After Ken Rosenthal (and Scott Boras) took a whack at the A’s murky future, Fox Sports colleague Bob Klapisch took his turn today. In his piece, Klapisch claims that unless things turn around from a revenue standpoint, Billy Beane may not be with the organization much longer:
In fact, Beane’s friends say this is his last go-round — if the A’s aren’t allowed to move to San Jose, he’ll officially pass the baton to assistant David Forst and look for a Plan B for the rest of his professional life. It’s anyone’s guess what would be next for Beane; remember, this is the same executive who turned down what should’ve been a dream job, controlling the Red Sox.
Beane’s record isn’t spotless. Like any GM not named Ruben Amaro, Jr., he’s made plenty of mistakes over the years regarding personnel. Yet he’s still among the top GMs in the game, and along with David Forst they once again have the A’s back on an upswing. That said, frequent talk of the A’s being small market – or more appropriately low revenue – sounds like whining after a while, and constantly bemoaning one’s station while being the only GM to own part of a team is not going to engender sympathy.
Thing is, Beane can only play Sisyphus for so long. Other GMs have a much larger margin of error when it comes to putting together teams and payrolls. We all know that pinning the franchise’s hopes on Eric Chavez set the team back for years. High revenue teams can have two or three Chavez contracts without suffering too much. Even the Giants got away with Barry Zito being a parasite last year, and his contract alone is worth two Chavys. It’s not hard to see how Beane could see that proverbial rock rolling back downhill and choose to walk away.
One of the things I think we’re seeing from the national media who’ve chimed in on this (Klapisch, Rosenthal, Gammons) is that they, like us, want to see what Billy can do when he has all of the tools the other GMs do. We all want to see a culmination to Billy’s story, because frankly, even with Moneyball, the story isn’t finished. So while some of the pro-Oakland crowd might look at the national media as ganging up on Oakland, it’s losing sight of the big picture. In the end the A’s need to be able to compete and the best economic chance to do so comes in San Jose, not Oakland. That observation comes in contrast to much of the local media (Newhouse, Ratto, Cohn, Killion), who have often been against ownership’s stadium wranglings, holding up the legacy of the team over all else – a valid argument but not one firmly planted in reality.
At 48, Billy Beane is still a reasonably young man for a GM. Even if he stays with the A’s, it’s not hard to see him being booted upstairs to a CEO/President type of position where he no longer does any day-to-day work with the ballclub. Whether he leaves or not, he’s not going to be a GM for the next 20 years. If he leaves before he and we feel his work his done, it’ll be a huge blow psychologically since it’ll be an admission that the A’s, as they currently stand in financial limbo, cannot compete long term. It won’t be easy to be a fan if that day comes.
newballpark.org 
Doesn’t BB have an ownership stake in the A’s?
Despite this being just hearsay, I think Klapisch is thinking of the A’s financial stability and San Jose are exclusively mutual. If the Oakland ballpark project suceeds, I don’t see Billy Beane stepping aside unless it’s for some unrelated reason.
@Briggs – If the revenue streams don’t work out right for an Oakland ballpark, Billy is cashing out. Why carry the risk?
I also think he’d cash out if an Oakland ballpark is a white elephant, pun intended. However, in the event that the A’s are in anyway better postioned to financially compete, is there any (baseball-related) reason why he’d step aside? He did turn down the Red Sox.
@Briggs – Not at all. But it would take some serious convincing for him to do a 180 at this point, and it’s not like anyone’s successfully lobbying him to change his mind. Which gets me thinking – if the pro-Oakland crowd wants to get a successful ballpark deal in place, it needs to get Beane on their side. It would be a huge PR coup. I don’t know how that happens.
“In the end the A’s need to be able to compete and the best economic chance to do so comes in San Jose, not Oakland.” Really?
A new stadium in Oakland or SJ, would make the A’s economically viable again. Clearly, the coliseum, as is, can’t get it done. But a shiny new stadium in JLS, will get the job done. If Billy doesn’t want to be part of the A’s in a VC stadium … then screw him!
