Post by TheShadow on Mar 5, 2009 5:47:27 GMT -5
www.mercurynews.com
By Karen de Sá
Mercury News
Less than two weeks after wooing top officials from the San Francisco 49ers, Santa Clara County Supervisor George Shirakawa Jr. is continuing his quixotic quest to bring pro football to San Jose.
Shirakawa on Wednesday met with Amy Trask, chief executive of the Oakland Raiders, and team finance director Mark Badain in what Shirakawa has characterized as early-stage efforts to interest the Bay Area's two NFL teams in the county fairgrounds.
The 150-acre site off Tully Road presents the county's biggest chance to raise money for its suffering social-service programs. And Shirakawa — a burly longtime football player and coach — thinks a stadium could be a better bet than a currently stalled retail-housing development the county has spent years pursuing.
The Raiders and 49ers have been informally discussing sharing new digs in Santa Clara, where the Niners and city officials are hammering out a "term sheet" on how a stadium could be financed. The economic downturn and the skyrocketing cost of stadium construction has many observers wondering how any deal can get done at the site near the Great America theme park.
Those questions would appear to also apply to the fairgrounds site. But Shirakawa, who lives nearby and is a Raiders season-ticket holder, and Raiders officials both expressed great enthusiasm after Wednesday's meeting.
Yet Raiders officials have made clear that their priority at this point is to build a new stadium on the current Oakland Coliseum site.
By Karen de Sá
Mercury News
Less than two weeks after wooing top officials from the San Francisco 49ers, Santa Clara County Supervisor George Shirakawa Jr. is continuing his quixotic quest to bring pro football to San Jose.
Shirakawa on Wednesday met with Amy Trask, chief executive of the Oakland Raiders, and team finance director Mark Badain in what Shirakawa has characterized as early-stage efforts to interest the Bay Area's two NFL teams in the county fairgrounds.
The 150-acre site off Tully Road presents the county's biggest chance to raise money for its suffering social-service programs. And Shirakawa — a burly longtime football player and coach — thinks a stadium could be a better bet than a currently stalled retail-housing development the county has spent years pursuing.
The Raiders and 49ers have been informally discussing sharing new digs in Santa Clara, where the Niners and city officials are hammering out a "term sheet" on how a stadium could be financed. The economic downturn and the skyrocketing cost of stadium construction has many observers wondering how any deal can get done at the site near the Great America theme park.
Those questions would appear to also apply to the fairgrounds site. But Shirakawa, who lives nearby and is a Raiders season-ticket holder, and Raiders officials both expressed great enthusiasm after Wednesday's meeting.
Yet Raiders officials have made clear that their priority at this point is to build a new stadium on the current Oakland Coliseum site.