Read the entire article here on the San Jose Mercury website.

San Jose group to launch bid for major league team
DOWNTOWN RALLY TODAY AIMS TO PUMP FAN FERVOR
By Barry Witt
The San Jose Mercury News

Landing a Major League Baseball team has been the holy grail of Santa Clara County community leaders since the 1980s. At a downtown San Jose rally today, the crusade gets launched again.

``I'm trying to overcome 14 years of failure,'' County Assessor Larry Stone noted dryly this week as he argued that the timing may be right for the newest effort.

Stone is part of a group of community leaders who believe the Oakland A's will not remain in the East Bay much longer. Calling themselves Baseball San Jose, they hope to convince the sport's powers that be that Silicon Valley is the best place for the A's, despite objections from the San Francisco Giants. To do so, they must overcome a number of formidable obstacles, including a weak local economy, a skeptical public and the unpredictable barons who rule baseball.

The organization will start by building a database of baseball fans to demonstrate widespread public support for baseball in San Jose. It would also provide a political base for the day when a stadium plan would go to San Jose voters, seeking an as-yet-unknown degree of taxpayer subsidy.

As part of the effort, the group is launching a petition drive with a ``declaration of independence'' that asks baseball owners to free San Jose from the territorial rights of the Giants. Baseball bestowed those rights on San Francisco's team when former owner Bob Lurie attempted to move to the South Bay in the late 1980s.

Giants executives have stated repeatedly they won't relinquish the rights. Keeping a team out of Silicon Valley, they say, ensures the Giants' ability to sell tickets and corporate boxes to Santa Clara County fans and companies.

Underlying the new group's optimism is the presence of Lew Wolff, the Los Angeles-based hotel developer who has been a major figure in the redevelopment of downtown San Jose. Wolff was named last year by A's owner Steve Schott, a Los Altos Hills resident, as a team vice president. He is charged with finding a replacement for Network Associates Coliseum, which the A's deem inadequate for baseball.

Wolff is doing nothing to discourage Baseball San Jose's effort, while cautioning that moving south is not the first priority of the A's.

``I think it's great that people in San Jose want to attract Major League Baseball,'' Wolff said. ``Certainly the city is large enough to attract the team. My specific activities are not in that direction. My role is to see what we can do in the East Bay at this point.'' Wolff said he believes he'll know what's possible in the East Bay by the end of summer.

In recent years, Oakland has demonstrated little appetite for subsidizing a new ballpark, and there doesn't appear to be another city in either Alameda or Contra Costa counties with the capacity to meet the franchise's demands for a significant public contribution.

Funding in doubt

Whether San Jose would be willing to put up the money remains an open question.

Mayor Ron Gonzales told voters during his 1998 campaign that he would support only a ``minimal'' public investment to attract baseball.

``The days of the public paying large amounts of money for ballparks is over,'' he declared in one debate. While saying he could support the city providing land for a ballpark, he opposed any new tax. In an interview before the November election that year, he rated a ballpark as a 1 when asked to rank it among his priorities on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the highest.

But that was when the Giants' new ballpark in San Francisco served as a precedent, built mostly with private funds. Since then, baseball owners have again become accustomed to deep public subsidies for ballparks, and Schott has made it clear he does not want an SBC Park-style deal.

Where Gonzales stands now -- in the middle of his second term and possibly done with running for elective office -- is unknown. He declined to be interviewed on the subject this week. His spokesman, David Vossbrink, wouldn't rule out putting more than the cost of land into a stadium.

``Any proposal for a ballpark would have to be a good deal for the people of San Jose because of the requirement that it go to the voters,'' Vossbrink said. Gonzales has been invited to attend today's rally, but ``he's not planning to be there,'' Vossbrink said.

Behind the push

Among those who will be there and are part of Baseball San Jose's executive committee are Councilman David Cortese and San Jose Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce President Jim Cunneen, both of whom have been mentioned as possible mayoral contenders in 2006. That's also the year Cortese and Cunneen said they foresee some sort of ballot measure possibly going to San Jose voters for a ballpark. Council members Nora Campos, Cindy Chavez, Pat Dando, Forrest Williams and Linda Lezotte said they will attend the rally.

Baseball San Jose has received a $25,000 contribution from the chamber and plans to raise at least $100,000 for its organizing efforts. The group has retained Catapult Strategies, the public relations firm run by former Gonzales aide Jude Barry, to run its operations.

Gonzales and the council have launched a sports stadium task force and hired a consultant for $137,500 to operate on a parallel track with Baseball San Jose. The task force is examining stadium deals in other cities and is scheduled to review potential sites for a ballpark in San Jose. The location that community leaders covet most is the shuttered Del Monte cannery on Auzerais Avenue because of its proximity to downtown, a light-rail extension now under construction and Interstate 280.

San Jose faces a budget crunch that will make any expenditure of public money on a ballpark subject to criticism. The council is considering implementing a new tax on phone bills next month simply to pay for existing public services.

Cortese acknowledges the problem, but said he sees nothing wrong with taking initial steps now in hopes the economy turns around by the time the city would have to spend any significant amount of money.

``It's a good time to do planning,'' he said. ``It's yet to be seen if the stars will be aligned in terms of implementation.''