49ers moving out of San Francisco .. one step closer

(06-03) 01:34 PDT SANTA CLARA, CALIF. -- Santa Clara's City Council, after a marathon meeting, gave the green light just before 1:30 this morning to a proposal to build a $937 million stadium for the San Francisco 49ers in the South Bay city.

The council voted 5 to 2 to advance the deal, paving the way for it to go before voters in the spring.

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The council chamber, with a capacity of 150 people, was standing room only as the panel, for the first time, publicly discussed a deal that had been hammered out over a year and a half of negotiations to build the 49ers a new 68,500-seat home.

The crowd spilled out of the chamber and dozens of people filled an overflow room.

But by the time the council voted only a hearty few dozen remained.

The complex proposal, made public Friday, calls for the use of $79 million in public money, most of it from redevelopment funds that can only be used for specific types of projects. Another $35 million would come from a new tax on guests at eight nearby hotels. The rest of the money would come from the team, hoped-for NFL funding and the sale of naming rights, concession licenses and the like.

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San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, who hopes to have a new 49ers stadium as the centerpiece of a rebuilt neighborhood around the Hunters Point Shipyard, cautioned Santa Clara residents this week against approving the deal, saying the money could be better spent on projects like schools.

Newsom on Tuesday acknowledged that city-owned Candlestick Park, the team's current game-day home, is "a lousy stadium" and "in terrible disrepair," but he balked at the 49ers' demand that the city complete about $60 million in repairs without a pledge that they'll remain in San Francisco.

"I won't do it - (it's) subsidizing very wealthy people when we should be spending money on poor people," Newsom said. "I'm trying to make sure public housing residents have adequate heating this year. I'm less worried about billionaires getting their stadium. It's a literal trade-off - these are real dollars."