being taken advantage of by the government and city officials before. They wanted to be heard this time. They felt threatened that their cultural and their very livelihood was in jeopardy. A stadium to low income people who mostly rent meant higher property taxes. They would essentially be moved out of their neighborhood that resembled their past and their cultural images of the murals and Chicano Park. They just wanted to be heard but now it was another section of the city rebuking the plan that was set forth.
Thankfully, Johnny has tons of communications with the community and a agreement was made by our group and theirs. We would agree to disagree but not be disagreeable. I really love that line. Johnny was amazing in this whole 2 year process. That is my boy right there. He went to the Owners meetings in Arizona and SF in 2015. He supported the team every Sunday road and at home. He would wake up at 4am to go to KUSI to get our message out when needed. The signs of Save Our Bolts and the LT thank you signs came out of his own pocket. I love this dude and was proud and honored to work beside him throughout this whole experience. I respect him and Bolt Pride that he so well represents.
I think Dean wanted this to work. I think he wanted to turn the hate geared towards him into love. He badly wanted to be loved by Charger fans believe it or not. He craved that. He just couldn't relate to the average charger fans level. So why did the Chargers lose faith? In dealing with them almost everyday during this process to help reach a agreement it was the Mayor lack of support. His silence killed progress.
This mayor sat on his support from March until October. Both pro stadium and anti stadium groups were upset at his lack of leadership. He was being called out on political talk shows, sports talk show and by voters. The poll numbers recently showed it was very likely the measure would fail of getting even 50%. Something drastic had to change the entire dynamic of this race. The team made it clear to me that the mayor was killing any hopes of this passing. The fan groups decided to give the mayor until the end of April in good faith. When the calendar turned to May 2016, it was time for the fan groups to take the gloves off and raise some hell. It might have been the only hope of anything changing.
We were about to enter May with a new message and attitude. I was going to try and take over messaging. We could no longer sit by and quietly be silent in hopes of reaching an agreement with all the parties involved. You were either with us or you were against us. The outcome was too much to even bare thinking about in them moving away. As a last resort, we were going to expose anyone who we felt wasn't being honest with the public! They wanted a fight well they got one now.
The hit list was the following, The Mayor for playing political games instead of taking this seriously. The Hoteliers who were influencing our city leaders to simply promote their own special interests. April Boling and Tony Manolatos who were nothing more than speaker boxes for the hoteliers. We were just football fans. What did we have to lose? We saw enough up until this point to know who was preventing progress for their own personal gain. We were now becoming community activists not just fighting for the Chargers to stay. But to speak out against those who were holding the city future potential in jeopardy to achieve their own special interest.
I signed up the Tilted Kilt at both locations to began taking signatures. Brian of Save Our Bolts and I worked together and we got Slater's 50-50 signed up. We also got Manti Teo, DJ Fluker and Keenan Allen to go and sign autographs at Slater's for the kickoff, Cali Comfort BBQ joined in the effort at his restaurant. Why didn't the team ask these restaurants? I don't know but Mark helped me get them signed up and fast. Offering the next day for training in most cases then we had our own training. I called Cory Briggs after I asked Mark if Briggs had endorsed the plan yet. He said no, not yet.
On April 29th, I asked fans to come down to the Mayor's office and have a little rally with me. I only had about 2 weeks notice to pull this off. It was a weekday and also day 2 of the NFL draft. This was as myself and not a SOB member or group thing. The other members did not like this idea. In fact, they hated it. But I was "asked" by someone to do it. I was the only one who could get the fans there with such short notice.I was provided with plenty of "Where is Kevin" signs for the event. I was furious with the mayor for being such a coward. On all sides is there someone who has the balls to sit at a table and work out a deal? There was one but the team ignore his amazing resume. His name is Jim Steeg. We had lots of followers and no leaders.
MAYOR OFFICE
So my friend Dan McLellan and I gave our speeches with our fellow fans in the background. The speeches seemed to have little effect. So I figured, the hell with everything. If the Mayor won't come to us, then we are going to him!
So with our "Where is Kevin" signs we headed to the Mayor office on the upper floors. Dan had seen the mayor come out the doors and go back in as we approached the building. What a coward. We went to his office and -- surprise! -- he was MIA. As I looked around his office I saw a picture of him on the wall. PERFECT!
I had everyone gather around the picture with their signs and balloons. We took a picture right there in the mayor office next to his picture on the wall and tweeted it out that "We finally found Kevin". We might have also decorated his lobby with about 30 "Where Is Kevin" signs as well. A message was relayed to me that evening from the team. Someone from the mayor's office called Fred Maas asking them to help get the fan groups off the mayor's back. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED! He knows now that we are pissed off and going to be a little thorn in his ass till the election.
