http://www.mercurynews.com/breakingnews/ci_12093485

San Jose City Council begins first baseball discussion tonight

By Denis C. Theriault
Mercury News
Posted: 04/07/2009 06:47:56 PM PDT

By Denis C. Theriault

Joined by baseball boosters on one side and concerned neighbors on the other, the San Jose City Council tonight will formally take up — for the first time in nearly three years — the prospects of bringing the Oakland A's to the capital of Silicon Valley.

And at the top of that discussion? Moving forward with a plea to Major League Baseball: Release the city from the territorial dominion of the San Francisco Giants — the roadblock that has doomed every other A's to San Jose bid.

"The City Council does hereby respectfully request that Major League Baseball allow the A's a fair opportunity to move to San Jose," says a resolution up for consideration.

Council members also will consider several steps needed to make that happen, including the delicate work of winning over residents troubled by the traffic and bustle of a nearby stadium.

Building neighbor support is a crucial goal for stadium boosters. San Jose requires a public vote for any city contribution to a stadium, and vocal opposition from Fremont residents earlier this year doomed the A's two-year effort to build a stadium in that city.

The council also was expected to seek an update on the city's efforts to amass a 14-acre stadium site near the Diridon Caltrain station. The San Jose Redevelopment Agency in 2006 began assembling land there, near Park Avenue and Autumn/Montgomery Streets, during the city's last dalliance with A's co-owner Lew Wolff.

Those efforts continued even after Wolff turned his attention to Fremont, with the city planning commission approving an environmental impact report for the site in 2007.

Earlier Tuesday, Santa Clara County's board of supervisors took its own baseball-related vote in support of a move to San Jose, enthusiastically endorsing a resolution urging baseball to consider amending the territorial rights issue and approving the delivery of a letter to Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig.

The San Francisco Giants obtained dominion over Santa Clara County back in 1990, when they were the team looking to build a new stadium in the South Bay. And they have held on to those claims, even though voters rejected four separate relocation bids.

In fact, the Giants now claim, those rights are worth more than ever to the team, because it relied on Silicon Valley's corporate wealth and well-heeled fan base to finance its 9-year-old privately funded ballpark on San Francisco's China Basin waterfront.

"Those are our rights, and we will continue to defend them," Giants Managing Partner Bill Neukom said in a presciently timed appearance Tuesday on the television show Chronicle Live.

Meanwhile, baseball boosters in San Jose have seized on the apparent opportunity, working to line up potential corporate sponsors and ticket buyers, in hopes of making a case for the city's viability.

The Silicon Valley Leadership Group, for one, released a survey Monday of 121 valley companies that attempts to refute the Giants' claims that a San Jose stadium would siphon off vital income.

Among the findings, 70 percent of respondents that currently "sponsor, advertise or purchase game ticket packages" at AT&T Park would support both the Giants and the "San Jose A's."

The A's have struggled for years to find a new home, surveying several sites in Oakland before talking to San Jose and then Fremont and then San Jose again.

Selig last week appointed a blue-ribbon panel to study the A's stadium options, including new looks at the team's options in Oakland, but a baseball spokesman also said at the time that territorial rights would be part of the panel's discussion.

Any amendment in territorial rights would require approval from three-fourths of baseball's 30 owners. Selig has the power to call that vote, but it would require him to use up considerable political capital. That vote could be easier for Selig to call if the panel finds the South Bay makes the most money for baseball.

Mercury News Staff Writer Karen de Sa contributed to this report. Contact Denis C. Theriault at dtheriault@mercurynews.com or 408-275-2002.