A’s negotiations, Vegas site visits and more: Q&A with Oakland City Council President Nikki Fortunato Bas

OAKLAND, CA - MAY 9: Oakland Athletics fans attend a rally in Jack London Square near the Port of Oakland offices in Oakland, Calif., on Monday, May 13, 2019. The port's board of commissioners will be voting Monday on the A's proposed 35,000-seat stadium at Howard Terminal. (Photo by Jane Tyska/MediaNews Group/The Mercury News via Getty Images)
By Alex Coffey
May 20, 2021

After news broke last week that the Oakland A’s are exploring relocation opportunities — while continuing to negotiate with the City of Oakland over the proposed Howard Terminal waterfront ballpark — The Athletic reported that MLB commissioner Rob Manfred had offered to put pressure on the City Council in an effort to move their ballpark plans forward. That offer was first floated when the team pursued building at Laney College, a project that was derailed in late 2017.

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The Oakland City Council, whom the A’s have publicly been encouraging to hold a vote on their term sheet prior to the Council’s summer recess, did not seem to appreciate these tactics. On May 14, Council President Nikki Fortunato Bas, Vice Mayor Rebecca Kaplan and Councilmember Carroll Fife sent a letter to Manfred, saying that the City Council is committed to negotiating in good faith, and hopes the same of MLB and the A’s.

“The Oakland City Council is committed to negotiating in good faith for a strong future for the A’s in Oakland, and we invite the A’s and MLB to do the same by agreeing not to seek relocation while the A’s complete the project process as the Council moves forward,” the letter read. “As leadership of the City Council and representatives of the West Oakland, Downtown and Chinatown neighborhoods, and the City at-large, we are ready to meet with you and with the A’s ownership — as we offered previously — and to thoughtfully move forward.

“From MLB’s statement, there appears to be incorrect information being conveyed. We want to make clear that it is entirely false that the City Council is delaying or refusing to consider the A’s project proposal. In fact, many people, including City staff negotiating with the As, have been hard at work developing the work needed to bring a project proposal forward for potential approval. Recently, the A’s leadership decided to change requests, and rather than send forward full completed deal terms for consideration, the A’s announced in the press that instead they were demanding that the Council take a vote on a summary ‘term sheet’ without full details.”

On Monday, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported that the A’s will visit southern Nevada next week to explore moving their franchise there. The A’s confirmed that report, as well as one point of contention for the city, according to sources: that the A’s current term sheet offers a non-relocation agreement of only 10 years.

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Non-relocation agreements for stadium projects are standard, but 10 years is on the lower end of the spectrum. The Raiders currently have a non-relocation agreement with the City of Las Vegas for 30 years (it was extended to 31 years in 2020). When the San Francisco Giants built a new ballpark — now known as Oracle Park — their non-relocation agreement was for 25 years, with the potential to extend their lease up to a total of 66 years. The City of San Francisco financed only $15 million in infrastructure costs, compared to the $850 million the A’s are asking from Oakland for what would be a 10-year commitment.

Council President Bas spoke with The Athletic this week on these topics and more.

I think a good place to start would be the news that came out recently about the A’s plans to visit Las Vegas next week. Can tell me your initial reaction to that report and how that impacts negotiations at this point? 

Well, it’s disappointing. The City and our City staff have been negotiating in good faith with the A’s for a number of years now, and very intensively since the beginning of this year. So, to hear that they are going to Nevada and scouting out Las Vegas and surrounding cities is really disappointing because we’re negotiating this deal with the intent that they will continue to stay here in Oakland for generations to come.

Do you think that it could have some impact on how the City Council ends up voting? What impact would their visit to Las Vegas have on the ground level? 

I think that I want to know that our City staff is making progress with the A’s in terms of talking through this deal, that they’re getting the information they need. They are working through the details including some of the financial details which are very complex. And, at the end of the day, we need to have the security of the A’s not seeking relocation in order to keep negotiating in good faith. It’s very concerning that rather than focusing on working through the deal here or a potential deal here in Oakland, that they are not only in talks, but actually doing site visits.

Do you think it’s possible that if these site visits to different cities continue that negotiations could come to some sort of halt or do you see the City Council continuing to try to push forward to see some sort of outcome? 

To be clear, the City administration is negotiating with the A’s, not the City Council. So, I hope to hear that our City staff is getting the information that they need, getting the A’s attention to keep working through the details. Vice Mayor Kaplan has scheduled a vote for July 20 before summer recess on a term sheet — that’s what we understand the A’s request was about. So that vote will be formalized at our rules committee on Thursday. And, once we get there, I hope that the council will feel that we’re all moving together in good faith, and that they are serious about their commitment to Oakland and working through the details of this very complex project.

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I wanted to ask about the term sheet specifically because the A’s say that the City staff first received a private copy of the term sheet in January. (A’s president) Dave Kaval said last week that the city has been “sitting” on it, so I wanted to see if you were able to take a look at this initial term sheet that he’s referring to, and if so, could comment on whether there were any substantial changes between that and the one that was made public in April?

I’m not aware of this January term sheet. If it was sent to the City Council by the A’s, I don’t recall receiving it. What I have received is by way of Twitter, the A’s term sheet in April.

Sources have also said that the A’s requested meetings with you earlier in 2021, and that you wouldn’t meet with them. Could comment or clarify that if there’s any truth to that? 

