Mayor says A’s should stay put
Oakland’s Schaaf cites progress made on new stadium site as reason for optimism
Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf appeared on television Wednesday with a simple message to those worried that the A’s might leave: “Hell no, we won’t let them go.”
Schaaf spoke during a segment on KRON a day after the A’s announced that they have the blessing of Major League Baseball to consider relocation if their Howard Terminal ballpark project is not approved by Oakland officials. Another bombshell was that MLB, for the first time, said it opposes a stadium project at the Coliseum site, the A’s current home that had been considered a fallback to the complicated, $12 billion waterfront proposal.
“I’m glad MLB made it clear that keeping the A’s is urgent,” Schaaf said during the segment. “And the only path for doing so is the new project at the waterfront. I’m excited because we have made a lot of progress.”
Schaaf is under pressure not to lose the third and final professional sports team under her tenure. The Raiders left for Las Vegas in 2020, a year after the Golden State
Warriors moved into their state-of-the-art facility in San Francisco. The A’s have played at the Oakland Coliseum since they moved from Kansas City in 1968 and have been seeking a new facility for two decades.
Since presenting their financial plan on April 23, the A’s and president Dave Kaval have been publicly pushing for a vote before the City Council’s summer recess in July. And Schaaf said for the first time Wednesday that she is endeavoring to meet that rapid schedule.
“We need them to vote, that is true,” Schaaf said of the council. “We’re working on bringing them a financial plan that we believe
they can support. We are looking to do that before the end of July.”
Time is the A’s biggest concern. Their lease at the Coliseum ends in 2024, and the waterfront ballpark’s earliest opening date would be in 2027.
“We’re still hopeful that we can make progress in Oakland,” Kaval said this week. “But we’re down to some of our last at-bats.”
MLB commissioner Rob Manfred contacted Schaaf before the A’s and MLB made their pressure play on Tuesday morning. Kaval said no official list of relocation options has been curated, and that it is up to MLB to provide viable markets. Manfred has, in the past, listed Las Vegas, Portland, Oregon; Vancouver, British Colombia; Nashville, Tennessee; San Antonio; Charlotte, North
Carolina; and Montreal as potential expansion sites. If the Giants relinquish their rights to Santa Clara County, which seems unlikely, San Jose could potentially be on the table, too.
The A’s and MLB are prioritizing the development at Howard Terminal. And they said as much to Schaaf.
“Oakland is still their preference,” Schaaf said. “They want Oakland to work.”
Oakland officials, including a handful of City Council members, issued statements offering support for the A’s. But council president Nikki Fortunato Bas said the council wants to meet with ownership before moving forward.
Others expressed more caution, given the price tag. Kaval tweeted on Wednesday, “This is a privately financed project!” but the
A’s proposal calls for nearly $900 million in infrastructure improvements for the stadium and waterfront area, to be paid by the taxpayers.
Council member Carroll Fife on Tuesday tweeted, “I’m happy my council colleagues are politically correct and diplomatic. I’m not quite there yet. Since I’ve been in Council, I’ve been told by city staff, including those working on this project to be careful about what I say because it could create ‘problems’.”
She also wrote, “What’s been presented about this project (on Twitter) since I’ve been on council has been sleazy, unethical & untrue reveals deep issues with how ‘business’ is done in Oakland.”
Andy Dolich, A’s executive from 1980 to 1994, said there’s no indication A’s
owner John Fisher is looking to sell the team. Kaval said, too, that the team is not for sale. During Lew Wolff’s ownership, the A’s threatened relocation in 2014..
“It’s not a selling sign, unless it is,” Dolich said. “I don’t think it’s an etched-in granite selling sign. If you look at the conversations on relocation, it’s existed for a few years.”
A’s manager Bob Melvin, who grew up on the Peninsula but attended A’s games and Day on the Green concerts at the Coliseum as a youth, said he wasn’t too concerned about the team’s possible move.
“It is unfortunate that a couple of (Oakland-based) teams have left and certainly we don’t want that to happen, and I don’t think anything that was said today would suggest it’s going to,” Melvin said Tuesday. “I think it’s just giving MLB and the organization a few more options to maybe look elsewhere.”
A’s starter Jesús Luzardo tweeted the hashtag the team has used in its campaign to build Howard Terminal: #RootedInOakland.
Matt Olson, drafted by the A’s in 2012, said he wants to stay in Oakland.
“As far as the ballpark and things like that, it’s a little out of control,” Olson said Tuesday. “We kind of just got to go with the flow with that. As far as the organization and the people that we have here, we all want to be here. Like I said, it’s the team I got drafted by personally, and I want to be here for a long time. That other stuff is, unfortunately, it’s out of our control. We just got to wait and see what happens.”