Oakland News: Coliseum JPA Picks Politico Over Sports Execs For Director

In this Oakland News, more stomach-turning information regarding how former Dublin Mayor and GOP California Assemblyperson Guy Houston came to be, as of now, the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum’s selection for it’s executive director. Mr. Houston has at least one major, glaring red flag: in 2007, he and his father were sued in a civil lawsuit for working to bilk senior citizens out of $300,000. Houston tried to get the case dismissed, but failed to do so; they settled out of court with the plaintiffs.

(NOTE: Mark your calendar for Oakland’s first mayoral debate focused on sports in Oakland: The Oakland Sports Forum October 29th, 2014, 6 PM, Lakeshore Avenue Baptist Church, 3534 Lakeshore Ave. Questions? Zennie@zennie62.com )

According to several new sources who’ve contacted me since my first blog post on this, the search firm of The Hawkins Company out of San Ramon, Ca., was selected to find executive director candidates for the Oakland Coliseum JPA. Of all of the names, two surfaced to become 1 and 2 respectively: Mark Hart, the Director of Business and Chief Financial Officer of The Pittsburgh Steelers, and Scott McKibben, A11 Football League Commissioner, and Former Executive Director Of The Rose Bowl.

What happened was that Mr. Hart, the first choice from The Steelers, wanted the job, but the process required for him to take it called for giving up his home outside of Pittsburgh, up-rooting his family, and planting new roots here in the East Bay. All of that was too much for Mr. Hart, and so he backed out.

The Hawkins Company then presented the second choice, Scott McKibben. Aside from his previously listed credentials, Mr. McKibben was also publisher of the Oakland Tribune, and served on the Oakland Super Bowl XXXVI Bidding Committee that I created and headed, and that almost landed the 2005 Super Bowl for Oakland, losing to Jacksonville.

For reasons that are sill not yet clear to this blogger, Oakland Councilmember and JPA Board Member Rebecca Kaplan, and not Councilmember Larry Reid, as reported here before (I called Larry to confirm that but did not hear back from him, so kept checking), pushed for Guy Houston over McKibben; Councilmember Reid reportedly abstained and of the Alameda County Supervisors Scott Haggerty and Nate Miley, my sources say that Scott skipped the meeting where this was decided, and Miley abstained.

That means the decision was left to Rebecca Kaplan, who reportedly didn’t know about Mr. Houston’s background, and for some wild reason picked him over Scott McKibben. I have called and texted Rebecca for clarification on this, but my sources are extremely reliable in this case, so I’m standing firm with this blog entry.

But is this a done deal? No. It can be undone on October 17th. The one question is, will it be undone? I can only say right now, that it should be. I understand that Oakland Raiders Owner Mark Davis and Oakland A’s Owner Lew Wolff are not happy over this news, or the rather messy lawsuit Houston’s attached to, and they’re at the top of a long list of notable East Bay business people.

Aside From The Elderly Fraud Lawsuit, Does Guy Houston Have The Qualifications?

The matter of the really embarrassing lawsuit aside, does Guy Houston really have the qualifications to be the Coliseum JPA’s Executive Director? In a nutshell (the Hawkins Company Coliseum JPA Search Document is here, below), the answer is no. The main and most important qualifications of any stadium director is knowledge of and experience with sports marketing and stadium management.

While AEG is the hired private organization for the purpose of managing the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum and booking talent, it’s purely stupid to leave all of the expertise with AEG, who’s not truly beholden to the interests of the Oakland Coliseum, the City of Oakland, or the County of Alameda. The stadium director has to know not only the right questions to ask AEG, but also how to determine how good a job they are, or are not, doing. The stadium director also has to know how to go about terminating AEG if necessary. Guy Houston has nothing in his background that would even come close to exhibiting experience in that area.

What Guy Houston has is experience in local politics and negotiations, but even then, he’s never done that with respect to the sports industry. What’s apparent here is that the Coliseum JPA’s currently allergic to the idea of having people with real, live sports marketing and management experience under its direct payroll. Indeed, the JPA’s only had such an expert twice in its 19-year history since 1996, when it was formed: Mark Kaufmann, who was previously with SMG (and was in the running for the job again this time), and Ann Haley, who came to Oakland with sports marketing experience with The New England Patriots, and The Boston Celtics.

In Ann’s case, I personally met with her to advise her (as a friend, not a consultant) on how to work with the JPA. I was fresh off the Super Bowl effort, and still very much, as today, in contact with a number of officials who worked at the Coliseum in various capacities. But Ann’s main problem was dealing with the egos of the politicians on the JPA Board, and most notably that of its then-chairman then-Oakland Councilmember Ignacio De La Fuente.

