Category Archives: Politics

12.13.10
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A cup of Joe with the Georges

2/22/16 – George Vukasin Sr. passed away last week at the age of 82. George Jr. informed me of this sad news earlier this morning. SFGate and BANG covered the man’s life. I only met George Sr. once. Fortunately, I wrote about it. Apparently he liked the article, as did many other readers. So in honor of George Sr., I’m reposting my article from December 13, 2010 (was it that long ago?). RIP George Vukasin Sr. Wherever you are, I’m sure the coffee just got a lot better.

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Peerless Coffee is based out of a low-slung, light industrial building built in 1976. Established in 1924, the company has seen it all: wars, boom and bust cycles, and several sports teams. Three generations of the Vukasin family have helmed the company, and they are Oaklanders through and through. They have every intention and desire to continue being a pillar of the Oakland business community. How that can continue with a ballpark proposal lingering in the immediate future is uncertain.

As I approached the building, the aroma of roasting coffee nearly overwhelmed me. I sipped an au lait inside the store as I waited to interview George Vukasin, Jr., who runs the business, and George Vukasin, Sr., who left the company to his children and still is a major presence there. George Sr. is also well known as a major proponent of Oakland and East Bay sports, as he was pivotal in making the Coliseum complex come into being. I sat down in their front office and we talked for nearly two hours. I could’ve easily sat there for another two as George Sr. recounted stories of Oakland sports glories past, but I had to start writing. Maybe another time.

We first talked about how the Coliseum deal was struck. George Sr. happily took on the role of historian, recalling how the late developer Bob Nahas put together a coalition of civic and business interests, including the elder Vukasin, to get a sports showcase built in the East Bay. They quickly focused on a site in East Oakland. The land was undeveloped, with the major owners being the Port of Oakland, EBMUD, and PG&E. Deals were struck with both utilities to maintain easements at the complex while a land swap was negotiated with EBMUD for a parcel on High Street, where the utility’s maintenance yard now resides. The Port of Oakland handled the land deal, as George Sr. was a Port commissioner at the time. The process from first discussion to groundbreaking took 2 years and was unencumbered by CEQA laws or other red tape.

The Coliseum Commission ran the complex for close to three decades. They understood what it took to keep the complex in the black, such as the need for 130 event days at the complex every year. While that should be easy to do with 81+ baseball games, 7-10 football games (sometimes), and 41+ basketball games, occasionally things would run tight. One particular year, Vukasin couldn’t figure out what to do so he called rock promoter Bill Graham and asked for help. Graham magically produced 7 days of Grateful Dead shows at the arena, the proceeds of which allowed the Commission to take care of the debt service.

Around the same time, Amnesty International contacted the Commission about putting on a single concert, which would be held at the stadium. Walter Haas, who had put a good deal of money into renovating the Coliseum, was not particularly fond of having a large number of concertgoers trampling his pristine baseball field, as evidenced by the declining number of Day on the Green concerts during the Haas era. When Amnesty International inquired, Haas and Roy Eisenhardt unequivocally said no. Vukasin and others tracked Haas down at the Pacific Union building in San Francisco, where they asked him to grant permission face-to-face. Haas, ever the gentleman, relented on the spot and the concert was held, as long as there were assurances that the field would be kept in good condition. No contracts, no litigation, just a talk and a handshake.

We shifted topics to Victory Court, and that’s when George Jr. was able to speak more. He was contacted 18 months ago by Mike Ghielmetti and Jim Falaschi, who suggested that Victory Court would be a studied site for a ballpark, and that the Peerless Coffee property was one of the targeted parcels. That led to a meeting with Ghielmetti and the City of Oakland’s real estate manager, Frank Fanelli. Little happened during the meeting, and no direct contact has been made since. Once George Jr. caught a man surveying and measuring the property. The man couldn’t divulge who sent him, and George Jr. asked him to leave. The man got in his car and went around to the back of the property, which is accessible from both Oak and Fallon Streets. George Jr. saw him surveying that side and kicked him off the property for good. To this day the Vukasins don’t know who the appraiser was, let alone who sent him. They asked me who I thought it was, and I guessed that it was MLB, contracting the work as part of its “due diligence.”

I asked why the current site was so crucial, and George Jr. went into great detail about how the business worked. While the plant looks like a 70’s office building from the outside, the nondescript façade hides many unique features that are part and parcel of what makes Peerless Coffee run the way it does. Among the important features:

  • The floor is an extra thick concrete pad, which allows the company to stack huge bags of coffee from floor to ceiling without worrying about weight.
  • The plant’s location near the port lowers transportation costs.
  • Peerless rents out some surplus space in the back, with the knowledge that the space can be repurposed for a plant expansion if need be.

