Stadium crashers

The political committee set up to defeat the Chargers drive to build a downtown, taxpayer-subsidized stadium and meeting complex finally has a name: “No Downtown Stadium – Jobs and Streets First!”

More interesting to local politics watchers is the list of three principal officers on the group’s June registration filing with the city clerk’s office. First is Chris Cate, the GOP city councilman who was formerly an influence peddler for the San Diego County Taxpayers Association, a big-business lobbying organization. Then comes Lani Lutar, onetime chief executive of the taxpayers group and boardmember of GOP mayor Kevin Faulconer’s One San Diego charity. The treasurer of the anti-stadium push is April Boling, a longtime Taxpayers’ boardmember.

The taxpayers group has frequently operated as a cat’s-paw for Republican- and developer-favored causes, last year battling against a downtown redevelopment reform measure authored by Democratic assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez. The organization’s annual “Goldens” awards dinner is attended by local pols and aides who have received free tickets courtesy of the association, which enjoys the big-money support of the city’s hotel lobby, expected to oppose the Chargers’ proposed room-tax-hike measure. The third member of the anti-stadium group is architect Rob Quigley.

Democrat Toni Atkins, the termed-out ex-Assembly speaker who this year forced Democratic state senator Marty Block to abandon his reelection drive so that she could run for his seat, is throwing a fundraising bash this Friday at the Dixie Chicks concert at Chula Vista’s Sleep Train Amphitheatre. Tickets cost $2500 each. Meanwhile, Kristin Gaspar, the Republican Encinitas mayor who has endorsed Donald Trump’s presidential run, picked up $25,000 from the county GOP on June 30.