Santa Clara City Council members Tuesday "voted to create a stadium authority, vesting themselves with powers to make financial and legal decisions on the planned San Francisco 49ers football stadium near the Great America theme park," according to Lisa Fernandez of the SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS. The council also "took steps to make clear that its redevelopment agency has long been working on the stadium project in a concerted effort to stave off Gov. Jerry Brown's desire to dismantle redevelopment agencies and funnel that money instead to counties and schools." Santa Clara Acting Assistant City Manager Carol McCarthy said that the newly formed Santa Clara Stadium Authority later "met to conduct its first two orders of business: They certified an environmental impact report on the stadium, and they signed a 'cooperation agreement' to 'confirm these projects in writing to illustrate to the state our commitment and funding' for the project has been under way for four years." McCarthy said that the stadium authority is "not yet ready to send out bills to the team, but it is still accruing expenses that the 49ers are expected to pay." That sum is "roughly $650,000 for about 7,650 hours of work" since '08 (SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS, 2/24).
