Fremont First, No Stadium!

This blog is a collection of opinions on the Oakland A's stadium proposal expressed by local Fremont residents. Please explore the blog and feel free to use the information to promote public awareness. Please email your comment about his blog to noasws@gmail.com.

Mission:

Oppose Oakland A's plan to build a stadium in Warm Springs.
Promote public awareness of the A's stadium project. Many residents still don't know the A's is moving to Fremont.
Should Fremont take the risk to approve the Oakland A's ballpark proposal?

Vision:

Protect the rights and quality of life of Fremont citizens.
To fight unfair, unjust, irresponsible and bad decisions made by city and elected officials.

Values:

Be civil. We don't want to alienate local business, the A's, city official and council members.
Encourage discussion from different interest groups.
Encourage city council and community leaders to speak for the local residents.
Explore all possible legal means to make sure our voice is heard.
Win by logic and win by law.

Monday, December 22, 2008

No cost to fremont?

[These are the quotes from various sources]

The A's claim they don't need public money for the stadium. They need to claim this so the project "does not requre" a city wide referendum. They can just get the approval easily from the 5-member city council. Is it really "at no cost to the City of Fremont"? Can they really avoid a city wide referendum?

The A’s claim the entire development will come at no cost from the City of Fremont. I don’t understand how they can make such irresponsible promise as they also seem financially stranded in the current economic downturn. Who will pay the large bill on the infrastructure, road upgrade, maintenance, extra police, etc?

Once the project starts, it will be point of no return, whether you like it or not (sound familiar?). Fremont could be dragged down into deep financial trouble. The A's proposal looks appealing, but I don't think city size of Fremont can sustain such big financial impact. It's better to leave it to big cities. We don't want to see our tax money drain down to help the A's.

The Council Members ask several times the how much “money” we spend so far on this project, and the answer is always "the expected $0”. This is good since we can stop the project now with no money loss from the city. True, the city haven't use "any money" on this project so far. But it has already dragged a large amount of time and resource from the city and local community to go through the meetings and discussion. This is a very big “cost” to the Fremont community.

The costs behind this stadium are extremely, well, costly! Especially with America's economy slowly dying, this is one of the last things we need.

Research suggests that though citizens bear the cost for the building and upkeep of stadiums they do not partake of the profits.

A stadium in Fremont will only be a burden to the tax payers and also allow for more conjestion. Studies have been done showing that stadiums are more a burden than an asset.

Friday, December 19, 2008

Council Meeting Video Archive

From http://www.youtube.com/user/fcnwebtv (faster).
From Fremont City web site (usually slow; first 5-6 minutes are intro).

Minutes and agendas. Some hilights:

02/02/09 Joint City Council and FUSD Meeting (public comment)
01/06/09 Lots of folks still oppose A's plan (from 0:22-0:46)
12/16/08 2008-09 budget update
12/09/08 Ballpark EIR work session and meetings
12/02/08 Cho's last day; Chan's first day; Prop 8; night club
11/18/08 Join Prop 8 law suit (from 1:52--2:23)

Ivy Wu Speaks Out

(quotes of Ivy Wu, translated from World Journal 12/19/08, B3)

Fremont Parents Against A’s Building Ballpark at Warm Springs

Journalist: Zhe Zhou

18th is the deadline for residents to provide comments to City of Fremont regarding Oakland A’s building a ballpark in Fremont. Fremont Unified School Board member Ivy Wu recently received many e-mails from parents, all of which were expressing their opposition to the plan of A’s building a ballpark at Warm Springs and requesting Ivy as the elected officials to comment.

Ivy Wu expressed on 18th. She believes that we should first understanding the situation and allow the A’s to propose what your plans are. She pointed out that there are at least 3 versions of plans regarding to the A’s building a ballpark: 1) original plan at Pacific Commons, 2) plan at Warm Springs, and 3) outside of Fremont. With regards to the recent publication of the city’s Environmental Impact Report, it is directed only at the Pacific Commons proposal, and does not involve the Warm Springs proposal.

Ivy Wu commented, “A’s has repeatedly expressed the desire to be a partner of the Fremont community. If the ballpark indeed will be built at Warm Springs, it definitely will bring many problems, such as traffic, public security, and environmental concerns to the community. The ballpark will be close to the Warm Springs BART station. However, the Warm Springs BART station may not have been completed by the time that the ballpark is built.

