The Chargers’ push for a new stadium in San Diego moved forward Friday with the delivery of 110,786 signatures in support of a ballot initiative for this November to San Diego City Clerk Elizabeth Maland.
The team started the process in April and needed to get 66,447 signatures from registered San Diego voters to get a measure on the ballot for the public to vote on a 6.5 percent hike in the hotel tax to help finance a new downtown home for the Chargers.
“Most signature gathering efforts of this kind take six full months. We had just six weeks to complete our work,” Chargers owner Dean Spanos said in a statement. “The fact that we were able to collect more than 110,000 signatures in that short period of time demonstrates tremendous support in our community for a new, combined stadium-convention center expansion downtown.”
The signatures still need to be vetted and, as the San Diego Union-Tribune reported this week, uncertainty remains about whether the ballot measure will pass with a simple majority or if the team needs two-thirds of the vote. The two remaining candidates in the race for City Attorney both said they expect the plan will need two-thirds of the vote to pass when it comes up later this year.