A long-standing dispute between the City of Santa Clara, Calif., and the San Francisco 49ers over policing and buffet costs at Levi's Stadium has been settled, but it's stadium goers who will wind up paying more.
As reported by The Silicon Valley Voice, part of the agreement that was codified Tuesday by the Santa Clara Stadium Authority Board saddles those attending non-NFL events at the stadium with double the fees, increasing them by an additional $4 a ticket.
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A long-standing dispute between the City of Santa Clara, Calif., and the San Francisco 49ers over policing and buffet costs at Levi's Stadium has been settled, but it's stadium goers who will wind up paying more.
As reported by The Silicon Valley Voice, part of the agreement that was codified Tuesday by the Santa Clara Stadium Authority Board saddles those attending non-NFL events at the stadium with double the fees, increasing them by an additional $4 a ticket.
"The contract dispute surrounded who should foot the bill for buffet and police costs," the Voice's David Alexander reported. "The agreement, released last week, takes a healthy bite out of how much money the Santa Clara Stadium Authority owes the team, reducing the total by $7.5 million."
Last week, the Board approved the settlement in a 5-2 vote, with Mayor Lisa Gillmor and Council Member Kathy Watanabe in opposition. Gillmor subsequently took to social media, calling the settlement a “loan-shark type deal.”
"Gillmor opposed the re-negotiation of the disputed police costs, saying the public is on the hook for too high a proportion of those costs.," Alexander wrote. "As she often does, Gillmor did not miss an opportunity to point fingers at her Council colleagues whose campaigns the 49ers’ PAC supported, intimating that such support was responsible for the settlement."
“These numbers should have been closer to what the actuals are … having the public subsidize [police costs] is not something I can support,” Gillmor said Tuesday. “I don’t want to settle things on our back.”
Vice Mayor Anthony Becker punched back, saying Gillmor is a “master of gaslighting.” He said Gillmor was responsible for bringing the stadium to Santa Clara but never bothered reading the agreements and is now calling foul on what those agreements say, according to Alexander's reporting.
Per Alexander:
City Manager Jovan Grogan estimated that the settlement will funnel $20 million into the City’s general fund over the next two years.
Even if the issues had gone to court, Grogan said, the City would have missed out on many things contained in the settlement. Among those were a cap on buffet costs, the increased ticket surcharge and the increase in youth and senior fees.
Grogan was also clear that the settlement does not alter the 49ers obligation to pay for police costs or the police department’s ability to determine how to keep the stadium safe.
“No matter how this issue ended, the Stadium Authority would owe StadCo, the 49ers, money,” said City Manager Jovan Grogan.
In addition to whittling how much the Stadium Authority owes the team to $14.8 million, the settlement also injects $7.1 million in performance rent into the City’s general fund. Further, the agreement ups the police-cost threshold — the amount the team pays for NFL games — increasing it by $108,000 per game.
Originally, the cap was set at $170,000 per game with a 4% annual increase. Even in the stadium’s first season, police costs exceeded thresholds by $75,514. Since then, costs have exceeded the threshold every year except for the 2020-21 season, which was hampered by the pandemic. Estimates for the 2023-24 season are $521,494 per game, $299,531 over the threshold.
“Costs exceeding the contractual threshold are reimbursed by the stadium authority through payments out of the authority’s discretionary fund or as credits against what would otherwise be StadCo’s facility rent obligation,” said City Attorney Glen Googins.
In a season with 10 home games, that means the City would be on the hook for roughly $3 million in police costs.
Police costs have ballooned in recent years. Last year, the City was taken aback to be on the hook for $100,000 in overtime police costs for a Christmas game at Levi’s Stadium. The 49ers had paid overtime costs for such games in previous years but declined to do so last year, much to the chagrin of Gillmor and Watanabe.
