The Chargers secured enough valid signatures for the team’s proposal to raise local hotel taxes for a downtown stadium and convention facility to appear on the November ballot, San Diego City Clerk Liz Maland said Saturday afternoon.

If approved, the proposal could keep the team from moving to the Los Angeles area, where they’ve been approved by NFL ownership to join the Rams in a new stadium being built in Inglewood.

Chargers chairman Dean Spanos expressed his appreciation to those who signed the petitions.

“The entire Chargers organization is grateful to all of those who helped qualify our initiative for the November 2016 ballot,” he said. “We gathered more than 110,000 signatures in less than six weeks, an extraordinary result that demonstrates the high level of community interest in a new multi-use stadium and convention center facility downtown.”


The initiative would raise the city’s tax on hotel stays from 12.5 percent to 16.5 percent to finance a $1.8 billion stadium and convention center in downtown’s East Village, next to Petco Park.

The Chargers would contribute $650 million for the stadium portion of the project, using $300 million from the NFL and $350 million from the team, licensing payments, sales of “stadium-builder” ticket options to fans, and other private sources.

The city would raise $1.15 billion by selling bonds that would be paid back with the higher hotel tax revenues. That $1.15 billion would cover the city’s $350 million contribution to building the football stadium, $600 million to build the adjoining convention center annex, and $200 million for land.

Many prominent local Republicans have come out against the proposal, and polls this spring showed weak support.


The state Supreme Court’s decision last month to review a lower court ruling from March prompted City Attorney Jan Goldsmith to say the initiative would need approval from two-thirds of voters.

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And the Chargers have said that’s the threshold they expect to face.

But this week, Goldsmith said there was a chance that approval by somewhere between a simple majority and two-thirds would leave the fate of the initiative in limbo until a Supreme Court decision whether to uphold or overturn the lower court ruling, which said only simple majorities are required for tax increases by citizens’ initiative.


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A coalition of opponents that includes politicians, business organizations and neighborhood groups has vowed to defeat the initiative.

“We’re opposed to the Chargers tax measure because it’s a bad deal for San Diego,” said City Councilman Chris Cate, a member of the coalition “No Downtown Stadium – Jobs and Streets First!”

Cate said late Saturday that such a tax increase should contribute revenue for other priorities and that higher hotel taxes could damage local tourism.


“It’s a billion-dollar-plus tax increase that ignores our most pressing needs, like repairing our streets, and threatens our tourism economy,” he said. “Our coalition came together to protect large conventions like Comic-Con and our tourism jobs. We want the Chargers to stay in San Diego, but not at any cost.”

The coalition includes the San Diego chapter of the Associated Builders and Contractors, the Barrio Logan Coalition, the East Village People and the county Republican Party.

Mayor Kevin Faulconer, a Republican, has raised many questions about the initiative, but hasn’t yet taken a position.

Supporters say the initiative would provide San Diego a long-needed expansion of convention space just a few blocks from the existing waterfront convention center.


The existing center’s exhibit floor spans more than 525,000 square feet. The Chargers are proposing a total of 260,000 square feet of exhibit space, of which 100,000 square feet would be on the stadium floor adjoining the proposed convention center.

That’s considerably more exhibit space than a previous city plan to enlarge the center on the waterfront, which has been pushed by the mayor and hotel industry but has been blocked in court.

The Chargers are also proposing a 61,500-seat stadium with a retractable roof and a new 2-acre park.

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Supporters of the Chargers proposal stress that the lion’s share of the higher hotel taxes would be paid by tourists and other out-of-town visitors. The proposed 32 percent hike would vault San Diego from 21st highest in the nation for hotel, or transient-occupancy, taxes, up into a tie for third.

The new rate of 16.5 percent would be slightly above San Francisco at 16.25 percent and Los Angeles at 15.5 percent.

Many object to the initiative on the principle that billionaire NFL team owners shouldn’t get public subsidies. Others counter that the NFL has leverage because the number of cities that want teams is greater than the number of teams.

The public would cover about one-third of the stadium’s cost — the same ratio in a plan that Mayor Kevin Faulconer proposed last August for a new stadium in Mission Valley.


Some supporters say the local hotel industry, which has lobbied for a contiguous convention center expansion instead of an annex, is quietly trying to undermine the Chargers efforts.

In May, the groups Save Our Bolts and the San Diego Stadium Coalition called for a boycott of some hotels.

The hotel industry hasn’t taken an official position on the Chargers’ initiative. Many expect that to happen shortly after the release this summer of an ongoing study of how the initiative would affect funding for tourism marketing in San Diego.

A poll conducted by local firm Competitive Edge in April, shortly after the Chargers unveiled their stadium-convention annex proposal, showed 38 percent of city voters would definitely vote against the initiative and another 20 percent would “probably” vote no.


That compares to 18 percent who would definitely vote yes and 17 percent who would probably vote yes. Eight percent of the 603 people polled by phone said they were unsure.

The Chargers submitted 110,380 signatures on June 10, many more than the 66,447 needed. Since then, the county Registrar of Voters has been vetting a random 3 percent sample of the submitted signatures and has determined that 2,434 of 3,312 were valid, a rate that would yield 78,964 valid signatures.

Maland, the city clerk, said Saturday that exceeds the “qualification criterion,” making the petition sufficient.

So the initiative will be submitted to the City Council for placement on the ballot.


The registrar completed signature verification one day before the deadline, which was Sunday.

The Chargers must decide whether to move to Inglewood by January, but they get an additional year to make that decision if voters approve the initiative. It’s not clear how that deadline might be affected by uncertainty regarding the approval threshold and the state Supreme Court.

A separate proposal to raise hotel taxes to build a downtown convention center annex and possibly a connected stadium may also appear on the November ballot. City officials are scheduled to announce Tuesday whether supporters of that proposal, known as the Citizens’ Plan, gathered enough valid signatures.

The 66,447 threshold is 10 percent of the city’s registered voters during the last general election.


Goldsmith, the city attorney, says that initiative would need two-thirds approval unless the Supreme Court rules otherwise. But the author of the plan, attorney Cory Briggs, contends it would only need approval by a simple majority.