Our view: Stadium-site search coming down to 4th quarter, and city still in the game

Chargers Stadium in Oceanside? A prospect that initially seemed unlikely grows, with each flip of the calendar page, a little closer to reality. Some may cheer, others boo; all should pay attention.

Like offseason roster moves whose importance only becomes apparent in a late-season playoff run, what Oceanside's leaders do now will prove essential to the city's fortunes. City Council members must decide, before very long, whether they should even be taking the field opposite a team so clearly out of their league.

Last week, the team's lead negotiator, Mark Fabiani, gave the equivalent of a two-minute warning for a stadium-site search, telling the San Diego North Economic Development Council that the Chargers hope to choose a site by the end of the year and have a proposal ready for voters - in Oceanside or elsewhere - by November 2008.

That means that this is the fourth quarter for Oceanside's elected leaders and city staff: Are they in over their heads, or can they squeeze a favorable deal for the city from the sharp suits with the San Diego Chargers? Team owner Alex Spanos didn't go from selling sandwiches to migrant workers to billionaire real estate magnate by giving away favors.

Still, Oceanside has something that the Chargers may need: land for a new stadium plus other, potentially lucrative commercial development, smack in the center of the team's richest fan base.

Last month, the city's long-shot chances of luring the team away from San Diego improved when National City opted out of the action. The Chargers also commissioned a study to explore the profitability of building a high-end "office village" on the proposed stadium site on Oceanside's Goat Hill. An office park might provide the parking necessary to shoehorn in tens of thousands of football fans into a 73-acre site, in cars that wouldn't compete with those of workweek commuters.

Meanwhile, Oceanside is deep into negotiations it's not calling "negotiations." The council has hired consultants , but city spokesmen offer mixed signals as to when "formal negotiations" would begin, or have begun. Representatives from both sides have met a handful of times, which City Manager Peter Weiss describes as the "listening, talking game." Whatever.

In the next few months, it will become clear whether the Chargers were ever serious about Oceanside, or just teased its North County suitor to make the ungrateful city of San Diego jealous. If serious, we will see a proposal develop that takes into account the potential traffic tangle that could swallow Sundays on Interstate 5 and Highways 78 and 76. If serious, we will hear how Oceanside could absorb millions of dollars in annual expenses for police and fire protection, operating expenses and infrastructure improvements.

Best of all, this game won't be decided between the lines, or even among the starting squads from the Chargers' front office and Oceanside City Hall. Oceanside voters will have the final say, as converting Goat Hill's underused public golf course into a vast commercial concern surrounding a state-of-the-art sports complex will require a zoning change only the public can approve. If Oceanside voters are asked to vote on a stadium deal in November 2008, they will also be conducting a referendum on how well their city leaders performed right now, when the ink wasn't yet dry.