@tonyd I believe Beane owns a very small % of the team. 4% I read somewhere
@David – Do we really need to rehash the “corporate interests” argument again? I’ve heard plenty of not promising things about what LGO has dug up for Victory Court, such as a $50 million naming rights deal. That will not cut it.
Klapisch’s article is biased. In one paragraph he goes on with the Beltre/Boras line that no FA’s want to play here … then in another paragraph, he glosses over the fact that Matsui WANTED to sign with the A’s. What about Willingham? He keeps saying he wants to stay here long term?
@ML – I get it. But do you really think no corporations would want their logos all over a VC stadium? c’mon man …
@David – I’m saying that in the East Bay it’s not strong enough. SF interests could simply continue to sponsor the Giants. South Bay interests could sponsor a Santa Clara stadium for the 49ers/Raiders. It all needs to pencil out. If corporate interest were not an issue, the A’s could have been in Sacramento by now.
Billy Beane leaving? Good riddance! Real A’s fans can only pray for that. What has he ever done? No pennants under his watch. Not even one. Don’t let the door hit you in the butt. I can’t believe how fans fawn over him just because he walks around in plaid shirts like his mentor, Sandy. Give me a break and get rid of the guy forever.
San Jose A’s? Sounds like the United States of Russia. Doesn’t work for me in any way.
GoA’s
buh-bye Billy …
@ML – We can agree to disagree. I think SB companies would very much like their name all over a VC stadium. SF companies too!
@David Of course a corporation wants its logo somewhere in a stadium. But what corporation? How much are they willing to pay? Bakesale Betty Ballpark (no offense meant, I hear the grub is excellent, in fact) won’t pull down as much as Cisco Field in terms of $$$.
And, Matsui is an exception. When was the last time someone said they WANTED to come to Oakland before they even got here? Willingham has to say stuff like he wants to stay long-term. It is in his best interest to not trash his team.
David, on Willingham and Matsui; Matsui wanted a job period, and there was a flush DH Market, and probably wanted to stay on the West Coast. Angels didn’t want him back, Mariners have 2 DH’s already, so the only place left was Oakland. Besides, he ended up doing pretty well since Manny ended up with only $2.
.
As for Willingham, he is looking for financial stability, and is willing to sign anywhere. He wanted an extension with Washington as well, and his stance did not change when traded.
@David – There is less value for these companies if the ballpark is in Oakland. Which means they’ll pay less and for fewer years. That’s not a good recipe for a financial turnaround.
@GoA’s – You’re not the GoA’s that normally posts here.
@cuppingmaster – Having a lot money pledged (like SJ does) is optimal. Why would a corporation pledge money for a stadium the ownership won’t look at? Lew wants SJ and that is good enough for the SB businesses. If/when VC becomes the preferred location by MLB … well let use this famous quote “build it and they will come!”
I get that ML. Really i do, but that isn’t going to be the deciding criteria. If this were any other industry, you wouldn’t have had to start this blog. But, this MLB, they are slower than trees from Lord of the Rings!
Matsui said he grew up an A’s fan of the Bash Brothers. He wanted to be here.
@David having a lot of money pledged is more than optimal, it’s necessary! If a stadium plan does get drafted out to the point one is in SJ, then I think some corp. would glom onto it. They can just say “well, if it doesn’t work out, we aren’t paying.” Again, the real question is how much money will that corp. pledge?
As far as “build it and they will come”, I wouldn’t say that it’s a truism in the long term.
@David Some players don’t mind playing in Oakland. That’s great. However, overall Oakland remains one of the least desirable places to play in MLB. To illustrate this, all you have to do is look at the players who were mentioned in trade rumors this offseason. If the player had a no-trade list, the A’s were on it.
IMHO, Beane has had about enough and is nearly ready to hand the reigns over to Forst. I think he is only sticking around (as the GM) b/c he knows if he wins a championship he’ll likely get into the HOF due to his moneyball fame.
