Yesterday, the Oakland City Council voted 6-1 to approve the A’s ballpark project.
Unfortunately, a day that should justifiably have been a day of celebration for A’s fans was instead a day of confusion that needs to be unpacked and translated.
The upshot is that the city approved a non-binding term sheet for the A’s Howard Terminal ballpark and ancillary development.
A last minute change by the Council was actually a massive step forward, and a revelation even to A’s marionette-in-chief Dave Kaval.
And lo and behold, the City of Oakland actually came out and agreed to that! They’re smelling infrastructure money flowing from the feds and California, and you can’t get infrastructure money if you’re not building infrastructure.
The A’s originally proposed that the team would front the $350 million and collect it back from dedicated property taxes originating from that Broadway corridor.
And on top of that, the physical ballpark and development site plan approved by the Council is pretty much exactly what the A’s proposed.
It appears the only items in the city’s term sheet that are new and potentially up for negotiation are the affordable housing requirements .
The A’s just saved $350 million that they thought they were going to have to spend, and the city’s asking for a few things around the margins that really should come as no surprise.
Not only did the city move significantly towards the A’s, they also expressed a firm desire to get a binding, final deal by the end of the year.
Sadly initially after what should have been a happy moment for A’s fans, Kaval stuck with his “they voted on the wrong thing!” routine without bothering, to you know, note that the city gave him back $350 million.
In addition, the A’s currently own half of the Oakland Coliseum site, which, per the terms of their purchase of that site, they would have to offer up for sale if the A’s don’t stAy in Oakland.
So the tightwad billionaire John Fisher’s decision is either rake in mega billions in East AND West Oakland, in his Bay Area backyard, or give all of that up for a subsidy measuring a tiny fraction of that size, in a much smaller market where he has no personal connection.
The A’s probably could make a boatload just by signing on to this term sheet the Council passed with no changes.