Major League Baseball Las Vegas Rumor May Explain Mayor Schaaf’s Wrong Oakland A’s Coliseum Claim
– vlog by Zennie62 YouTube. OaklandNewsNow.com is the original blog post for this content.
Major League Baseball Las Vegas Rumor May Explain Mayor Schaaf’s Wrong Oakland A’s Coliseum Claim
During my interview with Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf last Tuesday, she said that the Oakland A’s have final say over who gets the Coliseum site between Ray Bobbitt / African American Sports and Entertainment Group (AASEG) and Oakland A’s pitching legend Dave Stewart (and now, presumably, Elaine Brown). Because the A’s own an undivided half-interest in the Coliseum, nothing will get done without the A’s approval.
But the actual Alameda County Documents that govern the terms of the sale of the property to the A’s do not say what the Mayor claims.
The key paragraph from the original 2019 Alameda County land sale agreement is this one:
This sale will not prompt a change in use of the facility and no specific development plans for the property are proposed by CWP (Coliseum Way Partners LLC owned by John Fisher, the Owner of The Athletics). The Complex will remain as a sports and entertainment complex as the Athletics’ license will not expire until at least after the 2024 baseball season. Depending on the progress of the new ballpark the Athletics may extend their license agreement at the Complex beyond that time. The Arena will continue to be host to concerts, other entertainment programs and minor sports events. Although development for the site may be contemplated in the future, the scope of that development is speculative at this time and not within the control of the County. Any proposed development would be subject to the Coliseum Area Specific Plan adopted by the City in 2015. The City prepared and certified an Environmental Impact Report for the Coliseum Specific Plan. Depending upon the scope of any proposed development proposal, additional environmental review may be necessary but that cannot be determined at this time. For those reasons, the County has concluded that the Disposition Agreement itself is not subject to CEQA review since it can be determined with certainty that the Disposition Agreement and the actions contemplated therein will not result in a change of use of the Complex or a change in the physical environment. Community benefits requirements will be imposed by the City on any new developments contemplated in the future.
Nowhere does the agreement give John Fisher any say over who gets to own the other land that’s held by the City of Oakland. The governing organization really is the City of Oakland because of the Coliseum Area Specific Plan. Plus, the idea of the land sale was to help the County of Alameda “get out of the sports business”, which it was never in to start with. Moreover, Oakland At-Large Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan also disagrees with the Mayor’s assessment. Moreover, there’s this:
This sale will not prompt a change in use of the facility and no specific development plans for the property are proposed by CWP. The Complex will remain as a sports and entertainment complex as the Athletics’ license will not expire until at least after the 2024 baseball season. Depending on the progress of the new ballpark the Athletics may extend their license agreement at the Complex beyond that time. The Arena will continue to be host to concerts, other entertainment programs and minor sports events. Although development for the site may be contemplated in the future, the scope of that development is speculative at this time and not within the control of the County. Any proposed development would be subject to the Coliseum Area Specific Plan adopted by the City in 2015. The City prepared and certified an Environmental Impact Report for the Coliseum Specific Plan. Depending upon the scope of any proposed development proposal, additional environmental review may be necessary but that cannot be determined at this time. For those reasons, the County has concluded that the Disposition Agreement itself is not subject to CEQA review since it can be determined with certainty that the Disposition Agreement and the actions contemplated therein will not result in a change of use of the Complex or a change in the physical environment. Community benefits requirements will be imposed by the City on any new developments contemplated in the future.
In other words, the agreement does not give John Fisher the right to have a say over the City of Oakland’s development decisions. For the Mayor to say otherwise makes me wonder why it seems she’s bending over backwards for John Fisher?
Consider that Mayor Schaaf initially allowed the Oakland A’s to have an exclusive negotiating agreement over both the Coliseum and Howard Terminal, and with the idea of choosing one of the properties; the A’s selected both of them. Even though that was not in the initial ENA, that outcome was not prohibited, and the Mayor and the City Attorney did not balk at the Oakland A’s dual-site-development plan. At first, the A’s pushed the idea of keeping the Arena and claiming to want to have a mix of land uses, even though they had no real concrete plan other than destroying our iconic stadium. But then, in our most recent talks, Oakland A’s President Dave Kaval gave the view that they were focused on Howard Terminal, or they were leaving Oakland.
My view is the Oakland A’s, MLB, and Fisher are as interested in keeping the NFL out of Oakland as they are building a new stadium for the A’s. Otherwise, why bother advancing a plan to demolish the Coliseum Stadium and not replace it, and then toss cold water on Ray Bobbitt’s plan to bring the NFL back to Oakland? The A’s want Oakland for themselves, even if it’s at the expense of Oakland’s own economic development needs. Oakland has yet to replace the lost Raiders-related jobs after the team moved to Las Vegas. The jobs helped keep a good segment out of homelessness and able to feed their families. Now, they are gone.
Now, The Rumor I Was Told Is Major League Baseball Is Leaving Oakland
But now, from what I was told last night, and by a long-time friend in the development community who has never given me a tip that did not pan out, Major League Baseball is done with Oakland. What that specifically means is the Oakland A’s are going to work on getting out of here, and ostensibly to Las Vegas.
That would explain a lot why Mayor Schaaf is literally trying to give the appearance of giving John Fisher and the A’s more control than they contractually can have over Coliseum development and developers for the land not even owned by the billionaire sports team owner. Whatever the specifics, one thing is clear: Major League Baseball, for now and unless a major turn around happens, is planning the A’s exit out of Oakland.
I do not write that with glee, but tremendous sadness. Still, we should fashion a plan for the future. And also we must look at the bright side: the Oakland Auditorium at Lake Merritt is being rebuilt, and gives a picture toward an exciting future. But it has no tenants or events at this point; that will change. Oakland must begin to build for a civic plan, and not for a team. That’s what Las Vegas did for the Raiders. The plan for some kind of large scale stadium for UNLV and the NFL came years before Sheldon Adelson and Napoleon Kaufmann went and brought Mark Davis to Sin City.
And that’s really what then-NFL Executive Vice President Eric Grubman was trying to tell Oakland during the period where it looked like we had a chance to keep the Raiders, when the NFL kept moving the goal posts. We started from behind, which allowed the league to sort-of “tip us over”. And even though I believe Oakland will eventually prevail in court, the fact is, we as a city have not focused on building, just politicking.
Stay tuned.
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