Surprisingly, they all came. More than 150 fans, including leaders from Black Hole, Dr. Death and Making Oakland Better's Griz Jones, politicians like Mayor Jean Quan and challenger Joe Tuman, and representatives from the A's all came together at the Oakland Airport Hilton, heard and applauded the Coliseum City proposal outlined to them by Ed McFarlan, a principal of JRDV Architects.
Rick Tittle, from 95.7 The Game, seen below with Dr. Death, opened the proceedings with an homage to Oakland.
Quan has met with Coliseum City officials as well as local businessmen who favor an alternative site for an A's waterfront ballpark at Howard Terminal closer to downtown. At this gathering, she appeared to warm up to the Coliseum City plan, which covers a much larger area than Howard Terminal - 750 acres compared to 50 acres - and aims to build a new stadium for the Raiders, new ballpark for the A's and a new arena for the Warriors, all as part of a transformational sports-residential-retail project on the site of the existing Coliseum.
"This project is possible, the developers (including Colony Capital in Los Angeles) are the third largest real estate developer in the world," she said. "I think we're pretty much guaranteed that all three teams will stay where they are through the end of this decade while we get this project developed."
McFarlan's firm has worked on design plans for Coliseum City for several years, and his video showed a new city neighborhood rising along 880 on the vast site - with three world-class sports facilities, a new BART station, a ballpark village with apartments, restaurants and shopping, space for tailgating (huge cheers from fans in the audience) and pedestrian areas to create a carnival atmosphere for sports teams before, during and after every game.
"No one else in America has three sports stadiums integrated into one location," McFarlan said. "This project is not just for Oakland. This project belongs to the whole Bay Area."
The fan response was positive. Jorge Leon, from Green Stampede, the group that brings East Oakland teens to A's games and tutors them for good grades as well, said, "I love Oakland because we fight to the end," Jim Frola, vice mayor of San Leandro who was born and raised in Oakland, added, "It is Bay Area teams that play here, it means a lot to all the communities surrounding Oakland. A lot of our residents live there."
Griz Jones, whose organizing MOB (Making Oakland Better) started feeding homeless encampments near the Coliseum in 2002, said the Coliseum has become a place where MOB organizes all weekend tailgating parties to feed the homeless, police and firefighters and fans. "It's all about combining sports and charity, and that powers that be, the ones that runs these teams, should pay attention to this fan base."
Dr Death, aka Ray Perez of Sacramento, turned up in his silver-black face paint, thick dreadlock wig and spiked helmut to add his support to keeping all three teams in Oakland. "We are here on behalf of Raider Nation - fans from Los Angeles, New York, London, all over the country and all over the world. They feel the Raiders belong in Oakland."
Chris Dobbins, a member of the Oakland school board and president of Save Oakland Sports, said his group is focused on keeping the A's, Radiers and Warriors in Oakland. The Warriors game at Oracle Arena was providing 800 jobs, the Raiders games provide 2,000 jobs, he said. "The East Bay can support all three sports teams."
No representative from the Raiders appeared at last night's summit, but curiously enough, Amy Trask, the team's former CEO, had some positive things to say to Silver and Black exactly one year ago about plans to keep the Raiders at the Coliseum site.
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