Fundraising campaign underway in bid to keep Chargers in San Diego

As the future of the Chargers in San Diego grows increasingly uncertain, a fundraising campaign is underway to aid the effort to keep the team in that city.

Jean Freelove, a political fundraiser, has reached out to local businesses, apparently on behalf of San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer, to help the cause.

“I’ve been asked to help Mayor Faulconer in an effort to keep the Chargers football team in San Diego,” reads an email sent to a business from Freelove’s account. “We need to raise fund for the cause and I’m hoping that [you] might be able to give $10,000 or so to help out.”

The email doesn’t specify how the funds would be used, although they could be spent on advertising or to help provide resources for the mayor’s recently appointed task force, a volunteer endeavor.

Freelove did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday evening.

A spokesman for Faulconer said in an email, “The Mayor’s Office is not involved with that effort,” and referred additional questions to San Diego political consultant Jason Roe, who did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Roe has worked with the mayor and has been his point man on stadium issues. He attended the task force’s first meeting, which was closed to the public.

On Feb. 17, the Chargers sent a letter to the mayor that included a variety of questions. Among them:

• Now that the Task Force is raising money from private donors, will you disclose to the public and the Chargers the source of all of those donations as they are received?

• Will you disclose to the public and the Chargers what restrictions, if any, you are imposing on donors who might have an interest, one way or the other, in the stadium issue? For example, will you permit representatives of the hotel or convention industries to donate to the Task Force?

Chargers counsel Mark Fabiani said Friday: “In light of the new fundraising efforts that have emerged today, we are more interested than ever in Mayor Faulconer’s answers to these questions.”