The San Diego Chargers' bid to build a new downtown stadium took a major step forward Saturday when it qualified for the November ballot.
Now, voters can decide whether to approve a tax hike on hotel rooms to raise several hundred million dollars in funding for the stadium. If voters approve the initiative, it would raise the lodging tax rate from 10.5 to 16.5 percent.
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The Chargers have already said they would provide $350 million for the new stadium, and they would also receive a $300 million loan from the NFL.
The Chargers have spent years seeking a replacement for 50-year-old Qualcomm Stadium. After NFL owners rejected their plans in January to build a shared stadium in the Los Angeles area with the Oakland Raiders, the Chargers went to Plan B, the 61,500-seat stadium in San Diego's East Village. Chargers president Dean Spanos has said if the San Diego stadium proposal fails, his father, majority owner Alex Spanos, has a deal in place to share the future Los Angeles Rams facility in Inglewood.
Getting the stadium funding issue on the ballot was no small feat. According to KGTV News 10 in San Diego, the petition for the "San Diego Integrated Convention Center Expansion/Stadium and Tourism Initiative" required 66,447 valid signatures to qualify for the ballot. Local officials reported Saturday that they had verified 79,000 signatures collected over a six-week period.