San Francisco 49ers Had Secret Stadium Talks With City of Santa Clara For One Year

Clear evidence that the 49ers were not working honestly with the City and County of San Francisco and like any lie, it's eventually revealed.

NINERS SECRETLY WOOED SANTA CLARA FOR A YEAR
Newsom aides say paper trail shows the team was not honest with S.F.
Cecilia M. Vega, John Coté, Chronicle Staff Writers
Thursday, November 30, 2006

The San Francisco 49ers engaged in detailed talks with South Bay officials about the possibility of relocating the team to Santa Clara for more than a year before the team actually announced its intention to move there, records show.

Written correspondence between the 49ers and South Bay officials obtained by The Chronicle indicate that talks had taken place since at least October 2005 and remained active through this fall while the team simultaneously worked on brokering a deal to build a new $600 million to $800 million stadium at Candlestick Point in San Francisco.

Aides to San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom say the yearlong paper trail shows the team was not honest with the city during its stadium talks over the past year.

Niners representatives, however, say the documents simply illustrate how the five-time Super Bowl championship team explored all its options in Santa Clara to ensure that city would be an adequate stadium site in case San Francisco was not.

"The mayor's office, city attorney, developer and community leaders were all under the impression that the 49ers were committed to San Francisco," Newsom's spokeswoman Jennifer Petrucione said Wednesday. "It's clear from these documents that wasn't the case. ... The level (of detail) in the documents demonstrates that the 49ers were pursuing Santa Clara at a level that does not indicate good faith."

In the months leading up to the 49ers' Nov. 9 press conference announcing plans to relocate to a parking lot near Great America amusement park, there were confidential meetings between the team and South Bay officials, team requests for a soil report from land near the proposed stadium site and offers of game tickets to a Santa Clara County official, according to the documents.

But while San Francisco officials say the documents suggest the team was not negotiating in good faith with the city, the 49ers contend they were always forthright about their intentions and made it clear that Santa Clara was long considered the backup plan in the event that the San Francisco deal fell apart -- as it eventually did.

"As I look at backup sites around the Bay Area, I'm going to do my due diligence checklist and I'm going to see if a site works or doesn't work," said Larry MacNeil, the team's chief financial officer, who has been involved in talks with both Santa Clara and San Francisco.

The Chronicle obtained the series of e-mails between South Bay officials and the team from San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera's office through San Francisco's Public Records Act. Herrera had requested copies of the documents from Santa Clara officials in the wake of the team's announcement it would move south.

The written communication between the team and officials in the South Bay show a long-standing relationship, sometimes a light-hearted one, with 49ers officials anxious to learn more about the site and Santa Clara officials eager to woo the team.

In October 2005 -- as the 49ers publicly acknowledged their desire to build a stadium, housing and retail development at Candlestick Point -- the records show that team officials were at the same time engaged in secret discussions with a Santa Clara County official about the possibility of building a stadium there.

In an Oct. 5, 2005, e-mail marked "confidential," Santa Clara County Assessor Larry Stone wrote to MacNeil and suggested that "separate, confidential meetings" be scheduled with then-San Jose Mayor Ron Gonzales, Vice Mayor Cindy Chavez and officials from the San Jose Sports Authority.

On Wednesday, Stone said the team subsequently decided that official talks were premature and that no meeting with Chavez or Gonzales ever took place.

Still, he wanted the meetings to be kept quiet in part out of concern that the team could be perceived as unfairly negotiating a stadium deal with two different cities -- which is exactly how some in San Francisco interpreted the action after learning of the written exchanges.

"We didn't want to put the 49ers in a position where they were seen as playing one community off against another, which is absolutely not what they were doing," Stone said.

San Francisco Supervisor Tom Ammiano said he was "chagrined but not surprised" to learn the team had been communicating with South Bay officials about a possible stadium there since October, 2005.

"Was it disingenuous? Yes," he said. "But in my point of view, it's what's accepted as business practice and it's about the bottom line. That's the carnivorous part of it."

In the October, 2005, e-mail, Stone also declined an offer by the team for tickets to a game in San Francisco, but asked if MacNeil "could arrange a couple of tickets" to a 49ers game in Seattle, his hometown, and to "let me know the cost."

When asked about the request, Stone said he attended the Seattle game and paid for the two tickets.

"I paid for everything that I got from the 49ers. I don't take gifts," Stone said.

Though the written exchanges date back to 2005, communication between the 49ers and South Bay officials over a potential stadium move stretch back to at least Dec. 19, 2003, when Kevin Moore, a member of the Santa Clara Stadium Association who has since become Santa Clara's vice mayor, sent a letter to 49ers co-owner John York touting the advantages of moving the team to Santa Clara.

And Stone acknowledged he and 49ers officials have had about a dozen meetings or phone calls since the fall of 2005 about potential sites in Santa Clara County. The team looked at about six different sites and may have conducted a wind velocity test at a site in San Jose, Stone said Wednesday.

