As CalWatchdog reported earlier this week, the San Diego Chargers are much closer to moving to Los Angeles, having gotten the formal blessing of team owners at a meeting in Irving, Texas, to leave if they choose by the Jan. 15 deadline the NFL established a year ago. But the situation in Oakland with the Raiders seems cloudier — at least in California media, as opposed to websites that specialize in the NFL.

With the Raiders, the seeming good news for fans who want the team to stay starts with the fact that the Oakland City Council and the Alameda County Board of Supervisors appear enthusiastic about working with Fortress Investment Group, which is led by NFL Hall of Famer Ronnie Lott and billionaire investor Wes Edens, on a stadium plan. On Bay Area talk radio, supporters of the plan have dropped hints of having deep-pocket supporters who might come forward to minimize how much taxpayers would have to pay for the billion-dollar-plus new stadium the Raiders and the NFL want.

NFL officials who have criticized San Diego officials for their response to the Chargers’ stadium needs are offering praise for what’s happening in Oakland.

ESPN reported this week that the league told Oakland’s leaders to not worry about the threat the team would leave even though Nevada state leaders have committed to provide $750 million in public funds for a $1.9 billion NFL stadium in Las Vegas. The team would only have to pay $500 million toward the stadium, with the rest of the tab largely picked up by Las Vegas Sands chairman and CEO Sheldon Adelson. One of the world’s richest persons, Adelson hopes to end up a minority or majority owner of the team.

The implication of the remarks by NFL executive Eric Grubman to ESPN is that the league very much wants the Raiders to stay in Oakland even if a better deal is available in Las Vegas. When allowed to comment anonymously, officials with other NFL teams have said that the league should be wary of having a team in the city that is the capital of American sports gambling.

Raiders may sue to leave if NFL owners say no

But optimism about Oakland keeping its team is less apparent on Pro Football Talk, a niche website now affiliated with NBC Sports that has broken dozens of stories in recent years because of its network of NFL insider sources. Site founder Mike Florio wrote this week that Adelson and Raiders owner Mark Davis were struggling to finalize a deal that would bring the team to Las Vegas.

But Florio has long depicted the Raiders’ exit as close to a done deal. On Nov. 22, he reported that Davis would sue the NFL to allow his team to move to Las Vegas if he could not get the support of three-quarters of the league’s 32 owners to relocate his team, as NFL bylaws require.

Davis’ father, NFL Hall of Famer Al Davis, successfully sued the league after it sought to block him from moving the team from Oakland to Los Angeles, where it played from 1982 to 1994 before moving back to Oakland.

Florio has interviewed Mark Davis dozens of times off the record. While he honors the rules and doesn’t quote Davis directly, the impression his coverage always gives is that the Raiders owner sees becoming the first major pro sports franchise to set up shop in Las Vegas — a tourist-centered metropolitan area with 2.1 million residents — as akin to a no-brainer.

Many reporters have also made the obvious point that the Raiders’ image as edgy, unconventional outsiders conforms with Las Vegas’ image.

Florio believes a final decision will be made by September.

In San Diego, Mayor Kevin Faulconer has declared his strong support for keeping the Chargers in place and urged the NFL to not let the team leave for a proposed stadium in Carson that owner Dean Spanos hopes to jointly build and operate with Raiders owner Mark Davis. Even as Faulconer faces withering criticism from team stadium point man Mark Fabiani, the first-term Republican says he’s ready to ask voters if they support contributing hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer funds toward a billion-dollar-plus stadium.

In St. Louis, both Mayor Francis Slay and Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon have offered strong support for a new stadium, mostly paid for with taxpayer dollars, to either keep the Rams or to attract a new NFL team in case team owner Stan Kroenke succeeds with his bid to relocate the Rams to Inglewood.

But in Oakland, Mayor Libby Schaaf has not only strongly opposed the use of public funds for a stadium, she’s called the team stadium saga a “distraction.” Schaaf also hasn’t borrowed from the playbook of previous mayors who tried to keep their pro sports teams by using what might be called the guilt-trip approach — telling NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and other team owners of what an assault on decency it would be to allow the Raiders to leave, given their ardent and devoted fan base. Unlike Missouri and San Diego officials, who have met repeatedly with Goodell and a handful of influential team owners, Oakland’s elected leaders have done almost no direct lobbying of key NFL players.

Touting team’s ‘die-hard regional fan base’

Next week, however, that’s going to change. This is from the Bay Area News Group’s report in the Contra-Costa Times:

OAKLAND — City officials working to keep the Raiders in Oakland will travel to New York next week to give a presentation to the NFL about their funding plan for a new stadium.

 

Officials from cities in St. Louis and San Diego, the other two cities with professional football franchises threatening to leave for Southern California, will also be making their pitch to the NFL.

 

Mayor Libby Schaaf confirmed she will attend Wednesday’s meeting with the NFL’s Los Angeles stadium and finance committee. …

 

“We’ll show how everything from Oakland’s growing economic momentum and urban vitality to the team’s die-hard regional fan base make it clear that there is no better time for a major league team to be located in, or associated with Oakland,” Schaaf said in a statement.

A serious effort or a PR ploy?

But given that Schaaf hasn’t budged on her stand against public financing and continues to call Oakland’s crime rate and weak economy far bigger issues, her trip to New York is seen by many Raiders fans as a public-relations gambit, not a serious bid to urge the NFL to remain a presence in Oakland.

