After a crazy-long eight-hour meeting — I tuned in late, watched part of it, then gave up on ever reaching the end — the Alameda County Board of Supervisors voted 4-1 last night to approve a non-binding resolution supporting the creation of a tax kickback district for an Oakland A’s stadium at Howard Terminal. But they really didn’t seem too happy about it: Both county staffers and board members spent much of the meeting complaining about how many unknowns remained about the project, from how much it would cost the county in tax money to how many seats on the Enhanced Infrastructure Financing District governing body the county would get for its money; board president Keith Carson, the only “no” vote, complained, “There is a long laundry list of unknowns.”
Board vice-president Nate Miley, meanwhile, who had previously questioned why the county even needed to be involved at all, explained his “yes” vote this way:
“I think our willingness to at least go further based on the motion gives the county the opportunity to do more due diligence around this and doesn’t hold up any possible progress that could be made that would support the public interest.”
If that sounds like We don’t really like this, but if everyone is going to point fingers at us and say we’re driving the A’s out of the Bay Area if we don’t approve a non-binding resolution, okay, fine, yeah, me too.
As for what happens next, no one seems quite sure, as this phenomenal tweet from ABC7 reporter Casey Pratt unintentionally makes clear:
Right, so now all that has to happen is for Oakland and Alameda County and A’s owner John Fisher to finalize a deal, including where the missing $360 million will come from, and then vote on it, at a time TBD. If the county had voted against the deal … well, it was a non-binding resolution, so presumably most of the above still would have happened, but A’s president Dave Kaval would have had an even bigger sulky face — as it was he attended the meeting to gripe about how his team and Oakland “remain apart” on many issues — and the plan would have been seen to have lost momentum or something, so last night’s vote was definitely important, binding or not.
One big “TBD” remains whether the tax district will be subject to a public vote: That used to be the case, but in 2019 the California state legislature passed AB 116, which, here, you read the summary:
In place of the election, the new law requires additional public hearings to the EIFD formation process. During this public hearing process, if a majority protest exists, the formation process is halted. Alternatively, if between 25 percent and 50 percent of the combined number of landowners and residents who are at least 18 years of age within the boundaries of the proposed EIFD protest, an election would be called as part of the formation process. New reporting and audit obligations will then apply once the EIFD is operational and will result in an administrative cost that will need to be budgeted.
“Within the boundaries of the proposed EIFD” is very different from everyone in the jurisdictions participating in the EIFD, which was the old rule — since the A’s (or the city) would be the only landowner, and the current residents of the site are mostly a whole lot of shipping containers, this certainly implies that the project could move forward without any kind of public vote, which obviously would be a huge hurdle cleared away.
Much more TBD, clearly. But John Fisher’s shot at an $855 million tax subsidy, or at least a $495 million tax subsidy, or something in between, just got significantly better odds.
AlCo folded like a cheap tent! Outrageous!! And no public vote?! It’s utterly amazing that nearly $500 million in public subsidies could (potentially) go towards this boondoggle without a say from the greater electorate. “No taxpayer monies for the Raiders!” said Libby, but all of a sudden you open the public subsidy floodgates for this?! With no say from the public?!
But I digress NdM; still don’t see this getting across the finish line, even with AlCo entering the NON (emphasis)-Binding agreement. They’ll just sit on their “due diligence” and let Oakland implode looking for more lose change for this HT boondoggle. Until the “next day of reckoning”…
Antonio – Psst Neil prefers just ND like the peace sign….
So what do you say Neil? NdM, ND, Mr. DeMause, simply Neil?…
Your Majesty.
So it shall be written
So it shall be done…..
Ah, government. “Who gives a shit, it’s not real money anyway.”
Yeah, pretty much… I am not usually surprised, but this was the perfect opportunity for the BoS to make clear their intention not to fund any more Oakland boondoggles.
And yet here we are… admittedly a non binding resolution is nearly worthless, and they could still offer a firm “NO” weeks or months down the road.
But it is not overly hopeful for the taxpayers is it?
Is it fair to call this a minor news item in regard to getting HT done?. It seems like the only thing accomplished was that the county has no objections to the city’s taxing district as a concept. There are way too many events that need to play out to make an educated guess as to what happens
It’s a city-county taxing district, and previously the county board had been mostly “get offa our lawn.” So while this isn’t the final word by any means, it’s a fairly major news story that the board approved it, binding or no.
