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boned
Read the dejected coverage and reaction from the Athletics fansite devoted to keeping major league baseball in Oakland. A CRA slush fund was the only feasible method of building a new park in Oakland. Now it looks like A's owner Lew Wolff knows the way to San Jose - except new debt service rules may hinder his ability to devote lots of dough to a shining city on the hill.
Lobbying now begins for the state legislature to resurrect CRAs from the dead. Jerry Brown's aura smiles and never frowns, but he will veto anything that allows money headed the state's way to be sidetracked for anything not controlled by the State. So for the time being, at lest the next decade, local gubmint money paying for stadiums in the Golden State ain't happening.
Arte Moreno has an out clause in his Anaheim Stadium lease after 2016. Uhhh...
0 recs | 32 comments
NO TO ALL 3
COME ON, ANGELS FANS!!!!!! ILL FIGHT TO THE DEATH FOR YA, BUT FUCK OFF!!!!!!!!
mikehotmop - January 4, 2012 via mobile
There need to be more Bloggers like you. You’re that extra spice to a tasty meal.
migfig - January 4, 2012 via Android app
I think what he meant to say was
!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Match Day 5 - January 4, 2012
Caps lock is cruise control for cool.
Birdle - January 4, 2012
2014
The out clause is effective 2016 (50th anniversary of the stadium) but Arte needs to inform the city of his plans by the end of the 2014 season. That’s just three full seasons from now for the state to figure out what it’s going to do.
George Kaplan - January 4, 2012
They're coming for your uncool niece!
mattwelch - January 4, 2012
She'd look nice
as a drawstring lamp
Rev Halofan - January 4, 2012
I don't get the impression the Angels are leaving or trying to in the next 15 years
but might attempt some leveraging to help get some funding for renovations.
What was Arte’s quote last season about the stadium getting some repairs? Something like “nobody notices if you re-do the roof of your house, but you still have to do it”
ihearhowie2.0 - January 4, 2012
Disney did the renovations
At 50 years old, there are organic problems with a facility like that which cosmetic changes can’t fix, like replacing and updating plumbing within the structure.
We can be sentimental about the Big A all day long, but expecting this facility to be able to be rejuvenated by some fresh paint and a new rockpile in center and be a viable, robust stadium for another 20-40 years is whistling past the graveyard. Whether a new stadium is built in the current stadium parking lot and the Angels ultimately remain on the same parcel, or if the team moves to a new site, I don’t see any practical way that the current Angel Stadium is affordably updated and pronounced sound for several more decades.
George Kaplan - January 4, 2012
The stadium can be fixed cheaper than building a new stadium.
firebird81 - January 4, 2012
And you know this how...?
More to the point, deferred maintenance has a cost unto itself. It isn’t just the cost of a new facility versus pumping money into the incumbent stadium, it is about the long-term costs of each.
Time is not kind on facilities such as this in the 6th decade and beyond. Look at the costs involved in bringing the LA Coliseum up to date every 15 years or so, and that isn’t even a covered venue. There are reasons why the NFL isn’t interested in the Coliseum as a site for a proposed NFL team, and the cost of maintaining the site is a big part of it.
George Kaplan - January 4, 2012
The NFL is not interested inteh Collesseum
because the commission is a completely corrupt slush-fund overseeing cadre of cronies. The NFL hates competition.
Rev Halofan - January 4, 2012
I've worked on more commercial construction sites than I care to remember
There’s a reason why most commercial/industrial sites are renovated rather than demolished when someone buys them. Cost. We have BRIDGES older than Angel Stadium. Structural deficiencies are reinforced and entire sections rebuilt all the time in older buildings. The plumbing and electrical can be completely replaced and brought up to modern code far cheaper than building a new stadium. If all the walls come down the state of California will require environmental impact reports and the enviro-nazis will be out in force filing lawsuits.
It will cost $1 billion to build a new stadium in Orange County. Re-enforcing the structure and replacing all the plumbing and electrical will come nowhere close to that. And it’s not the age of the Coliseum that keeps the NFL away. It’s the facility itself. It’s outdated and L.A. is unwilling to upgrade it. If L.A. renovated and modernized the Coliseum, an NFL team would play there.
firebird81 - January 4, 2012
Might be cheaper but...
the effort maybe rather difficult. The effort may not make it worth it. Kinda like slapping new tires and a paint job on a Yugo.
rmhalofan - January 4, 2012
George, the 1998 stadium alteration
was substantial – and to many (though not all) of the “guts” infrastructure of the stadium.
Arte is gonna get a little but he is not gonna get a lot.
Rev Halofan - January 4, 2012
I think George has Petco Park envy
firebird81 - January 4, 2012
More like Gaslamp District envy
George Kaplan - January 4, 2012
Me too.
Stirrups - January 4, 2012
After the laughter dies.
I mostly feel bad for the A’s stadium situation.
NathanielS - January 4, 2012
Let us see, the former mayor of Oakland just screwed them over
and they probably voted for him just on the name recognition. How’s that voting for an aging old hippie working out for you Oakland?
steelgolf - January 4, 2012
Here's the bottom line.
The City of Oakland has no damned right to expect the people of the state of California to pay for a new stadium for Oakland. If Oakland wants a new stadium, it can pay for it itself or the A’s can finance their own stadium. Why should some guy in Indio be forced pay for a stadium he will never see?
firebird81 - January 4, 2012
This is my line of thinking as well.
Last I heard, like most professional sports owners, Lew Wolff is a billionaire. Build your own damn stadium. I get sick and tired of hearing these fools plead poverty when it comes to their ballparks, look at just about every single stadium that has been publicly financed. The taxpayer gets screwed. So good for the state of California. If you want a new stadium, build it yourself.
halofolife - January 4, 2012
California finally doing something right concerning their budget?
rmhalofan - January 4, 2012
Probably just going to divert the funds to the "bullet train" with 100 stops
You know, a money pit of epic proportions.
JeffJoiner - January 4, 2012
Coming soon?
The Los Angeles Chargers? The Oklahoma City Athletics?
gitchogritchoffmypetis - January 4, 2012
san jose is going to be slow close
hell ya
DAD OF VLAD - January 4, 2012
Slush Fund has always been one of my favorite scandal terms. It's one of those things that sounds way better than it is.
Mayheminthehood - January 4, 2012
Exactly
Abolishing the CRAs is one of the most important moves state government has made in quite some time. As somebody who has worked in local government (on the political side), CRAs are nothing more than slush funds for politicians to pay back developers & construction unions who donate a massive amount of money to their campaigns.
Why should public money be diverted from schools to help billionaires with their hobbies? The CRAs epitomized corporate welfare.
YouthofToday - January 4, 2012
I just always think of slushies. And slush funds don't involve slushies, so F that.
Mayheminthehood - January 4, 2012
I love sports and have seen the economic boost they can give a local economy
But have voted against using taxpayer money to subsidize them 100% of the time. When I lived in Sacramento and the Kings were actually contending, I voted against the downtown stadium. The government wastes enough of my money as it is; they don’t need to build ballparks too.
JeffJoiner - January 4, 2012
I'll laught like
Peter Griffin
eyespy - January 4, 2012
So the A's may have to stay in that green outhouse in Oakland
This is bad for the Angels why?
I say screw em sideways
ArchAngel_7 - January 6, 2012
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