San Jose may be officially off the table.

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/13997686.htm

Fall ballot measure for ballpark unlikely

COUNCIL BOWS TO RESIDENTS, DESPITE MAYOR'S BASEBALL PROMISE

By Barry Witt
Mercury News

Bowing to worried neighbors, the San Jose City Council on Wednesday appeared to have given up on a push for a November ballot measure asking voters to endorse public subsidies for a downtown baseball park.

At a morning workshop -- the first time the council has spent more than a few minutes discussing the ballpark proposal -- members urged the city's planning department to extend the public comment period on the project's new environmental review from April 6 until April 20. Neighborhood activists had requested more time to review the study.

That two-week delay will mean the study probably won't be brought back to the council for final certification in time for a ballot measure to be written for this year's election, said Joe Horwedel, the planning department's acting director. He said that means giving up on a timeline the city had been pursuing.

It also leaves in doubt the ability of Mayor Ron Gonzales, whose term ends in December, to fulfill the promise he made in his 2005 State of the City address to ``submit a proposal to Major League Baseball to bring a team to San Jose.''
Council members at the workshop had many questions but received few answers from city administrators. Among their questions:

"¢ How does the city expect to attract a team -- particularly in light of the fact that the San Francisco Giants control baseball's territorial rights to Santa Clara County?

"¢ How would the ballpark slated for a site south of the Diridon train station be paid for?

"¢ How would a ballpark affect surrounding residential neighborhoods?

Although city officials have expressed the hope that Oakland A's owner Lew Wolff will attempt to get the Giants' rights reversed, Wolff has shown no public interest in San Jose, to date.

Instead, he appears ready to pursue Fremont as his next alternative after an unsuccessful attempt to get a deal for a new ballpark in Oakland. In recent weeks, Wolff and his son Keith have been speaking to Fremont officials about potentially acquiring 159 acres of vacant land at Pacific Commons, which is west of Interstate 880 and south of Auto Mall Parkway. The land is controlled by Cisco Systems, which acquired an option on the property in 2000 when it was pursuing real estate throughout the region, but has been trying to unload land since the downturn.

One answer that was revealed Wednesday was that, at least as far as city administrators are concerned, the A's need to come to the table to negotiate the terms for a ballpark development before a measure will go to the voters. Gonzales has raised the prospect of a speculative ballot measure that would make an offer to the A's and Major League Baseball -- just as the arena was approved by voters before the Sharks agreed to move in -- but he has not said what approach he intended to pursue.

San Jose's city council has been selling other downtown properties to raise money to buy the ballpark site, spending $18 million to date on the first three acres. The city expects to acquire another eight to 10 acres to complete the site, and would need to find a new location for a five-acre community park that the city previously had said would be located at the current home of the fire department training center. The fire facility at Park Avenue and Montgomery Street was expected to relocate someday; under the ballpark plan, the property would become home to a 1,200-car garage for season-ticket holders who buy premium seats.
But what the entire plan would cost, and how the city would pay for it, is a question no one at City Hall has been willing to address publicly.

``The financing plan remains illusive, probably because there isn't one,'' Councilman Chuck Reed said at Wednesday's meeting.
Gonzales responded that several items had to come together to land a team, but he didn't offer any guidance on how he expected that to happen. The mayor supported extending the time frame for review of the lengthy 365-page environmental report, plus appendices more than twice that size.

More than a year since Gonzales made his public commitment to send a ``proposal'' to Major League Baseball, none has been prepared, and his chief of staff, Rebecca Dishotsky, offered no guarantee Wednesday that it would happen this year.

``We have no deadline,'' she said. ``Each step will come at its appropriate time.'' She called the efforts the city has made to date to acquire a site ``historic.''

The city's pursuit of a ballpark is likely to enter the mayoral campaign, with three council members among the major candidates running for that office. At a meeting of ballpark neighbors Monday night, candidate David Pandori, a former councilman, criticized the current council for buying land before completing the environmental review to determine whether the site it has selected is the best one.

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Contact Barry Witt at bwitt@mercurynews.com or (408) 920-5703.

San Jose is definitely not off the table. June 2007 is not a big departure. If Fremont pans out, San Jose never had a chance anyway. Fremont's timeline is to have everything in place for a construction start of winter 2007. If Fremont doesn't, San Jose will be ready and waiting.

Would the team change its name to the Oakland Athletics of Fremont (or San Jose)?

No. Both cities want their names on the front of the jersey. Acquiring the land for the ballpark is considered the price of admission.

I believe the A's would be foolish to leave the Bay Area. The East Bay alone is more populated than ours, they have much bigger corporate sponors and the fan-base already in place no matter where they move on the Eastside. Mr. Wolf probably already realizes this, that is why he is willing to go to Freemont (my opinion). Again "look South" does not work for me in regards to OSC efforts. Maybe look East to that winter wonderland of the Twin Cities?

In the modern vernacular, the East Bay is part of THE Bay... the media market dominated by San Francisco. It's big for one team per sport, but probably not big enough for two teams per sport. Cost of living is a pain as well. Therefore, the pattern of one team struggling while the other prospers continues.

The one mitigating circumstance IMO... BART services Oakland better than it does San Francisco. That provides the one true possibility for a viable A's franchise IF the location is correct. San Jose isn't served yet. Fremont isn't exactly optimal. It's Oakland or out of state IMO.

An outsider's viewpoint here:

Rockstar's got it right. The Bay Area's potential hasn't been maximized. There's no single mitigating factor or circumstance in play. For instance, some of the sites that have been discussed including some in Oakland are somewhat removed from BART. One of ownership's requirements has been a sizable site for ancillary development. That's exactly what Fremont provides. So in this sense, having a large enough site surpasses mass transit as a factor. Now you can say that SB5 and other funding mechanisms can mitigate that requirement a bit for Portland, but then there's also the fact that Fremont puts the A's in Silicon Valley without violating territorial rights. To say that the A's staying or leaving depends on BART is a very narrow perspective, and when viewed from a distance, is a bit silly. It's important, but it's not a dealbreaker.

Looking south to the Bay Area may at some point become a possibility for PDX-ers. I can say with some certainty that right now the A's are entirely focused on the Bay Area, and that probably will at some point include San Jose despite the issues there. And since Maury initially made that quip, the landscape has changed significantly and will continue to change.

One other thing. The fact that Wolff and Fisher are Bay Area guys should not be underestimated. Wolff lives in LA but practically spends every other weekend in San Jose hobnobbing, visiting family. Fisher lives in SF. There will be a lot of people disappointed if they don't give it a real shot to work in the Bay Area, wherever the preferred location is.