a small team

Oh wow, and Dax McCarty gets another MLS game!

 

Sorry, this is long, but well that was a frustrating experience. The chambers were filled up with Quakes fans. Quakes players, past and present, academy players + club execs, Chris Leitch, etc. all spoke + fans and community members. Everyone was making the case that we desperately need more fields and that this would be a great start - and kids being able to train and play next to pros, etc. Pretty much everyone was in favor of the proposal except for a few people who just urged the use of real grass and not turf for the 4 public fields.

Then the supervisors spoke. Cindy Chavez and the 1st few supervisors seemed to be in favor, especially Cindy, with just some discussion about turf vs. grass and how many hours for the community, and making sure the immediate community is served, etc.

Then, Joe Simitian suddently came in with basically a hard no, with several objections, one being that the county wouldn't be getting "market rate" for the land rental, and then went into a long ramble about what a terrible owner John Fisher is, quoting several newpaper articles.

Then the person following him (Sylvia Arenas I think) was also kind of not so much a flat no but started talking like this was going to (somehow?) take money away from in-need programs - foster care, etc. Those two kind of threw the vibes in the other direction, and then they couldn't quite decide what they were actually voting on :facepalm. They finally settled on something like "we're not accepting the term sheet, but it's not a no, we need to go back to the table".

The frustrating thing is that no one would make counterarguments against Simitian or Sylvia Arenas. For example, the "market rate" thing. That land has been sitting there for years blighted. Now someone is offering to develop it for you to give you some income and in a way that will benefit the community. What else are you going to do with it? They said they're not going to sell public land, so what else are they going to do with it? Have someone build condos on it? Cindy Chavez kind of made this argument at the end - hey this land has been sitting there unused forever and we're paying $2M a year to "maintain" it, for it to generate $0 revenue? And now we have an opportunity to do something with it in a way that helps the community, but just...no?

And then the Fish hating stuff. All of those quotes Simitian read were in reference to Fish and the A's. Yes, he was awful for the A's, but as a partner to the city / county for the Quakes he's built the stadium, he runs an academy in the area, and now he's trying to further place a foothold in the area with the training center.

And then this idea that the project is going to somehow take money away from other county programs, well it's not making any money now! Unless you have plans to leverage the land for more profit, you'll have less revenue for those programs.

But no one was counterarguing! Shawlee and Mettee just kind of sat there. None of the other supervisors would counterargue and the whole thing just kind of fizzled into a "well we need to go back and renegotiate" kind of "resolution". The problem is that Cindy Chavez is leaving the state, and she's the main proponent of the project. Hopefully they can negotiate terms that the county likes better but Simitian was saying that they're not even remotely close to "market value". Jared did say that there was a "going rate" for playing field land rental based on some other sites in the Bay Area and the proposal was in line with that.

BTW the city of SJ also voted on the proposal and passed it 10-0.

 

It couldn't have been 10-1, because one of the councilmembers resigned and was arrested for alleged sex acts with a minor.

Let me follow with a long post to add color to yours.

 

Right - my mistake - 10-0.

 

I was super proud to be a Quakes fan today.

But one of our own on BigSoccer (wearing a US kit, not a Quakes kit) spoke against it, claiming that we should not line the pockets of a billionaire, and waiving a Fisher Out scarf. Really misguided stuff, for what purpose? To torpedo opportunities for youth to play recreational soccer?

As for the Supervisors, Chavez is brilliant, and her low-key, non-confrontational, deft approach to keep the project alive was exactly what was needed, because it was going down to defeat otherwise. Ellenberg was on Chavez's side, but the other three were against the project.

Otto Lee opposes turf fields; call him the Sierra Club supervisor. Arenas is not terribly bright. But Simitian was a disingenuous snake in the grass. Fortunately, he's termed out, just as is Chavez.

Simitian had three dishonest arguments:

(1) the Quakes are getting land at below-market; (2) there is minimal "public benefit"; and (3) Earthquakes, LLC / John Fisher is not a good faith deal partner who can be trusted.

