An Inconvenient Truth

(bonus story, parent discretion advised, last update 7pm 12/21/08)

There have been a lot of twists in the past few days. First, "THEY" cannot come up with a deal with the Pacific Commons developers and retailers. Then, someone thew a curve ball to Warm Springs for considering as an alternate site of A's stadium.

We, the Warm Springs residents, thought we will be battling against the big retailers in Pacific Commons to decide which site will be the stadium's final location. The Warm Springs community came out quick and strong to protest. (omh, the pro-stadium camp said we are "small but organized group". But actually, we are just the opposite, "big and unorganized", but just happened to work in a coherent way;-)

With the strong opposition from Warm Springs, it looks like THEY might choose the "path of the least resistance" and are going back to negotiate with Pacific Commons (see Wasserman hasn’t given up on ballpark village). You can easily see what will happen: "there is STRONG opposition from A, but SOME resistance from B". THEY might still find last minute desperate compromise and still have a stadium in Pacific Commons area. All THEY need to do is just move the stadium a little bit south and/or give more money compensation to Pacific Commons bisunesses. THEY can easily buy out those businesses. The Pacific Commons group MIGHT also use Warm Springs as a leverage to bargain for a better deal with THEM (we hope not!).

On the other hand, THEY MIGHT just use Warm Springs to divert the public attention from seeing the many flaws in the current plan. Any person can easily find these flaws in 10 minutes! The stadium cannot be built in south Fremont with such flawed plan. We cannot approve it. It will bring Fremont into deep financial trouble and irreversible damage.

The A's MIGHT cleverly playing their tricks too. The strong Warm Springs opposition will give the city pressure. The A's want a quick decision in Fremont, yes or no. The A's just want a new stadium as early as possible.

The story does not end here!

It is actually good for the A's to STOP the Fremont stadium project. The story probably started somewhere when San Jose passed Measure B last month. Imagine there is a place with BART, High Speed Rail, Caltrain, Light Rail, bus, airport, hotels, all nearby, a "Baseball City" (not only a village anymore).

The strong showing of the Warm Springs residents caught THEM off-guarded. Image if there were no Warm Springs residents on the 12/09/08 meeting, the opinion will likely get 50/50 split at most and project probably still proceed slowly. Does anyone still remember the single person addressed the environmental concern? Without Warm Springs' help, the A's can not stop it alone because there are so many interest groups involved. The recent events just play into the A's advantage perfectly. It give THEM pressure to move quickly. Either ask the city accept the current flawed plan, or the A's will move somewhere else. Either way, the A's owner, Lew Wolff, win.

We salute (and admire) Mr. Wolff's vision to get Warm Springs involved, and we thank him! Without these recent events, we will never spend time or resource to study and analyze the current stadium plan. There are so many concerns like traffic, crime, and financial consequences which have never been properly addressed. This could bring Fremont into deep financial trouble and irreversible damage. And most concerns from the Warm Springs protests still hold true even the stadium is in Pacific Commons.

We can not approve such an ill-planned stadium project and drag down Fremont's future. We like the A's, but south Fremont is a bad location for a stadium. The city of Fremont does not have the resource to endure the traffic, crime and financial consequences. We don't even have a city hall! And do you know our mayor and councilmembers are not even full-time like San Jose, San Francisco and Oakland?

How about the A's?

It will be good for the A's too if the Fremont stadium project is rejected. Why? Currently there is a perfect site available in San Jose (see The San Jose A's). It has an existing stadium EIR with much better infrastructure support from a larger city, second largest city in California, currently without any MLB/NLF/NBA team! It is always the A's dream to become the "San Jose A's". Recently, Major League Baseball express permission to allow the A's to "talk to other city" if the Fremont stadium plan falls apart. The A's and Cisco will certainly much prefer their new stadium to be called "The Cisco Field of the San Jose A's". This is would be a win-win-win-win-win-win-win-win-win solution for the A's, Cisco, Fremont residents, Pacific Commons retailers, City of San Jose, MLB, BART, MTC and ABAG etc (sorry Giants).

Someone also suggested the MLB's statement MIGHT just intend to give the A's leverage to negotiate with Pacific Commons. (ommh, A's using MLB for leverage, and Pacific Commons using Warm Springs as leverage? What a story! But we hope not.) Sorry, the Fremont citizens won't allow a stadium in Fremont with such a bad plan. We want to help them to move to San Jose.

Oh, the A's fans win too. The A's will have the resource in San Jose to become a much better and greater San Jose A's.

At this point, the Mayor and City Council can have another win situation here too. They can just reject the plan and stop the project immediately. The Mayor and Council Members will truely speak for the people's voice and become the saviors of Fremont.

This is the happy ending;-)

Wait! Not yet, we still need to stop this Fremont stadium project first. Are THEY the only proponent for a Fremont stadium now?

Finally, the million dollar question is: "who are THEY?"

Go A's, in San Jose

(logo from Tri-City Beat)

Disclaimer: The above fiction story is based on the events happening in late 2008. It is written by an A's fan living in south Fremont. Please contact the author for the right of book, TV and movie adaption;-)

PS. If you really read through this far, and still share Mr. Wolff's vision, then you are crazy, erh ... like us. Please share a comment, spread the word, and write a letter or an article;-)