A large number of Coliseum workers reside in
San Leandro and Hayward.
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Resolution says city has economic interests for keeping teams
SAN LEANDRO CITY COUNCIL | City Manager Chris Zapata has experience with the type of ongoing turmoil Oakland and Alameda County are facing with its sports franchises over funding new and increasingly costly stadiums.
As a member of the city administration in Glendale, Ariz., during the time when the fast-growing suburb was doling out billions for a state-of-the-art stadium for the Arizona Cardinals and an arena for the NHL’s Arizona Coyotes, the same push-pull between greedy owners and taxpayers unwilling to fund said sports cathedrals played out in similar ways to the stadium sagas in Oakland with the Raiders, Athletics and Warriors.
San Leandro City Manager Chris Zapata
helped build University of Phoenix Stadium
during his time with the City of Glendale.
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Zapata would later become city manager in National City, Calif. before coming to San Leandro in 2011 and now he hopes to offer neighboring Oakalnd and Alameda County officials, at least, some moral support for keeping the trio of sports teams in town.
The San Leandro Council will likely approve a resolution Monday night offered by Zapata issuing the city’s support for local efforts to build new stadiums in the region.
“San Leandrans have supported these teams through attendance at games and taxes paid to Alameda County; and as adjacent neighbors have a vested interest in seeing that the proximate BART/Coliseum area is maintained and improved,” says the resolution.
The legislation also notes the financial donations each sports franchise has contributed in the past to San Leandro, in particular recreational grants such as the $50,000 donated by the Athletics to improve baseball fields at Stenzel Park in West San Leandro.
Some Oakland and Alameda County officials have long urged for a more regional approach to keeping the sports teams in the East Bay. Oakland Councilmember Noel Gallo, on several occasions, has urged for a more broadly-minded approach that includes support from every city in the county.
While the suggestion has not entailed any financial obligations from cities outside of the county’s stake in the Coliseum, each jurisdiction benefits from its job creation. Hayward and San Leandro residents, in fact, make up a large bloc of workers currently employed at the sports complex.
By MW:
Earlier today while cleaning up the house a little bit (I have always been extremely strongly committed to the idea that I should clean up the house at least a little bit every one hundred years or so, and whether it needs it or not), I bumped into an article from the front page of the Oakland Tribune of Saturday, July 4, 2015 titled, “STADIUM COST ESTIMATE REMAINS SQUISHY.” The article was in regard to the fact that supposedly building a new stadium for the Raiders would cost 900M.
Said article commented the recently completed Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara was supposed to cost 937M to build, but instead actually cost 1.3 billion.
(NOTE: If it ONLY ran approx. fifty percent over estimates, than based on the “standards” of major projects, I would consider it to be a “great success,” since major projects of that type, and especially sports stadiums, usually run at least one hundred percent over the estimates provided by the politicians and their “experts.” And in fact the total completed costs very commonly run 200%, 300%, or even 400% over the estimates provided by the politicians and their “experts.” Keep that in mind in regard to Jerry Brown insisting we can complete his Crazy Train project for approx sixty billion dollars. In fact a few months ago while discussing JB's Crazy Train project with a woman who for years has been involved in all sorts of government projects, and including items that involve considerable coordination between a variety of government agencies, it was her opinion that regarding JB saying the whole thing can be done for approx 60B dollars, that major govt projects often run approx. five times the estimates, meaning that she assumed the Crazy Train project would actually end up costing at least three hundred billion dollars.)
However getting back to considering providing public financing for building new sports stadiums for the Raiders and A's, etc, the stooges, pawns, and puppets on a string on the San Leandro City Council are supposedly very impressed by the fact that one of the local sports franchises “very generously” contributed a “BIG” fifty thousand dollars to some local kiddies' baseball fields.
So if I myself am “generous” enough to provide a tiny lightly disguised bribe, let's say 50K or so, to this or that local program, will the politicians all agree get down on their hands and knees and kiss my feet!!
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BY MW:
If my memory is correct, the presently “ACCEPTED estimates,” BUT WHICH WERE SUPPLIED BY THE RAIDERS THEMSELVES, for building the Raiders a new stadium in the East Bay are approx. nine hundred million dollars, and with the Raiders and various East Bay public officials suggesting that the Raiders provide five hundred million dollars, in other words approx “half” of that “ESTIMATED” nine hundred million, and the general public providing the “other half,” in other words an addtl “ESTIMATED” four hundred or five hundred million dollars.
However, major government projects almost always end up costing drastically more, and often many times more, than the “estimates” provided by the “experts” said they would.
For instance, the “experts” said a new Bay Bridge would cost approx nine hundred million dollars to build, but instead it has SO FAR ONLY cost over seven billion dollars to build, and for that seven billion dollars plus they still have not even gotten it right, meaning that SO FAR it has ONLY cost about eight times as much as original estimates, and which is not at all unusual for government projects.
So if building that “NINE HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS” stadium for the Raiders actually ends up costing drastically more than nine hundred million dollars, and as it almost certainly would, who will be volunteering to pay the additional hundreds of millions, OR PERHAPS EVEN BILLIONS, of dollars.
In fact, the best and most profitable thing that East Bay taxpayers could do with that for four or five hundred million dollars OF OUR MONEY that our local politicians are proposing we spend on that stadium is to instead give it as a gift to our local politicians and their “experts” and consultants on condition that they all move out of state and never come back.
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