Oakland A's Fremont Stadium Plans Are Gone

More at Inside Bay Area: “FREMONT — The Oakland A's suddenly are reconsidering a move to Fremont in the face of vociferous opposition from residents who live near the newly proposed site in the city's Warm Springs district.
The ballclub postponed indefinitely its planned presentations to the Fremont Chamber of Commerce and City Council scheduled for next Tuesday. The discussions were to have included comments from Bob DuPuy, president and CEO of Major League Baseball.
"We didn't want to run into a lot of people screaming and yelling at the president of Major League Baseball," A's co-owner Lew Wolff said.
Wolff said Tuesday that the team will review its Fremont stadium options with baseball officials during the next week, then determine how to proceed.
"It's my decision what we do next," Wolff said. "I really want to have a little more time to think about our situation and discuss it with more people."”

-- Look, the Trib headline was "on hold" but from experience and knowing this deal as I do, it's not coming back. It's not the economy, but the deal itself. It would have this kind of opposition even in a better economy because the A's presented it as being able to be totally privately financed, when they needed public money just to make it break-even. People are leaving California in droves and there's no demand for land.

Josh Wolf Documentary Project: Sierra Choi Needs Your Help

John Wolf spent 226 days in jail to protect his videos and sources, and caused the creation of a new law protecting video-bloggers. Now Sierra Choi is directing and producing a documentary - the trailer is here as part of my video blog.

At the time in 2006, I met Josh when he worked for the television division at Peralta Community College. He was also in the middle of his battle with the Federal Government, but even then was still focused on his work, and didn't spend a lot of time fretting about what could happen.

Then Josh defied San Francisco U.S. District Judge William Alsup's order to turn over the videos Josh had taken from a anti-G8 anarchist protes heldt in San Francisco on July 8, 2005. Wolf feared that the U.S. Government in the form of the FBI simply wanted to identify the people who were protesting and not solve a crime they claim had been committed against a police officer. Wolf's videos did not contain any footage of a police officer being harmed.

Still, U.S. District Judge William Alsup order Wolf to be held in jail for civil contempt of court later in 2006. Then, after negotiations, he was released but still refused to give up any of his videos, offering instead to post them online and show them to the Judge himself. Initially the judge refused, and Wolf was ordered back to jail.

Eventually, and after 226 days, Wolf agreed to show the then unseen video clip online and was released from jail. He never gave a copy of the video to the goverment.

In the wake of his ordeal and new stronger "shield" law has been placed in California law to protect journalists of all kinds, from print to blogs. We have Josh to thank for this.

Now, video film producer Sierra Choi is working to raise $250,000 to create a documentary called "Quiet Uprising: The Story of Josh Wolf" and needs our help. You can contact Sierra through me by sending an email here: zennie@sportsbusinesssims.com

Please help as many need to know Josh's story so this will never happen again.