As mentioned in the previous post, there will be stadium talk on Monday on The Chris Townsend Show. It kicks off with Let’s Go Oakland’s Doug Boxer from 1-2 PM. That’ll be followed up by a presumably non-stadium segment with Jose Canseco. At 2:45, San Jose mayor Chuck Reed will be on. Boxer will be taking questions from callers, which will be great. It gives him an opportunity to feed the Oakland faithful with news, hopefully about a forthcoming Draft EIR, even though most of them won’t read it (most of the people in San Jose didn’t read theirs either). I won’t be calling in, but if you are and you need some ideas for questions, here are a quick ten:
- When will the Draft EIR be released/distributed?
- Are there any great renderings, illustrations or site plans to accompany the EIR?
- How long do you think it’ll take to get the EIR approved and certified?
- Are there any alternate ballpark sites in the EIR besides Victory Court?
- Will there be an alternative that only includes land up to Fallon Street, or is it still everything west to Oak Street?
- Have any additional Victory Court parcels been acquired yet?
- Is the plan to have the ballpark face the Estuary (SE), Lake Merritt (NE), or Downtown (N)?
- Why is the plan to have 39,000 seats?
- We know that you’ve been working with MLB. Has there been any communication with the A’s and Lew Wolff? If not, is that by design?
- What do you think of what’s happening in Sacramento with the Kings right now?
I’m sure you readers can come up with plenty more good questions. Can’t wait for Townie to do his thing.
newballpark.org 
What is the funding mechanism for building the stadium, and who is purchasing the naming rights?
I think “additional” should be deleted from question 6. RM, how come no question suggestions for Mayor Reed?
Here’s one: what’s the status of acquiring the final two parcels at Diridon South?
So the plan is to “grill” Doug Boxer but throw trust everything Chuck Reed says to be true?
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You’re bias is showing Rhamesis.
err *your.
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Questions for Chuck Reed:
1.Will an 8 acre Park be suitable for MLB?
2.The last land sale came up short of Cash and SJ RDA is broke. How will the final $$ Come together for the land?
3. How will the money come together for the necessary parking and infrastructure improvements?
4. What are the contingency plans for getting to the park if BART/HSR don’t come together in a timely fashion?
5. How does public support look like for the ballot measure inlight of huge budget shortfalls and cuts to services?
6. Will there be any full disclosure on how much the total cost for the stadium will be and will we be able to see the funding sources? (The 49ers have done this so far in Santa Clara. SJ voters should know as much)
7. Will there be enough parking to handle an event at the ballpark and arena at the same time?
8. Will the ballpark affect the over 100+ events at the Arena (which bring money into the city.)
@dino J- go ahead and grill Mayor Reed–the SJ plan has been out in the public forum for 2 years—other than status of remaining parcels there is not alot of unanswered questions—that’s the benefit of doing things in the public forum and being transparent and visible–unlike Oakland who seems to be operating in a vacuum where no one has any idea of what is going on–other than an EIR which still hasn’t been released–
@GoA’s
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See Above post.
@Dinosaur Jr. – Reed is not taking questions. He’s only on for a few minutes so he’ll be giving Townie a brief update at best. Boxer is there for the whole hour, ergo the list. Thanks for flying off the handle and proving me right about you.
BTW, just about all of the questions you posed have been answered through the EIR process. Just so you know.
DJr,
You need to worry about your “pie in the sky” at Victory Court and leave SJ alone. Cisco Field will be just fine.
@tony d. nice informed opinion there. thank you for constructive insight.
You posted questions about Oakland plan. You posted no questions about SJ’s plan.
@Dinosaur Jr. – Of course not. There is no caller question time for Reed, so no point to have questions. All that could be provided for the EIR was a range of capacity, building heights, and info about parking, all of which was dealt with. When the process takes several years and umpteen meetings that stuff tends to be rehashed.
The thing is that none of the questions I posed had an agenda. Aside from the last one, they were simple and all about the project. They didn’t ask about Oakland’s financial capabilities or political will. I had hoped it would be a starting point to get better questions. I guess some people don’t really want to ask.
