The San Diego Chargers are continuing to use a number we determined to be “misleading” in a Fact Check we published last week.
Today, team special counsel Mark Fabiani had an op-ed published in the San Diego Daily Transcript taking issue with a column from local attorney Ron Carrico in last week’s newspaper.
Fabiani writes in his op-ed today:
The people (including Mr. Carrico) who are in favor of the status quo — those who want the Chargers to simply stay in Qualcomm Stadium and play out their lease through the year 2020 — are in fact advocating the spending of more than $300 million in taxpayer money between now and then just to keep the aging stadium operating. (emphasis added)
We published a story last week stating that the $300 million figure was based on “drastic shifts in city policy and fuzzy estimates.” The Chargers’ final detailed estimate of $340.5 million in taxpayer dollars lost could be as much as $145 million overstated, our analysis showed.
Fabiani has published a response to our story. In that response, we noted that Fabiani altered the statement we originally fact checked, removing the $300 million figure.
Clarification: We clarified this post to reflect more precisely what Fabiani changed about how he used the $300 million figure. In his response to us, Fabiani had removed a reference to $300 million from the statement we had originally fact checked. However, he continued to use the $340.5 million figure – the team’s detailed estimate — in that response. We should have made that clearer.
— LIAM DILLON