Perhaps the most interesting thing is the process of roasting coffee itself. Peerless does a lot of custom roasting for different clients, such as restaurants and hotels. This makes it important for the company to have extremely precise control over the variables that come into play, from humidity to the shape of the natural gas flame as the beans are being roasted. Roasting the beans an extra five minutes can severely change a coffee’s flavor profile, according to George Sr. George Jr. followed that up, saying that the process is so delicate, a transition period of 18 months would be necessary, including construction time. During that time, both facilities would be running (or under construction), allowing the new plant to work out the kinks and match the old plant’s flavor. The fact that coffee is perishable, coupled with the change of equipment and environment, mandates such a long transition. It’s possible that a lot of product will be wasted along the way. When another coffee roaster built a new plant to replace an old one, it supposedly took 6 months or more after it started operating to “dial in” the flavor properly. Essentially, the coffee is roasted based on the conditions in that exact location. Any changes would require a costly upheaval.

In preparation for what could happen, George Jr. and his sister, Kristina Brouhard, have done the necessary background work just in case. As I was talking with the two Georges, Kristina, an attorney who is also Peerless Coffee’s legal counsel, popped in for a moment and we exchanged pleasantries. They’re getting ready to (and I’m paraphrasing here) man the troops.

That’s not to say that manning of any troops will be needed. I asked the Georges if, as I had suggested last week, a ballpark land grab extended as far out as Fallon Street, instead of the taking of all land between Oak Street and Lake Merritt Channel. They both said they’d be fine with it, though no one has explained to them why all of the land was needed. They’re perfectly content to be neighbors to the ballpark, and their comfort with their specialized operation suggests that they aren’t in this just to hike up the price on their property. George Jr. doesn’t want anyone to feel sorry for the business, but he was very clear in saying, “This business is our family.” And right now it’s threatened by the ballpark. Already, customers are asking if Peerless is going out of business, which is clearly not the case. If you think that battling perception is hard now, just wait until the word gets out about a ballpark.

There were plenty of other anecdotes about Wally Haas, Herb Caen, Franklin Mieuli, Ken Hofmann, and strangely enough, former Warriors bust Chris Washburn, who George Sr. said had a “Rolls Royce grille on a Volkswagen.” George Sr. lamented how the revenue chase has made getting a fair stadium deal so difficult. We talked about how genuine Oakland’s (and Let’s Go Oakland’s) efforts were, and I was surprised how much we were all on the same page. There was a bittersweet moment in realizing that it is possible that Oakland, so defined by its sports franchises and full of history, could lose two or all three of them. George Sr. would’ve preferred a ballpark at Howard Terminal. George Jr. would’ve liked a downtown site. They told me how much they appreciated my work, and I thanked them for the time they gave me to discuss the issues. As I got up to leave, George Sr. had the most surprising parting words for me,

You never go over the owner’s head. If you call the commissioner, the first thing he’ll do once he gets off the phone is call the owner.

Coming from a man who has heard and seen it all – especially in Oakland and in dealing with pro sports teams – those are sage words.

12.10.10
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Put up or…

‘Tis the season to put up or shut up. We have a few examples at our disposal.

Robert Gammon reports that Oakland’s CEDA committee will examine the financing proposal for the $750,000 Victory Court ballpark EIR. The meeting is next Tuesday at 1:30 PM @ Oakland City Hall. If it is approved in committee, the City Council will vote on it the following Tuesday, December 21. There are three choices going forward:

  • Choose not to pay for the study. Gammon expects that the only dissenter on the committee will be Ignacio De La Fuente, with IDLF and Nancy Nadel the two members of the City Council who are opposed.
  • Authorize $350k for the initial traffic study. A complete traffic study hasn’t been completed in the JLS area for a decade, so the information could prove valuable for any number of future projects, including a ballpark.
  • Authorize all $750k. This should cover the complete EIR, including the traffic study.

LSA Associates, the Berkeley firm that did EIR work for both the Fremont and San Jose ballpark proposals, is doing this one as well if approved. Traffic study work is usually farmed out to a different set of consultants, that’s why it can be separated out.

In the unlikely event that either the CEDA committee or the City Council voted against the study funding, the message to MLB would be in effect a white flag. They could just authorize the traffic study and either wait until MLB renders a decision or ask MLB for some funding help. Previously I wrote that the latter was a good idea, however when I read that MLB has paid for all of the work up to this point, maybe that’s not such a good idea. Oakland may have to pay the whole $750k just to show that it has some skin in the game.

Over in TV land, if you are a Dish Network subscriber and a Sharks fan, someone on high doesn’t love you much. Yet another carriage squabble has occurred, this time between Dish and Comcast over CSN California. The dispute has viewers blaming both parties. Dish has always been the “budget” satellite alternative, with DirecTV having long been the true sports fan’s choice thanks in large part to its exclusive right to broadcast NFL Sunday Ticket. Hopefully they’ll get this resolved before the A’s season starts, or Dish loses a ton of subscribers.

