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Well, that's it for Mike Nolan. And while we're at it, that's almost surely it for Alex Smith, too - if not immediately, then after one more season, tops. And if Denise DeBartolo York is on the level about this new general manager thing, that might be it for Tortoise-Shell Johnny as football chief, too. In other words, the Nolan-Smith blood feud, which has reached full boil, is going to blow up a franchise that already was chest-deep in rubble. The last three years will have been a waste, and they were designed because the three years before them were...

Sen. Dianne Feinstein has signed on to lead next June's ballot campaign aimed at revitalizing Candlestick Point and keeping the 49ers in San Francisco. Joining Feinstein as co-chairs of the campaign: former Mayor Willie Brown and Hunters Point-area Supervisor Sophie Maxwell. Word that DiFi will suit up comes a few weeks after Mayor Gavin Newsom tapped former 49ers executive Carmen Policy to act as civic go-between with the team and the National Football League. The 49ers are still intent on moving to Santa Clara, despite objections of Cedar Fair, the company that runs Great America and whose parking lot the...

SANTA CLARA - The Ohio-based company that owns the Great America theme park claims that it is worth much less than the $114 million county assessment figure that has been widely reported in the media, Santa Clara County Assessor Larry Stone said today. Stone said Cedar Fair Entertainment Company has filed appeals of the Great America assessment for the last several years. The assessed value is used to determine how much property tax the company pays. "There are active assessment appeals they've filed," Stone said. For 2006 the assessor's office valued Great America at $107 million. In its appeal, Cedar...

SANTA CLARA - If the San Francisco 49ers want to move to Santa Clara, they may have to buy the Great America amusement park as well. Cedar Fair Corp., which operates Great America - and whose main parking lot the Niners have been eyeing for their dream stadium - has told team officials that they oppose the $853 million project, the 49ers said today. The company said that once before, then backed off its opposition. This time, however, it's official. Cedar Fair is preparing to issue a statement Wednesday saying it has concluded, after months of study, that the 49ers'...

The temperature could get a little warm at the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce's annual 49ers booster luncheon today, as Sen. Dianne Feinstein takes the stage with a call for team owners John and Denise York to keep the Niners in the city. Feinstein, a big Niners fan and equally big critic of the Yorks' proposed move to Santa Clara, tells us she plans to use the event at the Hyatt Regency to urge the 49er Faithful to break their silence, "rally forth and convince Mr. York that San Francisco is the place to be.""I feel strongly that the 49ers...

Bad break Niners' Gore may miss preseason with hand fracture Posted: Tuesday July 31, 2007 12:05AM; Updated: Tuesday July 31, 2007 1:20AM SANTA CLARA, Calif. (AP) -- Frank Gore, the San Francisco 49ers Pro Bowl running back, broke a bone in his right hand Monday during the first padded practice of training camp and might not play in the preseason. Gore was injured during a non-contact ball-handling drill, and coach Mike Nolan said he would not practice with the team for the remainder of the week. Gore will be re-evaluated next Monday, and Nolan expects him to return to practice...

Bill Walsh, the groundbreaking football coach who won three Super Bowls and perfected the ingenious schemes that became known as the West Coast offense during a Hall of Fame career with the San Francisco 49ers, has died. He was 75. Walsh died at his Bay Area home early Monday following a long battle with leukemia, according to Stanford University, where he served as coach and athletic director. Walsh didn’t become an NFL head coach until 47, and he spent just 10 seasons on the San Francisco sideline. But he left an indelible mark on the United States’ most popular sport,...

(07-30) 11:50 PDT -- Bill Walsh, the imaginative and charismatic coach who took over a downtrodden 49ers team and built one of the greatest franchises in NFL history, has died at the age of 75. A master of using short, precisely timed passes to control the ball in what became known as the West Coast offense, he guided the team to three Super Bowl championships and six NFC West division titles in his 10 years as head coach. The 49ers had been wrecked by mismanagement and unwise personnel decisions under former general manager Joe Thomas when owner Ed DeBartolo Jr....

A state appeals court swatted down a challenge by two San Francisco 49ers fans to pat-down searches at the team's stadium Tuesday, saying they tacitly agreed to be checked when they bought their season tickets. The National Football League ordered the searches at all games as an anti-terrorism measure starting in 2005, three years after Super Bowl spectators were first subjected to pat-downs. The policy has survived all legal challenges. Tuesday's 2-1 ruling by the First District Court of Appeal in San Francisco sidestepped the plaintiffs' accusation that the searches were an invasion of privacy. Instead, the court said fans...

Mayor wants Hunters Point Shipyard transferred to city to speed toxic cleanup - Mayor Gavin Newsom's office is pushing the Navy to transfer ownership of Hunters Point Shipyard in San Francisco to the city in hope of accelerating a toxic cleanup of the property in time to meet the 49ers' 2012 deadline to build a new football stadium. In a Feb. 16 memo obtained by The Chronicle, the city proposes to take ownership of the former naval base and assume responsibility for removing most non-radiological toxic material provided that the Navy covers the costs. The Navy believes the transfer is...

