While taxpayers "have been left with a stack of bills"
from the Raiders stadium deal, the "full magnitude of team
owner Al Davis' sweetheart deal is only now coming to light
-- $70 million up front, with most of it tax-free, records
show," according to Matier & Ross in the S.F. CHRONICLE.
The payments to Davis from the City of Oakland and Alameda
County were disclosed in grand jury documents released
Wednesday that outlined the stadium deal. Of the $70M that
went to Davis, $54M was "in the form of two tax-free
'loans.'" One of the "loans" was a $32M payment to move the
team from L.A. to Oakland, and the other "optional-loan,"
was a $22M payment to "help Davis run the team." Neil
Goodhue, foreman of the Alameda County grand jury: "[T]he
thing that bothered us was that while they were presented to
the public as a loan, the fact is there is no way they were
going to be repaid." In return for the loans, Davis agreed
to give the city and county a share of PSLs, club seating
and stadium naming rights. The loans are to be repaid from
concessions and parking revenues. According to a source "who
helped put together the deal," the only way Davis would have
to pay taxes on the money was "if the city and the county
fell behind on parking and concession revenues and had to
forgive their own loans" (S.F. CHRONICLE, 4/25).
SEPARATE DEALS: In S.F., Glenn Dickey examines the
Raiders situation and the 49ers' pending stadium vote under
the header "Raider Deal Not Same as 49ers'." Dickey: "The
biggest difference ... is that the Raider deal was done to
bring a team back. The 49er deal is proposed to keep the
team here, and it's always much cheaper to keep a team than
to lure one from another city" (S.F. CHRONICLE, 4/25).
