Coming soon to a City Council meeting near you.
A $100 million dollar decision for or against Santa Clara revenue.
Here is the issue.
In 2010, when voters approved Measure J to build our stadium without the use of general fund dollars, the stadium was to be paid for from revenues from events at the stadium.
This would include football, of course. In addition, our stadium would provide a terrific venue for other revenue-producing events like concerts, entertainers and special attractions that would foot the bill without the use of taxpayer funds.
So far, this plan has performed like a Swiss clock.
Each major event at our stadium, like U2, produces about $500,000 for Santa Clara. These events put money into our general fund which pay for a laundry list of City services.
In just the first two years of operation our stadium earned and paid more than $5.5 million to our general fund. About $1.8 million of that came from special events. Events like concerts.
Our current City Council has voted to enforce a weeknight curfew at the stadium.
A curfew that prevents any event from continuing past 10 p.m. on weekdays.
Taylor Swift, Beyonce, U2, Cold Play, Kenny Chelsay and a host of other stars will not come to our stadium if they have to stop at 10 p.m. on a weeknight.
Musical stars used to earn their money from selling records. Now they do it through doing tours and rely on large venues like our stadium to attract their fans.
Live Nation, who books most of these top performers has indicated they cannot book big shows if their performers are cut off at 10 p.m.
Santa Clara is and would be the only stadium in California to enforce a 10 p.m. strict curfew on weeknights.
If we lost three or four shows a year we would be giving away to other stadiums $1.6 to $2.5 million dollars every year; stadiums like AT&T Park, the Rose Bowl, Concord Pavillion and SAP.
Note: We are talking about three to four shows a year that would perfrom until 11 p.m.
That would be 3 to 4 hours per year.
To our readers this should be a no brainer.
However, because of the bias our Council has against the 49ers, they want to punish them. In turn they will punish our own resident taxpayers.
Over the life of the contract, Santa Clara could loose $100 million dollars from our general fund. Santa Clara has a projected structural deficit in our general fund of millions beginning next year. Can we afford to take such punitive action against our own stadium and against our residents?
It would seem that our Council should be held to the same standard as the 49ers. “No stadium funds to be taken from our general fund.”
If our Council enforces a 10 p.m. curfew three or four times a year, they are taking millions away from our general fund which appears to be a back handed violation of Measure J.
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