Niners to leave SF

[WhatsMyName]

Far-left liberal whack jobs in the city government are told to fuck off...

Rack the Niners owner! These nutjobs try to gangster these owners all the time. See: Cleveland.

[drummer]

Rack York ??



Get a fukken grip. He is mostly responsible for this mess of a team( Carmen Policy comes second). You think this asshole can get a stadium deal done?

The fukker had Brisbane giving him land to build a new one a few years ago, but he didn't bite. He wants help with cash, but he hasn't done shit as an owner, or done shit to help move along the Stadium project for years.

[Shoalzie]

The A's are building a stadium in Fremont, I believe...is Santa Clara that far away from the Bay area?


m2, thoughts? Not that I really care what he thinks...

[Mikey]

Far-left liberal whack jobs in the city government are told to fuck off...

Rack the Niners owner! These nutjobs try to gangster these owners all the time. See: Cleveland.

Could you come up with a more idiotic take if you tried?

Shoalzie, Santa Clara is in the Bay Area. It's part of Silicon Valley, maybe 40 miles south of SF. The niners have had their practice facility there since something like 1987.

[web]http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q ... 8&z=9&om=1[/web]

[drummer]

It's really only a half hour down from the City.

But I doubt York can get it done.

[Shoalzie]

This really wouldn't be that much different than say like the Pistons playing Auburn Hills or when the Lions were in Pontiac before they moved downtown...why is moving out of San Francisco proper a big story?

[drummer]

This really wouldn't be that much different than say like the Pistons playing Auburn Hills or when the Lions were in Pontiac before they moved downtown...why is moving out of San Francisco proper a big story?

It isn't even a slam dunk there either.

Besides, from the San Jose Merc today :

Talks are back on between the city of San Francisco and the 49ers, a day after the football team's owner announced the team had cut off negotiations with the city and instead was planning a move to Santa Clara.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein called a meeting early this morning, at which Mayor Gavin Newsom and 49er owner John York agreed to resume talks after Sunday's football game, Feinstein spokesman Howard Gantman said. York's son Jed also attended the impromptu meeting.

``As I understand it, there is opportunity to continue discussions,'' Gantman said.

Feinstein entered the fray, he said, because ``she cares dearly about the history of the 49ers in the city of San Francisco.''

In a statement released this afternoon, the 49ers said that Feinstein and Newsom had requested the opportunity to ``explore other options.'' York attended the meeting and was ``happy to listen to those proposals, but stated that the 49ers were moving forward with their planned talks with the City of Santa Clara.''

At the meeting, the statement said York reiterated his concerns about a San Francisco stadium, saying ``it didn't work for the team's fans.''

Santa Clara Mayor Patricia Mahan said York left her a voicemail message today, saying Santa Clara is still the team's preferred location. ``He assured us that we are still the top choice,'' she said.

``The No. 1 thing we can do is to be open to the 49ers proposal once we have it,'' she said. ``We have the kind of infrastructure already in place so it's much more feasible on the Santa Clara side.''

Late Wednesday, San Francisco and Santa Clara officials first learned of York's decision to focus on a Santa Clara site, near Great America and the team's headquarters and practice facility. Newsom said he was shocked when he received a Wednesday night call from York saying the team was cutting off negotiations for a new stadium, attached to shopping and housing at the site of their current home, Monster Park.

At a news conference Thursday, Newsom said he did not believe that this was a ``fait accompli'' and said that the city was reviewing all its options, including whether the team can use the city's name if it moves to Santa Clara.

``The Santa Clara 49ers can be the Santa Clara 49ers, I guess, but not the San Francisco 49ers,'' Newsom said. ``That is a question that hasn't been answered.

Assemblyman Mark Leno is considering sponsoring legislation to help provide an answer.

The San Francisco Democrat said today he will explore a bill to prohibit a professional sports team from using San Francisco in its name, without board of supervisors permission, unless the team plays its games or locates its headquarters in the city. ``San Francisco has a lot of cache. San Francisco is hot. Protecting it is good public policy,'' Leno said.

Leno is researching whether the NFL's copyright on the San Francisco 49ers name can be trumped by state law. An attempt to change law to stop the onetime Anaheim Angeles from becoming the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim failed.

Plus :

he San Francisco 49ers may think they're packing up and moving to Santa Clara, but not if Mayor Gavin Newsom gets his way.