This view was underscored by ESPN’s John Clayton, one of the best-connected NFL reporters, who wrote Tuesday that the league didn’t take Oakland seriously:

As for Oakland, there is no there, there. The area doesn’t have a stadium offer on the table, and time is running out.

 

“We’ve said one thing consistently to any of the markets that have been engaged in trying to put forth a proposal, and it really rests on a couple of pillars,” said Eric Grubman, who is coordinating the league’s Los Angeles project. “One of them is that a proposal has to be specific. The second is that it has to be attractive to a team. The third is it has to be actionable. And so what actionable means is it can’t just be an idea to the extent that there is enabling legislation or enabling financing activities or there are litigation threats or anything of that nature — anything that needs to be assembled in a time frame where a club can act on it.

 

“Thus far, those sorts of tests have not been made in Oakland, so as of yet, there is no proposal for the Raiders to consider.”

By JOHN SEILER

As fast as was the business exodus from California last year, it’s even faster in 2011. The new Pharaoh, Jerry Brown, also is not relenting in his oppressions of business.

According to the latest update from Business Relocation Coach Joseph Vranich:

California is experiencing the fastest rate of of companies relocating to out-of-state or out-of-country locations since a specialized tracking system was put into place two years ago. The disturbing trend is reflected in a review of activity from Jan. 1 through April 12 of this year when 69 California company disinvestment events occurred, an average of 4.7 per week — greater than the 3.9 average per week last year….

Unfortunately, the stage is set for California to lose additional companies, capital and jobs in the future. That’s because the business environment worsened yesterday when Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law a requirement that utilities obtain one-third of the state’s electricity from renewable sources. California companies, which already pay 50% more for electricity than companies in other states, can expect costs to increase by another 20% or so.

Another factor is the continuing imposition of AB 32, the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006. Backers, such as then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, said it would rejuvenate the state by creating new high-tech jobs. Critics said it would kill a million jobs. Looks like the critics are being proven right — assuming the critics haven’t left the state.

Vranich writes:

Such new burdens along with upcoming regulations stemming from the “California Global Warming Solutions Act” set potentially overwhelming obstacles to companies here as they try to meet competition based in other states and in foreign nations.

Top Ten Reasons for Leaving

Vranich also has updated his “Top Ten Reasons Why California Companies Are Calling the Moving Companies©.” Click on the link to see the full list. Here are a some of them:

The #10 Reason (New!) – Unprecedented Energy Costs: The California Manufacturers and Technology Association states that commercial electrical rates here already are 50% higher than in the rest of the country. However, a law enacted in April 12, 2011 requires utilities to get one-third of their power from renewable sources (e.g., solar panels, windmills) within nine years. Look for costs to increase by another 19% in many places to a whopping 74% in Los Angeles….

#9 – Severe Tax Treatment: The Tax Foundation in their 2011 State Business Tax Climate Index lists California at No. 49 for tax fairness. CFO Magazine ranked California the worst state for tax treatment. The Council on State Taxation ranks California as the only state to receive a D- grade (the lowest grade)….

#8 – Worst Regulatory Burden: The consulting firm Bain & Co. constructed a “regulatory hassle index” that found “California is far worse than any other state by a very significant margin.” The finding was echoed by Development Counselors International that found that 72% of surveyed corporate executives listed California as having the “worst business climate” in the entire United States. The newest survey, released in March 2011, found that 87.7% of California executives who also operate in several states say California is a harder place to do business than anywhere else….

#7 – Dreadful Legal Treatment: The Civil Justice Association of California said the state ranks 44th in legal fairness to business. Los Angeles was again named the least fair and reasonable litigation environment in the entire country.

#6 – Most Expensive Business Locations: The Rose Institute of State and Local Government reported in its 2010 survey that California cities continue to be some of the most expensive locations to do business in the United States….

#1 – The ‘Outpouring’ of Poor Rankings Continues: California ranked dead last in the latest Pollina Corporate Top 10 Pro-Business States for 2010 study. The finding was based on a composite of labor-related factors, business and personal taxes, the litigation environment, demographics, crime rates, school dropout rates, lifestyle and a multitude of other issues. There is little evidence that California’s business environment will improve considering that that the legislature in 2011 has voted down litigation reform, tax-increase plans are underway, and a host of new regulations are to be implemented that will increase costs for literally every business.

Unhappy California Campers

Vranich concluded:

When I speak with business clients I see that the cumulative impact of all this results in unhappiness. I wasn’t surprised when I saw LiveScience.com in 2010 report that California ranks 46th on a national “Happiness” list. The political culture — impacted by a radicalized, powerful, anti-business interest groups — causes many problems for those in California who attempt to attract and retain businesses.

And writing today on Fox & Hounds, Vranich explained how employees are begging their companies to exit the California Egypt:

Some time ago a decision-maker told me he had evaluated the benefits of moving his department out of Los Angeles. He said: “When I discovered how substantial the savings would be, I quipped in front of my staff, ‘We should move to Texas.’ I was surprised by what happened next – people approached me one by one, came in my office, closed the door, and asked that we move to Texas. Once I saw the employee reactions, I’d like for the relocation to occur.”

Last business left in California, please turn out the windmill-powered lights.