So with our "Where is Kevin" signs we headed to the Mayor office on the upper floors. Dan had seen the mayor come out the doors and go back in as we approached the building. What a coward. We went to his office and -- surprise! -- he was MIA. As I looked around his office I saw a picture of him on the wall. PERFECT!
I had everyone gather around the picture with their signs and balloons. We took a picture right there in the mayor office next to his picture on the wall and tweeted it out that "We finally found Kevin". We might have also decorated his lobby with about 30 "Where Is Kevin" signs as well. A message was relayed to me that evening from the team. Someone from the mayor's office called Fred Maas asking them to help get the fan groups off the mayor's back. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED! He knows now that we are pissed off and going to be a little thorn in his ass till the election.
VIDEO OF DAN AND I PRESSER
I reached out to Lori Saldena a lady who was running against Kevin for mayor in the primary. She was behind in the polls and we wanted her to know by just supporting the Chargers plan we could commit almost every voter in San Diego that was a Charger fan to support her. We agreed to meet as a group on May 10th.
I emailed Cory Briggs asking for his support for the measure. He agreed it should go to the voters and we had several fan groups and some businesses offer their name to endorse the plan. To at least try and change the negative narrative around the measure I called for my own press conference at Charger Complex on May 9th. I'm just a fan who loves my team and now I'm about to hold a press conference at the team complex. UNBELIEVEABLE!!!
My special guest was a man called Neil Conde. I was up checking messages at like 1am after work for Save Our Bolts. There was a story and a picture of Neil in a wheelchair. He just had his leg amputated and wheeled himself 2 miles to sign the petition. This touched me greatly. You won't find Neil in the stats of a NFL team in a city. You won't find Neil in studies charging $35,000 to get data on a project. But you will find Neil and hundreds like him at Charger home games. Neil was my special guest speaker about the importance of having a NFL team in your city to root for.
I also had Johnny sign a friend of mine up and take his signature in front of the media. Shawn at Cali Comfort spoke about what it meant as a business owner having the team here. This is what it meant to be a Charger fan. That was a very special day in my life standing in front of the team complex and speaking about what being a fan meant and the support they do have that not in your polling numbers. I so wanted to yell Fire Norv at the presser just for shit and giggles but resisted LOL.
I went on 1090am as a guest on Scott Kaplan show to promote the presser the Friday before the Monday presser and to show that Save Our Bolts has a new message and the gloves were coming off!
I also had Johnny sign a friend of mine up and take his signature in front of the media. Shawn at Cali Comfort spoke about what it meant as a business owner having the team here. This is what it meant to be a Charger fan. That was a very special day in my life standing in front of the team complex and speaking about what being a fan meant and the support they do have that not in your polling numbers. I so wanted to yell Fire Norv at the presser just for shit and giggles but resisted LOL.
I went on 1090am as a guest on Scott Kaplan show to promote the presser the Friday before the Monday presser and to show that Save Our Bolts has a new message and the gloves were coming off!
http://www.mighty1090.com/epi
(Scotts talk about the movement at 12 minute mark. 18 minute mark I'm on with new message)
DISCLAIMER.. Everything I did but the Mayor's rally in downtown included my Save Our Bolts organizers and the other fan groups. They deserve all the credit in the world for the successes that we accomplished. Even if keeping the team here wasn't accomplished. I just don't want to in any way mix my words with them. I have never worked with such a dedicated and hard working group of people. We fought like hell and accomplished milestones that we never dreamed was possible.
The day after the presser at the complex we met with Lori. She seemed very confused and we pressured her really hard on specifics of the plan that she didn't like. We knew the plan page by page and she was completely lost in our conversation. Finally, she admitted what we knew so many were guilty of. She was running for office and token a anti stadium position and HADN'T READ 1 WORD OF THE MEASURE! Boltman asked her to educate herself and called the Chargers right then and there to set up a meeting with them and her. She was very apprehensive but agreed. The team sounded shocked and amazed at what we accomplished. She later canceled four appointment with the team and then proceeded to get her ass handed to her in the June primaries.
The day after the presser at the complex we met with Lori. She seemed very confused and we pressured her really hard on specifics of the plan that she didn't like. We knew the plan page by page and she was completely lost in our conversation. Finally, she admitted what we knew so many were guilty of. She was running for office and token a anti stadium position and HADN'T READ 1 WORD OF THE MEASURE! Boltman asked her to educate herself and called the Chargers right then and there to set up a meeting with them and her. She was very apprehensive but agreed. The team sounded shocked and amazed at what we accomplished. She later canceled four appointment with the team and then proceeded to get her ass handed to her in the June primaries.
