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Our voice: Plenty of reasons for council members to be at meetings

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All but 2 minor charges tossed against Steelers assistant Joey Porter

<p>LOS ANGELES &#8212; The Chargers are leaving San Diego for Los Angeles, owner Dean Spanos announced Thursday in a letter posted on the team&#8217;s website.</p><p>&#8220;After much deliberation, I have made the decision to relocate the Chargers to Los Angeles beginning with the 2017 season,&#8221; Spanos wrote. &#8220;San Diego has been our home for 56 years. It will always be a part of our identity, and my family and I have nothing but gratitude and appreciation for the support and passion our fans have shared for us over the years.</p><p>&#8220;But today, we turn the page and begin an exciting new era as the Los Angeles Chargers.&#8221;</p><p>Spanos did not need approval from league owners to move.</p><p>The Rams, who would share a stadium with the Chargers in Inglewood, had not been officially informed of the development as of Thursday morning.</p><p>After the NFL&#8217;s two-decade absence from L.A., the league took the unprecedented step of allowing the Chargers and Rams to return to the nation&#8217;s second-largest market in the space of a year. Though NFL owners have remained adamant in public that L.A. can support two teams, some have expressed reservations in private about how enthusiastically the city will embrace two franchises that have struggled on the field in recent years.</p><p>The decision comes a day after the NFL extended a Jan. 15 deadline for the Chargers to exercise their option to relocate to L.A. by two days, to avoid conflict with Sunday&#8217;s playoff games and the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.</p><p>Spanos informed NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and several owners Wednesday of his plan to move the team, according to a person with direct knowledge of the situation.</p><p>Out of deference to the league, Spanos waited until the NFL&#8217;s finance and stadium committees finished meeting Wednesday at league headquarters in New York to make a final assessment of his options, the person said.</p><p>When no last-ditch effort by the NFL to persuade Spanos to remain in San Diego materialized from that meeting, the owner moved forward with his decision, the source said.</p><p>The drawn-out decision-making has tested the patience of NFL owners and agonized a San Diego fan base that has cheered the team since its arrival from Los Angeles in 1961.</p><p>In a statement, Goodell said the Chargers &#8220;worked tirelessly&#8221; to find a stadium solution in San Diego.</p><p>&#8220;Relocation is painful for teams and communities,&#8221; he said. &#8220;It is especially painful for fans, and the fans in San Diego have given the Chargers strong and loyal support for more than 50 years, which makes it even more disappointing that we could not solve the stadium issue.&#8221;</p><p>The Chargers have unsuccessfully sought a new stadium in and around San Diego for the last decade and a half. They wanted to replace the aging Qualcomm Stadium &#8212; built in 1967 and widely considered one of the NFL&#8217;s worst venues &#8212; but a series of proposals failed for reasons that included the city&#8217;s fiscal crisis, an inability to garner political support, site issues and little appetite for public financing.</p><p>The 120-mile move north is expected to dramatically increase the value of the Chargers; Forbes estimated that the Rams are worth nearly $1.5 billion more after leaving St. Louis last year. But the Chargers will owe a $650 million relocation fee to be split among the league&#8217;s other owners. The team will have 10 years to pay, beginning when the new stadium opens. That&#8217;s expected to be in 2019.</p><p>The decision allows the Rams to start selling personal seat licenses, suites and naming rights for owner Stan Kroenke&#8217;s$2.6 billion stadium at the site of the old Hollywood Park racetrack. The Chargers, who will pay $1 a year as a tenant, will help finance the project with a $200 millionNFL loan and the proceeds from sales of personal seat licenses. They&#8217;ll also contribute an additional 10 events a year to the 298-acre sports and entertainment district, where plans call for hundreds of thousands of square feet for office space, retail and housing around the glass-roofed stadium.</p><p>&#8220;We are effusively happy that the Chargers made the difficult decision to come and join the Rams in Inglewood,&#8221; said James T. Butts Jr., the city&#8217;s mayor. &#8220;We welcome them with open arms.&#8221;</p><p>Butts was expected to meet with Spanos in Inglewood later Thursday.</p><p>Until the stadium is complete, the Chargers will play at StubHub Center in Carson. The 30,000-seat venue is a nontraditional option. The Chargers held their training camp at the facility on the campus of Cal State Dominguez Hills in 2003 and 2004. By charging more for an up-close, premium experience, team officials believe they can make up the revenue difference from what they could expect from a much larger stadium.</p><p>Before making the final attempt to build a stadium in downtown San Diego, the Chargers joined forces with the Oakland Raiders in hopes of building a stadium in Carson. They even brought on Disney Chairman and CEO Robert Iger to oversee the project. However, NFL owners chose the Inglewood plan by a 30-2 vote last January. Goodell called it &#8220;transformational.&#8221;</p><p>As part of the vote, however, owners awarded the Chargers the L.A. option. If they didn&#8217;t use it, the option would transfer to the Raiders. They&#8217;re pursuing a stadium in Las Vegas &#8212; bolstered by $750 million in public financing approved by Nevada&#8217;sLegislature last year &#8212; but retain a large and passionate fan base in Southern California.</p><p>Last January, the Chargers announced plans for a temporary facility in Santa Ana and agreed in principle on a lease with the Rams to share the Inglewood stadium. On Jan. 29, they said they would play the 2016 season in San Diego.</p><p>The Chargers turned their attention to a combined stadium and convention center in San Diego. The NFL and the team pledged $650 million toward the project. A November ballot initiative on the project received a 43 percent favorable vote, when two-thirds was needed to proceed.</p><p>The team said it spent more than $10 million on the failed initiative.</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">FILE - In this Sept. 1, 2016, file photo, a San Diego Chargers helmet sits on the field before a preseason NFL football game against the San Francisco 49ers, in San Diego. The Chargers are moving to Los Angeles, where they will join the recently relocated Rams in giving the nation's second-largest media market two NFL teams for the first time in decades. The announcement was made Thursday, Jan. 12, 2017. (AP Photo/Denis Poroy, FIle)</div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/web1_Chargers-1.jpg</photo0><caption0>FILE - In this Sept. 1, 2016, file photo, a San Diego Chargers helmet sits on the field before a preseason NFL football game against the San Francisco 49ers, in San Diego. The Chargers are moving to Los Angeles, where they will join the recently relocated Rams in giving the nation's second-largest media market two NFL teams for the first time in decades. The announcement was made Thursday, Jan. 12, 2017. (AP Photo/Denis Poroy, FIle)</caption0><photoCredit0></photoCredit0></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Sam Farmer and Nathan Fenno</p><p>Los Angeles Times</p></bylineMeta></div>

Chargers make it official: They’re moving to Los Angeles