While the Oakland Athletics and city officials continue to negotiate terms that could start or finish a plan for a new ballpark at Howard Terminal, a nonprofit has jump-started questions into Alameda County's sale of half of the current A's stadium to the baseball franchise.
The California Department of Housing and Community Development said it found no record that the county declared its share of the 188-acre RingCentral Coliseum complex — co-owned with the city of Oakland — as "surplus land" or "exempt surplus land." What's more, the department said it has no record that the county complied with notification requirements for selling the surplus land.
Under the Surplus Land Act, local agencies must send notices about available surplus local public land to local public entities within the jurisdiction, the California Department of Housing and Community Development and developers who have notified the department of their interest in developing affordable housing on the land.
The department, in a letter sent last week to Alameda County Administrator Susan Muranishi from Sasha Wisotsky Kergan, the chief of the department's housing policy development unit, asks the county within 60 days to provide more documentation or "correct the deficiency."