MAYOR CANDIDATE LORI SALDENA
I had presser Monday at Charger Park. Tuesday, we met with Lori and the team asked if Weds we could attend a town hall meeting in East Village. Most of us worked around our work schedule and attended three events in three days. We were down to do what we could when we could. East Village like Barrio Logan would be a site of the stadium. The residents were not to happy about that either. They were also being over run by the homeless recently. Dean, Maas, David Manter the architect and Jeff Pollack was there. We had asked fans at the last minute to attend. We had about 20 fans show up so the team could see a friendly face in the crowd.
The meeting was intense with the residents of East Village but the team remarkably did very very well. I don't know why we didn't do more of these with the way the team was accepted by the end of the meeting. The team did one more town hall and that was it. The 2nd was not as successful. The failure to reach out to the public IMO was the knife in the throat. You can not win a election if you don't try. We were their soldiers on the front lines. But who the hell was the General? The team just sat in the complex and did NOTHING while the fans were working their asses off. Don't ever think the teams not to blame for San Diego not working out. You can't get to your goals if you don't walk towards them. The team couldn't even crawl. They showed up to a gun fight with nothing. Then blame and complain that they got slaughtered.
THE EAST VILLAGE TOWN HALL MEETING
THE EAST VILLAGE TOWN HALL MEETING
Now on to them secretive little hoteliers. The names without a face, until now.
Their work in the darkness of night and under the cover of hiding behind their power and influence over the city. Hell, for a couple of years PaPa Doug owned our only newspaper. He fired all the older workers brought in young writers for less payroll then sold off the Mission Valley site and later the Union Tribune to the LA Times. Doug was not included though in a boycott the fan groups called for. Bill Evans, Richard Bartell and Terry Brown. The point was not to try and break millionaires. It was to continue to be a knife in their side.
Their work in the darkness of night and under the cover of hiding behind their power and influence over the city. Hell, for a couple of years PaPa Doug owned our only newspaper. He fired all the older workers brought in young writers for less payroll then sold off the Mission Valley site and later the Union Tribune to the LA Times. Doug was not included though in a boycott the fan groups called for. Bill Evans, Richard Bartell and Terry Brown. The point was not to try and break millionaires. It was to continue to be a knife in their side.
Evans Hotels
• Bahia
• Catamaran
• Lodge at Torrey Pines
Town and Country Hotel
• Catamaran
• Lodge at Torrey Pines
Town and Country Hotel
• Town and Country Hotel
Bartell Hotels
Bartell Hotels
• Pacific Terrace Hotel
• Humphrey's Half Moon Inn & Suites
• The Dana on Mission Bay
• Sheraton La Jolla
• Hilton Harbor Island
• Best Western Island Palms Hotel and Marina
• Holiday Inn San Diego Bayside
• Days inn San Diego Hotel Circle (near Sea World)
• Humphrey's Half Moon Inn & Suites
• The Dana on Mission Bay
• Sheraton La Jolla
• Hilton Harbor Island
• Best Western Island Palms Hotel and Marina
• Holiday Inn San Diego Bayside
• Days inn San Diego Hotel Circle (near Sea World)
Johnny worked with fan groups in all 31 NFL cities. Johnny had the visiting cities teams to not book in these hotels as they usually do. The Dolphin fans alone cost the Town and Country Hotel over $40,000 that they usually would have profited.
We also protested a fundraiser being held at Bill Evans house for the Mayor. It was a $1,050 a plate fundraiser. Fans lined up with signs near the entrance to voice our displeasure with the Mayor and to visibly let the hoteliers know we were still there and still poking at them. Evans flipped the crowd off as he entered. A guest of Bill Evans was Steve Cushman. Cushman, Evans and the Mayor all together at once
.Steve Cushman continued behind the scenes to apply political pressure.
“If you were going to line up the people in San Diego who have done the most to block a new stadium over the years, there is no doubt that Steve Cushman would be near the head of that line,” Mark Fabiani quote..
.Steve Cushman continued behind the scenes to apply political pressure.
“If you were going to line up the people in San Diego who have done the most to block a new stadium over the years, there is no doubt that Steve Cushman would be near the head of that line,” Mark Fabiani quote..
I believe that the fan groups were wearing down mentally as the months went on. As the calender turned to June, I realized that we were all getting drained. Most of us were there from the beginning which was 18 months ago. Feeling fatigued, The mayor not taking a stance, the city council was against the plan and new groups opposing us popping up what seemed like everyday had taken a really good toll on us. The Mayor achieved his goal as he breezed through the primaries June 7th.
One of our signature gatherers was outside taking signature at my polling place. She didn't know who I was. She said we needed 40,000 more signatures by midnight or it wouldn't go on the ballot in November. I knew this was false because I talked to the team the previous evening. We had our signatures already they were just our collecting extras. She thought I was just some random Joe and lying at the polling location. I took a picture of her and called Mark directly on the spot. She doesn't work as a signature gatherer anymore. Lady was so dumb.