South Bay officials repeatedly echoed 49ers assertions that throughout all of the talks during the past year, the discussions were preliminary and meant to illustrate that Santa Clara would be the backup in case problems arose at Candlestick Point.

"They made it clear in the first meeting and they made it clear in every meeting after that that their first choice was San Francisco," Stone said. "But they said this was a problematic site, and it's only prudent for us to a have a backup site if the project feasibility study doesn't indicate that it's workable."

The team's announcement in early November to leave San Francisco caught Newsom and his top aides, who had been negotiating with the team for nearly a year, by surprise. Reeling from the shock of possibly losing a National Football League franchise founded in the city 60 years ago, Newsom said the day after the team's announcement that 49ers co-owner John York had not been a "straight shooter" during the talks.

On Wednesday, however, team officials challenged that assertion. MacNeil provided copies of his own e-mail exchanges showing that in July he warned San Francisco officials that Santa Clara was the backup site.

"I wanted everybody to be clear that we were ... working on backup sites because it's the prudent thing to do," said MacNeil, who also said he reminded San Francisco officials during numerous meetings that discussions about a possible stadium in Santa Clara were also occurring.

In the end, the 49ers rejected the San Francisco stadium plan because the team had so many concerns about the project, which included a plan to build 6,500 housing units around the stadium and a retail hub.

Insiders also say Newsom's failure to return York's phone calls during the negotiations did not make for a pleasant relationship between the two camps.

In Santa Clara, the dealings appear to have been friendlier.

More than 30 pages of e-mail and other communications between the 49ers and Santa Clara officials suggest that many of those involved developed a casual working relationship.

In one exchange, MacNeil and a city official joked about technical snafus, including how the official accidentally called a psychiatrist's office when he attempted to dial the 49ers phone number. MacNeil later responded: "I may need the number to that psych office. Hang on to that."

The exchanges, however, contain few details about how a proposed stadium deal would actually work or be financed.

On July 18, the 49ers went public with their preliminary stadium plans for Candlestick and excitedly showed off computer renderings of what a new 68,000-seat arena would look like. A spokeswoman for the team cautioned then that if the proposal fell through in San Francisco, Santa Clara was the backup.

The next day, a Santa Clara city official wrote in an e-mail that the 49ers had made it clear to Santa Clara that they were "committed" to building at Candlestick Point. But in the same note, the official acknowledged that City Councilman Moore, who initially helped lure the team to Santa Clara, "has been in conversations with the Niners for a number of months."

By September, the 49ers were fully engaged in discussions at San Francisco City Hall about the Candlestick plans, and the team even backed city efforts to host the 2016 Olympic Games and said the Games could be held in the new stadium.

But even though the team was pushing ahead with talks in San Francisco, on Sept. 11, MacNeil sent an e-mail to Santa Clara officials requesting soil reports and geological studies done on land across the street from the proposed Great America stadium site.

"One of the things about a stadium is it's a really heavy building," he said when asked about the exchange Wednesday. "The soil can be a really significant factor in construction costs."

That same day, MacNeil reportedly expressed concern about the Candlestick site development during a meeting with San Francisco officials. A few days later, his boss, John York, was so concerned about the future of the deal that he sent a letter to Newsom saying the city should not base the centerpiece of its Olympic plans on a stadium project that had not yet been finalized. Like the stadium project, the Olympic dreams also fell through.

Santa Clara officials, however, were happy to oblige the 49ers in their request for information.

"They are trying to figure out what the structural challenges might be in siting a stadium in the Great America parking lot," Assistant City Manager Ronald Garratt wrote in the Sept. 11 e-mail. "They are anxious to get the info."

Oct. 5, 2005
Santa Clara County Assessor Larry Stone indicates he and 49ers Vice President Larry MacNeil held "productive and informative" meetings. Stone suggests "separate, confidential meetings" with San Jose officials. The meetings never happen.

Oct. 9, 2005

The San Francisco 49ers publicly confirm they're contemplating building a major stadium development at Candlestick Point.

July 18, 2006

Niners go public with preliminary stadium plans for Candlestick Point and show off computer renderings.

July 19, 2006

Santa Clara Assistant City Manager Ronald Garratt writes that City Councilman Kevin Moore "has been in conversations with the Niners for a number of months," but 49ers have made clear they're "committed" to building at Candlestick Point.

Sept. 11, 2006

49ers officials are "anxious" to get Santa Clara soil reports or geological studies from the nearby convention center as they consider building a stadium across the street, Garratt writes.

Sept. 14, 2006

Team co-owner John York sends a letter to Mayor Gavin Newsom saying the city should not base the centerpiece of its 2016 Olympics plans on a stadium project that has not been finalized.

E-mail the writers at cvega@sfchronicle.com and jcoté@sfchronicle.com.