The after-shocks of the announcement on Friday that the 49ers were thinking of heading south continue to reverberate. Niners fans in the city are pissed, the Olympics in 2016 movement are stunned, Diane Feinstein and Nancy Pelosi stopped celebrating to pitch in, and Gavin and John York are throwing spitballs at each other. It's gotten so bad, John's wife, Denise DeBartolo, had to ride in and come to her hubby's rescue.
So where are we now?
According to Gavin's people, York is a clueless and shifty two-timer who blind-sided everybody by pulling the move to Santa Clara out of his ass. According to York's people, Gavin is a gutless and unreliable politico who never returns phone calls because he's too busy trumping around the world with his girl toys. Well, they didn't say that last little bit but somebody would. So DiFi, with a little help from Nancy, called both York and Gavin into her office to try and get those two crazy kids to start talking again. Which is what's happening.
Still to be answered fully is just what in the Wide Wide World of Sports is going on. After all, Santa Clara wasn't even notified that this was all happening when it was happening. So, either York is pulling some sort of move to get Gavin's attention again (this is all part of the new stadium dance) or he's got other, ulterior ideas, like moving them far more south than Santa Clara. Or maybe York is really just an idiot. Maybe a combination of both.
York's non-Gavin related complaint seems to be the entire plan that's being discussed. The main reason is over infrastructure and construction plans. Besides it being a lot more expensive to do all the construction that was being planned out, York's complaint was over the idea of putting up a new parking garage in the stadium. He felt that a parking garage would cause more traffic jams and hurt tail gaiting. Unlike baseball, size matters in it's parks. He even sent people out to Germany to check out a soccer stadium that has a parking garage outside to see how well it works there but didn't come away happy. He was also, apparently, not thrilled with the idea of Candlestick being beset by construction cranes for the next eight years.
One more thing-- in typical cities, it's a huge political deal if a team moves away. It's still a political issue in Ohio almost ten years from the Browns moving away. Certainly this looks somewhat bad for Gavin as he's caught unawares again but our hunch is that it's not going to be really that big of a deal. This isn't Cleveland (we'll spare the usual snide comments about the City by the Lake as we lived there once) and as our commenters keep on pointing out, it's not really that big of a sports town. Basically, we just don't see Gavin during his re-election being hammered by Insert Big Named Progressive Messiah Here for losing a football team. Do you really see Mirkirami or Daly going after him for that? He'd probably get hammered more for actually doing something to save keep them here.
But, on the other hand, between this and the A's moving, it's just one more proof that the Big Cities just can't do anything anymore.
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Do we really need the 49er's? They are ready to abandon us. Why not abandon them? Just tear down the stick and make housing to replace the Alice Griffin hosing projects, then replace the Oakdale housing project on that site. and keep going with Nothridge on to Portrero. This way no one is displace and our city gets better affordable housing.
BULL mother Fing Fk bitch
The City’s residents need to feel safe on the streets and in their neighborhoods. The City needs a mayor that has the trust of his police officers. Most importantly, The City needs a mayor with the passion and stamina to address escalating crime in San Francisco. But Mayor Newsom recently told a TV audience that there are days he lacks the passion and intensity for the job. In the same interview, he said he “doesn’t need the job” and expressed doubt if he wanted to be mayor for a second term. He said there are 50 other people who could do the job. If so, for the sake of The City, the mayor should step aside — or face the reality in the streets.
Arthur Bruzzone is a San Francisco political commentator and hosts the TV series “San Francisco/unscripted.”