She pointed out, Mayor Bob Wasserman wholeheartedly want to bring the A’s to Fremont. He was re-elected based on this goal. However, he has not adequately evaluated the impact and influence of the ballpark will be to the local schools and the communities. Ivy Wu commented, many e-mails received have pointed out to the fact that even though Wasserman was re-elected mayor, he only claimed 40% of the total votes. Therefore, he cannot represent the opinions of the majority on this issue.

Should the City of Fremont Take the Risk?

Should the City of Fremont Take the Risk? Written by Vinnie Bacon, post on his website. Excerpts:

......

The project proponents have tried to defuse the traffic issue by saying that the currently approved use on the site would generate as much traffic as their proposal. However, more residential development will undoubtedly mean more trips from Fremont to high-tech jobs in the South Bay and on the peninsula. This will aggravate the existing commute patterns. If this area were filled with high-tech jobs, more Fremont residents might not even have to leave town to get to work. A's fans coming to evening games from the South Bay would undoubtedly use 880, adding to what is already a bad evening commute. Increased traffic problems would make it more difficult to bring in other business into the City. NUMMI, the City's largest employer, has already indicated concerns about the traffic generated by the project.

......

Jobs – Unlike the high-tech jobs that Cisco, or other high-tech employers, would have brought to the area, the retail and ballpark jobs that this project would create are virtually all lower-paying, service-sector jobs. They're not the kind of jobs that typically would allow one to buy a house in Fremont. Thus, these workers would likely be coming from other locales, adding hundreds of additional cars to the local freeways and parking lots.

The A's have stated that their project will create 13,000 full-time equivalent jobs. However, this is only for the construction period. The economic report prepared by the A's consultant [5] doesn't provide the number of jobs that will be permanently be created.

......

Distribution of revenues – An analysis of economic and fiscal impacts of this project, prepared for the Oakland Athletics [5], predicts that the completed Ballpark Village project would bring roughly $19 million per year (in 2007 dollars) into the City of Fremont, assuming that housing, retail, and ballpark resources are all fully utilized. This is a questionable assumption given that many retailers are currently in a major down-sizing mode.

First, it should be noted that economic analyses such as this are simply models that claim to predict the future. If the economic downturn that we're in continues, this would undoubtedly affect the retail sales which are a large part of the assumption.

Secondly, the study assumes that 75% of all retail sales for the project would be new to Fremont. This might be plausible for a game day. But remember that 3 out of 4 days of the year are not game days. If 75% of retail sales at the Ballpark Village on non-game days come from outside of Fremont, this would create significant additional traffic on 880. In reality, this project would undoubtedly pull retail dollars away from the existing retail centers in the City's historic districts.

.......

Before approving this proposal, the city needs to take a serious look at how to address the traffic issues, whether this development will generate enough funds to cover its costs, and whether it might not be a better idea to preserve this land for businesses that could provide high paying jobs to Fremont residents.

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

One Day Left For Letters

SEND LETTER TO CITY | Online Petition To Stop A's Stadium |

Should the City of the Fremont take the risk?

We only have ONE day left for the public comment on A's stadium plan. Please encourage your friends from all parts of Fremont to speak out their voice. Do you want Fremont become the next Oakland? Do you think the A's stadium will make your house value go up or down? For the supporters, do you live in Fremont? Have you look at their plan? Many people don't even know the A's is moving to Fremont!

Please write letters to speak out. We have a few sample letters on the right. We need different kinds of letters:

(1) No Stadium In Warm Springs, very strong stance. Even recommend to drop it from Environmental Impact Report (EIR).
(2) Need more letters to provide evidence and hard facts why their plan won't work and will bring Fremont's future into disaster.
(3) Encourage the City Council to speak for the voice of local communities. Residents don't want it. Retailers and business don't want it. What's the benefit of a stadium? to whose benefit? and at what cost?

Please focus on their plan, not just "not in my backyard" attitude. You can endorse the letters you like and email to city, and/or hand deliver to them, as mail is probably too late now.

- For A Better Fremont (actually, my house value $$$;-)

Note: If you have times, please read Mercury News article 12/11/08 and Mercury News article 12/14/08 for more info. Currently, there are 3 possible sites: San Jose, Pacific Commons and Warm Springs. Don't let Warm Springs become their "path of least resistance". You might also enjoy An Inconvenient truth. Please share with us with your letters/comments: noasws@gmail.com or Yahoo Group. We also encourage you to start a new blog/wiki/forum.

Fremont Budget Deficit

Fremont's budget situation turns dire, $11.2 million deficit expected next year. (from Mercury News). The city might want to use this to emphasis Fremont needs extra revenue. We can argue since Fremont is already in big deficit, don't waste extra cost! We can not afford such a big project. Comment?