A big hurdle has popped up in the path of the 49ers' plans to move down to Santa Clara -- a portion of the land where the team hopes to build its $800 million stadium turns out to be owned by the city of San Francisco. The revelation raises the possibility that officials in San Francisco, who fumed when the Niners abruptly announced their intention in November to move to the South Bay, could have some unexpected muscle to flex in dealing with team owner John York. San Francisco's land is just 80 feet wide, but it runs across the...

SAN FRANCISCO - The San Francisco 49ers have filed a legal claim against their home city over leaky luxury boxes, flooded parking lots and other maintenance problems at city-owned Monster Park. The claim filed Monday, part of an ongoing battle with the city over a new stadium, alleges the city has violated terms of the stadium lease by failing to make necessary repairs after years of complaints, costing the team revenue. "The level of deferred maintenance and neglected maintenance is and has been unacceptable," Murlan Fowell, the 49ers' vice president of operations, wrote in a letter to the city. The...

Here's the latest twist to the Bay Area's topsy-turvy stadium politics: Word is the San Francisco 49ers have informally approached the Oakland Raiders about building a new home -- together. The stadium, which would be shared by the two rivals, very well could be in Santa Clara, where the Niners are pursuing new digs next to Great America. Niners executive Jed York, the son of team owners John and Denise York, said that while a joint stadium idea has merit, there has been no contact with the Raiders on the subject. "I think it's a good idea, but we haven't...

WASHINGTON - Sen. Dianne Feinstein introduced legislation Thursday that could help keep the 49ers in San Francisco Earlier this week, the team asked Santa Clara to conduct a six-month study on building a new stadium. The move is strongly opposed by San Francisco officials and by Feinstein, a San Francisco mayor before she came to the Senate. "This legislation is designed to slow the movement of NFL teams and prevent communities from suffering the financial and intangible costs of these moves," Feinstein said. "Our football teams are more than just businesses." Feinstein, a member of the Judiciary Committee, is also...

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Sen. Dianne Feinstein introduced legislation today aimed at blocking the 49ers from leaving San Francisco by giving National Football League owners the right to vote on all franchise moves. The measure, called the Football Fan Protection Act, would require an anti-trust law exemption. Baseball has a much broader anti-trust exemption and has had only one franchise move, the switch of the Montreal Expos to Washington, D.C., in the past 25 years. In a similar period, the NFL has had seven franchise moves, Feinstein noted, including the Raiders, who moved from Oakland to Los Angeles and then back...

The San Francisco 49ers Thursday announced their strong opposition to legislation introduced in Sacramento by California State Senator Carole Migden. The team’s opposition was joined by California State Senator Elaine Alquist, who represents most of Silicon Valley. Her 13th Senate district covers the cities of San Jose, Sunnyvale, Santa Clara, Mountain View, and Gilroy. “The 49ers are a Bay Area team and an important regional asset. I strongly oppose this legislation because it hurts our chances of keeping the team in the Bay Area.” The legislation, entitled SB 49, is designed to limit the team’s ability to build a new...

Team to meet with Santa Clara officials, but Migden bill throws wrench into potential move - The San Francisco 49ers next week will ask the city of Santa Clara to spend six months studying the possibility of jointly building a 68,000-seat stadium. Team officials pledged Thursday that building the $600 million to $800 million project won't cost taxpayers, but they insisted they have no firm ideas on how the stadium will ultimately be financed. They said the potential South Bay stadium site -- currently used as the parking lot for the Great America amusement park -- solves parking concerns that...

In a bid to keep the San Francisco 49ers in the city of their birth, a suddenly conciliatory Mayor Gavin Newsom has offered the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard as an alternative stadium site -- a location the team rejected two years ago amid concerns over toxic waste and freeway access. 49ers owner John York's response to the city's latest gambit to keep the team from moving to Santa Clara was less friendly. He said the team had ranked Hunters Point well below other sites, and he blasted a recent opinion article in which Newsom said the team ``had made a...

...With a record of 2-11, the silver-and-Honolulu blue are firmly entrenched at No. 32 on any power poll in this spiral arm of the galaxy. Entrenched, that is, until another loss drops them behind Ohio State, Florida and the Hamburg Sea Devils. Think it can't get worse? Hey, this is the Lions. NFL schedule makers saw fit to arrange the endgame Kitty Cats' so, so long season likewise: at the Green Bay Packers where the Lions haven't won since a guy named Brett Favre took over there (that's right, 1992); against the Chicago Bears in a game which figures to...

The fight to keep the 49ers from leaving San Francisco is quickly expanding to Sacramento and Washington -- with both the city and the team arming themselves for a full-blown political and public relations war. The Niners got an early jump on the slugfest. As far back as mid-October -- some three weeks before 49ers owner John York announced he was dropping plans for a stadium at Candlestick Point to concentrate on a "backup'' site in Santa Clara -- the team signed up veteran consultant Ed McGovern to start lobbying local politicians and community groups to rally behind the South...