Guess I’ll have to get a new name. GoA’s is taken? OK…how about Go A’s? 🙂
@GoA’s – Works for me.
@MB – I will say most CBA’s have an effective lifespan even with tweaks and extensions before a major change takes place. That’s around 15-20 years. By the time the next CBA ends (2015-16) we may see enough of an imbalance that the two sides will be at loggerheads again. Couple that with both the Rays and A’s not being in new ballparks and the contraction could be more realistically leveled at that point.
I think if Toronto had offered Matsui 10 mil a year, he would have said that he was a huge Barfield fan as a kid and always wanted to be a Jay.
When that thing about Oakland getting the favorable indication for a stadium made the rounds a few weeks back, I thought about this. That whole buzz seems so long ago for sure. Talk about rumors at their finest.
Different fans love their team for different reasons. Players, uniforms, team colors, owners, ballparks, cities and names. I’m not some Moneyball-thumping zealot, but a lot of my fascination with the A’s is due to Billy Beane. I see a lot of anti-Beane feelings above. I don’t know if that’s just knee-jerk due to the ballpark location or what, but A’s fans are lucky they don’t have to endure the perennial hopelessness that Royals and Pirates fans do, and those two teams have amazing ballparks. The lack of a World Series title shouldn’t be a negative reflection of Beane’s effectiveness. Is Brian Sabean a better GM because he’s constructed a World Series winning team? If you think so, then you’re underestimating the enormous level of uncertainty that hangs over any team regardless of how well their rosters constructed. While I have no reason to doubt David Forst’s abilities to GM, the Billy Beane-era is one of the most interesting spans in the Athletics history regardless of which zip code their mailing address has.
@ David Naming rights are important, but far from the only important aspect of corporate support. It is critically important to be able to sell suites and club seats, and the primary market for those are big corporations.
Take a look at a map of AT&T Park. At least a third of the lower deck and all of the second deck are premium seats. Then there’s the suite level.
Those seats generate multiples of the revenue generated by regular, upper deck seats. If you multiply the number of those seats by what the Giants get for them, I’m guessing they account for at least 50% of the Giant’s gate revenue, if not more.
(ML: Do you have any actual statistics on what percentage of AT&T are premium seats, and what percentage of the gate revenue they represent?)
Whatever the actual number, it’s a huge chunk of the financial pie. The East Bay simply does not have enough big corporations willing to pay $70-100 per ticket or $3000 per suite for 81 regular season baseball games per year. Regular folks are not going to make up the slack. The fact that naming rights generate less money in Oakland than San Jose is a big problem, the fact there is little market for premium seating is a HUGE problem for Oakland.
The Giants already have a lock on San Francisco corporations, and the A’s will not draw premium seating support from Silicon Valley if they locate in downtown Oakland. The Giants are easier to get to from Silicon Valley, more entrenched in the fan base, and play in a more glamorous location. From the Peninsula, you can make AT&T Park in less than an hour even in rush hour. Because of the bridges, traffic patterns, and lack of a public transportation option, it takes at least ninety minutes, often two hours to get to the Coli from Palo Alto during weekday rush hour. (Trust me on this, I’ve done it many, many times). And Victory Court will add at least fifteen minutes to these transit times.
This is the fundamental reason why, wishful thinking aside, a privately-financed ballpark is not viable in downtown Oakland.
@bartleby – Not sure about the percentage of revenues. Premium seats account for 10-12% of inventory.
@ML Which seating categories are considered premium seats in that figure? Just eyeballing the Giants seat map, it looks like a lot more than that.
I
Specifically, it looks like at least 1/3 of the ballpark is considered “charter seating.”
