On Wednesday, Texans owner Bob McNair made some inflammatory remarks about San Diego politicians and their alleged habit of getting themselves incarcerated. The folks in San Diego understandably became upset about that.
Which in turn prompted McNair to cancel a meeting scheduled with San Diego’s mayor, which had been set for Thursday.
“It appears Mr. McNair has been provided grossly inaccurate and outdated information about San Diego,” a spokesman for Mayor Kevin Faulconer said in a statement, via the Associated Press. “The city has completely new leadership in the mayor’s office, city attorney’s office and city council, and has worked for nearly a decade to get our city back on track. Mr. McNair cancelled a meeting with the mayor scheduled for Thursday, so the mayor’s office has directly informed NFL management that his comments are not factually accurate.”
In recent remarks to the Houston Chronicle, McNair suggested that San Diego’s inability to work out a new stadium deal for the Chargers traces to the fact that so many of them have been placed behind bars.
“They’ve had all kinds of political problems there,” McNair said. “At one time, half the council went to jail or something. It’s been pretty bad. It’s hard to negotiate when you’ve got to go to the jail to negotiate.”
Yes, former Mayor Bob Filner had some legal issues. As did former Mayor Maureen O’Connor. And then there was a strip-club ordinance scandal that got some council members indicted a decade ago. But it’s safe to say that: (1) half of the San Diego City Council has never gone to jail; and (2) they weren’t conducting official City business from the yard.
If McNair’s broader goal was to sufficiently alienate the folks in San Diego that they won’t even try to engage with him on a last-ditch effort to keep the Chargers in town, he has succeeded. If the goal was factual accuracy, he didn’t.