San Diego Chargers owner Dean Spanos Meets With Mayor Faulconer

This meeting really needed to happen.

Following the joint announcement on Thursday evening of a new stadium agreement between the Chargers and the Raiders to build a new stadium in Carson, the City of San Diego (City) has apparently realized that they have been pushed into an accelerated timetable.

First, during an interview on the Scott and BR Show on 1090 AM with Chargers' Special Counsel Mark Fabiani, Adam Day - Chairperson of the San Diego Citizens' Advisory Stadium Group (Stadium Group) called in to contest some of Fabiani's statements. The most important statement Day made was that the Stadium Group accelerated their timetable for presenting a stadium plan from Fall 2015 to within 90 days - which means the proposal should be delivered in mid-May 2015.

If you're inclined to believe the Chargers' partnership with the Raiders is a bluff, then the bluff has achieved the first of its primary goals, which is to force the City's hand and get them moving faster.

Secondly, Mayor Faulconer had asked for a private meeting with Chargers' owner Dean Spanos, following the public sniping and acrimony we saw last week after the Chargers' first meeting with the Stadium Group, and before the Carson announcement. In light of the Carson announcement, the Mayor and Spanos met today at Petco Park, for about 1 hour, instead of waiting until mid-week as originally intended.

Here is a snippet from the Chargers' Statement on the Meeting:

Chargers owner Dean Spanos met today with Mayor Kevin Faulconer. We are pleased that the Task Force decided on Friday to accelerate its work and deliver a report within the next three months. This is good news for the process, and Dean joined the Mayor in supporting this expedited schedule. We pledged to continue to work cooperatively with the Task Force.

Here is a paragraph from Mayor Faulconer's statement on Facebook:

The best chance San Diego has for developing a viable stadium plan is for the Citizens' Stadium Advisory Group to complete its work in an expedited timetable so that a final recommendation can be presented to the Chargers and San Diegans within the next three months. Mr. Spanos agreed and pledged to work collaboratively with the Citizens' Stadium Advisory Group as they complete their analysis and recommend a stadium location and financing plan.

For the first time since the Mayor announced the creation of the Stadium Group, we have statements indicating that the Chargers and the Mayor's office are on the same page and working together. This is a marked contrast from last week, and by any measure, a promising signal moving forward. Really there was nowhere to go but up, and it's just in time for an important week.

Within the next several days, we'll have a vote by the Inglewood City Council on whether or not to approve Stan Kroenke's stadium proposal.

Meanwhile, the Stadium Group will be meeting with County Board of Supervisors Chairman Ron Roberts, officials with San Diego State University during this week, and hosting the first public forum - at Qualcomm Stadium - on March 2nd, from 6 PM until 9 PM.