In support of the below-market claim, Simitian said the Board has access to confidential appraisals that show the Fairgrounds land is worth $100 more than offered. Yet, he has no explanation why the County, which won't outright sell, has not had a better deal offered in the many decades they have tried to develop the property. An appraisal is not a substitute for real-life; things are worth only what someone is willing to pay. The land is effectively worthless to the County, and indeed is costing them $2 million per year to maintain in its blighted status.

As for "public benefit", he narrowly defined it as free field time for the community, even though nothing in life is free. The Quakes negotiated 250 hours per year of free time, but are charging $130/hour burdened in operating the public fields otherwise -- the same rate the City of San Jose charges. Because, guess what, maintaining fields costs money. The Quakes offered at the meeting to allow the County to maintain them, surface them with grass, and offer them for free, but that was a non-starter, not only because its not their core competency (Ellenberg's phraseology) but because you go broke that way. There is a massive public benefit to offering professionally managed fields when we have a dearth of them, and also to clean up the blight in the poorest neighborhood of the County.

Finally, there was the ad hominem against Fisher, which was really beyond the pale. Simitian admitted he doesn't know him, but he quoted sportswriters (including Kawakami) criticizing for moving the A's, and derived the idea that Fisher operates in bad faith. Flimsy accusation. But then Simitian broke the law by insinuating that Fisher acts in bad faith because the contributes to Republican candidates. It's illegal for public officials to discriminate on the basis of the political affiliation in public contracting, and he did so from the dais.

Fortunately, all five of them said they didn't want to derail the deal altogether, which suggests they know it's really the only option available for both the County and the community. Decades of doing nothing proves that. So, they'll tinker around the edges, negotiating in private, and either get a marginally better arrangement -- or the Quakes will simply walk away.

We now know why things have taken so long. It's not the dysfunctional Quakes. It's our dysfunctional elected leadership.

 

Thanks, that's a much better / more informative summary but more or less in line with how I saw it.

I think the bottom line for me is - yes, maybe it's not the perfect project, but do something! You're paying $2M a year for blighted land. There's an opportunity cost to rejecting a proposal, one that's clearly beneficial to the community, and just continuing to do nothing.

I think you meant $100M.

 

Narrow is right. He quantified the value of that "free field time" based on the paid field time cost. But what he left out in terms of community benefit is that it's fields available to play on that we are currently in dire need of. Not sure how you put a price on that, but that has to be included when you're talking about "public benefit". And it's not just fields anywhere, it's fields next to where the pro teams are training, and what's the $ benefit of that to the community. And helping secure a training facility for the Quakes further cements the Quakes residency in the community, which is also a public benefit. He purports to be worried that the team won't stay in SJ when the proposal actually further cements the team's roots in SJ.

 

Is it just me, or were the Quakes management woefully unprepared for the rather predictable objections? If I were going into any such forum - even if I was pretty confident the path was cleared - I would have had everything I needed in my back pocket. These guys are supposed to be professionals but it sounds like they played the game like a bunch of amateurs...

 

There were one-on-one meetings beforehand and the Quakes were as prepared as they could be. This was Chavez’s last meeting and she appears to have tried to expedite things beyond the usual course, as a result. Simitian’s behavior (as opposed to his opposition) was unheard of and could not have been predicted. He seems to have laid in wait to drop his stink bomb.

Anyone blaming the Quakes here is completely and totally off base.

 

I didn't blame them: I just said they were woefully unprepared and I stand by that. You, as an attorney should certainly understand the necessity to prepare for the unexpected as well as the expected. Apparently the Quakes management neglected to do so...

 

While I agree with you, I'm not sure the Quakes really had "floor time" other than answering questions. I was more disappointed with the board. They just let Simitian dominate the conversation once he had his turn, no one really rebutted his points, and he just kind of won out by force of having the louder, more adament voice.

