And appeals court ruling in a marijuana case may have changed the ground rules for full of the new San Diego Stadium plan. This comes as the chargers prepared to publish their own ballot initiative proposal to finance a downtown Stadium and convention center expansion Joining me is Scott Lewis Editor in chief of Voice of San Diego. Hi Scott. Hey how are you. I'm great. The article on the charges new proposal is based on sources close to the negotiations what are your sources saying is the crucial financing mechanism in the chargers plan? They want to raise hotel room taxes. Right now if you stay in a hotel in San Diego you pay 10.5% of your bill to the city and on top of that you pay 2% to the Levy called the tour of the marketing district which is currently being challenged in court. The idea is to eliminate that when raise the base tax 10.5% up to 16.5% and in the process replace that tourism marketing tax. No money out of this, San Diego city's general fund? Why all this money for the new Stadium and convention center and joint facility what we call the can Stadium will be coming from 5% of or 4% of that increase got four percentage points of the increase of the hotel room tax. Where would this new can Stadium be and what would it consist of It would be 225,000 square-foot convention center facility right there at tailgate Park near to pet go Park. It would hold up a Stadium next to it. The stadium itself will cost $1 billion of which discharges would pay about $650 million. The rest of the cost of the convention center part and for the co-mingled part, would be funded by this new tax. A lot of the angst about getting support for a new stadium has to do with getting over that two thirds voter approval necessary for new taxes..com new appeals court ruling could be a game changer, can you tell us about that? Yes it would change California not just this, it would be a gigantic deal of it holds that. Basically everywhere also build a stadium that needs public support they almost always some sort of tax correlate car-rental tax or hotel tax. In Arlington they raise hotel taxes to pay for the AT&T Stadium that the Cowboys plan. The reason they have not done that here is because of that two thirds requirement, in Arlington they can do it with a bare majority of voters and in San Diego they would two thirds of voters and that has always been seen as difficult. This court ruling is gigantic. Basically it says that yes, that two thirds requirement applies and the whole section of the Constitution applies only to government impose taxes, that is when city Council or the state says we want to raise taxes and you have to approve them or post them. This would mean their citizens got together and said we want to raise taxes they are not required to conform to that part of the California Constitution which would mean that any group that wants to raise taxes for a stadium or for whatever ostensibly now can do that by putting an initiative on the ballot and simply getting a bare majority which means that will have tremendous consequences for everyone and also across the state not to San Diego it's an amazing deal. It could certainly translated chargers proceed in getting their Stadium and Constadium idea approved. Absolutely. They basically told the city if you do not , or the mayor in the hotel industry, if you don't support the same we don't think it will pass a we will go I just work with the Cory breaks citizen plan. We will use that car we are prepared to support that. Now, if they only need the bare majority they may be able to pass a bare majority without the support of the mayor or with the tepid support of the male -- mayor and overcome opposition. That's the biggest deal that's why it's a significant. Two thirds you cannot have any organized opposition are will never pass. So this opens up the possibility that even if the hotel industry in the mayor do not get behind the chargers plan only provide tepid support or neutrality than they might be able to still proceed with this if they think they can only pass it with a bare majority. It is fascinating. It is incredibly impactful as a discussion. It will remain fascinating indeed. The chargers have to publish a ballot initiative by when? What they have a reverse timeline so if they want 60 days to collect signatures they need to start this whole process by Monday. The need to publish in the UT and then they would have 21 days before they could darken collecting signatures and they would have 60 days to do that. It will be our Easter surprise. I'm speaking with Scott Lewis with Voice of San Diego. Thank you. Thank you.
The San Diego Chargers are preparing to announce their own ballot initiative proposal to finance a downtown stadium and convention center expansion.
In a story published Tuesday night by Voice of San Diego, Editor-in-Chief Scott Lewis wrote that sources said the Chargers will propose a ballot measure to increase the hotel room tax from 10.5 percent to 16.5 percent to help pay for a new convention center and stadium.
"Two sources close to the talks provided the outlines of the deal and said the mayor and industry leaders balked at supporting the measure but have not officially decided to oppose it," Lewis wrote.
KPBS asked Chargers' spokesman Mark Fabiani to comment on the proposed stadium plan but he declined.
"We're not there yet, in terms of a final draft or the support we would need to move forward," Fabiani said in an email.
He said he is evaluating a recent appeals court decision that seems to imply that citizen-sponsored initiatives are not bound by the two-thirds rule for approving special tax increases.
