SANTA CLARA — The city of Santa Clara is seeking to end their management agreement with the San Francisco 49ers for managing and operating non-football events at Levis Stadium, citing several lawsuits initiated by the team, more than $85,000 in wages that contract workers werent correctly paid, and an inability to monitor or audit stadium spending because the team wont hand over key documents.
The city council Tuesday voted 6-0, with council member Patricia Mahan absent from the meeting, to initiate legal proceedings to terminate the teams management agreement. That action would not affect National Football League activities, said city attorney Brian Doyle.
“We have hit rock bottom and we have nothing to lose” by ending the agreement, Doyle said at a council meeting Tuesday evening.
Doyle cited several lawsuits initiated by the 49ers against the city and said the teams poor financial performance for non-NFL events means the citys general fund has not received additional performance rent over the past two fiscal years.
“It results from booking money-losing events that have no economic value to the city,” said Doyle. “It appears they are booking those events where public entities will lose revenue because the 49ers will make money anyway.”
The 49ers have a lease to manage and operate Levis Stadium, which was funded in part by taxpayer-funded construction loans and is located on city-owned property. In addition to playing football at the stadium, the 49ers manage the stadium year-round and are responsible for generating shared revenue through concerts and other events.
The action comes just a week after the 49ers released two letters from production staff for the Rolling Stones, who blasted the city for driving away event bookings with “restrictive and dysfunctional” rules at Levis Stadium.
A spokesman for the 49ers called the councils actions retaliation for releasing the letters.
“After City Manager [Deanna] Santanas dysfunction with respect to stadium events was exposed, she has chosen to spiral even further,” said 49ers spokesman Rahul Chandhok in a statement. “Her actions are purely retaliatory, and we are not surprised that she has commenced yet another legal battle. She is abdicating her fiduciary duty by destroying a city asset for petty, political vendettas.”
The council, which oversees the stadium as a separate board known as the Stadium Authority, also voted Tuesday to strip the city manager — and in effect, the 49ers — of the authority to spend on stadium operations and maintenance without first getting approval from the city board.
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