One of our signature gatherers was outside taking signature at my polling place. She didn't know who I was. She said we needed 40,000 more signatures by midnight or it wouldn't go on the ballot in November. I knew this was false because I talked to the team the previous evening. We had our signatures already they were just our collecting extras. She thought I was just some random Joe and lying at the polling location. I took a picture of her and called Mark directly on the spot. She doesn't work as a signature gatherer anymore. Lady was so dumb.
So it seems finally things are going our way. Although, The NO Downtown Stadium announced they were starting their group. They had to start a company that way they could funnel the PAC money to their cause without having all the money trails tracking.
We turned in all the signatures on June 10th. 110,780 signatures and 83 boxes got turned in. We did in 6 weeks what usually takes 6 months. Dean paid a unreal record $15.00 per signature the last couple of weeks to get us over. Fans needed a get together so Dave Peters who founded BoltBlitz and I held a old fashion meetup back home at the Tilted Kilt. This was the first one of 2016.We had 3 players come down. Dontrelle Inman, Sean Lissemore and Kyle Emmunual came out thanks to Mark to be with the fans.
A week later the California Supreme Court took all the mojo we had going. The gut punch that took all the air out of us. It was going to be a 66.7% vote. Although we told the fans and media we were prepared for 67%. We were sure hoping it was 50.1%. The plan had 0 chance of 67%. We just had to keep our heads high. The public especially our friends could not see us down now. They have seen us fight and fight so any look of defeat would have diminished all hope. But inside ya just wondered, Damn can we get a break?
We turned in all the signatures on June 10th. 110,780 signatures and 83 boxes got turned in. We did in 6 weeks what usually takes 6 months. Dean paid a unreal record $15.00 per signature the last couple of weeks to get us over. Fans needed a get together so Dave Peters who founded BoltBlitz and I held a old fashion meetup back home at the Tilted Kilt. This was the first one of 2016.We had 3 players come down. Dontrelle Inman, Sean Lissemore and Kyle Emmunual came out thanks to Mark to be with the fans.
A week later the California Supreme Court took all the mojo we had going. The gut punch that took all the air out of us. It was going to be a 66.7% vote. Although we told the fans and media we were prepared for 67%. We were sure hoping it was 50.1%. The plan had 0 chance of 67%. We just had to keep our heads high. The public especially our friends could not see us down now. They have seen us fight and fight so any look of defeat would have diminished all hope. But inside ya just wondered, Damn can we get a break?
Cory Briggs called us into his office for a urgent meeting. The team, the hoteliers, Cory Briggs and his client former council woman Donna Frye were trying to work out a deal in Mission Valley. WHAT? MISSION VALLEY? Yep, that was a bomb drop. The stadium goes in Mission Valley, Briggs would drop his lawsuit against the hoteliers that they know their going to lose, Cory lets the citizen plan die on the ballot ( not campaign for it) and hoteliers would agree to be agnostic on the plan. They would not be for or against it.
We were shocked. Mission valley would also get a stadium and a river front protecting the environment for Donna Frye. This was finally over! A deal has been reached Frye "a half a loaf of bread better than no bread." This angered Frye and reminded her of dealing with Mass back in 1998. She didn't trust Maas. The rumor was he back stabbed her a few others during the Petco Park project. She said was deal off and walked away and soon the whole deal went to shit. She trusted Mark only. She known him for years and although they may not see eye to eye. She says Mark is 100% honest. Mark was unavailable and this was the last we heard of the agreement that wasn't to be.
Briggs did mention he was talking to Bill Evans about the boycott. Evans would laugh to Briggs as to what are some dumb fans going to achieve in same sentence was very concerned bout how impact we could be but most importantly what our next move was .He hated the fact we had nothing to lose in this fight and we owed no one any political favors.So we could do whatever we wanted. The unknown carries a lot of fear.
CHARGER ENEMY
The fact we had even got into Evans head was a mission accomplished. That is more than we ever imagined we achieve. It shows how spineless the hoteliers are. They have no backbone. These guys are in chumps real life . Steve Sushman and was barking around Briggs office too talking about us. They hated us . It was a great meeting that was full of laughs and inside info .
But then the DEATHBLOW came and really hurt voters excitement. On June 29th the appellate court ruled we would need 67% in November. All our mojo and all realistic hopes of passage died that day. Many voters wouldn't vote knowing it was meaningless. Maybe we could have made over 50% if the ruling didn't happen. It was a punch in the gut and time was ticking down to 4 months to the election and the Mayor was still playing political cover taking no stance .
