Oakland A’s Howard Terminal Ballpark Proposal Hits Problem

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The Oakland Howard Terminal Ballpark Proposal for the Oakland Athletics has hit a major first snag in the form of a letter from the California Trucking Association and Oakland-based Schnitzer Steel and to Oakland Mayor Jean Quan that blasts the planning effort for not approaching those organizations, or others in the surrounding business community, first, and provides a list of concerns.

The letter, to the view of this blogger, also calls into question Mayor Quan’s hands on, but hands off approach to the matter of the retention of Oakland’s sports teams. If Quan and her staff were fully hands on, they would have made sure to get community support for such a project. But considering the letter, and the remarks from long-time Oakland resident Vivian Khan and that were delivered at the Port of Oakland Board of Commissioners Meeting, it’s clear that such work was not done.

They write:

The Howard Terminal is surrounded by an assortment of industrial and transportation uses, including an electrical substation, a metal recycling and exporting terminal, a power plant, two separate major trunk pipelines, a mainline portion of the country’s largest Class I railroad, as well as Amtrak and Capitol Corridor passenger trains. In addition, the surrounding road and street infrastructure are handling traffic for our
country’s fifth largest container port.

While support for this location has already been expressed by you and others in the media, we are concerned that no one is asking or considering realistic answers to the following questions:

And here are the questions:

Howard Terminal Oakland Baseball Letter of Concern by Zennie Abraham

Answering those questions will take more than a simple press release given their detail. But the real message is that the business community that will be impacted feels that it’s being ignored.

Stay tuned.

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