@bartleby – Sorry, I should’ve been more clear. The standard definition for premium seats is club seats and suites. Charter seats for the Giants also includes a sizable piece of the lower deck reserved seating and part of the upper deck. I remember once seeing a seating chart that detailed the affected sections, but it’s been over a decade.
http://sfgiants.seasonticketrights.com/Charter-Seat-Licenses/Charter-Seat-License-Info.aspx
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Since leaving the Bay Area 25 years ago, I’ve lived in both Cleveland and Detroit. In both places, the hue and cry was just get a new stadium and we can be competitive. Guess what? Both cities provided the teams with new stadiums, and the teams still suck. All the fans have gotten out of the new stadiums is higher ticket prices, higher concessions prices, and higher parking prices. (and I might add higher taxes to pay for the stadiums). Maybe the A’s fans ought to embrace the A’s and the Coliseum for what they are: a team and stadium for working class people.
Naming rights are huge as you can take the contract to the bank as collateral and get a loan upfront for almost the total value of the contract.
Therefore if Cisco pays 30 years at 4 million per year; the A’s can get a loan of $120 million from the bank to help build the ballpark now.
Of course the bank would get interest on the loan and all but with Cisco being such a powerhouse corporation with good financial stability the banks would be lining up to give out this money.
In San Jose:
$120M (Cisco naming rights)
$100M (A’s directly)
$200M (Charter seats, advertising, corporate suites, season tickets)
Amount remaining: 40M (Not a huge delta and for sure not insurmountable)
$20M- (City of San Jose RDA funds to purchase last part of site land)
In Oakland:
$0 (Naming rights)
$100M (A’s directly- that is a BIG “if”)
$100M ( (Charter seats, advertising, corporate suites, season tickets, I am estimating half of what San Jose would get as the East Bay has far fewer corporations with $$)
$150M- (Loan from MLB)
Amount remaining: 110M (A much bigger delta than San Jose by far)
-$100M- (City of Oakland RDA funds to relocate businesses and re-do transportation infrastructure at VC)
In conclusion one can easily see that unless Oakland helps pay for the ballpark itself this is a loser all the way.
MLB would not have to loan a dime in San Jose while in Oakland even with a loan the #s come up short every time.
This is why Lew Wolff won’t build in Oakland as he needs help from the city itself much like all the rest of the owners in MLB except for SF.
At least Wolff is honest and has come out and said that he “isn’t asking for any money from the city” whether its San Jose or Oakland but looking at it from a pure financial perspective this does not work in Oakland unless the city or dare I say it MLB subsidizes the place big time.
Keep in mind my #s are approximates and give or take 10%-15% in either direction but even with that range San Jose is a far better option….Fiscally speaking.
FYI: The new gold alternate uniforms are in the Official A’s Store now.
@Sid–you forgot the $150-200 million dollars MLB/LW may have to pay the Giants for TR’s. Oakland’s looking better every day.
@4Libertee – It would be easy if that was the case. Unfortunately, whether the A’s stay or go has largely to do with MLB, and they’re not going to stand for the A’s playing in an inferior stadium much longer.
@Sid – You are making up numbers practically out of whole cloth. Stop while you’re well behind.
@jk-usa – Or if Roger Noll is to believed, $30 million. That figure would be much more in line with lost revenue meant to cover the rest of the AT&T Park loans.
After this season, the A’s will be the only team still sharing a stadium with an NFL football team. And there is no end in sight.
pjk, there is some irony in that. By being last to renovate/move the A’s now have arguably the most unique stadium in MLB. Everyone else is in either a classic park (Red Sox & Cubs), a “modern” baseball stadium (Dodgers, Rays, Blue Jays, Royals, Angels, & White Sox (Though the Angels and WS stadiums have since been renovated to be more like the retro parks)) or one of the plethora of retro classical/modern parks like everyone else. The A’s are the last team with one of the “concrete multipurpose donuts” which dominated both the NFL and MLB for the better part of the last half century.
@jk-usa Your $150-200 million figure is made up out of thin air. The Giants have no legal leverage to demand any particular figure; in the end, they’ll take whatever they get. Even if the Giants had a legal claim, they’re not getting a nickel more than any economic loss they can demonstrate. Which should be zero, right, since you Oakland-only-ers believe VC is an equivalent site.