We had to put on a front for the fans. We couldn't let them see us sweat and discouraged or all hell really would have broke loose. I would tell my trusted friends that we were going to get slaughtered in November. It was like a joke. But in public we had to have faith. We started asking volunteers the following day to come register for assignments to help gain traction heading into November. We needed canvassers to help rebuttal comments in the newspaper and websites.
I did start a private group of loyal fans to rebuttal all the anti measure lies that can spread so easily on social media.. They did great job but we needed hundreds not a few dozen fans July 9th the measure qualified for the ballot. The signatures had been verified and Dean thanked us for our hard work in a statement to public.
"On behalf of the entire San Diego Chargers organization, we want to thank every registered San Diego City voter who signed the petition,” said Chargers Chairman Dean Spanos. “We also want to thank representatives of organized labor – and particularly the unions of the Building Trades Council – for their significant help and support during this process. And we are grateful for the volunteer signature gathering work coordinated by the fan groups, including Save Our Bolts and the San Diego Stadium Coalition. The fan groups did a great job, as did the hundreds of other people who contacted us and volunteered to gather signatures.”
“Most signature gathering efforts of this kind take six full months. We had just six weeks to complete our work,” Spanos continued. “The fact that we were able to collect more than 110,000 signatures in that short period of time demonstrates tremendous support in our community for a new, combined stadium-convention center expansion downtown.”
Then more bad news. My clots had returned and emergency surgery was needed. I'd be down for about 2 weeks. The team sent a plant to my hospital room. The stress of last 2 years and the intensity of months and months of work was taking its toll on me emotionally and physically. I had a grand daughter on the way but I wasn't about to slow down. People relied on us to fight the fight.
I did take this time to reach out to Councilman Chris Cate to try and see where we could find some common ground. I also wanted to get him on record with his stance on certain issues with the measure. The team started a smear campaign on social media with Cate right before our conversation. They posted his office phone number on social media and he was getting hundreds of calls a day.I have no idea what they wanted to accomplish with this but it drew more negative reaction than positive from the public. Hey, a Spanos move backfired. Who would have guessed that huh?
Cate agreed to meet with me so I got the other members together and we met at a restaurant in Mira Mesa. It was suppose to be a 1-1 private meeting between the fan groups and us. But it got leaked out to NBC San Diego'sene Cubbison who was headed to our meet up spot . This angered me greatly cause it my violated my word to Cate of a private meeting . So I had to do what was right. I called Tony Manolatos who was his public relations rep to discuss the matter. Cubby wanted in on the meeting. but Tony and I mutually agreed that it could hamper what could be a honest open discussion. Dan McLellan recorded the audio of the meeting. I listened to it the other day. It shows what a total cluster fuck this turned into between the main players who were being relied upon to a billion dollar project agreement.
No one at City Hall knew what the other person was doing. This whole thing with both parties was a giant cluster fuck of incompetence.
So we meet Chris Cate. He is a bright man. I can tell he wants to run for Mayor. He has the hoteliers, Tony M, and April Boling behind him plus the outgoing mayor support. Most of the issues he raised were valid. In knowing the measure they were mostly the unanswered questions or ones that are silent. He did say he had to finally cold call Dean to get some answers. Finally Fred Maas called him back. They couldn't even agree on the day they met. URGGGGGG. Cate said they met on April 15 and Maas asked if he wanted to meet with Goldman Sachs. He said yes and never heard back from the Chargers. I texted Mark Fabiani under the table on my phone. Maas was with him.
Maas said the meeting was at Cate office April 13th at 4pm. In the end he was suppose to call the team and no response. These guys can't even agree on when they met!!!!We are so fucked. We have a mayor who refuses to take a stand on anything unless it putting rocks under the heads of homeless people and children. A candidate running for Mayor (Lori) who admitted to being against a 1.2 billion dollar project she didn't read. Scott Sherman just wants to suck off the developers in a get rich scheme for the land in his district in mission valley. Three bozos who run the city and would cut off their mothers' social security check if it meant a bigger profit margin for them. Top it off the NFL team that is lying to the league and the city.
Where are those 15 players Dean? Where are the Ring of Honor Legends at Dean? You said to me and fans on CBS that you would be everywhere during this measure? A massive PR campaign he said? Yea right, all these fools are so full of their own shit. Everyone has an agenda and it has nothing to do with our self interest. The city lives on Mars and the team is on Jupiter. The NFL on planet head up one ass. The NFL has done 10 relocations in 35 years. Disgusting!! https://storify.com/jenkuhney/the-chargers-nine-san-diego-stadium-proposals
WHAT I WOULD HAVE DONE
Maas said the meeting was at Cate office April 13th at 4pm. In the end he was suppose to call the team and no response. These guys can't even agree on when they met!!!!We are so fucked. We have a mayor who refuses to take a stand on anything unless it putting rocks under the heads of homeless people and children. A candidate running for Mayor (Lori) who admitted to being against a 1.2 billion dollar project she didn't read. Scott Sherman just wants to suck off the developers in a get rich scheme for the land in his district in mission valley. Three bozos who run the city and would cut off their mothers' social security check if it meant a bigger profit margin for them. Top it off the NFL team that is lying to the league and the city.
