Category Archives: Politics

07.27.10
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Major release from MLB: SJ, stop the vote

So it turns out Bud Selig isn’t Claude Rains after all. I had asked why MLB hadn’t simply requested that San Jose delay the vote, and it turns out that it took a weekend for them to make the call. From Mayor Reed’s office:

MLB President Bob DuPuy informed me today that Commissioner Selig has requested that the San Jose City Council refrain from placing a Downtown Ballpark Measure on the November 2010 ballot so that MLB’s special committee can complete its work. He also committed that, if a special election is required in the spring, MLB would help pay for it.

Mr. DuPuy also shared that he appreciated the amount of work the City has done and the level of excitement that the San Jose community has shown in attracting a Major League ballclub.

I informed Mr. DuPuy that I would consider the league’s request and talk with Lew Wolff. We also pledged to continue our conversation in the coming days.

How ’bout dem apples?

07.23.10
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Full Text of Ballot Measure

Just got Mayor Reed’s memo as I was headed out the door. Here is the full text of the ballot measure to be discussed at the August 3rd session:

Should the San Jose Downtown Ballpark and Jobs Measure be approved to authorize, but not require, the use of Redevelopment Agency funds, with no new taxes, to acquire and clear a site for a baseball stadium, fund related off-site improvements, and lease the site for a professional baseball team where the team would pay all on-site construction costs, operation and maintenance costs, generating new tax revenues for City operations?

I’ve added a link to the complete memo, which is four pages long and includes previously mentioned material, such as San Jose’s negotiating principles. More on this later tonight.

5:40 PM – the Mayor’s office has a response to Selig’s statement:

To bring Major League Baseball to San Jose, we first need two processes to occur: We must seek the approval of San Jose’s voters, and we must seek the approval of MLB.

The Commissioner’s process will move forward at a pace of his choosing. We respect their process, but we need to move forward with our process as well.

Our process is simple: we have exactly one regular citywide election scheduled in the next 23 months, and that’s in November. For the City of San Jose, it’s now or never.

August 3rd is the last day to obtain City Council approval to place items on the November ballot, and our Sunshine rules require that we file policy memorandums today. Sunshine and open government are cornerstones of San Jose’s decision-making process, and we will have a fully transparent process moving forward, just as we have over the past fifteen months.

With a strong statement of support from San Jose voters this November, we believe that we can remove any hesitation by Major League Baseball in recognizing the self-determined “territory” of San Jose’s residents.

Regarding any concern expressed about the timing of our decision, Mayor Reed’s staff sought to schedule a conversation this week between the Mayor and the Commissioner, but was unsuccessful. The Mayor has requested a meeting with the Commissioner’s office for next week to discuss the issue more fully.

Is that it for tonight? I sure hope so.

07.23.10
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Mark it down: August 3rd

Though the San Jose City Council remains in its July recess, Mayor Chuck Reed is moving forward to put a ballpark measure on the November ballot. While there’s been a lot of FUD regarding whether or not San Jose would do this, within City Hall there hasn’t been nearly as much drama. Call it the media’s version of the dog days of summer. Even Glenn Dickey got a word in late tonight.

As expected, San Jose’s posturing didn’t really amount to much, as it’s clear that they can’t really compete until all of the boxes on their checklist have checkmarks. Tonight’s news has an unnamed league source confirming this:

“Part of the problem is, Lew doesn’t have San Jose sewn up. It’s not like there’s a stadium ready to be built,” said this person, who refused to be identified because he isn’t authorized to speak for the league.

“If there was an approval, that could make a difference. It’s hard to say, ‘OK, Lew, you can have it,’ and then have them go through the voting process and end up losing.”

As recently as last week, Reed had said it would be up to Wolff whether the city should put a stadium measure on the ballot absent baseball’s approval. On Thursday, Wolff praised the mayor’s proposal.

“This is another element that would make the process more viable, just like acquiring the land and finishing the” supplemental environmental impact report, he said. “The more unknowns that can be out of the way, the better.”

As expected, Wolff also fell in line once San Jose got moving. While there will be representation from opposition groups, it’s highly likely that the Council will approve placing the measure on the ballot, especially because Wolff and a booster group will be picking up the tab.

It’s good to know that new opposition group Better Sense San Jose is headed by Shasta/Hanchett resident Marc Morris, and not an astroturf group. Morris has been present since Day 1 of the process, questioning the figures all the way, and all of his concerns should be properly addressed by the City and the A’s.

The real question at this point has to be: Will the Giants do something now that the A’s and San Jose have a “working relationship?”

9:43 AM – As a counterpoint, Congresswoman Barbara Lee penned a plea for Selig and MLB to focus on keeping the A’s in Oakland, which would help revitalize the city.

