Oakland Lost The A's To Las Vegas Because Of It's Government, Period - ATLNews

The Oakland A's are deep into planning for a move to Las Vegas, following in the footsteps of the Oakland Raiders, now called The Las Vegas Raiders. The reasons for the move of both the A's and the Raiders from Oakland to Las Vegas, are both due to one factor: Oakland's Government. What's wrong with Oakland's Government has nothing to do with the amount of public money available, and everything to do with one fact: Oakland has forgotten how to form a process by which to build large scale public-private facilities, be they stadiums, ballparks, or convention centers. That's why we don't have any of them. In the case of Howard Terminal, even thought SB293 Skinner, the law that bestowed tax increment financing powers on the area for the A's ballpark, had a call for a public organization that would have caused a formal process to be installed, the City of Oakland never used it. So, what's the formal process I refer to? It's a series of monthly meetings on Howard Terminal Ballpark within an organizational framework called for in SB293 Skinner: the public financing authority. The public financing authority is, at its heart, the body that floats the bond issues used to build the ballpark and ancillary development. But because it has a monthly meeting structure, that allows for regular project updates, open forum, closed session meetings, and agenda items on legal documents and other project-related concerns. By being able to set the agenda for the development of Howard Terminal Ballpark, the project moves along at a faster and far more organized pace. In reality, the City of Oakland did not even try to establish a Howard Terminal Ballpark Public Financing Authority, and was content to have Howard Terminal agenda items here and there, and with no real picture of progress, and also no money. And that leads to my other point. The Howard Terminal Ballpark Project was supposed to be a tax increment financing zone, right? So, why wasn't one started? And why did the consultant make a tax increment financing revenue calculation based on 20 of the allowed 45 years of bond issue life, leaving hundreds of millions on the table? All of that left The Howard Terminal Ballpark Project a mess. With no schedule to move things along, the political opposition had time to catch wind of the projects growing popularity in the media. And once they did, they took natural advantage of the fact that there was no formal process by installing one of their own. That was obvious in the call for a public vote on Howard Terminal. A normal process would have had the Howard Terminal Ballpark Financing Authority in charge of all document approvals before the City Council had final say. The point is, we would not have given the public a half-baked plan; in reality, that's what the Oakland City Council was poised to do. In Las Vegas and Nevada, they have the Las Vegas Stadium Authority. That public company floats the bonds, but also takes care of matters related to the development and operation of Allegiant Stadium. It's poised to do the same for the Oakland A's Las Vegas Ballpark, too. The point is, building a major league baseball ballpark is about process more than deadlines. Having a process allows you to meet the deadlines, but without one, you can't. That's why Oakland consistenly fails at building new ballpatks, stadiums, and convention centers. There's no process.
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