Where are those 15 players Dean? Where are the Ring of Honor Legends at Dean? You said to me and fans on CBS that you would be everywhere during this measure? A massive PR campaign he said? Yea right, all these fools are so full of their own shit. Everyone has an agenda and it has nothing to do with our self interest. The city lives on Mars and the team is on Jupiter. The NFL on planet head up one ass. The NFL has done 10 relocations in 35 years. Disgusting!! https://storify.com/jenkuhney/the-chargers-nine-san-diego-stadium-proposals
WHAT I WOULD HAVE DONE
Let's say I'm Fred Maas advising Dean. Now not to second guess but here's what I would have recommended to Dean in January 2017.1. Apology to citizens of San Diego for all the threats and insults of 2015. Never discuss it again from there on.
2. Go to all cities and county and get their input regards to stadium-plan. Answer everyone questions whether good or bad.3. In good faith and turning around the bad blood between the city-team give San Diego 37 million dollars in good faith. This was the amount of the ticket guarantee.4. Media summit early in the process. All media members have a Q-A no holds barred with the team.Dean, Fred, Pollack and ask anything. Turns the media to your side thus controlling the narrative.5. ALL Legends and Ring of Honor players tailgate every home game. They relieve their era and accomplishments in Charger History. All the charities they were involved in during their era.6. Massive volunteer recruitment. Canvassers, rebuttal social media, driving to the polls and everyone being invested.7. Change uniforms for the next year to powder blues.8. Rename the Chargers complex that was paid for by tax payers from Charger complex to Seau ParkSo it's September now. Dan Fouts did one voice over commercial. LT showed up 2 times to support the measure. Where is Hank Bauer, Stan Humpries, Paul Lowe, Kellen Winslow, Quentin Jammer, Donnie Edwards, Leslie O'neal, Rolf Benirschke, Gill Byrd, Louie Kelcher, and Ed White?We did get Luis Castillo to do an ad and appearances with Joiner and Chandler but that was very late in the game. A lame response to Tony Hawk attack (paid by hoteliers) by a commercial with Mario Lopez. No former players supported this except for Nick Hardwick who had to get updates sometimes from me cause the team wasn't really interested in bringing him in.
The worst political campaign in history had just 2 months to go. Polls had us at 35% approval. I went to a volunteer training session to see what was going on.The vast majority of volunteers who signed up were never contacted to help. At the training I asked the Campaign manager Andy Demers an East Coast dude about how important it was to attend Politifest put on by the Voice of San Diego. I was told to call Maas directly and I did. He wanted representation there but said the team was out of town that week for the Indy game. He recommended myself and another member to attend on their behalf. I thought Jason Riggs would be perfect. A big SDSU supporter and well educated on this issue. We also got Marcela Escobar-Eck, Chargers adviser, land-use consultant. The debate is moderated by Scott Lewis, CEO, Voice of San DiegoOur opponents is Chris Cate, San Diego city councilman Rob Quigley, architect Julie Meier-Wright, former CEO, San Diego Regional Economic Development Corp.
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I have never studied so hard for anything in my life. Mark gave me the plan all 119 pages to study. I was ready and went to meet with Mark two days before the event. He was trying to get mayor to endorse and we'd announce it but that announcement got delayed a week. I asked when their leaving for Indy? He laughed, there no trip. "Fred Maas just thinks Chris Cate is an asshole." You guys know the plan just as good as us.The team couldn't attend the biggest political debate in the city 6 weeks before the election because Cate an asshole? They gave up. But ask yourself did they even start The answer is no. It's been 5 months of NOTHING but two town hall meetings, one rally and a couple of commercials. The budget Dean spent of 10 million the majority of that budgeted out to getting the initiative on the ballot. As for it's passage, very little effort was made by the team. This was the fans of the team trying to rescue a campaign that failed to start and crawled it's way to November 8th. Instead of Measure C a rehash of a failed proposal we should have named it Measure Cluster Fuck.