Most likely what they’ll actually get is franchise-value or revenue guarantees, which very easily could prove to be worth zero. They’re definitely not going to be worth anywhere near eight zeroes.
@bartleby–I’m using that figure cuz that’s what the Warriors will be paid, $150 million, if San Jose tries to woo the Kings or a new NBA team.
Different league, different rules. And that $150 million for the Kings to move was just a guess. It’s been guessed to be less for the same Kings to move to Anaheim despite encroaching on 2 teams territories.
“a team and stadium for working class people.” – yes, us southbayers don’t work at all… /rolleyes
why do pro-oaklanders continue to try to be wannabe sfers? vc ballpark, private funding, etc.? /sigh
@jk-usa Dan’s points are well taken. In addition, it’s an apples-to-oranges comparison. Kings-to-SJ would be bringing a second team into a market the W’s had all to themselves. A’s-to-SJ is the move of an existing competitor in the same market FURTHER AWAY. There are many people who think the actual impact of A’s-to-SJ on the Giants business will be little or none.
I think I’ll go with Roger Noll. Way OT, but if you haven’t seen the Afghan War documentary ” Restrepo,” you all got to see it.
Puts all of our talk about the A’s, SJ, Oak and T-Rights into perspective; doesn’t mean shit in the grand scheme of things.
PFC Juan S. Restrepo, may you rest in peace my military brother (may all of the fallen RIP).
@ML Even if we only consider club seats and suites, they still may well make up close to 50% of the gate. It’s hard to make direct pricing comparisons because of the Giants variable pricing, differences between single ticket and season ticket prices, and difficulty getting information on suite pricing but it seems to me a good guess that club seats and suite seating on average cost four or five times as much as regular seating. Other charter seats may not be as dramatically more expensive, but they are long term commitments which I suspect are primarily bought by corporations. (For example, one of our outside law firms has a long term contract on seats in Premium Lower Box).
Do you agree, or do you think my guesstimate is off-base?
Just to be clear, the math would be 10-12% of the ballpark x 4 or 5 times seat cost = 40-60% of gate revenue.
@bartleby – I don’t think 50% is too far off. Charter seats are a different story since it’s a one-time or upfront charge and the Giants have no control over the secondary market. Wolff has long said that CSLs/PSLs or other instruments aren’t happening at this ballpark, but I’ve always been skeptical as long they could get $50 million from Silicon Valley upfront for them. In Oakland they’re a nonstarter.
@ML- I have done real #s breakdowns on what the A’s payroll will be and revenue streams in San Jose compared to Oakland in a post last year as Jeffrey challenged me on my #s.
It turned out that my #s and Jeffrey’s #s were quite close as I estimated a 110M payroll in San Jose while he estimated a 90M. My calculations showed a 100M payroll with the team still making 10-15M even after debt payments on the ballpark.
These were very intricate calculations as I used real #s from the Marlins, Pirates, Angels financial statements and info from the San Jose EIR and Baseball Oakland report.
For the ballpark #s below I used #s based on stadiums recently built such as Minnesota, Miami (2012), Washington DC, and a few slightly older ones such as Pittsburgh, San Francisco, and St. Louis.
With the exception of San Francisco the rest had major public contribution.
I did state my numbers may be off by a 10%-15% or so but I can go through them in more “detail” if you wish and you will see that I am actually on par with my #s and they are not from “whole cloth”.
My #s are in the “ballpark” and of course we all know that I disagree 100% with your 49ers projections in Santa Clara as well but that is another blog for another day.
@Sid – Sorry, your numbers are simply way off. You included the remaining ~$20 million dollar land contribution from SJ when in reality it’s exclusive of the construction cost. Then you have the Cisco naming rights deal at its full $120 million even though its net present value is actually worth $60 million or so. It is quite possible that the loan that would be extended from MLB to A’s ownership for building in Oakland would also be applicable to San Jose. I’m not saying that this undermines your argument – it actually reinforces it to a degree – but it’s just really important to get the numbers right.