Down south near the border, Escondido continues to struggle with authorizing $50 million for a new ballpark for the now homeless Padres AAA affiliate, formerly the Portland Beavers. The ballpark proposal is being fast-tracked so that it can be ready in time for the 2012 season (17 months from now), which sounds like a bad idea. Unlike Santa Clara, which at least had three years to study the 49ers stadium deal, the similarly sized Escondido is only getting a few months. $50 million in redevelopment funds would tap the agency’s budget for the next decade. Padres owner  Jeff Moorad is trying to buy the team, but the deal appears to be contingent upon getting the Escondido deal done. Portland is out of the question because PGE Park is being renovated for soccer. Tucson will be the interim home, though it’s possible Tucson could become the next long-term home. A MOU between the City and Moorad’s group is available here.

Speaking of fast-tracking, AEG’s Tim Leiweke is really pushing his vision of a retractable roof NFL stadium in downtown LA. The stadium, which would replace the West Hall of the LA Convention Center, would have “up to 72,000 fixed seats, 14,700 club seats and 40 field-level suites among its 218 skyboxes.” Apparently AEG isn’t demanding an ownership stake in whatever team moves there, though I’ll believe that when the ink is dry.

12.08.10
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Setting Oakland’s table

Update 12/8 17:23 – Susan Slusser has an update on the Ballpark Digest “report” and Lew Wolff’s reaction. Jane Lee filed something similar. From SuSlu’s update:

Ballpark Digest is reporting that the Major League Baseball committee investigating the A’s ballpark situation is favoring the new proposed site in Oakland; I am trying to determine the veracity of that, but there are no sources cited. The A’s have not heard that and – stop me oh oh oh stop me if you’ve heard this one before – team owner Lew Wolff told me in an e-mail, “Not to my knowledge. We have, as I have said when asked, exhausted all options in Oakland.”

If the A’s are not granted the territorial rights they want in San Jose, they are under no obligation to move to a site recommended by the committee. They can spend no money at all and stay at the Coliseum, or the owners can sell the team. I’m not sure there are many prospective buyers who believe the better market is in Oakland right now, either, but maybe Joe Lacob can take another look at the club and try to inject some of the enthusiasm he’s put into his new Warriors ownership. Lacob was part of a group that tried to buy the A’s when the Wolff group got them. I can state with certainty that the current group does not believe that the optimal market is in Oakland. It’s pretty obvious.

Note: When Lacob was interested in the A’s, he was going to partner with Billy Beane. When Peter Guber was interested, he was going to partner with Bob Piccinini. BTW, it’s wet and dreary today. I’ll go with SuSlu’s hint.

Update 12/8 11:15 – I asked Maury Brown, who is also at the winter meetings this week. His response?

RT Nothing. Owners meetings was last time @newballpark: Are you hearing anything regarding the A’s stadium situation this week?

Update 12/8 10:54 – Ballpark Digest (via The Drumbeat) has some juicy grist for the mill:

Indeed, the talk at the Winter Meetings is that an Oakland recommendation is now pretty much a done deal — with the additional spin (albeit accurate) that this proved the committee was right all along in waiting things out before making a recommendation.

Which is great, as long as MLB is setting Oakland up to succeed. Then again, they could be setting Oakland up to fail. At least The Town is getting a shot. This would also invert the situation in terms of how I perceived it: San Jose is the hedge, Oakland is the main option.

Robert Gammon does his best to equate Oakland’s stadium proposal to San Jose’s, but he misses a major, major point.

Before I get into that, there’s a bunch of good factual stuff.

  • Parking availability shouldn’t be a big issue because of the large inventory in downtown. Still, the City wants to build 2,500 spaces on site, which could prove problematic in that it triggers larger EIR impact for traffic and requires a large land acquisition, which could prove difficult.
  • Peerless Coffee doesn’t want to sell. Neither do its neighbors.
  • Among infrastructure upgrades, an extra lane from an 880 off-ramp (880 N to Oak St is my guess) would be needed.
  • A pedestrian bridge from JLS to Victory Court would also be needed. (Note – pedestrian bridges recently completed in Walnut Creek and Berkeley cost over $6 million)
  • 980 Park is being dismissed because of timeline/deadline issues, not site feasibility (this line by the City has been pretty constant).
  • “The league’s experts selected the Victory Court site as the most viable spot for a new ballpark.” That makes sense. Still doesn’t make sense why it took a year to get from four sites to one, when the number could’ve been two and whittled to one quickly.
  • Gammon projects which City Council members will be for and against the project, at least as far as the EIR funding is concerned.
  • As mentioned in the last post, the traffic study is moving forward. After that, it’s probably up to MLB.
  • Total price tag to make improvements and acquire land: $80-100 million. At A Better Oakland I speculated that $100 million would be a likely amount. The total could vary based the amount of land acquired, or the scale of certain land and infrastructure improvements.