Regardless if Dino was “flying off the handle”, those all seem like perfectly good questions.
“perfectly good questions” that have been answered in the past already. You’re most certainly welcome!
Yet another story about Oakland’s underfunded police department on the news last night. Oakland PD’s helicopter was grounded two years ago. Mr. Boxer, in light of Oakland’s desperate financial situation, which has had the city cutting basic public safety services to the bone, and the fact that no private entity has come forward willing to build a new ballpark in Oakland, exactly how does this ballpark ever get built a Victory Court? A Jerry Lewis-style telethon, perhaps?
My main concernis Lew Wolfe’s main concern. How is the city of Oakland going to displace the property owners and businesses who are currently at the Victory Court site?
d jr… you heard the one about glass houses?
Doug started off with a lie… the A’s haven’t drawn 2.7 M since 1991
He’s also throwing the 2million milestone out there like it’s the 3million mark, which has typically been the big gauge of success at the gate.
I’m not listening to the broadcast, but unless Boxer comes forward with exactly how this thing gets paid for, it’s all just dead air. Pretending Oakland is as viable a corporate market as San Jose and ignoring the decades of poor attendance just won’t cut it.
@pjk He said something about the corps didn’t want their name realized for fear of the current ownership frowning upon an Oakland commitment.
So are you saying Boxer has a plan to pay for the stadium but he can’t talk about it? OK. Using this same strategy, I think I’ll put in a bid on a mansion in Woodside, and when they ask me how I’ll pay for it, I’ll just tell them I can’t talk about it right now. They’ll have to trust me.
pjk, at the height of the real estate bubble that would have gotten you a loan!
…if Boxer is so dead-certain of the viability of a new Oakland ballpark (which obviously would have to be privately financed), he should already have put together an ownership group ready to buy the A’s and build the ballpark. Given his status as the son of a US Senator, he surely knows enough Bay Area millionaires and is in a great position to assemble such a group. Just talking about A’s attendance 20 years ago doesn’t get the job done.
pjk…So Far the A’s arn’t for sale. Its a catch-22 right now.
Boxer said that MLB didn’t like the site of the current Coliseum (a caller suggested razing the current stadium and building a new one) because it wasn’t “close to the urban core”. I knew the Coliseum site had already been dismissed, but for other reasons. ML, had you heard anything like that before?
@Ed – Not officially, but when you think about it Oakland’s had Populous do the study and they haven’t built a non-urban MLB park in decades.
Cept for The Mets and Phillies. (Miller Park and Arlington were built by other people)
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But the Coliseum is a last resort.
@Dinosaur Jr – Check that. Both Willets Point and South Philly have large development plans in place.
nothing has stopped Larry E from putting out there that he wanted to buy the ‘9ers who weren’t for sale, or the W’s who werent for sale at the time–bttm line if there is a party that is willing to buy the A’s and pump $500M of their own money into a ballpark in Oakland now is not the time to be silent–
@pjk–I wish the A’s would be put up for sale locally. No doubt, there would be a lot of interest.
@Jeffro–gimmee a break. So, DB got his attendance figs wrong. CT corrected him and DB apologized on it twice..
Hey, CT said Oracle wants their name on the ballpark. HE LIED!!!!!! ..lol.
Good interview overall. CT was fair, and I’m surprised he didn’t push SJ’s cause like he was TonyD, Sid, Bartleby, pjk, GoA’s, ML, Jeffro, and the 95%ers on here.
…Did Boxer comment at all about paying for the ballpark or was it the standard “John Fisher is a billionaire and should build the ballpark with his own money and disregard whether he will make his money back” plan?
He said there are companies who don’t want to be known because they’re worried that it would mess up their current relationship with the team. It wasn’t clear if that was their $500k pot or if it was more than that.
jk-usa… Give me a break… Dude flat out lied and repented when called on it.
DOUG LIED HE NEVER TRIED!!!
@Jeffro–he had the wrong figs, plain and simple. About 500k off, which is still a decent amount. IMO he didn’t lie.
its hard to tell if he lied or just had the incorrect information.
