hawknation2015
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Funny Jed York story . . . not sure how I missed it. Jed apparently lobbied Santa Clara to pave over the town's youth soccer fields in order to create VIP parking lots for Levi's. The kids and parents went ballistic and made this hilarious youtube video that went viral on Facebook, featuring four young soccer players singing about “Jed the Millionaire" and becoming Seahawks fans to the tune of the old “Beverly Hillbillies” theme song.
[youtube]ALLc_No9pcg[/youtube]
[youtube]ALLc_No9pcg[/youtube]
The San Francisco 49ers got a big slap-down at the hands of the pint-sized players of the Santa Clara Youth Soccer League the other night, but it’s the team’s friends at City Hall who could be facing the political penalties for the botched play.
“It was not the Santa Clara way,” said Levi’s Stadium supporter and former Mayor Patricia Mahan, referring to the effort by the Niners and Mayor Jamie Matthews to turn the town’s youth soccer fields into VIP parking for the high rollers at the team’s new, $1 billion-plus playground.
Matthews and the 49ers had been shopping the plan around privately for weeks, and were hoping to push a deal across the goal line by next season that would have the team lease the fields from the city for $15 million over the next 39 years — plus a 20-year option.
Acquiring the 11 acres of fields adjacent to the stadium has been a goal of the 49ers for the past year. Initially, the team offered to rent the fields’ parking lot on game days. When the soccer league rejected that, Niners executives went to the city — which owns the land — with an offer of $15 million up front, plus $3 million to the local school district to build three new soccer fields so the kids could play there.
The parents took special pains to note that the November election campaigns of Matthews and Councilmen Dominic Caserta and Patrick Kolstad were handsomely financed by 49ers executives. That played into a larger feeling among critics that the council is overly friendly to developers in general.
Put it all together, and it added up to a council chambers filled beyond capacity Tuesday night with aggrieved young soccer players and their parents. It was a news event made to order for TV, which of course turned out in force.
http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/mati ... 223247.php