Well it's not like the two groups claiming the stadium is doomed are unbiased themselves. Noll and particularly Gabbing Gavin have their own agendas neither of which supports what is going on in Santa Clara.

As for Wolff walking out of the perfect game, I doubt he was the only one to do so that day (hell he was one of the few that showed up in the first place that day). In the 7th inning with how people refuse to talk about it unless you look at the "0" in the hit column you might not be able to tell it's a perfect game (and for the record I had the good fortune to be in the owners box once and from it at the Coliseum you can't see the two large scoreboards that have that "0" on them.)

and Neil this is where you lose so much credibility for your National Inquirer type of reporting....did it ever occur to you that maybe where LW went was from a luxury box where he could host a more private conversation down to his field level box so that he could watch the final innings of a perfect game....and yes the Earthquakes jacket reflects his ownership of that San Jose team also....and if you recall he wore a San Jose Sharks hat on opening day when he watched the game from his Field Level Box...LW the worst owner in baseball or Neil...the worst Nat'l Inquirer reporter...I vote on the later

Yes, it did occur to me he might have left the box and stayed at the game, which is why I searched for any articles indicating that Wolff was there at the end, perhaps congratulating Braden. I found nothing indicating that, but did find a posting ("second or third-hard," noted) claiming that Wolff had actually left for the Quakes game:

http://forums.scout.com/mb.aspx?s=304&f=2062&t=5932902&p=8

As for being at a ballgame in the 7th inning and not noticing that your own pitcher has a no-hitter going, I'm not sure that would help any in defending Wolff's love of baseball.

Quakes game was the evening before....

Maybe, but love of the game and happening to notice on a day you're already distracted by Pro-Oakland backers that your pitcher is pitching a perfect game are two different things. As the Pro-Oakland guy he was talking to if he noticed there was a perfect game at the moment Wolff left. Bet the answer is no.

And to his second point that the "A's should stay in Oakland." Ok, they should stay in Oakland, what is Oakland going to do to make it happen? Because it's not up to the A's to just stay in crime ridden and economically depressed city that has never supported the team well it's up to the city to make them want to stay (and yes that will involve the city using public funds to buy either land or build the ballpark). Otherwise admit you can't keep them and stay the hell out of San Jose's way.

The evening before? Man, if you can't trust third-hand posts on web discussion boards, who can you trust?

No worries Neil, we all got suckered in by it.

That's easy for you to say — you don't have the National Enquirer's reputation to uphold.

Uh there was no Quakes game that day. deMause you are just making sh*% up man. He probably just went to a different part of the stadium to watch the A's game.

more lunacy from the from the epicenter of that stuff...

where the haircut and a smile invisible s.f. mayor wants to keep the 9ers is shaky ground - mostly land fill and toxic waste.

lew-lew wolff doesn't have a clue what's going on, he just repeats the mantra - build it (somewhere/anywhere?) and they will spend...

the york-ies want a city to go out on a limb for them but they can't guarantee that the branch won't be sawed off behind them.

it just goes on and on and on...

Howard Mintz's article in the SJ Merc first appeared the day after the election (June 9, 2010) and it showed a correct pie chart of the costs - the cost breakdown from the city's Term Sheet that Santa Clara Plays Fair has been showing all along (and the same costs that Neil has been listed on F of S, and Dr. Noll listed in his May 16th 2010 article in the SF Chronicle). The costs are $114 M Santa Clara, $330 M Santa Clara's Stadium Authority, and $493 M 49ers. The NFL has made no commitment of funds. The SJ Merc article even had the correct breakdown of the $114M.

Interesting that as of June 11, 2010, Howard Mintz's online article has been updated and now no longer shows the pie chart. That's after he was contacted and asked why the SJ Merc has not been publishing the correct costs all long, and discussing the risks from selling personal seat licenses and naming rights. The Merc didn't bring up the issues of problematic funding and the risks from the Stadium Authority until after the election was over for a reason. They wanted the stadium measure to pass.

So much for journalistic integrity. The Merc has lost long time subscribers over its biased coverage of the stadium issue, at a time when the Merc has financial problems and can't afford to lose paid subscribers.

http://www.mercurynews.com/southbayfootball/ci_15263324

This is the link to the older Merc article that shows the correct breakdown of the costs in the form of a pie chart. The June 11 article is essentially the same information, but with the pie chart removed.

Some of the papers here (SC Weekly, San Jose Metro) actually published letters to the editor and, in the case of the SC Weekly a letter from the owner of the paper, that said stadium opponents were making up these numbers ($114M, $330M, total of $444M). Both of those papers actually said that opponents were 'lying' about the numbers (which come straight from the Term Sheet and city staff), and the SC Weekly went so far as to say that the 49ers were paying for the $444 Million. No wonder voters were confused and many decided not to vote.