He has companies that are worried about messing up their existing relationship–give me a freaking break–those same companies can send their dollars across the bay to the gints if the A’s gave them the finger for supporting a ballpark in Oakland–gotta wonder if DB’s nose grew during that interview
@pjk: Boxer said that, as long as they’ve been trying to get the new stadium done (even back to the Schoffmann days) that the general understanding was: the city would provide the land and infrastructure improvements, and the A’s would “provide the vertical”.
Jeffro.. Didn’t Lew Wolff say we didn’t sell out the 2006 playoffs in a recent AN interview?
@DinosaurJr, he did say that about 2006, I cant remember,, but I think it was with Athletics Nation’s Tyler B that called him out on that and he said he’d have to look it up. LOL
d jr, not sure what Lew Wolff said, or when he said it. I wasn’t listening to him on the radio today. That said, Lew has said some things that were a bit off base more than once. How does that have anything to do with what Doug Boxer said?
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I wish someone from the Oakland Only crowd would be honest about attendance just once. It would be awesome.
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And, as a season ticket holder, I find it hilarious that the loudest Oakland honk isn’t one.
Jeffro. Just pointing out a double standard.
What double standard?
This “gotcha” game regarding misspeaking is a distraction. Talk about things that matter.
not hearing the discussion what, if anything, did Mayor Reed say about SJ–anything different or same waiting game
Reed had nothing new, other than SJ is digging its heels. They won’t stop as long as Wolff is optimistic.
@ML–“This ‘gotcha’ game regarding misspeaking is a distraction.”
Totally agree with you on that.
I know Jeffrey in the past hasn’t had kind words to say about Doug, seeing him as rather arrogant. Jeffro got a kick out of that “gotcha” moment. Weak.
Boxer admitted not being a season ticket holder the last few years, mainly having to do with the A’s ownership. If he would of lied and said he had tix, I’d say you got something there, but you don’t.
I have something common with DB. After 20+ years, I scrapped my season tix when LW decided to go the Fremont. DB saw his first game as a kid in 1972, me as a kid in 1971. I still see games now and then, but have cut down from 40 games a year to 10-15.
He lives in Oakland, I don’t but both of us love the town and see it’s huge potential.
The similarities stop there between him and I. His family has money, mine doesn’t. He wears a size 7 shoe, I wear a 14!!!
@jk-usa – You and Boxer have another thing in common. Neither of you know when the Draft EIR is going to be released!
To put an end to the “gotcha” moment…
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I am sorry to Doug Boxer for calling him a liar. Attendance numbers are something that I have spent a lot of time researching and quite frequently Oakland boosters do their best to sweep an objectively bad attendance history under the rug by throwing out arbitrary numbers like “2 Million” as evidence to the contrary. What I heard in the Chris Townsend interview was more of the same and I considered it an attempt to deceive, or distract from reality. I felt that he was specifically stating something as fact, that wasn’t, in an attempt to make things sound better than they were.
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It was a bit harsh. I could have put it differently and for that, I am sorry.
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On the season ticket holder quip above, I will only point out that Boxer explained that the reason he no longer has season tickets was a long story. In reality, they were his father’s tickets, not his, and that his father doesn’t go to games anymore. He didn’t say anything about not buying tickets because of Lew Wolff.
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The point is, it is pretty interesting to come out and say “It’s up to fans to show up” and then to admit you don’t own season tickets. The single biggest thing any of us as fans can do to keep the team in the Bay Area (Oakland) is to buy season tickets.
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Clearly, Doug Boxer has other avenues that he is pursuing to keep the team in Oakland. I still think it is weak sauce to not have season tickets and yet make stink about ownership wanting to move to a different part of the Bay Area where they think they can sell more season tickets.
@Jeffro–i believe DB said something about another reason was the present ownership on him not having season tix. Can you confirm this ML?
@jk- it doesn’t really matter.
Again, another distraction. How does that matter in the grand scheme of things?
Okay, lets move on. Time for the A’s to stick it to the Halo’s. Should be a good game with 2 of the hottest pitchers going.