Still reeling from the blow of what he called a surprise announcement, Newsom said Thursday that the team's effort to trade in Candlestick Point for the South Bay is hardly a done deal and hinted that there could be legal challenges to come.

"It just seems to me that you can't close down this discussion with the city on the 5-yard line," Newsom said.

Newsom didn't elaborate on what legal leverage he thinks the city might have. The team leases Monster Park stadium from the city, and that agreement expires in 2008 -- four years before the 49ers say they intend to occupy their home in Santa Clara.

Newsom suggested the lease could become a point of contention and suggested there might be legal restrictions barring the team from taking the San Francisco name south.

"We are going to do everything in our power that's appropriate to keep the San Francisco 49ers in San Francisco," Newsom said.

As the shock of the team's announcement slowly began to wear off around San Francisco City Hall on Thursday, city officials struggled to come up with a Plan B for what had been a $600 million to $800 million stadium deal slated for the impoverished Bayview-Hunters Point neighborhood.

The potential political ramifications associated with losing a National Football League franchise to Silicon Valley were already in the air.

"Whether it's fair or not, the mayor is ultimately going to be blamed for losing the 49ers," said Supervisor Gerardo Sandoval, who has had his own rocky relationship with the team and Newsom. "Twenty years from now, people may not remember exactly when the team left, but they are going to say, 'I think it was when Newsom was mayor.' "

As he began what looks like an uphill battle to keep the team in town, Newsom wanted it to be known that his administration has been doing everything it prudently could to deliver on the promise of a new stadium -- which has been on and off the drawing boards since 1997, when his predecessor, Mayor Willie Brown, led a successful campaign to persuade voters to support such a project.

Newsom said Thursday that administration officials did all they could to keep the negotiations going smoothly -- and he disputed 49ers co-owner John York's assertion that the process of building a stadium in the city was too troublesome and too expensive.

Senior administration staffers met weekly with team officials and developers to move the project forward. City officials also successfully lobbied on behalf of the project in Sacramento.

Which is why, people close to the talks said, Newsom was livid after he received a phone call from York on Wednesday evening saying the team planned to move to Santa Clara. Though sources involved in the negotiations said Newsom was so mad he hung up on the team owner, the mayor denied that was the case.

"I'm the guy who has a 49ers football on my bed that I toss every night," Newsom said. "I'm passionate about that team."

Before York called the mayor to share the news, his son, Jed York, held a meeting at City Hall with the project developers and Newsom administration staffers to say the team was leaving.

One person involved in the talks who spoke on condition of anonymity said it was the first time city officials and developers were given any indication that the 49ers might not have a future as a San Francisco team.

"Frankly, John York is very naive when it comes to major development projects," the source said. "We're all completely flummoxed by the idea because this was a good deal all the way around."

Kofi Bonner, president of the Urban Land Division of Lennar Corp., the development company behind the mixed-use residential and retail project that was planned in tandem with the stadium at Candlestick Point, said the news was a complete shock.

"I actually thought we were beginning to make headway," said Bonner, who previously served former Mayor Brown as his economic development chief. "I knew there were some issues, but that in the scheme of things, most of the major issues had been handled."

Though Newsom was adamant about keeping the team in San Francisco, others in City Hall said why bother.

Sandoval said the 49ers had behaved like "spoiled brats" at times, adding the city should not bend over backward to keep the team.

"The team obviously does not like the idea of having a public process," Sandoval said. "And as we've seen in Oakland, the A's deciding to move. San Francisco just can't afford to get into some kind of bidding war," he said, suggesting the threatened move might be a tactic to get the city to pick up a big share of the cost of a stadium project.

"It doesn't mean that we don't love the 49ers, but I would have thought that the team would have a bigger commitment to staying in the city. This is either sour grapes or part of a negotiation. Either way, it's not really something that the city can afford to pay for," Sandoval said.

Supervisor Bevan Dufty -- perhaps the team's best friend at City Hall and a huge 49er fan -- hoped it was not too late for a change of heart.

"I and others want to appeal to the Yorks to come back to the table," he said. "Frankly, there is no deal from Santa Clara. It's just as speculative as our proposal, if not more so."

San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera is reviewing the lease agreement between the team and the city, his spokesman Matt Dorsey said. Dorsey added that there may be a legal basis to explore whether the words "San Francisco" can be used by a Santa Clara-based team.

"The Santa Clara 49ers can be the Santa Clara 49ers," said Newsom. "But not the San Francisco 49ers."

and ....

Killion: Sounds great, 49ers, but where's the cash?

