Oakland (Special to ZennieReport.com) – The recent column by Scott Osler in the San Francisco Chronicle and titled “Lawsuit endangers A’s purchase of Alameda County’s half of Coliseum site” (behind a paywall) is a study in how a story can go awry because the author did not do his homework.
Rather than look at the document details available online, Scott Osler goes for the “John Fisher card”, quotes people for spin, and writes that the whole matter is the A’s Owner’s fault.
It would be nice if the San Francisco Chronicle bosses who direct Scott would disclose who’s paying it to push out the constant Anti-John-Fisher content. Because obviously someone is, and paywall money can’t pay the freight.
To date, Scott’s piece continues the silly season of blaming John Fisher for everything from the A’s move to Las Vegas to the recent solar eclipse.
Yes, Oakland A’s fans are upset over the team leaving for Las Vegas, but from the perspective of this blogger, who’s lived and worked through the City’s ever-worsening dysfunction, Oakland was finally and sadly wounded by a bullet it dodged many times since 1996.
That was when then-Oakland A’s co-owner Steve Schott personally told this blogger they were looking at moving the A’s to Sacramento, after I (in my role as Oakland Mayor Elihu Harris’ Economic Advisor in 1996) called him to inquire about a tiny article I spotted mentioning the possibility.
The reality that governs the Coliseum land issue is far more complicated that what Scott presents, is not controlled by the Oakland A’s, and points to the multi-jurisdictional hyper-political dysfunction that has plagued the Oakland Coliseum for years. A problem that has pissed off the Warriors, Raiders, and now the Oakland A’s.
But, before we go into that story, let’s clean house.
The Oakland A’s Are Not Responsible For Executing Government Actions
It’s not the responsibility of the A’s to declare land surplus. That’s the City of Oakland and Alameda County’s responsibility. Moreover, it’s something that the County did not do (while City of Oakland did) and its inaction triggered the original lawsuit between the City of Oakland and defendant Alameda County in September of 2019.
But Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf, who arranged for the Oakland A’s to buy the Coliseum land starting with a letter to Oakland A’s President Dave Kaval in 2018, and as part of her effort to raise money for her Oakland Promise program, stepped in to negotiate a way out of filing the lawsuit.
Oh, here’s my livestream on the Oakland Promise deal Libby engineered, as background:
The Surplus Land Act Allows Sale Of The Land, After Declaration As “Surplus”
The Surplus Lands Act law allows the sale of land as a cure for the problem of not having a developer in place to build affordable housing. By arranging to have the A’s as buyer (and ostensibly planning to build affordable housing on the site) the County’s problems were solved.
The trouble is, the sale of the land to the Oakland A’s has developed at a snails pace, the County never bothered to declare the land “surplus” before sale discussions, and so ran headlong into the State Department of Housing’s letter of 2021, which you will see after Oakland Economic Development Project Manager Larry Gallegos’ presentation.
Here’s the letter by the Coliseum Manager, Larry Gallegos, of the Department of Economic and Workforce Development, presenting the process by which the City’s side of the Coliseum Ownership was declared surplus, thus paving the way for the African American Sports and Entertainment Group (AASEG) / Dave Stewart land competition.
Gallegos report to the Oakland City Council was dated June 30, 2020, and reads as follows:
The Coliseum Complex is currently owned jointly by the City and the County of Alameda (County) as tenants in common, and operated by the Oakland Alameda County Coliseum Authority, a joint powers agency established by the City and the County to finance improvements to the Coliseum Complex and to manage the Coliseum Complex on behalf of the City and the County. There is no written tenancy in common agreement between the City and the County governing their respective rights as co-owners of the Complex.
On December 23, 2019, the County entered into a disposition agreement with Coliseum Way Partners (CWP), an affiliate of the Oakland Athletics, to sell its 50% interest in the Coliseum Complex to CWP.
As described in the Executive Summary above (which is not included here), the City determined its interest in the Coliseum Complex to be surplus and staff completed the SLA process as required by state law and outlined below.
The Surplus Land Act
Effective January 1, 2020, Assembly Bill (AB) No.1486 amended the SLA. As revised, the SLA requires a local agency to declare property as “surplus land” in a public hearing by the legislative body of the local agency and prohibits local agencies from commencing negotiations over the sale or lease of surplus property prior to declaring such property as surplus. The SLA further requires the local agency to send an NOA for specified uses, including affordable housing, parks and recreation, and schools to designated entities (“Eligible Entities”), including
1. California Department of Housing and Community Development (“HCD”)
- Any local public entity within the jurisdiction where the surplus local land is located
- Developers who have notified HCD of their interest in developing affordable housing on surplus local land.
Oakland’s Gallegos, Coliseum Manager, Only Helped Oakland With Surplus Land Designation Not Alameda County
Department: Economic & Workforce Development Department
But because the City of Oakland’s Coliseum Manager, Larry Gallegos took care of the Surplus Land designation for the Oakland part of the complex , but not the County of Alameda part of it, the assumption this blogger made at the time (because I was looking at the matter from the perspective of the AASEG vs. Dave Stewart competition) was that the County was handling its end of the deal.
Not so.