My staff handles all of my scheduling and I don’t know what the back and forth was between my scheduler and the A’s, but both Dave and Taj (Tashombe) have my cell phone as well. So, you know if they were having challenges working through my schedule to get something on the calendar they could have texted me or given me a call. So, I don’t really understand what they’re trying to say.

I did have a meeting with Dave and (A’s vice president of external affairs) Taj Tashombe on the 30th of April. We had a conversation, and I said very explicitly that the council leadership — myself, Vice Mayor Kaplan, who also represents the city at large, and council member Carroll Fife, who represents District Three where Howard Terminal is located, that the three of us are serious, in terms of learning more about the details of the project from their decision maker, Mr. (John) Fisher. I let them know that the three of us would be very interested in meeting with the owner to have a conversation, decision makers to decision makers, and did not hear a response back. And then there was the MLB announcement, I texted Dave to follow up and have not received a direct response in terms of a potential meeting with the owner rather than another meeting with Dave. So, that offer still stands and the letter that the three of us wrote also offers to meet directly with MLB. We want to hear directly from them about the details as well, and to discuss how we can work together. Our staff is at the ready to continue meeting to work through the details of this very complex deal. And it’s pretty challenging to continue hearing from the media that they’re scouting out other places when they know very well, having called Oakland home for 53 years, that the City is serious and their fans are serious about negotiating in good faith to explore this project.

What is the City of Oakland looking for in terms of a non-relocation agreement?

A non-relocation agreement means if the project is approved and built over that term, they would agree not to seek relocation. Assuming the project is built, there’d be a commitment not to relocate. I don’t know that the City has put out or agreed to a number but I think we’re talking about decades, not years.

Do you get the sense that the A’s are willing to negotiate in good faith?

I haven’t talked with our staff to hear the latest about how things are going. But a 10 year non-relocation agreement is not enough, knowing that they’ve got generations of fans here in Oakland. We’re talking about a huge development and need a much longer commitment to make such a development work, as well as a commitment to — just to put a number out there, another 53 years or 66 years — which is the term of a potential lease with the Port. So I think it would be very helpful for them to let Oakland know that they are serious about staying here and that they are negotiating in good faith with our staff.

What were your main takeaways from the A’s term sheet? 

The A’s belong in Oakland. This has been their hometown since 1968, 53 years. And so we do, as a city, want to continue to be the A’s hometown, and it takes two teams to play ball. So there’s three things that are really important to me as I look at whether this is a good deal for the community. And that means there needs to be a community benefits agreement that’s legally binding. There have been many, many hours that have gone into a very intensive community benefits process, right from community members and Oakland Chinatown, which I represent, to West Oakland, where the project would be built, to East Oakland where the Coliseum currently exists.

Many community members have developed a set of priorities around good jobs, affordable housing, environmental protections, and the A’s need to directly invest in that within the community. Secondly, it has to be a good deal for taxpayers in our economy. Taxpayers can’t be on the hook, unfairly, for the infrastructure needed for the ballpark. And we also have to make sure that we’re able to continue to keep our Port going, because it’s among the top-10 busiest ports in the entire country. And then third, it needs to be a good deal for Oakland A’s fans. We need a long term commitment from the A’s and Major League Baseball that the A’s will stay here for another 53 years, for example. So those are the things I’m looking for. The term sheet that the A’s sent back in April, it cited a number for the infrastructure, a number for the community benefits. To be clear, those numbers are from taxpayers; from the financing districts that would be created. And it’s incredibly important that there is solid financial analysis on how that is structured, because I don’t think any of us want to see taxpayers on the hook for decades to pay for the infrastructure that will support this ballpark. It has to pencil out and it has to be a good deal for taxpayers. The A’s have to, in addition to the ballpark itself, be willing to invest in the community benefits and in the infrastructure.

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When you say directly investing in the community benefits agreement, can you elaborate on what you mean by that? What that would look like? 

These are just examples, but I think it’s really important that the community negotiates directly with the A’s, and that process is continuing. So, for example, the number of units that are in the affordable housing development, getting to a level of agreement around that. Getting to a level of agreement around mitigating the environmental impact, the traffic, potentially getting to an agreement around hiring locally. Those are the type of things I’d like to see; rather than the A’s saying, some of the money from the financing district will support community benefits, and kind of leaving it there, they would be continuing to negotiate with the community around what those benefits are and how they will contribute directly to them.

Do you think that there’s community support in West Oakland for this project?

That’s a great question. I don’t represent West Oakland, I do represent parts of downtown and Chinatown and so I have been in conversations with the Oakland Chinatown coalition. And, for Chinatown, they gave very extensive comments to the EIR, and I think that there’s a lot more that the Chinatown coalition would like to see as this project moves forward. The community really feels like the traffic and air impacts need to be accounted for and that the community needs to resources and investment to improve the existing conditions. I know that their comments were critical, for example, around the gondola. I think that there are a number of members of the community who really want to see the final EIR, who want to get to agreement with the A’s on community benefits. Who want to see the financial analysis of this project. You know, there are still details that are not yet available. And there’s just a lot more information needed in continued negotiation between the City and the A’s until the council, as well as the public, have the information that we need to know whether this will be overall a good deal for Oakland and our taxpayers.

(Photo: Jane Tyska / MediaNews Group / The Mercury News via Getty Images)

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