acceleratesportsbusiness.com

“Accelerate Sports is a team of former college and professional athletes that take pride in their ability to negotiate and facilitate closings of win-win transactions for clients at the highest level of Sports and Business,” says the company’s website, suggesting a motive for boosting local taxes here.

Sports and taxes

Torrents of political cash to support passage of the sales tax measure backed by San Diego mayor Todd Gloria and his fellow Democrats on the city council have begun pouring in from out of town special interests, including $5000 on September 4 from an outfit called Accelerate Sports, Inc. of upscale Rancho Palos Verdes, California. “Accelerate Sports is a team of former college and professional athletes that take pride in their ability to negotiate and facilitate closings of win-win transactions for clients at the highest level of Sports and Business,” says the company’s website, suggesting a motive for boosting local taxes here. “For 2+ years, Accelerate Sports served as the investment bank and financial advisor to the ownership group responsible for bringing [a Major League Soccer] expansion team to San Diego. Accelerate worked on every aspect of the transaction including negotiations, business planning, financial modeling, Star Power investors, and strategic consulting. As a 50% partner with Mansour Group, Sycuan Band of Kumeyaay became the first Native American Tribe to own equity in a major league sports team. The team starts play in 2025.”

And there may be other lucrative sports deals to be done with the city, enabled by a fresh pile of sale tax money. “With the opening of Snapdragon Stadium, San Diego’s first new major stadium in over 50 years, as well as the proposal to redevelop the Sports Arena and Terminal 1 of the San Diego International Airport, the City’s ability to host new events will grow,” says a September 27, 2023 memo by City Budget Analyst Charles Modica. “To be competitive in the national and international landscape as well as generate Transient Occupancy Tax, sales tax, and create high-quality jobs for the local workforce, the City should support the creation and make an initial investment in a Global Sports Event Fund.” Added a note from council Democrat Raul Campillo, “I propose that an earmarked fund be established in FY25 to support global sports events. Approximate Cost: $2,000,000.”

Another out of town donor to the sales tax hike is El Segundo’s Way Capital, Inc., a big money real estate investment vehicle, which kicked in $10,000 on September 3. On August 29, high-tech campus developer Alexandria Real Estate Equities of Pasadena gave the same. Yet another commercial sports related contribution arrived August 30 from Brad Termini and his Zephyr Investors, LLC, which came up with $10,000. In October, 2002, a Termini company, Midway Rising LLC, contributed $650,000 to the city’s Measure C campaign, which raised the building height limit in the Sports Arena district. The move cleared the way for a new sports arena and subsidized housing Termini sought to develop as part of a city redevelopment deal awarded to him after he gave $100,000 to a campaign committee backing Todd Gloria.

Raul Campillo hopes the city will be a good sport about sports.

In March of this year, while pleading poverty in their advocacy of a sales tax hike, the city council voted unanimously to devise a way to divert property tax revenue to subsidize Midway Rising. “’This is not a new revenue stream, but property tax revenue that otherwise would go to the city’s general fund,’ Richard Eyre, who works in the city’s finance department, told council members,” per a March 12 Union-Tribune account. “This project is not financially feasible without getting some of the infrastructure paid for,” Termini told the paper.

Prying Faces Toni Atkins 

The state Senate Democrat from San Diego, continues to raise cash for her 2026 gubernatorial bid against a crowded field. Latest to give is Myron (Terry) Sidie of Sacramento, owner of that city’s Faces Nightclub, came up with $25,000 on September 3, state records show. Five years ago, Faces was on a list of about 30 Sacramento drinking establishments using PatronScan, “a high-tech, coordinated way to exclude bad actors from the city’s nightlife,” the Sacramento Bee reported in a July, 2019 account. “But privacy experts worry that retaining thousands of unsuspecting customers’ personal information is a gross invasion of privacy, and claim the company’s digital blacklist actually threatens some of those same people’s well-being.”

Toni Atkins: always glad to see a friendly Faces.

One critic was Assemblyman Democrat Jim Cooper of Elk Grove, the paper reported. Cooper “first ran into PatronScan at Coin-Op Game Room in late 2017, he said. A former undercover detective with a 30-year career in law enforcement, Cooper had just finished a two-year stint on the Assembly’s Committee on Privacy and Consumer Protection. Cooper felt uncomfortable with having his ID scanned, he said. So uncomfortable that he authored AB 2769, which severely curbed what data PatronScan and similar companies could keep. Opposed by the city of Sacramento and PatronScan, it was nonetheless signed it into law last September.” The Bee wrote in January that “Sidie opened Faces, a two-story LGBTQ+ nightclub, in 1985 at 2000 K St. in the heart of Lavender Heights. He tried to sell the business for $2.75 million last year as he inched toward a planned retirement, but that posting has since been taken down with no sale made.” He has since bought 2107 L St., the paper said, “formerly home to longtime midtown Sacramento bar The Distillery and the more contemporary Costanza’s.”

Another recent Atkins donor is Fresno-based Mid Valley Waste Disposal, with $5000 on August 28. Last October, Mid Valley Waste surfaced in an ethics complaint against Fresno city councilman Miguel Arias. “The complaint claims Arias accepted a ride on a private jet from Las Vegas to Fresno from the owner of Mid Valley Waste Disposal and did not report the value of that flight to city officials or the [California Fair Political Practices Commission],” reported ABC 30 Action News. “It also alleges the value exceeded the allowable gift limit for an elected official. It goes on to say Mid Valley Waste had a contract extension on the council’s agenda in September and Arias did not recuse himself from participating or interfering with that item despite the conflict of interest.” Arias denied any wrongdoing, and Mid Valley owner Joseph Kalpakoff issued a statement. “Mid-Valley Disposal has, at all times, acted in firm compliance with California law. While Councilmember Arias undertook transportation from our company, it was always our understanding with Councilman Arias that we would bill him for the cost of this Transportation and that he would reimburse the cost. We timely sought reimbursement for his expenses and, after receiving the bill, Councilman Arias responded with payment. Further, in contradiction to the complaint, Councilmember Arias did not participate in the Fresno City Council’s Sept. 14 decision to amend our franchise agreement.”

— Matt Potter

(@sdmattpotter)

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