Actually Neil, voters didn't approve the $444 million. The Term Sheet isn't a binding document, and only the text was appended to the 49ers ballot measure. The table of costs was conveniently left off of the ballot. The text doesn't discuss most of the money, and the only part of the money the 49ers ballot initiative disclosed was $40 million in redevelopment funds. So the only part of the money the voters actually approved is the $40 million in RDA funds. The 49ers wrote the ballot materials to leave off the rest of the costs and to give themselves the best chance of having Measure J pass.

The binding document is supposed to come in July (the DDA). Essentially, voters were voting on the question 'Do you want a stadium?' not 'Do you want to pay for a stadium?'. Many voters don't know about the Stadium Authority and the $330 million, just as many still don't know about the environmental effects of the stadium on the north side of Santa Clara.

SCT, I think you underestimate the intelligence of your fellow Santa Claran. Most of them probably knew exactly what they were voting for, particularly if they'd read anything online. Remember the majority don't get their news from the dead tree edition of the Murk.

Too late Neil. Looks like you've stepped in the $#!? now. Might want to edit that part about Wolff leaving the suite.

http://newballpark.org/

Dan, unless you live here, you have no idea how bad the misinformation campaign was. Every home got about 20 pieces of slick glossy often multiple page mailers from the 49ers loaded with a wrong pie chart of the costs, misinformation about money for the schools (complete with a graphic showing an arrow for money from the stadium to the schools - not true), and statements like 'no new taxes, no negative impact to the general fund'. I've talked to many voters who were plenty confused, who had no idea that freedom of speech allows the 49ers to say anything they want in their campaign materials, and it doesn't have to be true.

And there are boatloads of people here who are not online. I walked many precincts (about 2000 voters' households, so that's about 1000 homes) and I always asked if people had internet access. Many people don't. And when I told them that they could get free internet access at the library or the senior center, no one was interested. 40% of our school children in Santa Clara Unified are on free or reduced priced lunch-that's one measure of the income level here. We are not a wealthy community. We are running in the red with deficits expected for the next 5 years. Only God knows how we're going to pay for a stadium.

I think if this had been a county wide campaign it would have failed. For one thing, independent papers like the Palo Alto paper, would have published correct information, and other communities have higher percentages of residents who have computer access. For another thing, there wouldn't have been just 5 elected officials making decisions, like there has been in Santa Clara.

Meh — I think I can live with being criticized on newballpark.org for overreacting. (Not that that's a criticism of the site, which I like.) Anyway, they don't say that he definitively stayed at the game either, so we're still left not knowing whether the Times saying Wolff "left" means he left the game or just the suite.

It's new info of a sort, though, so I've posted an update with a link. And if Wolff can be proven to have stayed for the whole game, I hereby promise to write a new blog item with the title "Lew Wolff not yet the worst owner in MLB".

Dan,

I concur with SCT. While I knocked on a small percentage of the doors she did, I determined from that the majority of people really were clueless.

I highly doubt the majority of people voting Yes on J understood basic facts about the measure like the authority.

The mayor herself was confused about (or lying about) basic outlines of the term sheet.

The fact that far less than 50% of eligible voters even bothered to cast their ballot given the publicity that surrounded this measure speaks damningly of our civic involvement.

Well if Santa Clara's voters are that lazy and misinformed (and yes if you don't read the material yourself directly since it's all available to the public) then maybe it's best they didn't vote. Voting is a right but if you're too lazy to exercise that right responsibly do everyone a favor and stay home. That said I'm sure many of the YES voters were informed and wanted the stadium anyway, which I can respect as much as I can those that voted no in an informed way.

Dan,

I think government finances were too abstract a concept to most of the Yes voters or they simply liked the idea of pro-football so much that cost didn't matter.

The massive ad campaign promised a stadium at basically no cost to residents. If you were an "informed" voter, you would have to know that this--based on other cities SA experiences, couldn't possibly be true.

Therefore you would be voting Yes on something that could be putting the city at grave financial risk for decades to come.

The election really swung the 49ers way when the deceptive ad campaign kicked into high gear. Therefore I'd say the misinformation was successful and Yes voters were ill informed or just didn't care.

I do agree that you can't make, or is it beneficial to have people vote who'd rather not bother. I was just amazed, given the intensity of ad campaign, that most people didn't cast a ballot. I guess they have no connection with the city they live in. Maybe it's because SC must be at least 50-60% rentals.

