The San Francisco 49ers, who can’t beat anybody these days, are facing an angry opponent this week: their new hometown.

Less than two years after abandoning Candlestick Point for the new $1.2 billion Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, the 49ers are enduring a blitz of political opposition questioning everything from their management of the publicly owned stadium to a lack of financial transparency.

On Tuesday night, the Santa Clara City Council, which doubles as the authority charged with running the stadium, voted to find the 49ers in violation of the voter-approved agreement governing the management of the team’s 68,500-seat home field.

Mayor Lisa Gillmor charged that the 49ers’ stadium-management firm — which goes by ManCo — has consistently neglected to share important documents with the authority, including a maintenance and operation plan, annual and five-year capital expenditure plans, and detailed budget reports. Council members say they need to see the documents to determine how much money the stadium is generating, what it’s being spent on and whether the city is providing services for which it’s not being reimbursed.

Back to Gallery Santa Clara heads for battle with 49ers over Levi’s... 6 1 of 6 Photo: Scott Strazzante, The Chronicle 2 of 6 Photo: Scott Strazzante, The Chronicle 3 of 6 Photo: Scott Strazzante, The Chronicle 4 of 6 Photo: Scott Strazzante, The Chronicle 5 of 6 Photo: Scott Strazzante, The Chronicle 6 of 6 Photo: Scott Strazzante, The Chronicle











The council gave the team 30 days to come up with the documents. If the 49ers don’t comply, council members said, the city could move to take over stadium management on the grounds that the team has breached its lease deal.

“We hired ManCo. They work for us. They don’t get to decide what is withheld from the owners of the stadium,” Gillmor said. “How do we know we are managing this public asset in the proper manner if we cannot get the documents from the management company that we hired to manage the stadium?”

Representatives for the 49ers countered that the team has been giving the city regular reports and has lived up to its end of the deal. They said the team is withholding information in two areas it considers confidential: security plans and financial information related to non-NFL events.

Making security information available would put the public at risk, while disclosing the details of the non-NFL events would damage ManCo’s ability to effectively negotiate with promoters such as LiveNation and AEG Live, the team says.

“Tonight’s decision was expected and continues a disturbing trend of frivolous and groundless actions by the mayor and her allies on the council, putting politics ahead of civic responsibility,” the 49ers said in a statement. “The claim that we have refused to provide all relevant documents is simply another alarming claim intended to capture headlines.”

Harry O’Brien, an attorney for the team, said that “there is nothing on here that has not been provided or is not available.”

Levi’s Stadium was financed in part through a tax on hotel rooms near the stadium and $621 million in construction loans taken out by the city authority, which was created as a separate legal entity to shield Santa Clara’s general fund from being tapped to cover stadium costs. The authority is responsible for paying back the debt on the loans using revenue generated by the stadium.

The 49ers have a 40-year lease, with options to extend it up to 20 more years. The team's annual rent is $24.5 million.

At Tuesday’s council meeting, critics of the 49ers wore green armbands and held signs reading, “Follow the law.” More than a dozen residents spoke, all of them taking the team to task.

Several noted the results of the Nov. 8 council elections, in which candidates critical of the 49ers defeated challengers backed by the team. Burt Field, founder of the organization Stand Up for Santa Clara, said the vote was “a mandate telling the city of Santa Clara which way we want to go.”

“It was a mandate and, quite frankly, a bad day for the 49ers,” he said.

Several residents said they regretted having worked to pass Measure J, the 2010 ballot initiative that allowed the stadium to go forward. Ricky Hara said he had knocked on doors every weekend for months on behalf of the team.

“I told our neighbors how it was going to benefit our schools and strengthen our fund,” he said. “It wasn’t long after that I regretted advocating for Measure J. I do not like how the 49ers have treated our city.”

“The 49ers are broken all around the place,” said resident Dorothy Rosa. “They don’t know how to run a football team. They don’t know how to run anything.”

Vice Mayor Teresa O’Neill said the information the City Council is seeking will ensure that both the team and the city-owned stadium are successful over the long term.

“My role is not to know how many bottles of Perrier in Beyoncé’s dressing room,” she said. “But we have hundreds of millions of dollars invested in this venue. So that is why I am hanging in here on asking these questions.”

Forty-Niners President Al Guido said the city’s share of non-NFL revenue has exceeded expectations. More than $5.5 million in such revenue has been generated for the general fund, he said, and hotel tax collections are up 18.6 percent — or $2.8 million — since the stadium opened.

“If we didn’t do a good job managing events at Levi’s Stadium, why would they come back? Why would we be able to land the college national championship in 2019?” Guido said.

“The reason why we are not going to provide that information is that it is proprietary. It is confidential. It’s in nobody’s interest to make public,” he said. “No facility in America releases that information. Not one.

“If a promoter knows that, our bottom line will be squeezed,” Guido said. “Our job is to deliver event profits to the general fund, and we have done that.”

Larry Gerston, emeritus professor of political science at San Jose State University, called the skirmish a “David vs. Goliath” situation. He said residents of the city of 120,000 are increasingly suspicious that the city is expending resources that the team is not repaying.

“The City Council is trying to get a light shined on what the expenses are to determine whether the city is contributing dollars in violation of Prop. J,” he said. “It looks to be headed toward a court battle.”

J.K. Dineen is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jdineen@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @sfjkdineen