Sunday, December 14, 2008

Drop The Stadium Plan NOW

Dear A’s and Fremont city officials,

As much as we all love living in the Weibel/Warm Springs neighborhood, I believe that the following issues would drive anyone, including myself, to relocate.  The mere threat of bringing these issues to bear will cause uncertainty, sell-offs, and property devaluation.  Please define exactly how you plan to remediate the following items:

Issues:


1)     Is this the best use of the space?

 

a)     Only 43 game days / year--will sit vacant for 322 days a year –how does this site benefit Fremont when vacant? Does not generate revenue, business opportunities, or ridership on BART when vacant

 

b)    This project does not have any business, retail or residential component.  Where does the city make money?

 

c)     business/walking friendly retail/commercial/urban housing will increase BART traffic and bring increased value and revenue to Fremont year round.  This is not part of this proposal and this project specifically precludes such improvements because it uses up all the valuable space around the station.

 

d)    Only 20% ride BART (when it arrives, possibly 3+ years later); how much space must be dedicated to parking for remaining 24,000+ attendees?  Is there enough space to even consider 10,000 parking spaces?  Am I the only person who does not see this as a ridiculous use of this space?  Where are all these cars going to park…when they finally get to the site?

 

2)     infrastructure

 

a)     Fire and police were at my last A's game where a lady had a heat stroke in the row above me.  How often are city services called to respond to incidences at the park?

 

b)    How many additional fire and police staffing will you pay for on game days?

 

c)     Hetch Hetchy runs along the site--how are you prepared to deal with water emergencies?

 

d)    City is very proud of emergency preparedness--how will you evacuate this mob in case of fire/earthquake/flood with the roads locked up? 

 

e)     How will you evacuate rest of community?

 

f)     Will the impact of 30,000 visitors flushing (water and sewage) in a short time overload our system?

 

g)    Will you pay to change/improve our water/sewer infrastructure to accommodate?

 

3)      litter

 

a)     Wind will carry all the garbage everywhere--can you control the wind?

 

b)    Litter problem is not controlled at the current site in Oakland—the surrounding area is terrible with litter.

 

4)     impact to local businesses

 

 

a)     Impassive traffic will shut down local businesses on game days.  How will you compensate them for their loss of revenue?

 

5)     noise/light pollution

 

a)     Most of the residences are up hill from site--how do you propose to contain the noise from cars as well as 30,000 people?

 

b)    Noise and lights are bad enough in the day, but late into the night will disturb neighborhood quality of life.

 

6)     parking

 

a)     Are you prepared to construct 15-20,000 parking spaces, if not, where will all these people park?

 

b)    Clearly, people will try to park in the neighborhood; not only because they don’t want to pay for parking, but also because there won’t be enough parking to accommodate all at the site.  How can you guarantee that our neighborhoods will be off limits?  Will you pay for guards at Paseo Padre/Mission, Grimmer/Mission, Durham/Auto Mall, Arapahoe/Durham?  Will you pay for permitting, meter maids and towing contractors to get them out of our neighborhoods in a timely manner?  How will you keep them out of the other business parking lots on Warm Springs and Osgood?

 

7)     property values

 

a)     Please cite one example of a thriving residential neighborhood where values have increased because a ballpark went in within a mile of its doors.

 

b)    Please cite one example of a ballpark constructed in a residential neighborhood of million dollar homes.

 

c)     All ballparks we could find are built in areas of business/commerce around other commercial venues to REBUILD economically disadvantaged areas--Arlington, SF, etc. not to decimate established neighborhoods.

 

d)    A's claim that it will INCREASE property values…how?!  What other comparable sites can you give as an example?

 

e)     What will happen if A's start winning and fan base grows, again? I have only heard of new parks of 60K seat capacity (e.g. Arlington,TX).  Why are you proposing a stadium of half that size and what will you do if you “outgrow” it?  If you move, what is this stadium good for?  Oakland will be looking at a useless, vacant structure.  Are we next?

 

8)     safety

 

a)     We need increased police presence in the neighborhood to ticket/tow, prevent crime, watch for predators at any major “event”; every game will be an “event”—Fremont cannot afford the staff.

 

b)    Vandalism in our neighborhood will surely increase.  How will you compensate for this?

 

c)     How will you accommodate fire and police to access the victims in case of emergencies while roads turned into parking lots.

 

d)    If our few police/fire are busy increasing security in our neighborhood, what happens to rest of city?

 

e)     How many people get drunk at each of your games?  I've seen drunken misbehavior at very game I've been to.

 

f)     Eventually, these drunken people get released -- what keeps them from driving? Starting fights? Urinating in our streets?

 

9)     threat to schools

 

a)     Weibel Elementary and Agua Caliente Park are <1mile style="mso-spacerun:yes">  Children play unsupervised in these playgrounds at all hours.  What is to keep them from harm?

 

b)    The reputation of Weibel will deteriorate as our neighborhood becomes less desirable.  This will create a vicious cycle to bring down the value of the neighborhood. 

 

c)     Any new school built on the proposed residential site is also going to be less than a mile away from the potential misbehaviors of ballpark guests.

 

d)    It is clearly unethical, but is it even legal to sell liquor this close to schools--see safety concerns!

 

10)  traffic volume on highways

 

a)     Access on//off highways is insufficient as it is.  New ramps do not relieve congestion at Warm Springs/Mission Blvd or Auto Mall exits.  How will adding 30,000 visitors who all need to get in their seats by at the same time help this situation?

 

b)    Warm Springs/Mission is banked by commercial—there is no room to increase lanes at this intersection

 

c)     If BART doesn't come in until 2014, at best, how many more lanes, exit ramps, widened lanes, etc will you need to build to accommodate 30,000 people descending by car?

 

11)  traffic congestion on surface roads

 

a)     There is a clear lack of thoroughfares in this area.  Many dead ends, and cul-de-sacs cause people get lost, and roam causing frustration and further congestion.  As one parent noted, there was a shooting in a cul-de-sac precisely because of this reason.

b)    Residential congestion--Paseo Padre, Fremont Blvd, Warm Springs/Osgood and Mission Blvd are the alternate routes north/south in this area.  Already, when 880 & 680 back up (at least one day a week), these roads are gridlocked. Our lights are not timed, and we have had to sit through as many as a dozen light cycles to get through some of these intersections. How will adding 30,000 visitors help this situation?  There is no room to widen, nor do we want to pay for the widening to accommodate 45 days/year.

c)     The FUSD has designated our schools to be in the Irvington area.  This project will block us from picking up our children from school.  Do you have a budget to pay the teachers who will have to stay late to watch them?  The schools will not be able to schedule any events on game days because 40% of its most active students will physically be blocked from attending.  Hope parents and students don’t mind scheduling graduations around game days.

d)    Residents of this area heavily patronize Fremont businesses after work and on weekends.  Our children attend hundreds of local classes and lessons offered in the afternoons/evenings.  If we can’t even get home from work, or leave our homes, none of these things will happen.

 

Many of these issues cannot be resolved.  Please realize the infesibility of this proposal and drop it now, before we waste more tax-paid hours on the study and discussion of this  impossible proposal. Thank you.

Kind Regards,

1 comment:

  1. I totally agree.
    Anybody who wants to build a huge stadium right next to a quiet residential neigborhood within a mile of an elementary school is not thinking of the people but money and power.

    ReplyDelete