By Tom Temprano
San Francisco is inarguably a baseball and football town. As a basketball fan (albeit also a Giants and Niners guy), I get it but pine for nothing more than the NBA playoffs. Finally, they’re here — and our Warriors are firing on all cylinders.
Unfortunately, cheer as I have for the Warriors this season, in the back of my mind I couldn’t help but remember that they were putting on a full-court political press to build a new stadium, and lots of luxury condos, right smack dab in the middle of our gorgeous waterfront.
Fortunately, the Warriors removed the waterfront hindrance to my delighted playoff cheers when they announced earlier this week that they had bought land from Salesforce in Mission Bay on which to build an arena and would do so using three words you NEVER hear coming from a pro sports team: NO PUBLIC FINANCING.
That’s right folks, as it’s being presented, this stadium would require zero public financing and use zero square feet of scarce publicly owned land. The crazy thing about this proposal, which shouldn’t be so crazy given that what’s being proposed is a privately owned building housing a privately owned (albeit publicly delightful) basketball team, is that according to numerous media reports this would be a first of it’s kind happening. Crazy, huh?
Not so crazy if you remember the 49ers spurning us for a cushy $114 million from Santa Clara’s coffers. Or if you heard about Miami committing what will ultimately be $2.4 billion(!!!) over the next 40 years to help the Marlins build a stadium. But crazy nonetheless. So crazy that only a couple days later sports writers in Milwaukee, where they’re dealing with their own stadium drama, have already cited the plan as “The San Francisco Model.”Ultimately, the Warriors’ decision to heed voters likely unwillingness to greenlight a bad deal for our city, and to do the damn thing themselves, highlighted something I’ve said time and time again: you don’t have to beg, tax-break and giveaway to convince private enterprises to come to San Francisco – they wants to be here.
“The San Francisco Model” as I see it is the same model that has us 850,000 of us so enamored with this place. We have such a special and unique city that we cope with constant fog, 47 hills in the way of everything and sky-high rents (which were really high even before this latest tech boom) to call it home.
Let this arena be a lesson to all of us (especially the Mayor). Let’s stop giving away what is priceless: San Francisco.
In other sports-field related news, the long, bitter fight over the Beach Chalet soccer fields, one that has featured bright lights, public sex and displaced birds, is apparently far from over. The Coalition to Protect Golden Gate Park is trying to take its issues with the proposed plan to install synthetic turf and stadium lights on the West end of Golden Gate Park to the ballot box this November and is collecting signatures as we speak. Whether the voters will agree (or the group will gather the signatures necessary) remains to be seen, but a coalition of environmentalists, beachside neighbors and seasoned cruisers seems to me to be a formidable grouping.
MOVIE TIME: Recently I did something that I haven’t done since I was 13: I bought a new TV. I did so in part because the idea of being able to watch an episode of my new favorite show of the moment, Broad City, from the comfort of my own bed in definition so high that it actually makes me dizzy seemed too good to pass up.
Unfortunately, I didn’t take my busy schedule, which hardly allows for sitting down, let alone lying down and relaxing for 30 minutes, into account and the TV has been collecting dust since I dragged it home from Costco.
Earlier this week, I finally managed to carve out enough time to watch one of my favorite movies, Death Becomes Her. About 20 minutes into the film, I learned what the perils of a warm bed and a nice TV bring: an early bedtime and a new toy still hardly used.
TOM’S TOP TWO THINGS TO DO THIS WEEKEND
1) Riot Grrr: Kim Gordon Tribute. Friday from 9-2am at The Lonestar Saloon.
A queer tribute to one of alt-rock’s fiercest ladies at one of SF’s finest leather bar with one of the Bay Area’s up and comingest drag queens? WHAT ELSE DO YOU NEED ON A FRIDAY?
2) Double Duchess & Michatron. Friday from 10pm-2am at The Elbo Room.
Have you seen the new video for Double Duchess’ single Nocturnal? Watch it. See you at this show.
