Posted on 12/26/2007 7:49:21 AM PST by SmithL
With a key vote upcoming at the Santa Clara City Council on whether to help build a new stadium for the 49ers, San Francisco city officials say a new infusion of federal cash is giving a big lift to their alternative plans to keep the team playing in the city at a new stadium at the Hunters Point shipyard.
A federal appropriations bill headed to President Bush to fund the U.S. military for the fiscal year starting next Oct. 1 contains $82 million for Navy cleanup of the polluted former naval shipyard at Hunters Point - a $20 million increase over what the government has committed annually over the past several years, according to Michael Cohen, who is Mayor Gavin Newsom's manager on the project.
"The only thing that could have gotten in the way of us staying on schedule was the money issue, and now the money issue has been solved," Cohen said of the appropriations bill, which the president is expected to sign in the coming days.
Keeping on schedule is vital to the Newsom administration because the 49ers have said they need to be in a new stadium by the 2012 season - and the need to meet that deadline is one reason that the team has given for trying to strike a stadium deal with Santa Clara on city land used as parking lots for Great America amusement park.
In February, Newsom's office pushed the Navy to transfer ownership of the shipyard to the city, believing the move would allow for an accelerated cleanup of toxic waste from 70-plus acres at the shipyard that the city and developer Lennar Corp. of Miami are eyeing for a new stadium and parking.
However, team co-owner John York has said he doubted the land could be clean enough...
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Dianne Feinstein, bringing home the pork?
49’ers moving?.....
The Hunter’s Point spot is crap. There is no access, the site is polluted (and will still be after cleanup) and the entire mess is still within the San Francisco city limits which means it’s a liberal nightmare.
On top of that the entire area, including the current park, is about the highest crime area in the bay, second only to Oakland.
The 49ers will almost certainly move to Santa Clara, even if they have to buy an amusement park to git ‘er done. SF should have been off the table years ago.
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