San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Where voters want A’s depends on how you ask
Given a choice, Oakland voters would pick the current Coliseum site over over Howard Terminal to be the home of a new A’s ballpark, according to a new poll.
The poll of 500 voters found 62% favored the Coliseum site, compared with 29% for the waterfront site at the Port of Oakland. The remaining 9% either didn’t know or didn’t care.
The poll marks the first time voters have been offered a straightup preference question between the two locations.
“Before this poll was taken, the only real numbers out there were based on the question of whether you want the A’s to stay or
how you feel about Howard Terminal if it’s the only option,” said Mike Jacob, vice president of the Pacific Merchant Shipping Association and a member of the East Oakland Stadium Alliance, which commissioned the poll.
The alliance is largely made up of maritime businesses and unions that oppose the planned 34,000seat waterfront ballpark and adjacent hotel, housing and office space. Its members contend the stadium would be bad for business because it would hamper port operations and create a traffic nightmare.
“We wanted city leaders to see what voters think when given a choice,” Jacob said.
The poll was conducted by Frederick Polls from Jan. 12 to 18 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.3 percentage points.
The poll also appears aimed at countering a poll of 601 likely voters commissioned by the Oakland Chamber of Commerce and conducted by FM3 Research four months ago that found 68% of likely voters supported a privately financed ballpark on the waterfront.
A Coliseum comparison question was not included in that poll.
“We did not,” FM3 pollster David Metz said. “We presented the proposal that the A’s actually have on the table, including its location, the fact that the stadium itself would be privately financed, and that the needed infrastructure would be paid for by taxes generated from the development.”
So both polls could be right. It all depends on the question being asked.
The new poll showing the preference for the Coliseum location also included several
“educational” statements highlighting the potential infrastructure improvement costs and the possible negative impacts the development could have on the port.
After hearing those statements about the Howard Terminal plan, support for the Coliseum site grew to 75%.
In an email, A’s President Dave Kaval said, “from our own poll results, Oakland voters overwhelming support a downtown ballpark, including one at Howard Terminal.”
Kaval said the chamber poll, and its show of support for the waterfront plan, was “the best representation of public sentiment.”
Ultimately the choice will be up to the Oakland City Council, which may explain the new poll’s final question to voters.
“If an Oakland City Council member voted to “spend hundreds of millions of public tax money to support building a new Oakland A’s ballpark at Howard Terminal, would you be more likely to vote for that council member or against them in the next election?”
The results: 76% would vote against the council member.
Interesting to note, the poll didn’t ask voters how they would react if their council member voted to use tax money for infrastructure improvements and development at the Coliseum site, which could also cost hundreds of millions of dollars.
It’s all in the question asked — or not asked.
Postseason: The San Francisco 49ers are throwing down big in little Santa Clara. The team is dropping more than $300,000 and bringing in some of the biggest political consultants in the Bay Area to help knock down a redistricting plan backed by the City Council, whose members have clashed with the 49ers, in the upcoming March election.
At issue is how to best increase the chances for minority representation on the council. Measure C would divide the city into three districts with two council members each.
But the Rev. Jethroe Moore II of the San JoseSilicon Valley NAACP, Victor Garza of La Raza Roundtable and former Assemblyman Paul Fong want a sixdistrict plan, each with its own council member, and asked the 49ers for help.
The team agreed.
The remapping, which would not kick in for another two years, might also make it possible for the 49ers to help oust Mayor Lisa Gillmor and council members who have clashed over everything from the amount of rent the Niners pay on their 68,500seat Levi’s Stadium to the city’s 10 p.m. curfew on weeknight concerts.
“The 49ers are a private enterprise and they are entitled to make money, but not at the expense of the people of Santa Clara,” Councilwoman and Niner critic Teresa O’Neill said.
FortyNiners owner Jed York himself paid for a poll to gauge voters’ feelings on Measure C and the council that also asked voters how they felt about the concert curfew. The 49ers declined to release the poll results.
The Niners have also enlisted longtime Peninsula political consultants Ed McGovern and Ace Smith, late of U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign, to help defeat the Measure C.
“When you get groups like the NAACP asking for help, it’s easy to get involved,” 49ers public affairs representative Rahul Chandhok said.
The 49ers are displaying their civic largess at the state level as well.
According to filings with the secretary of state’s office, the Niners contributed donations totaling $56,000 to 27 state legislators and legislative candidates in December, most of them from the Bay Area.
The contributions ran anywhere from $800 to $3,000 — it’s something the team does every year.