Oakland Coliseum JPA Guy Houston Exec Dir Update

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Oakland Coliseum JPA Guy Houston Exec Dir Update

The Oakland-Alameda Coliseum Joint Powers Authority’s set to consider and perhaps ratify the choice of former Dublin Mayor and former California GOP Assemblyman Guy Houston at its Friday, October 17th meeting. But my sources tell me Houston’s selection is not necessarily a slam dunk, and that the organization may even restart the search process, or go with another choice.

The detail my sources tell me adds to my original post reporting that Mr. Houston was the third choice presented to the JPA. The new news is that the first choice, Pittsburgh Steelers Chief Financial Officer Mark Hart, wanted $425,000 to move cross country and take the job. When the JPA could not get him to come down on his price, they then offered Scott McKibben $325,000, which, I’m told, he accepted. What’s fuzzy is how Houston came into the picture.

In other words, his salary was $250,000, but the information I’ve been given leads me to believe someone may have tipped him off to McKibben’s level of salary, and Guy was able to undercut him. “Houston was a former Mayor and Assemblyman so,” my source who was close to the event said, “(Alameda County Supervisor) Nate Miley and (Oakland City Councilmember) Larry Reid abstained, and left it to Oakland’s other representative on the Coliseum JPA, At-Large Councilmember and Oakland Mayor’s Race Candidate Rebecca Kaplan. Rebecca said ‘We need someone to negotiate with the (Oakland) Raiders,’ and so picked Guy Houston.”

And that was how the Oakland-Alameda Coliseum Joint Powers Authority came to be in this position of hiring a person described in a past news blog post as having “baggage” – specifically the settled lawsuit by seniors who accused Houston and his father’s family business of defrauding them in 2007. Then, there was the settled lawsuit over a bank loan from Fremont Bank in 2004. And on top of that, Houston’s assembly track record of not paying attention to the needs of working families in his voting pattern. All of that leads one to wonder if The Hawkins Company did it’s homework, or for that matter, the JPA?

I called Councilmember Kaplan and her staff regarding this issue many times; they say it’s a personnel issue and they can’t comment on it.

The overall problem is one of optics: if Houston’s selected, the Oakland Coliseum JPA will be entirely ran by politicians, both on the JPA Board and in the top postion. The Coliseum JPA has steadfastly ignored the original business plan created by Oakland Assistant City Manager Ezra Rapport, the man who crafted the agreement that brought the Raiders back to Oakland from Los Angeles. That plan called for a 20-person advisory board of people representing the private sector. Deena McClain, the current Executive Director for the Coliseum JPA, and its long-time lawyer, knows this – why it has never been fully implemented is a major question? The Coliseum JPA Board allowed the creation of a an expanded board of eight people, but why not the advisory board? Why not the 20-person version, and where are those who have sports management and sports marketing experience beyond the one person who does have it, sports agent Arron Goodwin?

Friday’s meeting will mark a major statement by the minders of the Oakland Coliseum Joint Powers Authority: do they want to assemble an organization that continues to be the laughing stock of the sports business world, or will they take a step to restart the executive director process, and put in a person who is a real, live sports executive well-respected nationally? For my money, that person’s Scott McKibben, who’s the second choice; the JPA should give him a chance to come down on the price to get him. From what I understand, that wasn’t done.

NOTE: The Oakland Sports Forum is October 29th, 2014 6 PM to 8 PM, at the Lakeshore Avenue Baptist Church, 3534 Lakeshore Ave. It will be the only Oakland Mayor’s Race Debate focused on the future of sports business in Oakland. Website: http://oaklandsportsforum.com

Stay tuned.

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