In the latest bizarre twist of the Oakland A’s exodus from the Bay Area, Alameda County officials claim that the team has not yet announced its plans to leave town.
The determination allows the A’s to postpone payment on $45 million it owes taxpayers for the team’s purchase of the county’s half-interest in the Coliseum.
The Coliseum is co-owned by the city and the county. County supervisors in 2019 agreed to sell the county’s share to the team for a sweetheart price of $85 million.
The sale was a horrific deal the county never should have made. It undermined the city’s planning efforts by giving A’s billionaire owner John Fisher veto power over future development of the prime 120-acre property after the team moved out.
Now county officials are adding insult to injury by once again coddling up to the team. At issue is whether the A’s are required under the sale terms to immediately make the three final payments.
Amazingly, county supervisors never bothered to require that the team stay in Oakland as a condition for acquiring the rights to the Coliseum property. But the deal does obligate the A’s to accelerate payments to the county if they announce they’re leaving town.
Under the contract, the payments “shall become immediately due and payable to the County within one hundred eighty (180) days of the Athletics’ announcement of their relocation out of Oakland.”
That 180-day clock has passed. Of the seven payments called for in the deal, the team still owes three, totaling $45 million. But the county has not even tried to collect the money.
That’s because, according to two county supervisors, County Counsel Donna Ziegler claims the team has not yet announced it will leave Oakland. Apparently, Ziegler and the supervisors have buried their heads in the sand with personal news blackouts for the last seven months.
As any serious A’s fan can tell you, the team announced back in April that it had signed a binding agreement to purchase land for a future ballpark in Las Vegas. “We realize this is a difficult day for our Oakland fans and the community,” the team statement said.
In an interview then with The Athletic online sports publication, team President Dave Kaval said that the team had given up on Oakland and was “focusing all our energies on Las Vegas. We were on this parallel path for a while where we had kind of two markets, and we were kind of juggling — that period is over. We’re focused on Las Vegas.”
Get it? They’re leaving Oakland. It’s hard to imagine how much more plainly the A’s could have said it. From any rational reading of the contract, that should have triggered the 180-day clock for the A’s to make the remaining installment payments.
But the 180th day, Oct. 16, came and went without any payments. That was more than six weeks ago. And, of course, since then, Major League Baseball team owners have unanimously signed off on the A’s plan to move.
Meanwhile, according to county Supervisors David Haubert and Nate Miley, the county has not sought the accelerated payments. Miley, in a text message Sunday, said, “County counsel informed me that the (contract) provision has (not) been triggered yet.”
Asked what he understood would constitute an “announcement” as called for in the contract, he said he would follow up with Ziegler. He did not provide further clarification.
For their parts, Ziegler and County Administrator Susan Muranishi did not respond to emails seeking comment.
The A’s are probably not about to cough up the money if the county isn’t even asking for it. But does the team now concur with this alternate reality about its plans to move?
Kaval last week agreed to discuss the matter on Friday morning, but at the scheduled time he texted, “Sorry, something came up. And we are not commenting on your story.”
If the team were staying in Oakland, the final three payments, $15 million each, would be due in January 2024, February 2025 and January 2026. With the team’s announcement that it’s leaving town, those three payments should now be paid — although the transfer of the property rights from the county to the A’s would probably not be finalized until 2026 because of outstanding bond debt.
From the onset, the county’s sale of its half-interest was a horrible idea. At the time, even Miley, whose district includes the Coliseum site and who was a leading proponent of the deal, acknowledged the value of the county’s half-interest was probably about $100 million to $150 million, far more than the $85 million sale price.
But the county never tested the market to determine its true value. It was a potentially massive giveaway of taxpayer assets.
By selling its half-interest, the county was weakening Oakland officials’ ability to shape development of the site. Sandwiched between a BART station and Interstate 880, the land is ripe for development that could bring badly needed transit-oriented housing and revitalize a depressed part of the city.
Ironically, the deal originally was billed as a way to keep the A’s in town. Kaval claimed that profits from development of the Coliseum site could help fund a new ballpark at the huge commercial and residential project Fisher was planning six miles away next to Jack London Square.
“We want to privately finance a new ballpark here in Oakland, and this action will go a long way in making that happen,” Kaval said as he urged supervisors to approve the deal.
Muranishi wrote at the time that the agreement would demonstrate “the county’s strong desire to assure the Athletics remain in Oakland.”
We all know that didn’t work out. Or, at least, everyone except Alameda County officials.
Daniel Borenstein is the Mercury News and East Bay Times editorial page editor.