The part I have to pick apart is this:

Under Oakland’s plan, the Central District of the city’s redevelopment agency would sell twenty- to thirty-year bonds to finance the land purchases and infrastructure upgrades. The bonds would then be paid back with property tax revenue generated by the ballpark and the surrounding planned development, which is to include housing, retail, and office space.

This is, of course, a classic TIF scenario. That’s not really a big deal procedurally since the site and surrounding area falls under one of two redevelopment districts. Gammon’s quick to equate what Oakland’s doing to what San Jose’s doing, but there’s a major difference, in that it’s $100 million of additional indebtedness to be incurred by the Oakland Redevelopment Agency. San Jose hasn’t had to raise any bonds and won’t have to raise any bonds for its project, so no additional debt there. If Wolff ponies up for the rest of the San Jose land, he may end up causing San Jose to forego a vote, the last remaining procedural hurdle. $20+ million for peace of mind and a green light from MLB? Not a bad investment.

While $100 million in RDA funds is not going to be up for voters to decide, it’s still not going to be a slam dunk politically. The big issue will be the cost of the land acquisitions and the possibility of eminent domain, which appears likely even in this early stage. If Oakland underestimates the amount needed to buy the properties, it will severely impact its ability to complete other parts of the project, whether it’s a parking garage or that pedestrian bridge. And given Peerless Coffee’s $30 million relocation estimate, acquisitions alone could break the bank. Legally, eminent domain proceedings can happen fairly quickly. Politically, they could prove difficult. And if Oakland lowballs as they did with Uptown? It could drag on for a while. Already another project in West Oakland is scaring landowners due to the potential use of eminent domain.

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Not shown: Elevated Nimitz Freeway running through the area

Thankfully for Oakland, there’s a way to make it work within whatever the budget is. The easiest thing to do would be to scale things back a bit. This doesn’t mean that eminent domain can be ruled out, but it may be that Oakland won’t have to make lowball offers in an effort to stay under budget. It may even be able to pull off regular negotiations with affected landowners.

One thing that hasn’t been mentioned anywhere is that Oakland doesn’t need to acquire the Peerless Coffee parcel, or really anything else between Oak and Fallon Streets. It may want to pick up pieces of land at the northwest and southwest corners (Oak & 5th, Oak @ UPRR) to create nice public plazas for a ballpark, but it doesn’t need to grab all 20 acres. If you look at the way I’ve placed and oriented the ballpark in the above image, the footprint is well removed from Fallon St. Reduce the amount of land needed and it suddenly becomes much more feasible. Sure, there will still be the need to relocate a triplex, some warehouses, a storage facility, the fire training site (already acquired), and East Bay Restaurant Supply, but that’s a lot better than having to slog through negotiations with a dozen or more different landowners.  You may recall that San Jose’s land acquisitions started with 20-22 acres and were reduced to 14 in the end. The smaller ballpark requirement, less parking needed, and budget constraints all contributed to that eventuality. This is what awaits Oakland, though Oakland will create for itself hard limits on what it can spend. In San Jose, they can sell a piece of land here or there to shore up the fund, or  even depend on an old man’s kindness. In Oakland they’ll need to get it exactly right, or else it’ll fall apart. Quick note: Based on the numbers in the latest ORA budget report, this project would raise total TIF debt from $440 million to $540 million, an increase of 23%.

What I don’t understand is exactly why MLB is having Oakland put together 20 acres in the first place. I wonder what would happen if Oakland went to MLB and said, “Okay, we love the idea, but we’d like to scale it down to make it more feasible.” Would MLB be flexible, or would it have a hard line? If, as I’ve discussed previously, Oakland is a hedge, MLB should be pretty flexible in its requirements. If they aren’t, I might be a little suspicious…

Gammon ends with this:

In other words, for the A’s to move to San Jose, the league must conclude that Oakland’s ballpark plan is unviable. At this point, that doesn’t appear to be the case.

“At this point.” Well, yeah. No one’s had to work out the hard stuff yet. Clock’s ticking…

12.07.10
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Slick Willie strikes again

Matier and Ross report that the Oakland City Council met last week, around the time of the planning commission hearing, to figure out how much money to devote to the EIR. While they won’t authorize the full amount, they’ll at least move ahead with a traffic study, which according to comments at the hearing, is long overdue. Perhaps this is a good time for Oakland tell MLB to put up some money. After all, if MLB is encouraging Oakland’s efforts, why not put its money where its mouth is? $500k to help take care of the costs is a drop in the bucket for the Commissioner, and as alluded to earlier, a similar amount to what MLB is offering San Jose for that city’s special election.

