San Diego Learns to Play the Game

Nearly two years after an angry debate over public money and professional football rocked the city, the discourse over a similar subject has been remarkably polite.

On Nov. 3, San Diego voters will decide whether to help build a new 41,000-seat downtown baseball park for the high-flying Padres. About 70% of the project’s $411-million price tag would be covered by public money.

The discussion leading to the ballot measure has been energetic but noncombative. People are not hissing in each other’s faces. There is little sense that the fate of this sunny commonwealth by the sea is at stake.

Not so two years ago. Then, a ballot referendum drive, a lawsuit and what seemed to be a vacuum of political leadership at a crucial moment brought the city to the edge of meltdown.

The raucous debate over expanding the city-owned stadium to accommodate the wishes of the Chargers raged for weeks--until a judge killed the anti-expansion suit. A referendum was avoided only when the Qualcomm wireless communications company paid for a portion of the project in exchange for having its name on the stadium.

The baseball park plan carries a higher price tag than the football deal. Plus, to the naked eye at least, the city already has a suitable baseball site, the expanded Qualcomm Stadium.

But the Proposition C discussion has little of the ear-splitting volume of the debate in late 1996 and early 1997.

The attorney who sued to block the football stadium expansion is the leading spokesman for the baseball park push. The talk show talkers have cooled their jets.

An academic expert who has written critically of the financial relationship between cities and sports teams has come to San Diego to endorse Proposition C as a good deal for the city and for taxpayers. A lawsuit against the proposal was tossed out faster than a batter arguing with a grumpy umpire over a called third strike.

The ballpark lawsuit held none of the high moral ground of the football lawsuit. The football suit was meant to force a public vote, the baseball suit to block one.

With the suit swept away, San Diego residents will vote on the public-private plan to both build a smallish ballpark--akin to Baltimore’s Camden Yards and Cleveland’s Jacobs Field--and redevelop a sagging part of downtown with hotels, shops and housing.

Public opinion polls suggest that Proposition C has a small lead--which would mean San Diego voters are resisting the national trend of rejecting deals to build facilities for sports teams.

Ballpark boosters, as well as disinterested observers, agree that the main reason the plan is having an easier time than the stadium expansion is that, in effect, city officials have proved that they are not repeating past mistakes.

“They learned the lessons of Qualcomm Stadium,” said Steve Erie, political science professor at UC San Diego. “This is a much more politically savvy group running this than the Qualcomm deal.”

For openers, the Qualcomm arrangement was a straight-out plan to expand the stadium to keep the Chargers from leaving.

Nothing can bring out the critics faster than the idea of using public funds to build or expand a facility solely for a millionaire sports team owner--in this case, the Chargers’ Alex Spanos, whose public image is heavy with grouchiness.

The motto of the Proposition C campaign--funded by a $1-million contribution from the Padres--is “More than just a ballpark.”

By linking the ballpark to a redevelopment plan, officials have wedded it to one of San Diego’s sources of civic pride: the Lazarus-like return of downtown. Two decades ago downtown was a jumble of all-night movie theaters, tattoo parlors and sawdust restaurants. The symbol of downtown was a going-out-of-business sign.

Now, downtown is agleam with tourist hotels, nightspots, trendy restaurants, the festive Horton Plaza shopping center, a waterfront convention center, upscale condo projects and new high-rises--thanks, in large part, to the city’s redevelopment efforts. The eastern section, where the ballpark is planned, remains largely warehouses and vacant lots.

“All the focus groups and polling that I’ve seen,” said former Councilman Scott Harvey, “suggest that people are very excited about completing the last piece of downtown with a ballpark.”

(As a result of the focus groups, ballpark boosters have learned never to say “stadium,” because it still reeks of the football flap.)

Redevelopment matters are complicated, involving revenue projections and discussion of the interplay among hotel and motel taxes, property taxes and tax-free bonds. Dueling econometric theories are not the stuff of which talk show ratings are made, and thus much of the Proposition C debate has been dry.

“This deal is much more difficult to understand,” said Bob Simmons, a retired law professor from the University of San Diego who is part of the Stop C movement. He thinks the proposal is a stinker because it depends on overly optimistic predictions of the number of visitors who will be lured downtown to enjoy the ballpark.

Avoiding Any Hint of Back-Room Deals

By comparison, the $88-million expansion project for Qualcomm Stadium was tailor-made for barroom arguments because it could be boiled down to a yes or no vote on a rich sports baron and an ambitious politician.

Whatever the true merits of the stadium project, local legend quickly painted it as a sweetheart deal hatched by Spanos and Mayor Susan Golding while on Spanos’ private jet on the way back from the 1995 Super Bowl.

The truth is more complicated--there had been numerous public hearings before the deal was struck--but in politics, one good symbol is worth a dozen exculpatory facts. And it did not help that Spanos is a political supporter of Golding or that Golding was on vacation when the controversy hit full force.

This time, Golding, other City Hall officials and Padres owners John Moores and Larry Lucchino were determined to avoid any hint of back-room maneuvering.

“Moores and Lucchino decided it would be an excruciatingly open process, and it has been,” said Barry Lorge, former sports editor at the San Diego Union and now a consultant to the Padres.

After dozens of public meetings and task force gatherings, and a series of bruising negotiations, Golding and Lucchino in August announced a proposal whereby the city and its redevelopment agency would pay 70% of the cost and the team 30%. The city’s portion would come from hotel-motel taxes and property taxes within a “ballpark district.” The city’s general fund, which supports city services, would be untouched.

The team would agree to remain in San Diego through at least 2024 and take the lead in finding private developers for the hotel and shopping parts of the project. Golding argued that the ballpark would act as a catalyst in luring other private development, which would mean jobs and economic growth.

Moores and Lucchino insist that the team is losing money and needs a new “intimate” ballpark to boost attendance. The heavy inference is that if Proposition C loses, the Padres will have to leave San Diego.

The timing has been as good for the ballpark proposal as it was bad for the stadium expansion.

The latter controversy hit just as the Chargers had slumped to a disappointing eight-win, eight-loss season. A popular coach, Bobby Ross, was eased out amid the furor in what seemed like a clash of egos with the general manager.

The Padres have had a season of dreams as Proposition C has moved toward denouement. Revered player Tony Gwynn has been a spokesman for the measure. During the National League championship series, fans have held up a banner, “In Tony We Trust.”

Opponents concede that Padres fever is a problem. It is hard to discuss dollars and sense, or concern about the fiscal health of the hotel-motel tax fund, while voters are glued to their TVs cheering. Qualcomm, where the Padres are obligated to play until the end of 1999, is festooned with Proposition C banners placed there by the ball team.

“We figure that the 18- to 24-[year-old] males will probably vote on emotion, out of Padres fever,” said Diane Dixon, a leader in the Stop C campaign. “But older, more seasoned voters, who know sometimes you have to put plumbing repair ahead of buying a new car, will decide what’s best for the overall city.”

Stop C warns that the city will end up cutting services to bail out the ballpark project--which city officials say will not occur.

The football stadium expansion survived the legal challenge, but the political damage was done. The impression that Golding had lost control of her city was widespread, and her nascent campaign for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate sputtered and died.

But now, GOP political consultant Dan Schnur suggests that she could benefit from the passage of Proposition C and run for statewide office as someone who has done what few big-city mayors have: kept pro teams from leaving without resorting to litigation or leaving the city near bankruptcy.

“If she can do that, she won’t have to worry about political reporters,” Schnur said. “She can run on the sports pages alone.”