Here is an article on the debate and the onehour video of the debate. I'd like to add Cate says the city had no input on the preplan. In a citizen initiative it's illegal to consult with the city before releasing the plan. I consulted my mentor on the stage in text messages before the debate. If you see me looking at my phone that what I'm doing. They said to stay calm you got this. Yea, calm lasted about 15 minutes as you can see. I was emotional and angry. It was a bad performance and I was really disappointed in myself. I came across as angry I lost my composure. Although, I did get into Cate head because in the end he didn't want to talk anymore. I talked to Cory Briggs the night before to verify my facts. Being a Dean surrogate rubbed me the wrong way but...We were.
1 HOUR..THE STADIUM DEBATE
You will hear Cate saying keep saying let's do another plan. Team standpoint that this is it in November. DDAY do it or die.That lack of urgency and communication was vital in this failure.
Dean Spanos on January 2016, His message to you the citizens of San Diego. Lies and fluff talk is what he did knowing what we all now know. He either mastered ineptness and ignorance or he was completely full of shit from Houston vote to now. That is your verdict to render. Here is a video from a interview in January with CBS Kyle Kraska. Listen to his words. Just don't expect to see any action.
DEAN SPANOS ON JANUARY 2016
OCTOBER 2016 THE ELECTION IS LOOMING
So the season starts and it's almost over. The team is poorly coached with Mike McCoy at the helm and Whiz is not living up to the hype. Funny, the Chargers started off games very good. They just couldn't close and get the win. Much like the election. Although, we never even started. The whole thing was a turtle crawl. Almost like do something to show there effort but not to much as to accomplish anything positive.
I don't know, On October 3rd the mayor finally endorsed the plan. It was just a blip on the screen when you look at it in the bigger picture. Our mayor played it safe and it worked. He's a spineless coward. A man who won't stand for anything yet sends out his clowns in Tony Manolatos, April Boling and Chris Cate to do his dirty work. The convention center vote isn't looking to good this year and my roads are still fucked. Thanks for your cowardness and the do nothing city council. NEW RULE: "If you are going to take a position in opposing a proposed plan then you MUST have a alternative plan!!!" The do nothing but be against anything agenda is killing our city. November 2017, Vote everyone of these slimeballs out. VOTE ALL 9 OUT!
I don't know, On October 3rd the mayor finally endorsed the plan. It was just a blip on the screen when you look at it in the bigger picture. Our mayor played it safe and it worked. He's a spineless coward. A man who won't stand for anything yet sends out his clowns in Tony Manolatos, April Boling and Chris Cate to do his dirty work. The convention center vote isn't looking to good this year and my roads are still fucked. Thanks for your cowardness and the do nothing city council. NEW RULE: "If you are going to take a position in opposing a proposed plan then you MUST have a alternative plan!!!" The do nothing but be against anything agenda is killing our city. November 2017, Vote everyone of these slimeballs out. VOTE ALL 9 OUT!
DEAN SPANOS OWNER SUITE
Because of the debate and everything I did from day one with the cause, Mark called to give me two tickets in the Owners suite for the Saints game. All you can eat and drink. The food was perfectly catered and delicious. I was a guest of Mark Fabiani's. He tried to get me on the field for warmups but the elevator broke. (hahaha so funny). So JMI wanted to build a high rise hotel next to the stadium. Well they sold that land in June. Bosa was a holdout coming out for the draft. The company to buy the land was named "Bosa Construction". Bahahaha now it's just funny. Laugh to hide the tears. It was amazing to watch the game with Maas, Fabiani, Dean and his son John. Jason Riggs and his wife went as well. Two football fans that fought to keep their team is now watching the game from the owners' suite. The past two years were brutal emotionally and the time afforded to it in the end was worth the ride.
WAITING TO BE SLAUGHTERED
It is well known we are not going to win this. It's like waiting to be slaughtered on election day. To top off everything that is not going right, the clots returned in my body. This is two surgeries in three months. I don't know if the effort was to much and the reason for my health going south but this was bad. They removed them in a 13 hour surgery. It was suppose to be a 2 hour procedure. After the surgery they found more clots. So they took me back and removed the rest. The anesthesia must have been the reason for my feeling totally lost. I don't remember a thing. But I heard when they woke me up from the surgery. I jumped up mumbling while trying to take the two IVs in my arms out. "I have a campaign to run, I have to go!" But I did recover and only was in hospital for a week. I wanted to join the volunteer canvassers that went door to door on Saturdays but my leg wouldn't hold up.
ELECTION NIGHT D-DAY
My day started with Boltman calling and we discussed all of us meeting up at Cali Comfort BBQ to watch the kiss kicking we were about to receive. I figured we would get 43%. Dean was on TV spewing some if we get 50% maybe we stay. BULLSHIT! While talking to Boltman I missed a call from the complex. Then again the team was calling. I thought this was unusual. It was Dean Spanos and he called me again. He thanked me for the time and effort I put in to the cause. He was grateful for the work Save Our Bolts did. It was cool. There only 32 teams in the NFL. 32 owners and one of them was calling me. It gets surreal sometimes.