This letter from the State of California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) dated August 19, 2021 implies that the County of Alameda just failed to do its part of the job. It reads as follows:
Response to Notice of Intent to Enforce Surplus Land Act by Third Party
Dear Susan S. Muranishi (Alameda County Administrator)
On July 20, 2021, the Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) received a notice of intent to enforce the Surplus Land Act (SLA) from Communities for a Better Environment (CBE). Pursuant to Surplus Land Act Guidelines section 502(c), when HCD receives notice that a third party intends to enforce the SLA, HCD is required to review documentation and, if there appear to be any deficiencies, to provide the local agency 60 days to provide additional documentation or correct the deficiency. HCD takes no position on third-party litigation.
HCD has reviewed the documentation provided by CBE regarding the sale and disposition of Alameda County’s (the County’s) interest in parcels 041-3901-008-00 and 041-3901-009-00 (the Oakland Coliseum), and notes the following:
HCD Has No Record That the County Has Declared the Property “Surplus Land” or “Exempt Surplus Land”
Government Code section 54221(b)(1) requires that land be declared either “Surplus Land” or “Exempt Surplus Land,” as supported by written findings, before a local agency may take any action to dispose of it consistent with an agency’s policies or procedures. However, HCD has no record that the County has declared the Oakland Coliseum parcels to be “Surplus Land” or “Exempt Surplus Land” prior to the sale and disposition of its interest.
HCD Has No Record That the County Has Complied with the SLA Noticing
Requirements
If the subject properties are “Surplus Land” pursuant to Government Code section 54221(b), then Government Code section 54222 obligates the County to send notices of availability to specific entities prior to disposing of the Property or participating in negotiations to dispose of the Property. Pursuant to Government Code section 54230.5(b)(1), the County shall provide to HCD a description of these notices of availability, and negotiations conducted with any responding entities, with respect to the subject properties. However, HCD has no record of the County providing any documentation to HCD about this transaction prior to entering into a disposition agreement.
Next Steps
Pursuant to Section 502(c) of the SLA guidelines, the County has 60 days from receiving this notification from HCD to provide additional documentation or correct the deficiency before an action may be brought. During this period, CBE may not bring their proposed action against the County, unless the County “disposes of the land before curing or correcting the alleged violation, or HCD deems the alleged violation not to be a violation in less than 30 days.”
Accordingly, HCD continues to welcome additional documentation from the County relevant to these preliminary findings or the County’s SLA compliance more generally in accordance with the timeframes set forth above.
Please send any such additional documentation to [email protected].
Sincerely,
Sasha Wisotsky Kergan,
Unit Chief
Housing Policy Development
Alameda County Tried To Dispose (Sell) The Land Without Surplus Declaration
It’s important to understand that “disposing of the land” simply means selling it. And here’s where the problem really is. First, here’s the weird deal: the Coliseum JPA had the City of Oakland’s designated “Coliseum Manager”. Second, the Coliseum JPA also has its own executive director, Henry Gardner and before that Scott McKibben.
So, the “Coliseum Manager” should answer to the Coliseum JPA Executive Director, right? But in reality, there was no such pyramid of responsibility, and one does not exist to this day. Also, if the Coliseum Manager is that for the whole Coliseum, why did his responsibility stop with respect to the Coliseum land owned by Alameda County?
Since there’s no tenancy-in-common, and Larry knew this, why didn’t he work to establish one between Oakland and Alameda County at the Coliseum?
The City of Oakland’s response, again, would be that such matters are the responsibility of Alameda County – even though both the City and County own the Coliseum. But is that really the case? The State of California’s Housing and Local Land Development Map says no.
The State of California’s Housing and Local Land Development Map (link here) is where city and county lands designated as “surplus” under the Surplus Land Act are listed. If one focuses on the Oakland Coliseum Complex land, there are six different parcels that make up Coliseum land.
Even though the Oakland Coliseum is jointly owned and controlled by the City of Oakland and the County of Alameda, the map marks all six parcels as under “Oakland” jurisdiction. So, Oakland’s Larry Gallegos should have been able to do the surplus land designation work on behalf of both the City and the County. That would have avoided the problems that exist today. Here’s the map:
Once again, we have an Oakland Government problem caused by government structure: one Coliseum with two government owners that don’t regularly talk to each other because there’s nothing making them do so. And while one would think the Coliseum JPA should be the first stop for both parties to meet, it’s never worked that way because there was no legislative mechanism to make it do so.
The Coliseum JPA Should Be A Public Financing Authority
The solution is for the Coliseum JPA to be transformed to have its own staff beyond the executive director and his assistant. That is why last fall 2023, I gave the presentation to turn the Coliseum JPA into a full-blown Public Financing Authority governing an Enhanced Infrastructure Financing District: to install such a self-contained staff.
AASEG To The Rescue
But that’s not the only problem: one for now is that since the State of California has said it can’t find any declaration of the County of Alameda’s side Coliseum as surplus land, it clearly should do that. As it already has the A’s as a buyer, the County could argue that both conditions of disposition were met, and then add that AASEG is the affordable housing developer of interest. That would effectively kill the Communities for a Better Environment lawsuit.
Stay tuned.