My experience in working with Ann, and on the Super Bowl before that, brought the problems of the JPA into clear focus: because of its structure, the politicians did not know how to get out of the way and actually let the executive director be just that. Add to that the fact that the minds of the elected officials who make up the Coliseum Board aren’t focused on Coliseum issues all of the time, let alone the majority of the time, and you can see the problem.

After Ann was dismissed from her duties, I broke the story, and wrote this on September 10th, 2008:

In mid August, Ann Haley, who for six years was the head of the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Authority staff, elected to step down.  My sources — and there are several — tell me that she was actually fired.

There was no good reason for her dismissal, but it’s well-known that Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Authority Board Chairperson and Oakland City Council President Ignacio De La Fuente was not happy with her performance.

But in fairness to Haley, the Authority’s structure and placement of many matters in the hands of SMG, the stadium management organization that still remains un-supervised, gave her little real power.  Plus, it placeed her in the role of dealing with the whims and requests of the elected officials that seem to insist on maintaining a system that is unprofessional in it’s operation in the view of this observer.

But to add insult to injury, many insiders are asking the question why would the Authority have — of all people — long-time Deborah Edgerly-crony Deena McClain step in as the “interim director” again after six years of not being around?

Well as one of my sources said McClain was gone, but not forgotten.  Also, she does have some institutional memory. But if the Coliseum Authority had any real guts at all, it would have brought back Ezra Rapport, the original architect of the Raiders deal.   That’s the smart move because he’s the best person to undo what he did.  But that kind of logic tends to escape the City of Oakland.

Keep in mind, that was in 2008, when then-East Bay Express Columnist Chris Thompson got after me for referring to Deena as a “Deborah Edgerly crony”, thus connecting her with Oakland’s City Administrator. But that little tidbit aside, we’re still dealing with the same structural problems today.

Once The Coliseum Was Ran By The Private Sector For The Public

It wasn’t always that way. From 1967 to 1995, the Oakland Coliseum was ran by a nine-member board of directors and a staff paid for by the proceeds public bond issue that paid it just over $1 million per year. When that bond issue money ran out, the then-new Coliseum JPA hired SMG to manage both the stadium and the arena. But gone with the once-public staff was a constant, long-term-planning focus.

When I served as Economic Advisor To Oakland Mayor Elihu Harris, one of my assignments was the Oakland Coliseum. What impressed me when visiting the office of then-President Bob Quintella was a giant map of the Coliseum complex that featured land-use plans for the next five-to-ten years. That has not been part of the Coliseum’s operations since, and it’s suffered for it.

Deena McClain, who has the longest-serving term of anyone with the Coliseum JPA, has the task of being its lawyer; her constant problem has been an extreme weakness in the area of stadium management and sports marketing. Deena’s an excellent municipal finance lawyer, but the Coliseum’s board, now dominated by elected officials, has been all-too willing to give her the power to tell them how they should think about policy formation for the JPA. What they are supposed to do is direct their lawyer to take action, not the other way around. But, and I have many sources who confirm this, that style has not changed as of this writing today. Thus, if Guy Houston were the new Coliseum JPA executive director, the real decision making would, once again as it has for most of the last 19 years after the departure of Oakland Assistant City Manager Ezra Rapport in 1998, fall to Ms. McClain.

If Scott McKibben were the executive director, the power of decision making would shift to him, and away from McClain. Her role, should she chose to accept it, would be truly as the lawyer for the Coliseum JPA. Because Scott has so many high-level contacts with the Oakland A’s, Oakland Raiders, and Golden State Warriors, and with the Bay Area business community, McClain could not end-run him. His extensive knowledge of both the sports and political areas both locally and nationally, are such that the JPA Board would find themselves deferring to him.

But that’s the way it’s supposed to be when you hire an executive director.

A good one.

I must close on this note: the Coliseum JPA has never had a black executive director, and the Oakland Coliseum has never, once, had an African American president at least since 1994.

Additionally, one question not asked is where is the Coliseum JPA in completing the 146-item punch list of needed stadium maintenance repairs that existed starting in 1996? The list included such things as loose baseboards in luxury boxes. Its wrong to just assume the punch-list was taken care of; it’s completion would signal a truly well-maintained Oakland Alameda County Coliseum Stadium.

Stay tuned.

Appendix: The Hawkins Company Document:

Oakland Coliseum JPA Exc Dir Search Doc