Dan,
I agree with Jay.
You also need to recognize that the 49ers and the city council promised us in writing 2 votes: one on the stadium itself, and one on whether the 49ers could override our charter. Our council majority and the 49ers took away that second vote (which would have required 2/3 of the voters approval). The council majority let the 49ers control our ballot materials to not disclose the costs of the stadium. Voters reading the ballot pamphlet could easily believe the ad campaign that said the stadium could be built at no cost to Santa Clara residents and with no new taxes. Anyone who has done any research on what has happened in other NFL host cities that agree to allow public funds to be tapped for stadium construction, or agree to have a stadium owned and operated by a stadium authority, know that neither of those claims can possibly be true. One year ago, a Survey USA poll showed 62% of Santa Clarans against paying for a stadium. So the campaign tried every possible route to making voters think they were getting a billion dollar stadium for free in order to win an election.

People were saturated with misinformation from the 49ers. The campaign was made to be about anything but giving a gift of public funds to a billionaire football team owner. If you don't live here, you also don't see the Santa Clara Weekly, which was sickening in its lies about the stadium (such as claiming that the 49ers would be paying Santa Clara's $444 million share of construction costs).

If this was a good deal for Santa Clara, they wouldn't have needed to spend $4.1 million through May 22nd (so more after that) trying to convince us that it's a good deal.

OF COURSE I WATCHED THE ALL OF DALLAS'S AMAZING EFFORT. SPENT 8TH INNING SITTING WITH THE PRESIDENT OF TAMPA BAY, SPENT THE 9TH INNING ON THE FENCE WHERE THE A'S PLAYERS ENTER THE DUGOUT SO I COULD WATCH THE LAST INNING, DID NOT TAKE OFF MY EARTHQUAKES JACKET AS I DID NOT WANT TO JINX THE SITUATION (SILLY I KNOW BUT I DID NOT WANT TO DISTRUB ANYTHING) AND I WAS IN THE LOCKER ROOM TO APPLAUD DALLAS. AND I SPENT THE ENTIRE GAME WITH A FRIEND AND FAN BOB MOOG WHO WAS DELIGHTED TO HAVE PICKED THAT GREAT DAY TO JOIN ME. LEW

Actually, I think I might prefer to believe that the owner of the A's left a perfect game early than that he types in ALL CAPS.

Bob Moog the synthesizer pioneer?

The local media has been slavering over the 49ers for over two years now, too terrified to do real journalism because they were afraid of being denied access to the team, the front office and the players. They've been sandbagging the stadium financing issue from the jump.

Now that Measure J passed, and now that they think it no longer matters: They suddenly think they can do a Sinclair Lewis with some "lowdown" on the 49ers' own inability to come up with their own money.

Sorry, but the major holes in the 49ers' subsidy scheme - and in the stadium's financing - have been obvious to everyone in the City of Santa Clara over the age of twelve for close to three years now. It just never attracted the interest of the media until the passage of Measure J made it "expedient" for the papers and the broadcasters to do the job we've been begging them to do all along: Tell the truth about the massive stadium subsidy in Santa Clara - and about what that really costs Santa Clarans.

*Of course* the stadium financing is on shaky ground.

It has been since April of 2007.

Old news.

Bill Bailey, Treasurer,
Santa Clara Plays Fair.org

-=0=-

Honestly, if San Francisco got the Giants to pay for their stadium's entire construction costs, and San Jose gets the A's to do the same, the decision by voters, to build a 49ers stadium with 47% of taxpayer money & risk, makes Santa Clarans look like a bunch of suckers.

Juan-I agree with you, but you'd have to live here to know exactly how bad the misinformation campaign has been. The SJ Mercury News really really wants the 49ers here, so they've been unwilling to tell the truth about the costs, general fund loss, debt, risk, and environmental consequences. I think that many people here didn't vote because they didn't know who was telling the truth. People here were saturated in misinformation in the mail, TV, and radio ads. 40% of our school children are on free or reduced priced lunch as a measure of low income in our community - so that means many people don't have the money for computers and an internet connection, which was the primary way to get correct information.

And the Santa Clara Weekly campaigned heavily for the 49ers to the point of just making stuff up and getting the costs completely wrong, saying that the 49ers are a joint partner in the Stadium Authority and the 49ers are paying for the $444 million rather than Santa Clara and it's SA. The 49ers benefited from misinformation put out by our mayor and city council, schools superintendent, and school board that said there would be no loss to our general fund, the stadium won't cost residents anything, it will be an economic stimulus package etc.

Get ready for the Sj Merc to do the same kind of propaganda to get the A's in San Jose.