“It is quite possible that the loan that would be extended from MLB to A’s ownership for building in Oakland would also be applicable to San Jose.” Sounds good to me! I thought the loan was for the city of Oakland, but in fact it is for the A’s/Lew Wolff (?).
@Tony D. – Think about it. Who is responsible for what in the end? The city, whichever one it is, is supposed to take care of land and infrastructure. The team is supposed to build the stadium. Why would MLB then loan nine figures to a municipality, and for what? The team has to sell the tickets and sign up the sponsors, not the city.
Got it RM! Does it make a difference to the A’s if the loan is generated by MLB vs a bank?
@tony d. – The loan would be made by MLB’s credit facility with the details handled by a bank. This is important as MLB is better able to secure a lower interest rate than any one team. There are limits to how this could work, as the credit facility normally provides for short term loans capped at $8 million. However, the Pirates are already in for $120 million by themselves.
I thought SJ was the land of milk and honey?
http://www.mercurynews.com/top-stories/ci_17419060
@David – It is in the private sector.
Private sector = Privately financed ballpark (ouch!)
“There is no more money; the well is dry.”
-SJ Mayor Chuck Reed, during the state of the city speech Thursday.
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local/south_bay&id=7966184
Reed’s hopes to save SJ from “fiscal disaster”, including longer working hours for people there and some bonuses lost, doesn’t make it look too good. Even San Francisco mentioned the possibility of declaring bankruptcy in 5-10 years, but that’s another story. The point of SJ’s situation here, is that Wolff & Fisher cannot choose SJ because on their financial status alone, vs. that of Oakland’s. While Oakland has budget woes that could become worse also, the deficits are not anywhere near as bad (yet) as they were 2-3 years ago. Whether or not MLB is aware of these budget situations among the two cities, plus Governor Brown’s threats to strip RDA money, could lead to a very interesting (or scary) next few months for cities such as Oakland and SJ. Billy Beane will have an interesting decision to make, having little or no clue where a potential stadium will be yet.
@DavidL You’re kind of missing the point. San Jose has already acquired most of the land at Diridon, and is in the process of selling other land to finance purchase of the remainder. They’re already most of the way there, whereas Oakland hasn’t even begun. If RDA’s are eliminated, Oakland is hosed, whereas San Jose is still in a pretty good shape to go forward.
Plus, Mr. Wolff has indicated he’d buy the rest of the land himself in San Jose if necessary. That’s a huge advantage for San Jose: City finances aside, the strength of the private sector and underlying economic potential of a ballpark is so much greater in San Jose than Oakland, it makes problems like these far more solvable.
San Jose’s site is all but a done deal. The city is rounding third base and heading for home. Oakland is still in the dugout, not even in the on deck circle, and simply doesn’t have the money to move 16 businesses and make the infrastructure improvements.Oakland Counciwoman Nancy Nadal has called the Victory Court project “pie in the sky” and I’m guessing she would be in a position to know the precise status of that project.
It’s understandable for pro-Oaklanders to not want to give up but their city officials gave up on the A’s years ago, deciding that being a Major League Baseball city was not as important as bringing back the Raiders, keeping the Warriors, or building condos on a downtown site that could have been a great spot for a ballpark. So let the chips fall where they may.
@pjk–Nancy Nadel was against the Fox Theater renovation, calling it a toilet and a waste of money.If you haven’t been there, they did an awesome job and it’s one of the best bay area music venues, with eateries and bars sprouting up in the area too. There’s life in uptown now after 40 years of decay.
So whatever this loon is against, you go the other way and it will be a success.
The Fox Theater is THE place to play. Nancy Nadel is a dumb-ass for saying that about the Fox. I saw Joe Satriani play there recently and he said its the best venue in the bay area!
