San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer was scheduled to fly to New York on Tuesday, a day before his presentation to NFL team owners on the city's plan for a new Chargers stadium in Mission Valley.
Faulconer has about 45 minutes to speak to a joint meeting of the NFL's finance, stadium and Los Angeles committees at the league's headquarters in New York City. The committees represent about half of the 32 team owners. A vote by the owners early next year will determine which of the three NFL teams trying to move to L.A. will be allowed to relocate.
Civic leaders from St. Louis and Oakland, the two other cities trying to keep their NFL teams from leaving, are also scheduled to give presentations Wednesday. An NFL spokesman said in an e-mail that leaders from the Chargers, the St. Louis Rams and the Oakland Raiders will be present for their cities' respective presentations, though the teams themselves will not be presenting.
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Faulconer's presentation will include a question-and-answer period with team owners. He'll be joined on his trip by San Diego County Supervisor Ron Roberts, the city's chief stadium negotiator, Chris Melvin, and several consultants who worked on the Mission Valley stadium plan.
The mayor addressed the upcoming meeting at an unrelated event on Monday, saying the city has more momentum after Gov. Jerry Brown's decision to grant a fast-track environmental review of the Mission Valley stadium plan.
"There is no substitute for direct, face-to-face communication, and that’s what we’re going to do," Faulconer said. "We’re fighting for San Diego, and on Wednesday it’s our opportunity to take that message directly to the people that are going to be making that (relocation) decision."
Jim Lackritz, founder of San Diego State University's sports MBA program, said the mayor's presentation is his last chance to persuade owners that San Diego has a viable stadium plan and that the Chargers should stay in San Diego.
"He's got to give it his best shot, but I think that there's not going to be a lot that he's going to say at this meeting that they (NFL team owners) don't already know," he said.
The presentations Wednesday come two weeks after the NFL held town hall meetings in St. Louis, San Diego and Oakland on their teams' L.A. relocation ambitions.
The NFL in September withdrew a previous invitation to Faulconer to make his case at last month's team owners' meeting but said it would make arrangements for another meeting in the future. Faulconer went to New York anyway and instead met privately with several individual team owners.
Both San Diego and St. Louis have held meetings with NFL officials on their stadium proposals before, but Wednesday is the first time Oakland will have the same opportunity.