This reminds me of the New York Times reporter (name withheld to avoid embarrassing the guilty, but she’s still at the paper) who sat down next to me at a New York city council hearing on the Yankees stadium project and said “I just got assigned to this story, can someone tell me if this is the final hurdle in the stadium’s approval?” And I said, “It’s not the final hurdle, but it’s the biggest remaining hurdle,” and sure enough, the front page of the next day’s New York Times said “cleared its biggest hurdle yesterday.” All the news that’s fit to be repeated from whoever you happen to be sitting next to at the press table!
Well, I wrote to my county supervisor and he voted against it. I guess this is how democracy works?
In any event, I still have this sneaky suspicion that there’s something more going on, like maybe this is posturing to get a sweetheart deal on the second half of the Coliseum property, or maybe they’ll say, “Hey look, you were willing to give us $500 million to build at the port, why not at the Coliseum?”
There’s no evidence for my suspicion, but I just keep looking at the Howard Terminal proposal and thinking it will be a nightmare to pull it off successfully, and that by the time it’s finally complete, it’ll be at risk of rising seas from global warming.
“..a nightmare to pull it off successfully,..” That pretty much sums up this HT proposal. Why on Earth the A’s chose the most difficult part of the East Bay to build a ballpark, with its myriad of infrastructure/environmental issues and “nightmare” for ingress/egress is beyond me.
(cue a HT proponent, “but it’s on the water!”)
In fairness to the A’s, the city originally wanted them to consider this site even though most people seemed to believe it was either impossible or prohibitively expensive. Oh the irony…
And how are the land owners supposed to protest? Do they meet with the proper official, throw poop on their shoes and say “I protest thee, I protest thee, I protest thee!”
And what happened to the $360 million dollars the state set aside for “stadium infrastructure?” It used to be a thing…..
They have to file a formal objection at one of the public hearings:
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201920200AB116
Of course, since the Port Authority owns the entire property, there’s no “they” to file anything. Unless somebody can establish residency in a shipping container, stat.
Thanks Your Majesty!
We appreciate the honorific.
Yup. Those shipping containers are less likely to vote against an EIFD in the HT district, than the registered voters in the downtown Oakland swath (Acorn / JLS) EIFD. Guess that’s why the latter got dropped like a hot potato.
“I think our willingness to at least go further based on the motion gives the county the opportunity to do more due diligence around this and doesn’t hold up any possible progress that could be made that would support the public interest.”
Hmmmn. But if the county is really not at all interested in being in the professional sports subsidy business, what difference does it make how much it would cost them to be in that business?
One of the reasons I have never checked out the price of used Trabants is that I have no interest in owning one.
It’s early days and the BoS could still come to their senses and tell Oakland it should fund whatever it likes with it’s own money… but the fact that they have just voted to “continue investigating” the process is not an encouraging sign.
JB,
Not my suggestion, but perhaps this is AlCo’s way of not being the party solely responsible for the A’s leaving town; hence this NON-binding resolution being approved, with the rationale being it provides them more time to be “due diligent” and continue investigating (In the meantime, allow Oakland to continue to fumble it’s way through this HT quagmire).
It’s possible… but the more frequently you dance with someone the more likely it is you will end up in a relationship you never expected or imagined.
Maybe Alameda County is smart enough to avoid ending up an unwilling partner in a project they have said they aren’t interested in. At some point, however, you have to be really clear on your intentions or lack thereof.
And voting to ‘continue to look’ at something you don’t intend to be part of isn’t that. This is how the sausage gets made…
Before Mt Davis, the Coliseum had a beautiful view looking out towards the outfield. You could do that again with a new ballpark
I believe what they did with building Citi Filed in the Shea Stadium parking lot could work in Oakland. You don’t have to build a transit infrastructure to get there, (already in place). If done correctly you get back the view, (though I don’t how muck it changed before the obstruction was built). You have space if you want to build a ballpark district.
The coliseum site would work better IMO. Look at Miami, they built a place that is difficult to get to, parking is difficult, with the team that has not played well, the lowest attendance in the league. Look at Dodger Stadium. It has acres of parking and it is not in the middle of a city neighborhood and does great.
Phil, this isn’t about a new stadium. It’s about a massive real estate project. It’s the same thing Fisher & associates did with the Earthquakes stadium site and associated redevelopment in South San Jose. Sure, they could rebuild on the Coli site, bit the potential to make many many billions by turning this problematic waterfront site into housing/offices/retail is what’s at play here.