3:42 PM – The commissioner’s office has put out a response. In the statement, Selig voiced his disapproval for how San Jose is moving forward without his blessing. Is Selig doing his best Claude Rains impression? We’ll find out sooner or later.

Here’s the full text of the statement. Those of you who are reacting, what’s missing from the statement?

“We were surprised and disappointed by the news today in San Jose about the stadium referendum. We were not part of the process and had no knowledge that a decision to proceed with the election had been made. A ballot referendum is premature and completely independent of the ongoing work of the committee which has been in place to thoroughly study this situation.

“There is an established process in place and the committee will continue its work unaltered by these actions. Consistent with the ongoing evaluation of the Oakland A’s situation, the committee will meet with me once again this Monday. As I have said before, the object in this very complicated situation is not to get it done as fast as possible, but to get it done right.”

The question is not, “Why did Selig put out the statement?” The proper question is, “Why doesn’t MLB ask San Jose to wait for them to complete their work?”

07.21.10
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Date to place ballot measure may be moved up

The oft-mentioned date for San Jose’s City Council to approve placing a ballpark measure on the November ballot has been August 3rd. However, it’s possible that the date may be pushed up to July 28, if not the August 3rd agenda may be out by then. A memo is expected to emanate from the Mayor’s office by the end of the week.

In the offing, I have received multiple reports of San Jose residents taking surveys on a potential ballpark measure. At least one resident has taken a survey this week, indicating that fine tuning of the ballot language may be finalized. We should know something by the end of the week.

07.14.10
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Altogether Now

Not to be forgotten, at least one Oakland official is expressing his frustration at Bud Selig and his Merry Trio’s sixteen months of work (and counting), courtesy of Chris Metinko of the Trib:

“I think these people are playing us,” Oakland Councilmember Ignacio De La Fuente said Wednesday. “The best thing (Major League Baseball) can do is pit one city against the other. I feel this is all being orchestrated.”

De La Fuente’s comments come just days after San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed expressed similar dismay over MLB’s long, drawn-out study.

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De La Fuente, who also serves on the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Authority Board that controls the stadium in Oakland, said he has not heard anything from MLB in several weeks and echoed Reed’s comments about the cities being held hostage.

“At the end of the day, we should not be held hostage by baseball,” De La Fuente said.

In honor of the collective anger emanating from at least two corners of the Bay Area, I present the following video gem (watch out for some profanity):

In light of the rather elaborate plan hatched and executed by Miami’s new trio, it’s worth asking: How much of this process is real?

07.13.10
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Calling a bluff

There’s a reason why I don’t play much poker anymore. Frankly, I suck at it. I have no poker face. Apparently, we’re about to find out if San Jose has a good poker face too, because Bud Selig just announced that he is not going to bend to their will.

But, Selig said he would not let an Aug. 3 deadline from the San Jose City Council affect the committee’s timeline. San Jose officials have said they require a commitment from Major League Baseball by that date in order to put a stadium referendum on the November ballot.

If San Jose decides to table the measure, that’s not going to be further impetus for MLB to act. It’s amazing to me how stubborn they are about this. They have been slowly plowing away with their head down for five years now. Maybe they received some kind of promise from Selig when he visited a couple of years ago. Somehow I doubt it. Maybe Wolff told them that he’d work the channels and take care of the lodge, which sounds more likely. Whatever the real machinations are, San Jose will have to decide soon how truly serious about this they are. That means taking a bit of a risk and having faith in the citizenry.

MLB is the hot girl who gets all the attention in school, and San Jose is the average looking guy who is barely acknowledged by her. If he wants to take her to the senior prom, he needs to do all the prom stuff – rent the tux, get a limo, corsage, maybe a hotel room… otherwise she’ll find someone else. Perhaps her slacker ex-boyfriend.

Let’s keep this in proper perspective. The cost for San Jose to be in this is minimal compared to the way so many other American cities have been absolutely pillaged by pro sports leagues and franchises over the last thirty years. So come on, SJ, man up. Get the limo.

Selig also addressed a rumor about his panel perhaps working out a ballpark deal with Oakland:

Selig also denied suspicions that the three-person committee has overstepped its original information-gathering objective and has engaged in active talks to broker a new ballpark in Oakland.

Can’t fault the slacker dude from trying to get the girl back. Does this plot sound more John Hughes or Richard Linklater? Kevin Smith?

