49ers Move Will Hurt San Francisco Parks
SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS) - Millions of dollars that maintain parks all over San Francisco will vanish when the 49ers head to Santa Clara in 2014, and city officials said they are worried about how to fill that gaping hole in the budget.
"As a city, we're actually going to have to have a serious conversation about how to solve for that when, eventually, they stop playing football games at Candlestick," said Phil Ginsberg, executive director of the Recreation and Parks Department.
KCBS' Barbara Taylor Reports:
The 49ers lease at Candlestick Park brought in $10 million this year, about $2 million more than usual because the team had a good season that ended with the National Football Conference Championship.
"This year has been significantly better than prior years simply because they sell more tickets, they sell more hot dogs and because they had a couple of extra games," Ginsberg said.
The winning season meant no layoffs or program cuts this year for a department with a $115 million budget.
Stadium revenue typically brings in $6 million to $8 million that Ginsberg said "helps us keep gardeners in our parks and custodians in our rest rooms."
The city will also stop pocketing several million dollars of stadium admission tax on home games.
A study released in 2007 by the 49ers estimated the new football stadium near the Great America theme park would bring hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue to the South Bay.
The $1 billion project means hundreds of temporary construction jobs, and perhaps 1,000 permanent jobs once finished, although economists said it's unclear exactly how much money the stadium will bring to Santa Clara itself.
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