A's, Howard Terminal's Future

With a new Mayor and new council members in Oakland, how does that impact the pursuit of building a ballpark at Howard Terminal?

Coming into the election, there appeared to be a lot riding on the elections both in Oakland, and in Nevada. A shakeup could disrupt the status quo, which has been favoring the A's staying in Oakland, regardless of what the reports were saying. 

What we knew coming in was that we had the potential for four new members on the City Council, with Nikki Fortunato Bas (District 2) up for re-election, and Sheng Thao (D4), Loren Taylor (D6), and Treva Reid (D7) running for Mayor. Both Thao and Taylor were elected in 2018, so terms are up in their districts, but if Reid doesn't win her mayoral campaign, she'd return to serve District 7 for another two years, since she was elected in 2020. 

The race to be the Governor of Nevada became a focus after Rob Manfred said that he was no longer optimistic that the A's could get a deal done with Oakland. That statement seemed to leave the door wide open for Nevada to come to A's owner John Fisher with public funds in hand to lure the A's out of Oakland, but incumbent Governor Steve Sisolak said just a few days ago that the state couldn't build any more stadiums. 

Mick Akers of the Las Vegas Review Journal also had this to say on the incumbent's appetite for another ballpark, "Sisolak said he’s been in regular contact with Manfred and A’s President Dave Kaval and has relayed to both that there is no desire from the state to offer public tax dollars to help finance the construction of a ballpark."

A different voice in Nevada could have changed that tune. So where do things stand the day after the election?

Starting in Oakland, Loren Taylor is currently leading Sheng Thao to become the new Mayor of Oakland after early results. 

Nikki Fortunato Bas is up 60.42% to 39.58% in District 2 at the time of this writing, and has voted in favor of Howard Terminal in the past. 

Janani Ramachandran leads by a 64.26% to 35.74% margin over Nenna Joiner in District 4. Ramachandran came out against the A's moving to Howard Terminal in April, and in August said of Howard Terminal, "This is not a project about economic development, this is not about jobs for Oakland, this never has been," Ramachandran said. "This is about billionaire interests and billionaire-owned sports teams."

That said, Steven Tavares of East Bay Insiders said that he hasn't heard the same level of opposition from her [on Howard Terminal] during the council run. 

In District 6, Kevin Jenkins is holding off three challengers and has captured 67.34% of the vote with his next-closest competition holding 13.31%. He wants to see the A's invested in the community and a commitment from them to the city of Oakland to avoid another Raiders situation. He's looking forward to seeing a proposal from the A's and what that looks like before saying if he's in favor or against Howard Terminal. 

Treva Reid will resume serving District 7, and has voted in favor of Howard Terminal in the past.

The one thing to remember is that most members of the council in the past have expressed support for the project, but have made the caveat that they have to see a proposal and see what the numbers look like before they provide an official stamp of approval. Mayoral hopeful Sheng Thao is one of those council members. 

Loren Taylor has said that Howard Terminal is the kind of project that Oakland needs, and has seemed more bullish on the ballpark proposal in council meetings. Both Thao and Taylor look to be good advocates for the project moving forward. 

With 77% of the vote counted in Nevada, challenger Joe Lombardo holds the lead over incumbent Steve Sisolak with 50.6% of the vote, to Sisolak's 45.8%.

The challenge for Howard Terminal here is the potential change in tone coming from Nevada. Lombardo is an unknown at the moment, but in the coming weeks (given he is elected), we should know where he stands on bringing the A's to Las Vegas and where the threat meter is to the A's staying in Oakland. 

Casey Pratt of ABC 7 tweeted, "Doesn't mean doom as a lot will be decided at county level. But could change some things."

All newly elected officials will be sworn in at the beginning of January, but we should see some of the groundwork being laid by the new Mayor of Oakland, and potentially the new Governor of Nevada in the next couple of months. 

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