Commentary:
By Raoul Lowery Contreras

Mayor Kevin Faulconer declared the formation of a task force on Friday, January 30th tasked with creating a new stadium plan by the end of the year. Faulconer, who was elected by a broad coalition of voters including many Hispanics, had pledged to keep the San Diego Chargers in San Diego.

From the Hispanic View, however, he flunked the test of appointing a group that represents the San Diego citizenry. He apparently forgot that one third of the county and over 40 percent of the city is Hispanic and as mentioned, he was elected with substantial Hispanic support on Election Day.

One would have wished for a more comprehensive and detailed plan. But he didn’t.

First, do we need a new stadium or can the present Qualcomm Stadium suffice for the Chargers, San Diego State University and myriad other events including international soccer matches and two football bowl games?

The stadium was constructed in 1966-67. It was 30% smaller than today. The Chargers generally draw full houses while San Diego State used to draw 50,000 plus. SDSU has fallen in attendance but that isn’t the fault of the stadium, it is the fault of less than successful teams. Nonetheless, both teams have consistently drawn in excess of 75,000 a weekend.

Structurally, engineers, public and private, have declared the stadium to be obsolete and un-repairable. One only need attend a game during rain to observe the many structural problems. Let us assume that the engineers are right.

Secondly, if a stadium is to be built should it be paid for by taxpayers only or a combination of public and private funding or private money only?

All public money is out of the question. All private money is probably out because the market doesn’t allow for all private money as it did in Texas. We are left with a public/private partnership.

We must first discuss why there should be any public money at all.

Public money is supposed to be spent for the public good. How does the public benefit from a new NFL stadium in San Diego? Question, does a stadium create jobs? Yes. Two or three thousand construction jobs and several thousand more jobs would support new construction.

After construction, directly and indirectly, thousands of jobs in food service, maintenance, grounds keeping, ushers, security agents and players/managements will work for years — some full time and many part-time. Over a period of 50 years (that is how long the Chargers have been in San Diego) the collective payrolls would amount to several hundreds of millions of dollars if not a billion or more.

Who benefits from a public/private stadium partnership?

Critics bemoan subsidizing “billionaire” owners and “millionaire” players. The same critics fully support public subsidies of KPBS television that costs taxpayers millions as does KPBS radio, millions that could be spent at SDSU on lowering tuitions or for scholarships for low-income students.

The same critics defend city support of the Zoo which is on free city land and receives tax money; the same for Safari Park. A side note: Despite huge attendance to the Zoo from busloads of Tijuana children every year, it took 30 years before the City put up a sign on Interstate 5 directing traffic coming north to the Zoo. The Old Globe Theater is subsidized by the city to make up deficits of admissions and private donations.

Does a new stadium add to our local Gross Domestic Product (GDP)?

Yes. Assuming a minimum of 2,000 construction workers at union wages of better than $25 an hour multiplied by 40 hour work weeks for two or three years, we find a minimum of 80,000 man-hours totaling $2 million a week or a hundred million-dollars-a-year.

Add in the 30% of Charger season ticket holders who come from out of county and people who come here on vacation to specifically attend football that they don’t have at home — add to them all the people in San Diego who can’t afford a game ticket but stay home and watch the team on television. With better than 2 million TV sets in the county of which as many as 50% tune in Charger games, we now have millions of people who benefit from games.

The city’s job is to provide good government and publicly financed facilities to as many people as possible.

As thousands of people will be or are employed by a working stadium and its tenants, and as well over a million San Diego people attend or watch each game and as millions around the world are exposed to San Diego’s visitor attributes and they come and spend money, the city should participate with the Chargers and the NFL to build a new stadium. While at it they should build it to complement and aid in the profitable convention business we are experiencing and want to grow.

Contreras is a long time San Diego resident who writes for Fox News Latino and Washington D.C.’s The Hill