The Chargers and the city of San Diego have agreed to try to work out the disputes that recently led new City Attorney Jan Goldsmith to file a lawsuit against the team, according to Goldsmith’s spokeswoman.
Spokeswoman Gina Coburn said in an e-mail that the city and team have “agreed to bring their financial analysts together to work out several accounting disputes that have gone unresolved during the past four years.” That includes the claim that was the subject of the lawsuit, which alleged the Chargers underpaid the city $125,795 in rent by claiming skybox credits that the city previously disallowed.
Coburn’s e-mail said the lawsuit has been dismissed without prejudice, which means it can be re-filed later, and the team has agreed to suspend the statute of limitations. Goldsmith has said it was necessary to file the lawsuit because the statute of limitations was about to expire.
In the e-mailed statement, Goldsmith said:
I thank the City and the Chargers for this agreement. Litigation is expensive and often unnecessary. We want to resolve matters before litigation if at all possible. I’m hopeful that the financial analysts can resolve these accounting issues.
The San Diego Union-Tribune’s Matt Hall recently wrote a story examining how Goldsmith filed the lawsuit without City Council approval, a practice he had criticized during his campaign against Mike Aguirre.