I know that Don feels like Cindy Chavez more or less saved it from the trash bin, but their process to get to some kind of resolution just seemed really amatuerish. Just kind of everyone speaks, the loudest guy dominates with essentially no pushback, and then they craft some awkwardly worded ad hoc resolution that they voted on. It wound up going from "a plan" to "a plan for a plan". So, essentially, backwards. No wonder they haven't been able to do anything with that property for years. I've been in bad meetings before with unclear process and just "loudest guy sorta wins" and that seemed to be the case there.

BTW, there were Quakes people all over the place. As I looked around it was - "oh there's Shea, oh there's Danger, oh there's Cruz Medina, oh there's Beita, etc. I got in a little after the meeting started and grabbed what I thought was an open seat in the back, and then the guy next to me told me it was taken. I realized later that was Alex Covelo. If I would have known I might have said something like, "Yeah, well possession without purpose sucks!"

 

Although there were quite a few people (my guess is 15-20 of the ~75 speakers) arguing against using turf for the public fields, I was the lone dissenter who said to reject this deal.

Did any of you read the term sheet? But there were more details in the meeting, so let me put pertinent info here:

• A 25-55 year lease with 2.5% annual rent increase
• 14 acres for 4 public turf fields, with the City of SJ contributing $6M and the County transferring $7M of PG&E Rule 20A credits to SJ for undergrounding the street
• Supe Susan Ellenberg noted the terms were overwhelmingly favorable for the Quakes. She estimated the Quakes would earn $2M of annual field rental revenue, or $28-97M over 25 years. Jared said the annual revenue would only be $1.5M (mj note: At $130/hr = 11,534 hours, or 55 hours per field per week). 250 hours for disadvantaged use = 2.2% of total paid hours.
  
• Supe Otto Lee said 250 hours of public use was only 1 hour per day for 1 field.
  
• Elllenberg and Lee wanted bigger, significant benefit for the surrounding neighborhood.
• Jared Shawlee doesn't believe there is a way to maintain public grass fields and asked if SCC would pay for maintenance of public grass fields. Ellenberg would not support SCC paying for that, and why couldn't Quakes pay for it out of the rental revenue.
• Supe Joe Simitian had 2 questions so he confirmed that
  • Quakes estimated $18M cost to build 4 public fields plus City of SJ $6M (mj note - this = $6M per field)
  • The Quakes will charge a capital Improvement fee in addition to the $130/hr, to replace the turf every 10 years.
• Simitian would be a No vote today because
  • Based on private docs (e.g. appraisal) that cannot be revealed to the public until after the deal is finalized, the property is undervalued and should be $100M
    • 26 acres for $240k per year is not even in the ballpark
    • essentially a $100M giveaway
  • The public benefit is painfully minimal
    • Simitian said Jed Mettee had told him and his staff that the public fields would be available 14 hours per day x 365 days per year = 4,900 hrs. For 4 fields, that is 19,600 hours, so of that public benefit is < 1%.
    • (mj note - I don't know why the Quakes seem to have provided 2 completely different estimates of field use)
    • County provides 100% of the cost of the land. SJ puts in 1/3 cost of the public fields. But Quakes get 100% of the revenue for 25 years.
  • Not convinced the Quakes will be a good faith partner
    • John Fisher is the Principal Owner of the Quakes LLC. Simitian cited a lot of articles such as "History will sneer" and "Heartless short-sighted owner".
  • Simitian said this is the first time they've been able to talk about this deal in an open public session. There is a kernel of a good idea here and next year, he and Chavez won't be on the Board. Discussion should continue.
• Supe Sylvia Arenas cited problems with past baseball and turf fields built in her district(s). They both ended up being rented to outsiders and the local community did not get to use them. A turf field fell into total disrepair.
• Arenas wants to reconsider the training center and do 10 year lease without automatic extension
  • The County will have a $40M deficit next year. How is she protecting public funds? She doesn't want to see kids lose their benefits for a soccer field
• County Exec James Williams says these are all significant material issues the staff has already pushed on. Are the Quakes willing to re-engage.
  • There at least 10 issues remaining on the ground lease they have been negotiating since Apr-2024. They are also in the CEQA process.
• Supe Cindy Chavez agreed 25 year lease should be moved to 5-10-15 years.
  • The Fairgrounds cost the county $2M per year in capital improvements and there is not sufficient revenue to improve the site.
  • The Board has taken 25 votes on the Fairgrounds (I guess without any changes)
• Jared Shawlee said they have negotiated this project for 3 years. They asked for 50 year lease because of $50M for the facility. They don't need this deal, they can build at PPP.
• Chavez emphasized getting this done in time for use for the WC 2026. (mj note: overly optimistic)
• The final motion and vote was to have Quakes come back in closed session in Dec to discuss issues, and maybe the Board could have some kind of decision by Mar-2025.

