Oakland wants to keep talking over A’s ballpark, but will the team?

OAKLAND — The Oakland City Council made clear on Tuesday what they want the financial terms to look like for the A’s $12 billion, 55-acre proposed waterfront ballpark project, but the team will now have to decide to whether return to the negotiating table to stay in Oakland.

Even after city staff and council members publicly proposed amendments that would guarantee the A’s don’t have to pay for infrastructure funding around the proposed ballpark and development on Howard Terminal, A’s Team President Dave Kaval rejected the city’s terms.

“The current term sheet even with these amendments is not something the A’s have consensus around,” Kaval said during the meeting, after complimenting the city staff on working hard to create the latest proposal. “From our perspective, this is not a term sheet that works for the A’s.”

In an interview after the meeting, Kaval was more tentative, saying they needed more time to consider and understand the terms before committing to resume negotiations.

“We’re disappointed that the city did not vote on our proposal that we’ve been asking for some time, but we’re going to take some time and really dig in and understand what they did pass and what all the amendments mean,” he said. “There are things we had never seen before. … We’re going to spend some time with the league unpacking that and make sure we have all the information.”

Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf was relatively optimistic in her own news conference after Tuesday’s meeting.

“I assure you; we are very close,” Schaaf told reporters, after acknowledging disappointment that the A’s did not embrace the city’s terms. “The issue is that Oakland is standing firm on (the requirement for) community benefits and sources for funding that.”

“We are unified in keeping the A’s rooted in Oakland in a way that protects our port, our community and our tax payers,” she said.

The city and the A’s are at odds over how to pay for the $352 million costs for infrastructure — such as parking management, pedestrian bridges over railroad tracks, and other transportation improvements — surrounding the 55-acre ballpark complex that will include as many as 3,000 residential units, 1.5 million square feet of office space, 270,000 square feet of mixed retail, a 3,500-seat performance theater, 400 hotel rooms and about 18 acres of parks and open space at Howard Terminal, which is part of the Port of Oakland not too far from Jack London Square.

The city also wants the A’s to provide a significant amount of affordable housing in its development plans as well as millions of dollars’ worth of other community benefits. The financial terms put forth by the city would require the A’s to provide at least 15% of the units at Howard Terminal to be affordable and provide dollars equivalent to building 20% of the affordable units into a fund that could finance new or refurbished housing units, downpayment assistance and tenant services.

City officials also recommend creating a “community fund” to pay for benefits including workforce development programs and affordable housing in the city. Besides using some funds from the project’s property taxes, the city recommends implementing a .75% condominium transfer fee that would generate $340 million over 66 years and payments from the team in lieu of transportation impact fees to the tune of $11 million over 10 years.

Vice Mayor Kaplan proposed using state and federal funds to cover the $352 million in transportation improvements, letting the A’s off the hook for paying for those costs. Other city council members expressed support, although Council member Dan Kalb said it was “disturbing” to think the A’s would not have to be responsible for any of those costs.

Still, Kalb reluctantly voted “yes” to approve the city’s recommended terms, along with Fortunato Bas and Kaplan, and Councilmembers Sheng Thao, Loren Taylor and Treva Reid.

The A’s had released their own term sheet in April, but numerous Oakland residents, community leaders and city officials said it relied too heavily on public financing. When city staff released its own proposed financial framework on Friday, Kaval warned then that a City Council approval of those terms would mean a “no” vote from the team in moving forward with the project.

He said Tuesday after the meeting that some of the proposals in the term sheet were new, despite that the two sides have been negotiating frequently for weeks.

“We had never seen any of it,” Kaval said after the meeting. “We need to take the time to dig in and see how it impacts the project and obviously we want to bring the league up to speed on it as well.”

In a written statement, Major League Basball Commissioner Rob manfred said the A’s have “invested significant resources and have made a major commitment to their community in the hopes of remaining as Oakland’s only major professional sports franchise,” and noted that “We are disappointed the City Council chose to vote on a proposal to which the A’s had not agreed. We will immediately begin conversations with the A’s to chart a path forward for the Club.”