So Dan Fouts, LT, Rivers, Castillo, Joiner, Chandler, Hardwick, Dick Enberg and Mario Lopez were the players that assisted in our efforts. LT lives in Texas so he only made it up twice. No town forums except the two little ones back in early May. No Legends to come save the history of the team, No campaign really. They did nothing and now we all suffer the consequences. 10 million dollars was used mostly to get the measure on the ballot and the signatures. I know the final week he was paying $15.00 for each one. We never even targeted our voting base let alone reaching out to others.
Woman, Young voters, Blacks, Asians, non-football fans. The team never did nothing. They hired professionals canvassers with their special smart phone app. Plus the Union of the SD Building and Construction Trades that sent 150-250 workers to go door to door. They worked from 4-8pm on weekdays and all day Saturdays. I was recovering from the surgery but man I was with you in spirit. I thank all of you. You put forth more effort in 3 weeks of September then the team did in 10 months!!!!
I wish I could tell you how hard Dean worked for this to pass. I can't, because he didn't. There was no campaign!
We would not have been elected as treasury at a local elementary school election let alone this one. Our 2009-2011 Rehashed proposal. Dean said a massive PR campaign. HA!
We would not have been elected as treasury at a local elementary school election let alone this one. Our 2009-2011 Rehashed proposal. Dean said a massive PR campaign. HA!
There was not a PR move at all. If they would have just at least half-assed this they would have gotten 50.1%. Turns out after some later court rulings it was ruled 50.1% to win. When has Dean won at anything? The Chargers didn't leave cause of a lack of support from the fans! I was there and that was never mentioned. Attendance didn't go down until the Carson announcements and years of threats from the Spanos camp.
It was still great time at Cali Comfort. After the first returns came in it was clear we were indeed dead in the water. I left early. I was just disgusted by everything. The team made no effort to win this. They wanted the approval to be laid at their feet. Measure C did NOT receive 43% of the vote. Don't be a fool. Let me make myself perfectly clear.
Dean Spanos got 43% of the vote. This had nothing to do really with the love of the Chargers. The hate for Spanos was bigger than their love for the Chargers.
Much like he would pick the team franchise value over fan loyalty. The man who is crippled when he has to make a decision picked certainty over uncertainty.
Much like he would pick the team franchise value over fan loyalty. The man who is crippled when he has to make a decision picked certainty over uncertainty.
To blame the city is to be totally ignorant of the gigantic mistakes the team afflicted on the city from 1997 to 2017.
To blame the team is to be ignorant of the lack of leadership and not having city officials who couldn't get out of their own way.
The city never wanted a deal with the Chargers in 2016. They were interested in the MLS. I met with them afterwards. "We are totally focused on developing Mission Valley." Every member of the council speaking word for word. The team could not even put forth any effort at all. This was the worst campaign in history of politics.
I don't know who real intentions are real or fake. Those people will have to live with themselves and their actions. I think the Mayor Kevin Faulkner is the biggest reason by far the measure was thrashed again for the second time. They had no support -- but watch the Kyle Kraska interview again. Maas passing on gaining some voters because he thinks Cate is an asshole.
LA is Money to the team. Mission Valley is the most valuable piece of land in Southern California. It's all profit-loss to these people.
Mission Valley to us fans remains a almost sacred ground for our memories. Our childhood is in that stadium grounds. Our hearts and souls fill the aisles of the Murph. The NFL has relocated 10 times in 35 years. Most of you like us gave it our all. We left our sweat and pain on the field. Soon we will leave our tears on that ground. It's just so sad that the other players (city-team) never came out to play.
The Final Act Part 3 will be out very soon. I can not thank all of you enough for your support and your friendships over the last couple of years. They can relocate but they can't relocate our memories. Part 3 will have the team honoring us on the field before the Bucs game. Details of the discussion I had with the team about rebranding. I'll share a very special event I put on with Cali Comfort honoring the "1982 Epic in Miami". How we showed up in the rain to send the team off to Cleveland as they left to play elsewhere for the last time. I write about the last game ever in San Diego vs the Chiefs. We share me blowing a head gasket finally on the team resulting in Fabiani saying "We lost TP". Lastly, we'll wrap up the last two years and our thoughts after going through it. I will talk to Chris Hairston about how he felt doing his farewell tour over several locations in San Diego to honor you.
You see he gets "it". The emotions involved. A free agent player from Buffalo gets it in two years here.
Dean Spanos couldn't do that here in 32 years.
You see he gets "it". The emotions involved. A free agent player from Buffalo gets it in two years here.
Dean Spanos couldn't do that here in 32 years.
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