Friday, February 5, 2010
BREAKING NEWS: Decision Expected Soon on Oakland A’s
Breaking News / Politics / People / Business / Sports Robert Gammon — Fri, Feb 5, 2010 at 10:37 AM
Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums revealed yesterday that a Major League Baseball task force is scheduled to present its findings Monday to Commissioner Bud Selig on the A’s proposed move San Jose. Dellums made the revelation during a speech to the Oakland chambers of commerce at the Oakland airport Hilton. However, it’s not clear when Selig will make the task force’s findings public or how much information he will reveal when he does.
Over the past year, the task force examined the viability of two new ballpark sites that Dellums has proposed for Jack London Square, along with a site in downtown San Jose and the soon-to-be closed NUMMI auto plant in Fremont. Selig assembled the task force after Dellums and Oakland Council President Jane Brunner sent the commissioner a letter early last year, asking him to reconsider the possibility of the A’s remaining in Oakland.
The letter came after A’s co-owner Lew Wolff, a longtime friend of Selig’s, said he wanted to relocate the team to San Jose, arguing that he had exhausted the all the possible ballpark sites in Oakland and found them unviable. But Dellums was able to show the commissioner and the task force two new sites that Wolff had not looked at.
Dellums also said yesterday that he recently sent a follow-up missive to Selig, urging him to favor the Oakland sites over the Fremont locale, citing the need to promote urban growth in order to address the effects of climate change. Dellums said he noted to the commissioner that a Fremont ballpark would result in more long-distance car trips by team fans, thereby adding to greenhouse gas emissions.
Comments (7)
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so when's this decision going to be made? I thought the headline said, "soon"? 2 weeks later is not soon there rabbit.
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Fascists like fremonter don't want anybody to disturb what they see as their personal podunk property, as opposed to a city. Progress = BAD. Glad he informed us that he and his ilk have a lot of time on their hands, not that we couldn't have guessed that anyway. Other people who actually work for a living might enjoy an opportunity to get a decent paycheck working for the economic opportunities presented by the introduction of an MLB team into their community.
But those who prefer a more quiet town should be respected as well. The wannabe-Teabag wingnuts - toss 'em into the bay.
Well, well, Fremonter . . . speaking on behalf of 210,000. Hold on a second there, big fella. The prior move to Fremont was never about three or four blocks of homeowners near Grimmer and 680 being NIMBYs, but about big box tenants at Pacific Commons blocking site #1, and NUMMI blocking site #2. Sure the NIMBYs screamed loud enough at a city council meeting, but NUMMI is the one who really blocked it from consideration.
Now Fremont has the opportunity to actually develop a downtown at the foot of its most beautiful vista of Mission Peak, with two freeways and BART, on close to 400 acres of land once NUMMI is out of there.
If getting the A's stadium is the very first step to developing a new place to work, live and enjoy life, I say by all means will the majority of Fremont residents back the proposal.
Yes, by all means, respect the town.
Respect Fremont residents and taxpayers, who clearly don't want the A's anywhere within their city limits, and respect Oakland's residents, who do appear to want the team there.
Say anything you want about Fremont, call us the ugly girl at the prom, and Oakland the prom queen, we don't care. Say that we've replaced Oakland as the city where there's "no there there". Call us a "bedroom community", which I guess passes as a civic insult these days. Whatever you do, just do not come to Fremont.
If the A's do try to relocate to Fremont, rest assured that we will do what we have to do to chase them out - again. Defeat the City Council's ballot measure, elect new City Council members, appeal the EIR, protest day and night, attend every city-sponsored meeting whether it has to do with the stadium project or not, ask every question and raise every issue in the book over and over again, overrun your e-mail, voice mail and snail mail. The up-side of the economic downturn is that a lot of us have a lot more time on our hands these days, and citizen participation can be a real pain if you're on the wrong side of a local issue.
Visit the Fremont Citizen's Network site for more information http://community.fremontcitizensnetwork.or…
Actually, Planning Commissioner Doug Boxer led the effort to identify and promote the new ballpark sites, and Dellums only showed up to the press conference. But Mayor Dellums' letter about global warming is clever and should help the cause. I guess we'll find out on Friday whether MLB still has any respect for the The Town.
