The Oakland A’s have been ruining baseball for Oakland for many years. Now they’re threatening to ruin Oakland for Oakland.

In the latest development, the city of Oakland failed in its bid to land a $182 million federal grant it hoped to use for infrastructure on the A’s proposed development at Howard Terminal.

Oakland’s efforts to keep the A’s in town took a major blow after the city was denied a federal grant that could have provided somewhere around one-third of the money needed to hold up its end of the proposed Howard Terminal stadium project.

It’s largely unknown where exactly the negotiations stand between the city and its last major professional sports franchise, but the U.S. Transportation Department’s decision not to include Oakland in its list of grant recipients makes a difficult project even harder. The city is anxious to craft a deal that does not rely on substantial subsidies from taxpayers.

Oakland failed to secure more than $180 million in federal funds that would have benefited the A’s proposed waterfront ballpark and surrounding development, raising the question of whether the city will be able to get the project done.

A spokesperson for Oakland said Tuesday it had not received any of the $182 million it applied for from the federal Transportation Department’s Megaprojects grant program. Officials had previously said the city might not get the full amount it requested — or any of it.

Let’s hope Rob Manfred never loses his job as commissioner of Major League Baseball, because he has flunked his audition to play a tough guy on any mob-themed TV show or movie.

Manfred continues to shake down the Oakland city government, or at least try to, on behalf of his boss, Oakland Athletics owner John Fisher.

The billion-dollar question in Oakland – whether the A’s are actually moving into a new ballpark and building thousands of homes near the harbor – remains unanswered.

In the meantime, the city wants to start spending $259 million in state grant money intended to support the roughly $12 billion proposed development at Howard Terminal, even as its future remains in limbo.

I’ve written here before about cities and teams that are looking for a cut of federal infrastructure money to help in building sports venues, now that there’s that trillion-dollar infrastructure bill hanging out there like so much fresh meat. Mostly that’s been a few million here and there, but Oakland mayor-for-another-few-weeks Libby Schaaf, who has about a half-billion-dollar budget hole for an A’s stadium even after putting in $495 million in city infrastructure money, has previously talked about seeking $180 million in “federal grants.” And now we know where that money would come from, and of course it’s the infrastructure bill. As Oakland urban policy advocate Kitty Kelly Epstein wrote in a San Francisco Chronicle op-ed:

Once in a generation — if we’re lucky — we see huge federal investment in infrastructure. Thanks to the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Mega Grant program, communities across the country have been asked to identify their highest-priority projects in the first round of long-needed transportation investment funding to help make U.S. transit safer, more efficient and resilient to future challenges. 

But not all projects hit that mark.  

The renderings of the Oakland A’s proposed ballpark at Howard Terminal show towers and mid-rise buildings sprouting up behind home plate and swooping in a semi-circle from home plate to the left-field bleachers.

For city planners, the collection of glassy buildings depicted in these proposals is more than just an effort to create a busy waterfront neighborhood that has a lure beyond the team’s 81 home games. The buildings — 1.5 million square feet of office space, 3,000 housing units, a 3,500-seat concert venue, 200,000 square feet of retail, a 400-room hotel — are an economic engine that will pay for hundreds of millions of dollars in infrastructure improvements.

Despite promises by Oakland City officials that the $12 billion Oakland A’s ballpark and condominium complex at the Port of Oakland’s Howard Terminal will not require taxpayer funding, there is growing concern that Oakland taxpayers may be required to foot part of the bill.

“The right question to ask is: … ‘Who’s stuck with the tab?”
Mike Jacob, Vice President & General Counsel, PMSA

The Buffalo Bills are among the favorites to win the Super Bowl in February but Dennice Barr has other priorities as winter approaches.

Barr is a community leader in the Fruit Belt, an historic but deprived majority African American area near downtown Buffalo. With a median household income of under $28,000, a ticket to an NFL game is out of reach for many residents. As the cost of living soars and the weather worsens they are more focused on access to food and heating.