CHARGERS, CHULA VISTA MAYOR NOT ON SAME PAGE

What the San Diego Chargers and Chula Vista Mayor Cheryl Cox have is a failure to communicate, or at least communicate effectively as the two parties debate the feasability of funding a new stadium for the NFL team. For anyone who’s confused, Chula Vista is a city of 227,723 in San Diego County and a potential new stadium site for the Chargers’ home games. Cox accused the Chargers of “keeping the public in the dark” regarding potential stadium costs and other details, the San Diego Union-Tribune reports. Cox wrote a scathing letter to Chargers general counsel Mark Fabiani, the point man for the football team’s stadium efforts. As someone who’s covered a few games in San Diego, I can attest personally that the Chargers’ stadium is in terrible shape. “How are we to accomplish something without knowing what you’re thinking?” Cox wrote Fabiani. “One has to question your seriousness about getting a transaction done when you do not reveal needed information to the city manager, the mayor, to my colleagues and our staff.” Fabiani countered by saying he was surprised to receive a letter since there was a Jan. 16 meeting with the Mayor and other officials, adding that her letter demonstrates that she’s an opponent of the Chargers’ possible stadium project. “Her letter is bizarre,” Fabiani said. “It’s no secret that Mayor Cox never supported the Chargers. She’s made perfunctory public comments, but in private she has bad-mouthed the Chargers. She’s done what’s typical of politicians – say one thing publicly and another thing privately. We can’t afford not to continue working in Chula Vista.” The Chargers have been making noise about Los Angeles behind the scenes, recently hiring a prominent Los Angeles marketing firm, the Wasserman Group, to represent its interests.