But the juiciest piece of the day comes in the form of a bait-and-switch done to Jed York by Willie Brown. Apparently the two were supposed to meet for lunch at a San Francisco restaurant, but when York arrived the reservation wasn’t under Brown’s name. Instead it was under Dianne Feinstein’s name. Feinstein, who’s been in office longer than York has been alive, met with the 49ers scion and both explained their relative positions. York agreed to meet with Gavin Newsom, though it’s not known what if any headway was made.

Somehow, I wouldn’t expect Lew Wolff to get caught in such a situation.

12.05.10
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A big hedge

As part of Susan Slusser’s preview of next week’s owner’s meetings in Orlando, there’s a couple of paragraphs devoted to the stadium situation.

There has been speculation that Major League Baseball’s committee examining the A’s stadium might issue its findings during the meetings, but team owner Lew Wolff said that he does not believe that will be the case, though an announcement should come soon. “All we want is a yes or a no,” Wolff said of efforts to get approval for a stadium in San Jose.

So an announcement should come soon, but not next week. Calgon, take me away!

A year ago, I wrote about three options that MLB could pursue regarding the A’s. They could either A) approve a move south, B) deny the move, or C) give Oakland one more shot with a deadline. Given the recent news on Oakland’s front, such as it is (and the lack of news on MLB’s part), option C would appear to have been the choice, in retrospect. Whether Oakland is getting a full shot is unclear, they’ve gotten at the very least a year. Yet there are plenty of things that don’t seem to fit that make me wonder what the real endgame is here.

Earlier in the fall, there were murmurs of a pending decision, which South Bay boosters have held onto ever since. Wolff’s retreat from that position in Slusser’s piece indicates that something may have changed, but to what extent? Wolff has held firm to wanting a “yes or no” from Selig, while the boosters have framed the South Bay as a chance to “explore” the territory. MLB appears to be in communication with both San Jose and Oakland city governments, giving the whole affair the appearance of a horse race.

If you ask me, “horse race” is not the proper term. “Contingency plan” is much more apropos. I get the sense that with the economy the way it is, the difficulty in getting things done in California, the T-rights issue affecting San Jose, and the uncertainty regarding Oakland’s ability to pull a deal off, MLB may view a dual-track plan as the best course of action right now.

First, let’s understand what the Bay Area means to MLB from a historical context. If you read the blog post from before Thanksgiving, you might see the Bay Area as one big bag of fail. Couple that with the litany of failed attempts to get something built for the Giants, aborted attempts to move by both the Giants and A’s (Tampa Bay and Denver respectively), and a lengthy delay in getting the only new MLB ballpark in California built (PETCO), you might actually excuse MLB for not believing that any ballpark plan in the Bay Area was a sure thing. Frankly, I’d be cautious too.

And so it may be that MLB is going to approach the A’s solution in a manner that won’t satisfy boosters from either San Jose or Oakland. It’s highly possible that MLB will foster Oakland’s efforts, while granting Wolff his chance to “explore” the South Bay simultaneously. Those of you pro-Oakland folks will look at this and say that The Town will be screwed since San Jose is so far ahead in the process. Well, nothing stopped Oakland from starting this process a year or at worst six months ago, instead of now. The nice thing politically about the way Oakland has gone about this is that they haven’t had to spend any money or make any significant decisions. Now we’ve got IDLF demanding that MLB commit to Oakland before they spend money on an EIR, which probably got many a chuckle going in NYC and Milwaukee. MLB doesn’t have to commit to anything. In fact, they can turn it around and pay for some or all of the EIR, thereby forcing Oakland to start making some decisions.

As for San Jose, they’re not the undisputed winners, at least not yet. They’ll have one chance. That’s it. While Oakland officials have pointed to a 2015 opening day for a Victory Court ballpark, San Jose won’t have as long, with a 2014 opening looming instead. The 2013 end of the Coliseum lease makes this a necessity. There may also be some lingering disinterest in opening the T-rights can until San Jose is completely in the bag, which right now it isn’t at all. Political capital for Selig to get consensus from the owners may not happen until everything is signed, sealed, and delivered. Selig won’t move until he has that consensus. And as long as a referendum is the deciding factor, he may not want to push all of his chips towards San Jose.

Oakland, then, is a hedge. Suppose that MLB helps fund the EIR, just as they’ve promised to partly fund San Jose’s special election. Since it’s unlikely that Wolff would be involved in an Oakland ballpark, MLB could arrange an ownership change to Oakland interests once the ballpark deal was in place, probably by buying the team Expos-style. Knowing the position in which they sit, Oakland has to decide whether to move forward or not. There will be some who are clearly offended by being placed second in the process. They may ask to pull out of the running entirely. Or they could take advantage of the opportunity, following through on all of the necessary steps just in case San Jose blows up – just as Fremont and Coliseum North did. Is it a long shot? There’s no denying it. Over the last 15 years Oakland’s made missteps and had the deck stacked against them. Yet it still has a chance, however remote, of keeping the A’s. To not work with that would be the utmost display of spite and would give MLB every excuse to finalize the move to San Jose without the slightest tinge of regret.