07.12.10
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Selig speaks, actually says something

LA TImes baseball scribe Bill Shaikin has a fairly lengthy interview with one H.R. “Bud” Selig on the eve of the All Star Game. I say “fairly” because the Times has chosen to split the interview into ten (!) parts to hike up pageviews. In any case, Shaikin got Selig to comment a little on the SF-Oakland-San Jose love triangle on page 4. Here’s the excerpt with some interspersed commentary by yours truly.

Q: George Mitchell delivered the report you commissioned on baseball’s steroid era — 700 interviews, 115,000 pages of documents — in 21 months. It has been 16 months since you commissioned a report on the Oakland Athletics’ stadium situation, an issue that does not appear anywhere near as complex. The A’s still want to move to San Jose; the San Francisco Giants still say no. Why have you not been able to broker a deal between the A’s and the Giants?

A: …Now, as far as the San Francisco-Oakland thing: It’s complicated. I like both parties a great deal. We have territorial rules. I put a committee together that has the qualifications to understand. They’re still hard at work. They’ve still got things to do. This has a lot of ramifications to it.

Eventually, I will make a decision. What I want to say — because I’m generally very deliberate, as everybody knows — is that I didn’t want to have anybody say at the end, ‘Did you look at this? Did you look at that? What about X? What about Y?’

Selig is basically saying that he has all the cards here, so he doesn’t have to do anything right away. If  San Jose is balking at putting a measure on the ballot without the decision, tough luck. Why should he put himself out and start making sausage with the owners when SJ hasn’t gotten everything done yet?

Q: Why is it not as simple as: The Giants claim their business will be severely damaged if the A’s move to San Jose, so you quantify how much their business is hurt and write them a check?

A: It isn’t that simple. You’ve got two parties involved here. There are a lot of questions that people raise about damage. It’s up to us to check everything out. There are a lot of questions the other clubs can ask — and I will ask — before we can make any move. I know that people want a decision. I understand that. But my job is to get it right. If it takes a little longer than people thought, so be it.

Ergo, “I really don’t want to open up this can of worms because of the effect on the NY teams. At least not until someone in the Bay Area has their act together.”

Q: The A’s and Tampa Bay Rays are the two teams still looking for a new ballpark. When the collective bargaining agreement expires next year, so does the moratorium on contraction. If the ballpark situations are not resolved, would you consider folding the A’s and Rays?

A: No, I wouldn’t. I think we have moved past that.

It’s too late to talk contraction until the after the next CBA begins.

We’re going into 16 years of labor peace. I regard that as maybe the prime reason for the growth of the sport.

Do you really think Selig wants two contracted teams as part of his legacy?

I love the new ballparks. I love revenue sharing. I love interleague play and the wild card. But I don’t think we understood how those labor confrontations were damaging us, whether it was 1972, 1973, 1976, 1980, 1981, 1985, 1990 or 1994.

There’s no need to fundamentally change the current CBA. The only people complaining are fans (and some owners) of small market teams. Everyone else (owners, players’ union) is reasonably happy.

There is no question that both of those teams need new ballparks. We’ll just have to work our way through it. Tampa has done a marvelous job running their team. [General Manager] Billy Beane has done a terrific job in Oakland. With the economics of baseball today, you’ve got to have a new stadium.

It’s hard to infer too much from this. I’ve always held that Selig will not retire until the Tampa Bay and Oakland situations are resolved one way or another. Since contraction is not happening, it has to be ballparks – somewhere. Once the Rangers’ situation is figured out, I expect Selig and DuPuy to spend a lot of time and resources on TB/OAK.

I’ll leave with one of the more revolting developments from Shaikin’s excellent interview:

I [Selig] was a Yankee fan when I was growing up here [Milwaukee].

Does he deserve a pass because Milwaukee didn’t have a major league franchise when he was a kid?

07.12.10
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Another weekend, another op-ed

Following up on last week’s volley by San Jose booster Larry Stone, Oakland supporter and one-time A’s executive Andy Dolich fires back on the home city’s behalf. He brings up a great point in showing how Oakland has been counted out time and time again, only to emerge as still having its teams. His tack is left a bit wanting, as he repeatedly mines the not-so-recent past for Oakland’s success while not pointing at all to the future, or recent failures. His only hint at the future is a hope that someone will swoop in and buy the A’s out from the Wolff/Fisher group.

The A’s will most likely get their new stadium in Oakland because the A’s will follow the Giants example. In the Giants’ darkest moment, a group came together to keep the team in its rightful place in San Francisco. Oakland elected officials and private, civic-minded business leaders will find a way to build a new ballpark. When fans of the Green and Gold are celebrating their fifth world championship, it will be in Oakland.