@pjk – constantly repeating the same refrain, will not make it happen … unless your Dorothy. Tap your feet together and repeat after me “there’s no place like home, there’s no place like home…”
@bartleby – with the HUGE budget problems in SJ, should the city really be selling land to help a billionaire build a stadium? The cash the city would raise selling other parcels, could help the schools, police, firefighters or city workers, right?
@David – No they can’t. RDA money is legally bound to redevelopment projects. No city/county can use it for purposes that would normally be paid for by the general fund. If RDA’s are abolished then there may be a short term opportunity there but it doesn’t strike at the heart of the problem, which is rising employee pensions and benefits costs. Mayor Reed has played hardball the whole time and will continue to do so until he gets the deal he wants. I have a SJ cop friend who absolutely hates Reed for this. But he understands how collective bargaining is played.
If I were Billy Beane, I’d trade with endless bickering for a croissant and a cup of coffee with a high OBP.
Sell to a billionaire who wants to invest $500 mill in downtown San Jose? Sounds like a no-brainer. Should San Jose only sell to poor people who want to invest $500 million in downtown San Jose? I’d say bringing in 2-3 million people in downtown San Jose every year for A’s games, making San Jose a more desirable place to live and raising property values (meaning more property tax dollars for city services) is the right thing to do.
Maybe Oakland could take whatever it would spend to move Victory Court businesses and provide infrastructure and use that on the schools and police, no? Oakland schools were having a hard time keeping the heat on, even, last I checked. And the police chief was so pessimistic about Oakland that he tried to go to San Jose.
@ML – just to clarify … California cities can’t sell city properties and do whatever they choose with the money?
The city of Oakland owns the parks. If they sell a park to a developer, those funds all go into RDA and the rules that guide them?
@David – They’re selling RDA properties, not regular city properties. That’s part of SJ’s landbanking strategy.
@pjk – I am an Oakland Teacher. I’m sitting in my warm classroom typing to you. I saw the story about heat on KRON. That was my site. We had a busted broiler and I assure you, it was fixed months ago. Thanks for caring.
@Bartleby: I am not saying that SJ will not be chosen by MLB at all. As mentioned, it won’t be based on one city’s budget vs another alone. Outside of Wolff, who else can feel confident of SJ’s financial status after reading/hearing such quotes from Reed? I don’t hear Jean Quan or (when he was mayor) Ron Dellums say that “Oakland has no money”; occasionally some clueless city council member, but not the mayors. If there is little money, find a way to freakin’ get more! Dellums lobbyed for 200M for Oakland, if not more, but the city got that much. Alot of which isn’t seen implemented yet, but he mentions that it will be over the next 12 months. Quan is making some excellent efforts, despite some early-administration mistakes she has made.
You guys have completely run this thread off the rails. All election-related comments are being deleted.
@ML – sorry dude.
“@bartleby – with the HUGE budget problems in SJ, should the city really be selling land to help a billionaire build a stadium? The cash the city would raise selling other parcels, could help the schools, police, firefighters or city workers, right?”
ABSOLUTELY the city should be selling land to help a billionaire build a stadium. As ML has already pointed out, SJ doesn’t actually have the option of selling land to fund current services. But even if it did, it would be a monumentally stupid thing for any city to do.
If your budget is out of whack, you need to fix the problem by cutting expenses, raising taxes, or both. The last thing you should do is sell assets as a one time fix that only delays addressing the underlying problem for a few years.
On the other hand, selling land which currently sits under a parking garage in order to buy other land in the downtown core so that a billionaire can build a baseball stadium at his own expense is a brilliant idea. If the money is used to fund current services, a few years later the city has nothing to show for it. If the city sells one parcel to buy another, it really isn’t losing anything: it’s basically just a land swap. If by so doing it also induces $500 million in private investment, draws massive crowds downtown 81 times per year for the indefinite future, puts the city on the map as a big league city and gains hours and hours of free publicity indefinitely, it would be foolish not to do it.