For many who are wrapped up in civic identity, the A’s saga is a zero-sum game. For someone to win, the opponent has to lose. For the rest of us A’s fans, it’s not zero-sum at all. We just want the A’s to stay local and for the era of free agent sluggers spurning us to end. For different reasons, MLB probably has a similar view. They want 30 vital teams. Despite the occasional talk of contraction by tinfoil hatters out there, Selig doesn’t want the failure of two contracted teams on his resume. There’s a decent chance that if San Jose doesn’t work out, Oakland will get its chance, and if that doesn’t work out – well, someone’s been thinking about what might happen in that case.

11.30.10
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SJ likely to push election back to Spring 2011

Thanks to MLB’s indecision, the deadline to get a ballot initiative ready for a March special election in San Jose will elapse, forcing San Jose to put the ballpark question on the ballot to April 12 or June 7. Mayor Chuck Reed clearly showed his frustration, though he took a moment to spin it in a more positive manner.

“The commissioner’s delay is certainly making it more difficult to figure out when is the best time to go to the voters,” said Reed, who added that he has been “pestering” Selig weekly for a meeting but has yet to make contact.

…

For now, Reed and the city council has no choice but to wait for MLB’s decision.

“The more time we have to make those decisions, the better,” he said.

Potentially complicating matters is a possible statewide tax measure, which could be floated by Jerry Brown in an attempt to make up for ongoing deficits. Anti-tax voters may have a negative view of a ballpark measure, even if it doesn’t have a tax or bond component attached to it. That could also be counteracted by pro-ballpark voters, it’s hard to tell.

Of course, pushing the measure back a month or two also pushes the deadline back the same amount. If MLB doesn’t make its decision in the newly extended timeframe (whatever that is), we could see this drag on until the 2011 general election.

11.29.10
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Cyber Monday Reality Check

Update 11/30 10:57 AM – There was an article at the Merc website about a San Jose special election in March being unlikely, but it was pulled. It may have to do with the deadline to place an initiative on the ballot for the special election. The article will run in tomorrow’s edition, so we should see it later today/tonight.

Sorry, no great deals for consumers here. There’s still plenty of stuff to read before Wednesday’s big rally planning commission session, so let’s let ‘er rip.

At A Better Oakland, V Smoothe has, as usual, a very realistic and substantial take on where Oakland is in the process. Thankfully, she references some of the work we’ve done here on site reviews (Howard Terminal/JLS West/Victory Court), and states her preference for Chris Kidd’s Jingletown site concept. More to the point, she defines what the purpose of the session is:

So basically, this is when you have an opportunity to go say what you think should be studied in the EIR. Like, for example, you could go and say, “I think it’s really important that the EIR examines pedestrian and vehicle safety impacts at the railroad crossing at the intersections of Embarcadero and Broadway, Franklin, and Webster” and that would be appropriate. If you went and said instead “I think Lew Wolff is an asshole and the A’s should stay in Oakland,” that would not be appropriate. Or productive. You don’t have to go to the hearing to have input on what gets studied — as I mentioned above, you are also encouraged to submit your comments in writing.

Just as important, she takes just two paragraphs to nail the frustration many fans have with the City of Oakland and Oakland-only boosters.

…And the attitude from so many City officials and A’s-in-Oakland boosters that we should keep the team because we just deserve them rather than because we have an actual plan for how we’re going to accomplish that infuriates me.

So it isn’t that I’m anti-Oakland so much as I’m anti-whining. And running around bitching about how unfairly Lew Wolff treats Oakland while doing absolutely nothing to further the goal of offering a viable stadium site is whining. While Oakland sat around feeling all put upon and pouting about being rejected and claiming there are tons of great ballpark locations all over Oakland if your ignore all the feasibility problems with them, San Jose, without any guarantee or even real reason to believe they could land the team, identified a site, bought up most of the land, certified an EIR, and built up significant community support for their proposal. That’s what being serious looks like.

Couldn’t have written it better, or more credibly, myself.

Over in St. Pete, Tropicana Dome has proven to be more costly for the city than expected, at $7.3 million per including operational costs and debt service. Rising insurance premiums and increased traffic control expenses are partly to blame. Besides those already sobering figures, the Tampa Tribune also asked whether or not the region can actually support the Rays in the long run. As studied nearly two years ago, the population of the Tampa Bay Area is not particularly large, and the location of the Tropicana Dome is nearly the worst within the region for attracting the greater populace. The biggest hurdle, however, could be getting a privately financed facility built in a region bereft of corporate interests:

The Tribune studied the Fortune 1000 list of major U.S. corporations and found only six companies on it based in the Bay area. Miami only had six, too. The median number of headquarters companies in a major-league market was 20.

Sounds familiar.