I’ve heard this multiple times, yet I’ve never heard it articulated in any meaningful way. Is the idea to wait out the process, hope San Jose fails, Wolff gives up, and sells the team in short order to an Oakland-only interest (that MLB approves of)? It’s not impossible, but it’s not really a strategy. It’s like waiting for your boss to give you a promotion at work even though you’ve been playing Farmville at your desk everytime he drops by. Moreover, is Dolich suggesting that he would be part of the angel ownership group, just as he was part of the Piccinini group? If that happened, then suddenly there would be something concrete. It’s hard to say what other pieces would be part of such an investor group, but at least one would have to be a billionaire in order to carry the weight required to get a new ballpark deal done. Hell, I would love to start that rumor myself, but it would be completely out of thin air.

Speaking of a new ballpark, Dolich cites the Giants the prime example to get something done in Oakland.

It took the Giants 16 years and four failed elections to get their gem of a privately financed jewel at China Basin. It’s a bear to build a new sports venue in today’s California, no matter how much rose coloring you add to your glasses or how much of the owners’ privately funded millions are put into the project.

Point of distinction: When the Giants proposed their “privately financed jewel,” it took only one election to get it approved. The previous three initiatives all involved publicly financed venues in either San Francisco or Santa Clara County. Big difference. Whether in Oakland or San Jose, it’s not hard to envision a ballpark happening once a Yes vote is obtained. Oakland does not have a voting requirement for a stadium, which boosters like to point out frequently, but at the same time it’s remarkably bad form to spend up $50-100 million on land and infrastructure in a budget crunch without getting public approval, especially in light of the Coliseum renovation debacle.

If Oakland and its boosters really want to get citizens of the city and the region out of its collective apathy or disaffection, they need to articulate how this can all be done. It doesn’t have to be done now, but it needs to be done steadily and completely. I’ve received conflicting reports on whether that’s happening, though Mark Purdy, in his latest repetitious plea to Bud Selig, thinks the MLB panel may be working with Oakland interests on such a plan. Personally, I hope that it is happening, whether it’s to perform due diligence throughout the East Bay or to create a viable Plan B if San Jose doesn’t work out. In the constant battling between the two factions, it’s easy to lose sight of the goal of keeping the A’s in the Bay Area. I don’t tire of the posturing since that’s all it is, posturing. Soon, the dog days will be upon us and work will begin anew.

07.03.10
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The day has come… for a proxy fight

It’s too bad that per the ML Constitution, teams and owners aren’t allowed to sue each other. They’re not even allowed to have open sniping in the local papers or even a Lincoln-Douglas style debate. Instead, we have Bill Neukom sending lawyers down to San Jose to fight for the Giants (big and little). For the A’s, it’s County Assessor Larry Stone penning an op-ed in today’s  edition of San Francisco’s paper.

In Stone’s plea to Neukom to call the dogs off, he mentions that the A’s have proposed their own solution for determining compensation for South Bay territorial rights.

As I understand it, the A’s have agreed that following the opening of a San Jose ballpark, the Giants would have the right to ask Major League Baseball to arbitrate any damages to their fan base or revenue that were caused by the new stadium. Neukom has apparently rejected this fair and simple approach, most likely because projections conducted in a fair manner just might show that the San Jose ballpark would have a positive impact on the orange and black.

Obviously, Neukom would reject such a deal as it doesn’t involve a massive upfront payoff, the kind many believe it would take for the move to happen. However, by continuing to take such an intransigent stance, Neukom risks allowing Bud Selig and his committee to dictate compensation terms. Here’s are the four main tenets I expect to be the framework regarding the committee’s report:

  • The A’s hurt the Giants when they moved to Oakland in 1968 because it split the market in two.
  • The Giants hurt the A’s when they moved to a downtown SF ballpark in 2000 because they suddenly had a new venue that was more accessible to everyone in the Bay Area.
  • Trading the higher population of the East Bay and access to the North Bay for the South Bay’s corporate money and lower population is essentially a wash.
  • San Jose’s progress in terms of getting pieces of a stadium deal in place put it in advantageous position.

That last part is not to say that Oakland isn’t making its own progress as it formally acquired the OFDT site from CEDA, but as long as there’s no EIR or negotiations with private landowners it’s well behind. That said, what would you consider fair  compensation given the four points above? Is it at all clear cut?

06.25.10
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Tampa Tribune checks in on relocation prospects

As part of recent coverage of the Rays’ desires to leave the Trop, the Tampa Tribune took a look at four cities who had been and could be future relocation candidates. While the four (San Antonio, Portland, Charlotte, Las Vegas) still have boosters or other groups waiting in the wings, to say that they’re ready to pluck the Rays (or A’s) from their current respective homes is a bit of a stretch.

Hat tip to Field of Schemes.