Three San Francisco Supervisors held a press conference yesterday reiterating their anger with the deal city officials struck with the Super Bowl Host Committee that is expected to leave SF taxpayers a bill of almost $5 million. Not content to merely complain, however, they intend to introduce legislation seeking to force City Hall to renegotiate. But time is running out as the big game fast approaches, and San Francisco city officials have displayed a serious failure of clock-management.
Supervisors John Avalos, Jane Kim, and Aaron Peskin really want to make it clear — like, crystal clear — that the signed commitments made by Fire, Police, and Emergency Management Departments "to not seek reimbursement from the NFL for providing any additional public safety services" are bullshit, especially in light of commitments made by the NFL to reimburse costs incurred by Santa Clara, and that the supervisors expect the NFL to pay up.
“Next week my colleagues and I will be introducing an emergency resolution asking The City to get fully recouped for the costs of the Super Bowl,” the Examiner reports Kim as saying. “Santa Clara got the Super Bowl. San Francisco’s getting the traffic and the gridlock.”
“It is not too late for the NFL, which is a $9 billion a year organization, to throw down a little bit of money to San Francisco,” the paper reports Peskin as saying. Avalos, for his part, expressed concern at how the deal went down in the first place.
“[The deal] was made in the back room of room 200, the mayor’s office, with the NFL at the expense of taxpayers and the inconvenience of residents here in San Francisco, including the merchants who are with us today.”
Supervisor Avolos was referring to the merchants and artists who are soon to be displaced by Super Bowl City, as Justin Herman Plaza and the surrounding area will be off limits for three weeks to the artists who normally set up shop there. One of those artists, Michael X. Trachiotis, told ABC 7 that he thinks the forced closure could put him out of business.
"I might lose my business, frankly," said Trachiotis.
(Sidebar: Does everyone remember when it was just a "fan village?" When did this thing graduate to Super Bowl "city" status?)
All of this falls on the heels of last Friday's report from the independent office of the Budget and Legislative Analyst that took city officials to task for massively bungling negotiations with the Super Bowl Host Committee.
The Examiner reached out to both the Mayor's office and the Host Committee and asked if either would renegotiate the deal. Unsurprisingly, the paper reports that "[neither] answered the question directly, but [both] defended the current arrangement."
Supervisor Kim's resolution is to be introduced next Tuesday. Oh, and by the way, it's non-binding.
Previously: Santa Clara Getting $4 Million To Cover Super Bowl Costs, SF Gets Zero