Afterwards, I was approached by one of the environmentalist public commenters, who has been working with Supe Lee. She said that it can cost $13 or 18M (I forget the #) to remove a turf field. 10 year life for a heavily used turf field also seemed overly optimistic.

You can watch my 30-sec scarf-waving public comment at https:// youtu.be/iMBItSzfAvU?t=19121
i dont know why when i try to make this link, it only goes to the beginning of the video. You might have to take the extra space out of the link.

 

Funny that your bullet points missed the part where Simitian mentioned Fisher gave money to Republicans as an argument why Fisher was in bad faith.

Do you think that is an acceptable argument from a public official? Discrimination on the basis of political affiliation in California is as unlawful as discrimination on the basis of race or gender. How would you have felt if Simitian had said Fisher cannot be trusted because he likes to date Asian-American women? Because it's equally offensive under the law.
.
Hey, @bsman, should the Quakes have anticipated a loud mouth bigot on the Board of Supervisors?

 

A Quakes fan friend (not with the Quakes) sent me this after the meeting yesterday. Not sure it’s accurate, but Fisher reportedly gives much more to Democrats than to Republicans.

 

Sounds like the two most vocal supervisors on this issue are the ones who are leaving as their terms have expired, so it will interesting to see what the situation is with two new members.

 

I saw this on reddit. Interesting to see most of the owners giving to both parties... I suppose to gain influence for something. Also interesting to see Blank so in on the Democrats.

I also assume Fisher giving to Democrats is entirely about influence since Repubs have no control in CA. Can we ask him to redirect that 1M to the roster?

 

It wasn't in my notes because i didn't think it was significant. And I still don't.

How can you call Simitian a bigot? Afterwards he shook my hand and even remembered my name. That's no bigot to me. And he was certainly not a loud mouth, although a tad long-winded.

 

The other 3 were neither strongly for or against so the 2 new people will probably have to carry the torch, or not. I hope they appreciate the length of time that land has gone unused and how many failed proposals there have been.

 

I had never heard Joe Simitian before, but I was impressed that he was so prepared and was concerned about 2 of the issues that I had.

 

There were a few things that bothered me about his opinion. One is that he read source after source about what a bad owner Fish is. Now we all know he was a ghastly owner for the A's and he's not a great owner for the Quakes. But all those quotes were from articles about his ownership of the A's. For the Quakes, he's one of the two owners in the last 50 years or so who's brought a pro sports franchise to SJ and build a stadium for them. And now they're looking to further cement their footprint in the south bay for soccer, and he wants to reject that because he was a bad owner for another franchise in a different sport. It was disingenous for him to read all those "bad owner" quotes about Fish w/o context and w/o discussing his record of ownership for the Quakes.

I mean we complain that Fish is a bad owner for the Quakes because he doesn't invest enough in the team, and now he's looking to invest more in the team and we don't want to enable that because he hasn't invested enough in the team!? How's that for logic!?

 

He's on video. And if he suggested that Fisher is a bad faith actor because he donated to Democrats, you would be outraged, as you should be. If you cannot see the problem with what he said, you are blinded by your personal politics. At the very least it's a non sequitur.

And I'm not and have never been a Republican.

Even without the gratuitous partisanship, Simitian was out of line to suggest that Fisher is negotiating the soccer complex in bad faith. Negotiating a good deal for yourself is good business, not bad faith. Simitian was projecting. I lost any respect for him I once had.

Again, it's on video that MJ shared.