That came after the meeting during which Kaval said the terms were “not a path forward,” and the City Council expressed their disappointment that the A’s said they wouldn’t get on board with the latest iteration of the terms.

“I’m not exactly sure why we’re even here today,” Carroll Fife, the councilmember representing District 3, where the ballpark’s proposed future home at Howard Terminal is located, after Kaval spoke.

“All the hours that went into creating this document, as well as almost three hours of public testimony, is just a fraction of the investment that’s gone into this process,” Fife continued. “If the A’s are still not happy even after city has bent over backwards … even with how these wealthy owners dont have to pay for infrastructure. I don’t know where we go from here.”

She abstained from voting on the draft terms that the majority of the City Council approved.

Other City Council members expressed their hope that the A’s would come back to the negotiating table to continue discussing the financial terms that can be finalized later in the year.

“Based on our extensive negotiations, shared values and shared vision, we believe the A’s can and should agree to the terms approved by the City Council today,” read a written statement issued jointly by Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf, Vice Mayor Rebecca Kaplan and Council President Nikki Fortunato Bas. “This is the path to keeping the A’s Rooted in Oakland in a way that protects our Port and tax payers and will produce the benefits our community demands and deserves.”

But Kaval’s hedging and the lack of answers from the team leave residents, fans and the city leaders themselves uncertain what will happen next.

Despite that no final vote can be taken to seal the terms until a draft environmental impact report is ready for approval later this year, Kaval has said in recent months that the team needed to know immediately if the City Council “shared the vision” the team has for the project, and requested a vote before the end of the summer.

Now that the City Council has approved terms that its staff has recommended, it’s up to the A’s to decide if they’ll keep negotiating with the city or leave for a new city, as Kaval has threatened to do.

Kaval and team leaders have plans to visit Las Vegas on Wednesday. He has described the pursuits of getting a ballpark in Oakland as being on a “parallel path” to the one in Las Vegas, prompting some to question if the team is truly “rooted in Oakland,” as they’ve touted in marketing materials.

Schaaf, in her press conference after the meeting, praised Fortunato Bas and Kaplan — a rare moment of unity among the city leaders — and acknowledged how united all the city officials were in moving forward with the ballpark on the city’s terms.

The only council member to vote “no” was Noel Gallo, who represents District 5.

“I do want to see the Oakland A’s stay in town,” said Gallo, noting that he was a “lifelong fan.”

But he believes the best spot for them is at the Coliseum, which will take less money and require less time to renovate or rebuild for the A’s.

“I wish we’d take the same time and deal with the emergencies we have in the neighborhood,” Gallo said. “We clearly have a Coliseum site that will do more for A’s baseball than the Howard Terminal will. … Let’s regrow it; we own half land. The A’s own the other. Let’s tear it down and build a brand new one.”

Kaval has insisted in recent months that the Coliseum is not a “viable” place for the A’s to do baseball anymore because they want to be near the downtown urban core.

Howard Terminal is the place to do that, the A’s insist.

The proposal for the development there has long been opposed by the longshoremen unions and businesses that operate at the Port who say the influx of new residents and visitors to such a development would impede on their activities.

“Time and again, those of us who actually operate at the port have made it clear that the A’s project as proposed, with thousands of residential units, offices, and allowances for party boats, is not compatible with the 24-seven operations of a heavy industrial working port,” said Scott Taylor, CEO of GSC Logistics.

Others say it’s crucial to keep the A’s. Delinda Horton, an Oakland native who spoke during the meeting Tuesday said that she and her coworkers would lose income without the games in Oakland.

“If A’s move from Oakland, it would be devastating,” Horton said.

Now that the council has signaled its preferred set of terms, they say it’s up to the A’s to decide if they can continue working with city staff.

“There is a path forward on this project, but that means the As must come back to the negotiating table and respect our responsibility as public servants and address the concerns brought forward by the Port, the West Oakland community, and Chinatown,” Thao said. “If the As are committed to remain rooted in Oakland then they must embrace the needs and concerns of our communities and invest in them as we will be investing in them.”