49ers owner’s PAC backs four council candidates
$3 million earmarked to bring diversity; mayor calls the funds ‘obscene’
Four challengers for seats on the seven- member Santa Clara City Council have received a significant financial windfall in recent weeks from a political action committee funded by 49ers owner Jed York.
York has contributed $ 3 million to Citizens for Efficient Government and Full Voting Rights, a PAC whose stated mission is to bring diversity to the City Council. Even in a city known for its contentious politics, the tactic is stunning.
Santa Clara Mayor Lisa Gillmor has described the money as “obscene” and accused York of trying to buy seats on the council. The 49ers and the city have been at odds over many issues since joining forces in 2010 to build Levi’s Stadium.
“It would be unusual for a sports franchise owner or let’s just say any corporation or business to spend this kind of money even in a mayor’s race,” John Pelissero, the senior scholar at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, said Thursday. “Instead this has all the appearance of attempting to buy four city council seats just to improve the private interests of the 49ers.”
Pla nning commissioners A nthony Becker and Suds Jain and local activists Harbir Bhatia and Kevin Park are all backed by York and the Citizens PAC. Bahir and Park are running against incumbents Kathy Watanabe and Teresa O’Neil, respectively. Becker and Jain are running for open seats.
In an email sent to the 49ers in September, former con
gressman Mike Honda , representing the PAC, asked the team“to support our independent efforts to help qualified women a nd mi nor it y candidates have a fighting chance at representing their districts on the City Council.”
In Santa Clara, direct contributions to candidates is limited to $ 25,000. But there is no limit to contributions to the PAC, which has paid for expenditures such as mailers and television advertisements on behalf of its favored candidates.
York contributed $ 250,000 to the PAC on Sept. 30, about a month after Honda’s request for help. He added $800,000 on Oct. 1, $ 300,000 on Oct. 6, $ 950,000 on Oct. 13 and $600,000 on Monday.
“Jed York just added $ 600k for a new total of 3 million dollars to purchase his seats! Obscene!” Gillmor said Wednesday via Twitter.
The mayor also wrote: “Just say No to Jed York buying Council seats and controlling Santa Clara! No Yorkville.”
49ers spokesman Rahul Chandhok insisted that York’s motivation is to diversify the council. He said York believes “it necessary to make our support swift, open, and transparent.”
“Mayor Gillmor is once again supporting a slate of all White candidates while she spends millions of dollars in ta x payer money to upend voting rights to dilute minority representation,” Chandhok said..
Gillmor says the 49ers are using diversity as a cover for supporting council members who will vote with the franchise on various issues such as removing certain curfew restrictions at Levi’s Stadium.
“They’ re saying he’s supporting diversity on the council, but that’s simply not believable,” Gillmor said. “He is spending $ 3 million. But if you look, none of his TV commercials or mailers talk about diversity. None of them. He wants something for his investment which is lowering the rent on the stadium, having more late-night concerts, and maybe even going after our soccer park among other things.”
York’s efforts to shake up the City Council come 10 years after Santa Clara voted to support Measure J, which ultimately led to the construction of Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara and lured the 49ers away from San Francisco. All four candidates backed by York opposed Measure J in 2010.
One of the candidates, Park, emphasized the point during a news conference last week.
“I fought the 49ers, I fought the stadium, I fought the city proponents of the stadium for so long,” Park said. “It’s interesting to see that now we have some of those people supporting our campaigns. I’d like to point out, how bad can the relationship with the city be that the people that we opposed for almost a decade are now coming back to support us?”
In February, the council voted unanimously to end the agreement that allowed the 49ers to operate the stadium for home games and other NFL events. But the 49ers have remained in control of game day operations as the team and city are engaged in litigation to resolve the matter less than two weeks before the November election.
“A ll they have done is booked money- losing events which ha s contributed to the fact that the city was finding itself in a budget deficit,” said Watanabe, the District 1 incumbent. “My point is the stadium management agreement has been taken advantage of. They have been saying they’ve known how to run a stadium when they did not.”
In September, the city’s stadium authority board — comprised of Gillmor and the City Council members — unanimously approved filing an arbitration claim in a bid to get rent payments for Levi’s Stadium for September and October.
When the claim was filed, Ch and ho ks aid the 49ers intended to pay rent, which they did within a week.
A few weeks later, a PAC was created, and a handful of candidates in a city with fewer than 60,000 registered voters began receiving jaw-dropping financial support.