If you’re interested in the subject matter, there’s an article in the Chicago Tribune about the company that is converting Wrigley Field back from football to baseball. The very same field that, if the Ricketts family is allowed, would be torn up to build underground clubhouses for both home and visiting teams in left and right field, respectively.

Apparently the Marlins are trying to color coordinate the seats in their half-built, future ballpark with sponsor brands. Hmmm…

11.26.10
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Caveat citizen

A pithy piece on stadia and politics comes this week from an unusual place: a law firm. Attorneys Christopher Bakes, Scott Anders, and Jeremy Vermilyea of West Coast firm Bullivant Houser Bailey PC penned a succinct rebuttal (on Lexology) to a recent Wall Street Journal article on how municipalities are more averse to publicly financing stadia than before.

Bakes, a lawyer for the firm’s Sacramento office and an avowed Giants fan, represented the City of San Francisco in 1992 when the team threatened to move to Tampa, which gives him a pretty unique perspective on how stadium deals work. In his and his colleagues’ view, the problem for most stadium initiatives is not so much public financing as much as proper education of the public. That might be better termed “selling” the concept, in any case it’s part of the process. Here’s how they explain it:

Why stadium and ballpark initiatives fail. The key point missed by The Wall Street Journal is why so many stadium proposals became — and continue to become — problematic in the first place. It has far less to do with public funding than it does with good governance and public engagement, or (more likely) the lack of public engagement. This is because despite repeated failures at the ballot box and elsewhere, public officials and team owners almost never correctly interpret what is actually going on.

Voters don’t reject great ideas, they reject great ideas that aren’t carefully explained to them. When first proposed, ballpark proponents rarely list as a first priority the need to educate the public on why a ballpark is beneficial. It is as if the good public officials of Seattle (or San Diego, or Pittsburgh, or Minnesota) didn’t know about any of the troubles in Baltimore (or San Francisco, or Philadelphia, or Milwaukee), and simply moved along as if their new ballpark was the only one that had ever been conceived anywhere in America.

Later in the piece, the Giants and 49ers efforts are lauded for their outreach efforts with the public. It’s noted that the Giants’ plan, from conception to opening, took eight years (1992 to 2000). The 49ers’ stadium is on a similar path, with initial work dating back to 2007 and a likely opening in 2015. In San Jose, the process started in 2005 and an opening isn’t likely until at least 2014.

That brings me to Oakland. We’re about a year removed from Let’s Go Oakland’s unveiling of four sites, which apparently was done just to show that at least on the surface there was more than one. Any amount of scrutiny, which wasn’t done by local media, would’ve shown that there were really two sites, JLS West and Victory Court. Now that Victory Court is the chosen site, the clock will begin on December 1, when the first planning commission hearing for public comment is held. If the process holds true, a ballpark wouldn’t open until… 2018 or 2019.

If you think Oakland is somehow going to be able to shortcut the process, think again. The last large development project completed in Oakland was Uptown. Compare what Forest City originally pitched to what was eventually built:

Obviously, market conditions dictated how expansive the project became. Still, it’s likely that citizens will point to this as part of the City’s track record when it comes to executing on large projects. If MLB places faith in Oakland to get the ballpark plan done, it will do so knowing that the timeline will be quite long, through 2018 or later. And if proponents try to short circuit the process? There is no shortage of potential litigants ready to gum up the works.

Then again, as the article stated,

It has far less to do with public funding than it does with good governance and public engagement, or (more likely) the lack of public engagement.

The whole thing could get done more quickly if there’s a lack of public engagement. If that’s what happens, God help Oakland and A’s fans.

11.24.10
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There’s trying, and then there’s trying

This Thanksgiving, we should all be thankful that, despite the often misplaced or ill-timed effort, many people have been trying to keep the A’s in the Bay Area. To illustrate this, I’ve put together a map showing pretty much all of the sites that have been considered for a ballpark over the last 15 years. Below the map is a brief history and the fate of each site.

bayarealocations

Competing sites:

  • # – Victory Court. Emerged as the preferred ballpark location by the City of Oakland after the unveiling of four sites by Let’s Go Oakland in December 2009. EIR process has begun, initial comment period open. Public hearing on December 1 to elicit public comments.
  • * – Diridon (South). Preferred San Jose site picked after two year deliberation process. EIR completed in 2009, a 3+ year process.