Fundamentally you must agree, or you wouldn’t be advocating for Oakland to pursue the A’s. Let’s face it, no matter how bad SJ’s budget problems are, its schools are better than Oakland’s and its crime rate is far less. If it really were wise to sell assets to try to address education and public safety issues, you should be advocating that Oakland redirect whatever funds it theoretically might spend buying land at Victory Court toward addressing those issues as well.
“If the city sells one parcel to buy another, it really isn’t losing anything: it’s basically just a land swap.” :o) Music to my ears Bartleby! Something I’ve been trying to tell others on other blogs for quite some time now. Trust me, if people believe the world is flat, they’re going to continue to believe that even if you show them satellite photos of our globe and such. Great post by the way!
schools are funded by the feds and the state. the only local money that goes to the schools is through parcel taxes. and i don’t “fundamentally agree”, SJ’s general fund situation is far more dire than the city of Oakland’s. Your premise involves putting yourself “on the map as a big league city”; Oakland already is.
Don’t start David.
https://newballpark.org/2011/02/04/struggling-in-the-town/
For those who need a quick refresher on things.
@TonyD–please don’t stir up the hornet’s nest again. You’ve killed another thread AGAIN!
I am so tired of your stuff.
@jk-usa — yes, the Oakland bashing is beyond “tired”.SJ is struggling too.
I’m sure ML will address recent events in SJ, soon enough.
@David “schools are funded by the feds and the state. the only local money that goes to the schools is through parcel taxes.”
I’m not the one who suggested passing on the ballpark could benefit schools in any way, you were. I said it can’t happen and would be a bad idea even if it could.
“and i don’t “fundamentally agree”
I’m not terribly surprised to hear that. Virtually all the “Oakland-only” arguments are founded in emotion and not logic. You’re here arguing that San Jose, with good schools and one of the lowest crime rates of any big city, should liquidate assets to temporarily prop up schools and law enforcement and temporarily delay dealing with structural budget problems. Yet Oakland for some reason, with struggling schools and high crime rates, should invest public funds in buying land for a ballpark and not worry about schools
or public safety. Even if Oakland city finances were significantly stronger than San Jose’s (and I’m not at all convinced that they are), you don’t see the fundamental hypocrisy and/or illogic of this argument?
“Your premise involves putting yourself “on the map as a big league city”; Oakland already is.”
Oakland is a big league city in the same sense as Newark, NJ: by historical accident and by virtue of the fact that it is close to larger more economically important cities, it currently hosts some teams. But let’s face it, not many cities with population in the 300-400K range and that are not the economic heart of their regions are commonly thought of as big-league cities. Having grown up on the East Coast, I concur that folks out there have heard of Oakland because of its teams. However, the common reaction is “What is an Oakland, and why does it have all these teams?” San Jose, on the other hand, is the economic heart of the region and has a population over 1 million. It actually is a big-league city; it’s just waiting for the rest of the country to notice.
There are no innocents among the people involved in the pursuit of a team or teams. They do it for various reasons: civic pride, legacy, economic impact, related business dealings. The relative fiscal struggles of San Jose and Oakland are almost immaterial as far as getting a ballpark built as long as redevelopment agencies are in place, since it is their powers and resources that will be used. If redevelopment goes away it’ll be a different game, one that will not be friendly to either city or the A’s for that matter.
“The relative fiscal struggles of San Jose and Oakland are almost immaterial as far as getting a ballpark built as long as redevelopment agencies are in place, since it is their powers and resources that will be used.” Agree with 90%; other 10%? Would be the fact that SJ won’t be using RDA bonds for any part of this. As you stated previously RM, SJ’s landbanking strategy is coming into big play here in terms of final land acquisitions. If SJRDA disappears tomorrow, this strategy is unaffected.
@Tony D. – Not sure why you choose to blockquote an entire comment and then quote a sentence within for emphasis. It’s incredibly redundant. Cut it out. Just use the blockquote tag for the sentence you want to follow-up.