Folks, the Super Bowl is coming, so let the Gillmor Games begin. Mayor Lisa Gillmor is doing her media rounds, revving up her David vs. Goliath narrative once again, and the poor media outlets that don’t cover our fair city on a daily basis are eating it up.
But we at The Weekly, and you dear reader, know better because we’ve heard this tired tune before. The latest dastardly deed by those mustache-twirling, charlatans from Levi’s Stadium? Why, succeeding where Gillmor has failed. Bringing success and renown to the City of Santa Clara in the form of the Super Bowl.
Cleo Stuckrath could not have written a better Showtime melodrama herself.
Any businessperson worth their salt who watched the City Council back and forth on Sept. 23 knows that no bank would back the letter of credit Gillmor was demanding the 49ers provide. Credit to the 49ers representative who responded politely to questions like … “If you truly pay your bills,” and “Are you saying you can’t get a letter of credit because you don’t have any assets?” When he didn’t rise to the bait, she cut the conversation off with “we’re going in circles.”
How dare he fail to fall for Gillmor’s thinly veiled trap! The scoundrel!
But let’s talk about Mayor Gillmor’s fantasy as The Spunky Gal Mayor Who Could. Less than two weeks before her showdown with the Nefarious Niners, she bowed down to big data. Gillmor voted in favor of a nearly one billion dollar expenditure by SVP for energy storage. Not a single data center representative showed up at that meeting. We didn’t hear Gillmor demanding letters of guarantee for 20 years of business.
In case you didn’t hear, that’s how long this one billion dollar contract will last. We’re sure if those data centers pull up roots and left town, taking their business with them, she’d write it off as “stuff happens.”
You know who foots the bill? You, dear reader.
Because there is no land lease, no contract and no guarantee that keeps these data centers in town for longer than a week, a month or a year. There’s nothing special about the land they sit on. We at least know that Levi’s Stadium is one of a kind. The 49ers and the city are bound together by a unique piece of land.
You can’t say the same about that brick of a building on Central Expressway that stores data. There’s nothing tying data centers to Santa Clara except that good old cheap energy. If we, the citizens of Santa Clara, don’t help foot the bill, the data centers will pull up stakes and get the hell out of dodge.
Once again, Gillmor has targeted the wrong Goliath. Because it’s never been about the people of Santa Clara, she has never been our champion. She has only had one cause. Herself.
Previous Milestones:
Milestones – Gillmor’s Assured Loss – Opinion
Milestones – A Bad Penny – Opinion
Milestones – Santa Clara’s Slime Report – Opinion