HOK East Bay study sites:

  • A – Howard Terminal. Waterfront site immediately west of Jack London Square. Eventually was leased by Matson to consolidate shipping operations.
  • B – Oak to Ninth. Waterfront site east of Jack London Square. Has development plans for 3100 homes, parkland, and commercial uses.
  • C – Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum. Home of the current stadium, has had interest from different parties for a ballpark elsewhere within the complex. Both the Raiders and A’s have leases through 2013. The Coliseum Authority is working with the Raiders on a football-specific successor to the Coliseum immediately to the south of the existing stadium.
  • D – Laney College. Plans envisioned replacing the college’s athletic fields with a ballpark. Peralta Community College District was not interested in such a use.
  • E – Uptown. The preferred site from the study due to its downtown location and access to mass transit and parking infrastructure. Any chance of a ballpark was derailed when the A’s showed little interest and the site’s chief proponent was fired and a developer-friendly housing scheme was heavily promoted. An apartment complex is now on site.
  • F – Pleasanton. One of two southern Alameda County sites included in the study. Was undeveloped back then, is still undeveloped now.
  • G – Fremont. The other southern Alameda County choice, the site was north of the NUMMI (now Tesla Motors) site. The area would be reconsidered several years later for another shot at a ballpark, but NIMBY resistance helped kill it.

San Jose study sites:

  • I – FMC/Airport West. Old military vehicle plant was briefly considered thanks to central location within Santa Clara Valley. Was eliminated in favor of a more urban locale. Became the site of the future San Jose Earthquakes stadium.
  • II – Reed & Graham. An asphalt plant next to I-280. Eliminated early on due to infrastructure issues. Plant still in operation.
  • III – Del Monte Cannery. A single-owner site that was ready for redevelopment, just north of Reed & Graham. A developer showed interest in building condos on the site, which is eventually what happened.
  • IV – Berryessa Flea Market. Located on San Jose’s east side, its major advantages were its size, a single owner, and its location near a future BART station. Like the Del Monte Cannery, the site has plans for future residential development. Such work has not yet started and may not commence for several years.

A’s ownership promoted sites:

  • 1 – Coliseum South. Site pitched by Lew Wolff shortly after he was hired by Schott/Hofmann. Ownership agreed to pay 50% towards a study on the site, which included the HomeBase and Malibu lots. The Coliseum Authority balked. In 2010, the Authority bought the land with an eye towards a Raiders stadium and ancillary development plan.
  • 2 – Santa Clara. North of Great America, the site was also considered for a Santa Clara ballpark plan over a decade prior. In order to prevent a ballpark from being built, the City added a street through the property that gets very little vehicular use.
  • 3 – Coliseum North (High/66th). A broad redevelopment plan that would have bought 100 acres of industrial zoned land and changed the zoning to residential/commercial, with a ballpark as the centerpiece. Existing landowners balked at moving and Wolff/Fisher were not willing to pay much more than a nominal amount for the land, leading to the plan’s demise.
  • 4 – Pacific Commons. Took the Coliseum North redevelopment concept and moved it to Fremont, on Cisco/Catellus-owned light industrial (yet undeveloped) land. Plan died as the broader economy went into the tank in 2007.
  • 5 – Warm Springs. Rebirth of the original Fremont plan would’ve had the ballpark decoupled from the residential and commercial components. Area residents decried the location’s proximity to local homes and the lack of road infrastructure. The plan came and went quickly, which made the team look further south.

Have a good Thanksgiving, everyone.

11.11.10
by

QUAN!!!!!!

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I wanted to Photoshop in Don Perata's face in but couldn't find a suitable image.

Congratulations to Jean Quan, Mayor-elect of the City of Oakland. She’s the first Asian American female mayor among the Bay Area’s big cities, which is a huge achievement in and of itself. Now comes the hard part. Update 11/11 12:00 PM: Don Perata has chosen not to contest the election results.

Aside from budgetary concerns including a coming showdown with the police union, Quan’s biggest initial task will be to hire a competent, forward-thinking City Administrator to replace Dan Lindheim, the former CEDA head who has promised to stay on until a replacement if found and has essentially been a two-year acting administrator. As I understand it, Lindheim and other Oakland officials have done the necessary legwork to get information prepared for MLB’s panel. It’s difficult to assess City beyond that since there hasn’t been an official ballpark effort yet. Should that occur, it’ll be up to Lindheim’s replacement and CEDA’s Walter Cohen (or whomever replaces him) to push the process. After all, guys as gung-ho as Robert Bobb don’t grow on trees.

I discussed this further at AN yesterday:

1. One of the things that doesn’t get talked about is that there has been a severe brain drain in Oakland gov’t in recent years. Whether some of these people deserved to be employed is for another discussion, but from a practical standpoint, someone tenured and respected that isn’t an elected official will have to carry the water for a ballpark project. I have no idea who that person is.

If a ballpark process is to move forward (and with some alacrity), the ballpark champion will have to be found right quick. It’s possible that one of the reasons a plan hasn’t been cemented is the lack of a champion. The right person may be Planning guru Eric Angstadt, who deftly handled questions at the May 1st Community Meeting. Of course, if MLB makes a move towards San Jose in December it’s likely that a ballpark champion/new administrator will not have been hired yet. Regardless, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to have someone willing to push for the A’s – as long as it doesn’t hurt day-to-day responsibilities – in place just in case San Jose falls through.