By Ann Killion
Mercury News

Are you ready to pick out your seats on the 50-yard line? To figure out which corner of Tasman and Great America will be your special tailgating spot?

My suggestion? Slow down. A lot.

The 49ers held a news conference Thursday morning to announce their plan for moving to Santa Clara.

One small problem.

There is no plan.

The 49ers, who abruptly cut off their talks with San Francisco on Wednesday night, gathered the Bay Area media to show us some charts. Some diagrams. The same stuff we've been seeing in one form or another for the past decade. You know this isn't -- as someone else said this week -- our first rodeo.

What seems to be lacking is the thing that all pie-in-the-sky stadium plans lack: a solid financing plan.

How exactly will this stadium -- estimated to cost between $600 million and $800 million -- be paid for?

``You need to let us worry about the cost,'' 49ers vice president Lisa Lang said.

That's a fancy way of saying, um, ``We don't know.''

``What fans don't care about is the financing,'' 49ers owner John York said.

Well, actually, they do. Especially if it involves their own dollars, in whatever form -- taxes, ticket prices, services -- is requested. Which it just might be in Santa Clara, despite protestations to the contrary.

That's not the only glaring hole. Another missing piece is credibility. Why are we supposed to believe York that the stadium is on the right course now? What exactly is his stellar track record on this issue? Why did it take York almost a decade to identify the logistical problems at Candlestick Point? Why are we back at square one in terms of a plan and process?

The chunk of land in Santa Clara could be a viable stadium site for the 49ers. Plenty of teams -- the Redskins, both New York teams, the Cowboys -- have moved to stadiums far from their namesake cities.

However, several more -- Cleveland, Baltimore, Seattle and Detroit, where the 49ers will visit on Sunday -- have built inner-city stadiums.

The 49ers might not hit a lot of resistance. They plan to keep the San Francisco name. They say this is not a ploy to get to Los Angeles -- that they will never leave the Bay Area. And it's not like the 49ers are the crown jewel of San Francisco anymore. Under York's watch, they've become an afterthought.

But if you're going to announce a major plan, it would be great to have actual details.

Instead, there was a major disconnect between what the 49ers said wouldn't work at Candlestick Point and what they say will work in the field behind Great America.

The reasons Candlestick Point is troublesome? Lack of parking due to a plan that calls for mixed-use development and 6,500 housing units. That would force the 49ers to build -- here's a scary phrase they kept throwing around -- ``The World's Biggest Parking Garage.'' Yikes!

But that mixed-use development would have paid for the stadium at Candlestick Point.

How will a stadium be paid for in Santa Clara? Uh, not sure yet.

The 49ers never adequately answered why a stand-alone stadium will work in Santa Clara but not at Candlestick Point. They never adequately answered why having room for fans to tailgate is such a stumbling block at Candlestick while the biggest selling point for Santa Clara is public transportation (no new parking lots are included in the plans).

And they never explained why the talks with San Francisco were canceled so abruptly. Did that great 9-3 victory over Minnesota give them enough leverage to parlay into a new Silicon Valley stadium?

Hardly. The best guess is that it was another one of York's knee-jerk moments, such as when he fired Steve Mariucci during ``Joe Millionaire.''

Mayor Gavin Newsom's office was apparently blindsided. Something probably irritated York and he broke off talks. That also explains the lack of detail presented.

Even Steve Van Dorn, the head of the Santa Clara chamber of commerce, seemed surprised.

``We just found out about it yesterday, like you all did,'' he said at the news conference. He added, lukewarmly, that ``if'' there were no additional taxes and ``if'' they could work out parking, then ``I think we would support it.''

``The only downside,'' Van Dorn said, ``is the unknown. We don't know how this is going to be financed.''

In July, when the 49ers unveiled plans for the Candlestick Point stadium, they said their backup plan was Santa Clara. Now the 49ers are back in the starting gate, looking for a new development partner, for financing plans, at a possible ballot measure.

Their backup plan?

``Potentially with San Francisco,'' Lang said.

Santa Clara might prove to be more willing to make concessions than San Francisco -- something that should trouble its residents. Someday, the 49ers may open the doors on a new stadium.

But if you think there's a real plan at work here, think again.

At least Eddie D. had Willie Brown in his pocket.

York is a dumbfuck.

[The Assassin]

Their called the SAN FRANCISCO 49ers and it would be an outrage if they played in Santa Clara.

signed,
The New York Jets & the New York Giants