An October 14, 2014 editorial of the San Jose Mercury News, just prior to the re-election of Mayor Jamie Matthews, stated skeptically that mayoral candidate Deborah Bress intended to, “invite the Justice Department to audit Santa Clara’s records to resolve the city’s ‘fiscal management crisis.’” Fast forward to 2016: Mayor Matthews inexplicably resigns just after Super Bowl 50 and the new mayor, Lisa Gillmor, “promises an audit to determine whether the city and the 49ers are in compliance with oversight commitments made in Measure J (S.J. Mercury News editorial 2/18/2016).” It is extremely good news that Mayor Gilmore is promising an audit, but doing so now seems almost too late. With all the upheaval and controversy related to Levi’s Stadium over the past several years, culminating with Mayor Gillmor’s belated intention to implement an audit, the warnings of Deborah Bress and other stadium critics have been resoundingly vindicated. They were right!
