Oakland Mayor Aide Leigh Hanson Petulant Treatment Of Oakland A's Was Unprofessional So Off to Sac - ATLNews

Oakland Mayor Aide Leigh Hanson Petulant Treatment Of Oakland A's Was Unprofessional So Off to Sac This is where we are. The City of Oakland is ran by a mob that makes decisions based on petty, get revenge objectives, and not the desire to achieve a partnership. How else to explain why Leigh Hanson, the Chief of Staff to Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao, would even tell ESPN's Tim Keown that she had this exchange with Oakland A's President Dave Kaval: "Approaching us halfway through February indicated to us it wasn't super serious," Oakland chief of staff Leigh Hanson said. "A normal negotiation would have started two months after they pulled out last April. So much trust had deteriorated, but we thought we'd give them the benefit of the doubt and realize their organization was going through a lot of transition. We felt it was our responsibility to the fans and the city to go forward and try to make it work on our terms." By April 2, the city was on its fourth meeting with the A's, though little progress had been made. In this one, as was the case in each of the previous three, Kaval sat at the head of the table. Hanson sat to his left, directly across from A's chief of staff Miguel Duarte. Oakland councilmember Rebecca Kaplan sat to Hanson's left, with Alameda County supervisor David Haubert and Oakland policy chief Zach Goldman across from her. Kaval spoke first, as had become his custom, and expressed surprise that the city's lease terms had been reported by ESPN two days before the meeting. Those terms, as outlined on sheets passed around the room on this morning, included a five-year lease with a team opt-out after three, a $97 million "extension fee" and an agreement for the A's to pay for the field conversion when the Roots and Soul begin playing in the Coliseum next year. The city also wanted the A's to help secure assurances from MLB that the city would receive a one-year window to solicit ownership groups for a future expansion franchise. By April 2, the city was on its fourth meeting with the A's, though little progress had been made. In this one, as was the case in each of the previous three, Kaval sat at the head of the table. Hanson sat to his left, directly across from A's chief of staff Miguel Duarte. Oakland councilmember Rebecca Kaplan sat to Hanson's left, with Alameda County supervisor David Haubert and Oakland policy chief Zach Goldman across from her. Kaval spoke first, as had become his custom, and expressed surprise that the city's lease terms had been reported by ESPN two days before the meeting. Those terms, as outlined on sheets passed around the room on this morning, included a five-year lease with a team opt-out after three, a $97 million "extension fee" and an agreement for the A's to pay for the field conversion when the Roots and Soul begin playing in the Coliseum next year. The city also wanted the A's to help secure assurances from MLB that the city would receive a one-year window to solicit ownership groups for a future expansion franchise. Though the city didn't present financial terms until the fourth meeting, the basic parameters -- a five-year lease with the team opt-out -- were on the table. Sources say the A's, however, never laid out an offer sheet, never presented so much as a single piece of paper with demands or suggestions. At one point during the second meeting, in March, Kaval suggested the A's might be willing to accept "the Raiders' deal" -- two years and $17 million, the arrangement Raiders owner Mark Davis struck for the two lame-duck years in Oakland before he moved his team to Las Vegas. "First of all," Hanson said. "Please don't call it the 'Raiders' deal' -- that brings back bad memories for everyone in this town. And second, that's not going to work." Leigh has no idea what she's talking about and reveals herself to be bent on being nasty and unprofessional. First, the deal that Dave is talking about was put together by then Oakland Coliseum JPA Executive Director Scott McKibben, and kept the Raiders in Oakland for two more years and got the Coliseum into the black. Second, it is the job of the City to house the A's because it owns the stadium. And third, good economic development is making a partner of the business, not threatening to eat them like you're a cannibal. What she did and what the Oakland electeds did, set us back 50 years. It took that long for Oakland to build a credible economic base. Businesses will run away because of their behavior. We have several months of cancelled design review meetings because no one wants to build anything new. We have people losing money in Oakland because we have no credible security effort. It's bad. And this makes it worse.
via YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9GSilP_LuI