LOS ANGELES — The San Diego Chargers threw cold water on a joint proposal by San Diego and San Diego County aimed at keeping the National Football League team in the city.
San Diego leaders had unveiled a plan last week to go to voters on Dec. 15 with a proposal for public funding for a new stadium for the team.
"The Chargers have concluded that it is not possible to place a ballot measure before voters in December 2015 in a legally defensible manner given the requirements of the state's election law and the California Environmental Quality Act," Mark Fabiani, special counsel to the Chargers, said in a prepared statement June 16.
City leaders have floated and discarded several plans for a new Chargers stadium over more than a decade.
The Chargers and the Oakland Raiders decided to take matters into their own hands a few months back when they announced they would build a joint stadium in Carson, near Los Angeles.
"At the urging of the NFL, and the Chargers, we have presented the team with multiple legally defensible options that fully comply with state environment law and would conclude with a public vote this year on a new stadium," San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer said in a June 16 joint statement with City Attorney Jan Goldsmith and County Supervisor Ron Roberts. "In addition to these options, today we provided the Chargers a new proposal to complete a full environmental impact report by October in time for a January special election - addressing the legal concerns expressed by the team."
The state's foremost expert on the California Environmental Quality Act has validated each of the joint taskforce's proposals and "we ended today's negotiating session with the Chargers' representatives saying they would review these options and discuss them further in the coming days," Faulconer said. "We are still at the table."
The various options "explored with the City's experts all lead to the same result: Significant time-consuming litigation founded on multiple legal challenges, followed by a high risk of eventual defeat in the courts," Fabiani said.
The Chargers are committed to maintaining an open line of communication with the city's negotiators, Fabiani said "as we move through the summer and leading up to the special August meeting of National Football League owners."
