City Attorney Michael Aguirre says the city of San Diego has subsidized the Chargers for more than a decade and hopes team executives now will offer some cash in return.
Aguirre said at a news conference yesterday that Jim Waring, the city's chief of land use and economic development, plans to ask the Chargers to begin paying the $5.7 million annual bond payment for the 1997 expansion of the city-owned Qualcomm Stadium.
The San Diego Union-Tribune reported yesterday the city is at least $400,000 in the hole from operating expenses for Chargers home games this past season. The final tab could be more than $900,000.
"Our goal today is not to attack anyone, not to try to embarrass anyone," Aguirre said. "It's simply to get the facts out on the table in hopes that we can begin to have a dialogue with our friends at the Chargers about how they might be able to help contribute to a lessening of the financial burden on San Diego taxpayers."
Chargers general counsel Mark Fabiani said Aguirre's criticism of a stadium development plan at the Qualcomm site was one of the reasons the team dropped the plan last year. Fabiani said the project would have generated income for the city.
"This sounds like a typical city of San Diego farce," Fabiani said in an interview yesterday. "In most cultures, you don't open up a good-faith negotiation with a party in a press conference. This tells me they're trying to get themselves on TV and not generate a result here."
The city of San Diego faces a $1 billion deficit in its pension fund and is anticipating budget deficits next fiscal year. Aguirre said any financial assistance from the Chargers would be used to help cover police pension costs.
Aguirre said the team reaped $70 million in game-day revenue last season. The team is supposed to pay the city $2.5 million in rent under a contract negotiated in 2004. Last season, the team also paid the city $609,866 for one playoff game at Qualcomm.
But the city gives the team rent credits and pays several other expenses that cost from $3.5 million to $3.9 million last season, leaving the city in the red, said Erik Stover, the city's stadium manager. The city also pays $5.7 million a year for bonds for the 1997 stadium expansion, done at the request of Chargers owner Alex Spanos.
The Chargers now are trying to strike a deal for a new stadium in Chula Vista, National City or Oceanside.
Fabiani said the team worked for four years to negotiate a deal at Qualcomm. The team offered to tear down the stadium, build a new one, and pay for road improvements, a park and the balance of the bond debt. In exchange, the team wanted the city to give it 60 acres at the site.
Aguirre and Mayor Jerry Sanders opposed the plan, largely because they didn't want to give away property that some city officials believe is worth $500 million.
Waring said that before Stover was hired in 2005, the city did not detail game costs.
"Things were done on guesswork or looser accounting," Waring said.
The Chargers probably didn't know what the city was paying either, he said.
"It's my hope that when they see the real numbers on the costs to the city of San Diego that we might be able to engage in some healthy dialogue and possibly change these numbers," Waring said.
In another stadium-related development, Chargers executives met with Oceanside officials yesterday to discuss parking and rail access to a prospective stadium site at Oceanside's Center City Golf Course. The property is off Interstate 5 near the Oceanside Boulevard interchange.
The Chargers say they do not want to build a large parking lot at the 71.7-acre site, or anyplace else they might choose. Instead, the team wants to create an entertainment or commercial venue next to the stadium and get a large number of fans to and from the site by mass transit on game days.
