Shame on me. An important 20th anniversary took place recently.
And I forgot to send out 73,409 cards.
The number – 73,409 – is one I won’t forget. That’s how many San Jose residents voted to finance the construction of what eventually became HP Pavilion. The election was held June 7, 1988.
Or as I call it: the day San Jose decided it no longer wanted to be a suburb.
An exaggeration? I don’t think so. Neither does former Mayor Tom McEnery, who was the arena issue’s most prominent backer.
“It was one of the most important elections in valley history,” McEnery said recently. “It was kind of the demarcation point where people in San Jose had to decide whether they wanted the city to keep being so insular and sprawling, or wanted to reach out and grasp the future and have a real downtown with major events happening there. I worked that election harder than any when I was running for office myself.”
McEnery has never been accused of understating a case. But can you disagree? It is difficult to imagine downtown San Jose today without the arena or without the Sharks. This anniversary is important.
It matters because, with the 49ers and A’s still slogging through the process of trying to build new facilities in Santa Clara and Fremont, it’s encouraging to know that if a city with good leadership presents the issue properly to voters, a sports facility in the Bay Area can be approved at the ballot box.
The anniversary also matters because, if my research is correct, that election was the last time voters anywhere in California approved a major sports facility funded largely by the public. The recent “stadium” election in San Francisco is not binding and the financing is shaky.
Hardly a landslide
But to me, the anniversary matters the most because so many San Jose residents – primarily the ones who have moved here since 1988 – have no clue how difficult it was 20 years ago to convince local voters that spending $100 million of redevelopment funds on a civic arena was a good idea. Sounds crazy now that the building has brought so much revenue and life to downtown. But it’s true.
“I don’t meet anyone today that did not vote for the arena,” said Pat Dando, the San Jose Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce president. “But all of us know it was a very close vote.”
Close? Polls a week before the election showed the measure failing. And as early returns rolled in, the arena issue was losing. Not until late in the evening did the “yes” votes finally surpass the “no” votes, which in the end totaled 64,140. The measure passed, 53 percent to 47 percent.
In 1988, Dando was working on McEnery’s staff but had taken a leave of absence to run the arena election. McEnery aides David Pandori and Dean Munro also played a significant campaign role, along with local attorney Ted Biagini.
Still, the most crucial support came from average citizens, including a grass-roots organization called Fund Arena Now (F.A.N.). The president was local accountant Bud Genovese. Today, he marvels at the group’s blind faith.
Remember, this was long before the NHL even thought of bringing the Sharks to town. No other sports franchise had promised to play in the building. Genovese was confronted with angry skeptics at every turn.
“We set up a booth at the county fair,” he remembers. “And folks from the Shasta-Hanchett neighborhood would come up and say they were against the arena because thousands of fans would park on Shasta Avenue, a mile away. I would argue that no one in California would park a mile away and walk 20 minutes to the arena.”
Genovese was correct, of course. But at the time, residents actually worried that future arena fans would tailgate in front of houses and urinate on lawns. At a Willow Glen community meeting, McEnery heard fears that arena traffic would jam Lincoln Avenue (two miles away) and create gridlock. These stories might be instructive when anti-stadium zealots in Santa Clara and Fremont begin throwing around wild claims.
During the arena campaign’s final days, McEnery went public with the poll results that showed an arena defeat, hoping this would bring out more supporters on election day. Dando helped coax local figure skating icon Peggy Fleming to write a mass-mailing letter to voters in which Fleming stressed the proposed arena’s uses for family events, not just pro sports.
All of it worked, somehow. As has the arena.
“A picture of that building should be in the dictionary next to the phrase, ‘economic development tool,’ ” Munro said.
Dando concurred: “That vote has had a huge impact on the way San Jose feels about itself.”
What if . . .
But what if the arena measure had failed? Munro, now chief of staff for the San Jose Redevelopment Agency, believes a privately financed arena would have been built here five or six years later. But the building probably would have been constructed in North San Jose, with no benefit to downtown. And if built more cheaply, it might already be obsolete.
McEnery has his own alternate theory.
“A larger possibility would have been an arena in San Francisco,” McEnery said. “I think that’s what would have happened. And that’s where an NBA team or NHL team would be playing now.”
Instead, each time I walk into HP Pavilion and see an excited kid with mom or dad, having an experience they will always remember . . . well, if you were one of the 73,409 back in 1988, that sight should also make you feel pretty good. Because you helped create it. Twenty years later, I just thought someone should mention that.
Contact Mark Purdy at mpurdy@mercurynews.com or (408) 920-5092.
