On July 5, the City Council rejected the request of Oakland voters to place a measure on the 2022 ballot to allow them to weigh in on whether the City should spend public funds on infrastructure for billionaire A’s owner John Fisher’s privately owned baseball stadium and luxury condominium project at Howard Terminal.
Along with 800 likely voters, 76% of us said ‘yes’ to a survey by a nationally acclaimed polling firm that asked if we wanted to be heard before the City spent public money on infrastructure and other costs associated with the A’s development project. We followed that by getting 12,000 signatures on petitions sent directly to the Council demanding that they place the question on the Nov. 8, 2022, ballot.
But the Council folded under the bullying tactics and rejected the ballot question with several phony excuses, including:
- Money for the A’s is not coming out of the general fund
- The project is too complicated for the voters to understand
- There is no deal yet, so it is premature to ask voters their opinion
The voters never asked to weigh in on whether the A’s should be allowed at Howard Terminal. They only wanted to give an advisory vote on whether the City should spend $1 billion of public infrastructure funds for a privately owned ballpark and luxury condominium complex.
More than 100 speakers told the Council that public funds include money from the city, the county, the state, and the federal government. These are dollars that should not be committed to a ballpark and luxury condos when Oakland has surging homelessness and public safety emergencies.