Milestones
By Miles H. Barber

The San Francisco 49ers are receiving more love and appreciation from the City of Santa Clara than they have received from San Francisco in more than a decade.

After years of broken promises from the politicians of San Francisco, Santa Clara has welcomed the 49ers with open arms and by lending a financial hand.

Most important is the voter approved creation of the Stadium Authority that will allow the City to issue construction bonds to assist in financing the billion dollar project.

You may have been following some of the drama recently created by the media regarding this very issue, the huge amount of debt in funding the stadium.

Frankly, this is not really new news. The recent criticism by the press that the project has grown to over a billion dollars is not inconsistent with any building project between the time plans are drawn and ground is broken.

Take a look at the voter approved high speed rail passed a few years ago. That project has tripled in price and may be scrapped altogether.

The Santa Clara Stadium project has increased about 10% primarily due to enhancements in the project to create an even better game experience for fans.

Isn’t it a bit humorous that our neighbors are concerned about our proposed debt on the stadium without really thinking it through?

The annual mortgage payments on the stadium would be equivalent to the salary of one NFL super star. There is not much being said about that.

Santa Clara is not unaccustomed to billion dollar debt. Our own power company, Silicon Valley Power has served Santa Clara for over 100 years. While SVP has accumulated significant billion dollar debt, building infrastructure and generation plants, it generates millions annually for our City. Our citizens are also the benefactors of utility rates that are among the lowest in California.

Our new stadium will be a beneficial contributor to Santa Clara’s future financial stability rather than being a drag on our City budget.

During the construction phase, that will begin sooner than expected, more than 2000 construction jobs will be created.

Upon completion, hundreds of full time jobs will be added in addition to the thousands of part-time jobs related to stadium events.

The ancillary service providers to the Stadium and fans will also be beneficiaries of this tremendous economic engine.

When you experience the activity surrounding an NFL event just consider the hotels, restaurants, bars, limos, taxis, parking lots (City ticket tax) and related vendors who benefit from game day.

We are fortunate to be living in these times and bearing witness to the living example of a working partnership between the public and private sector that will benefit both.

What Santa Clara and the 49ers are doing is what the folks in Washington D.C. wish they could do; actually create a project that produces revenue and jobs.

Miles Barber can be reached at Scweekly2011@yahoo.com