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For about two years there has been talk of the formation of a Sports Task Force. I first sent an email asking for such a group to the staff of Mayor Ron Dellums during the first two months of his administration but did not receive feedback. Then I twice talked to the Mayor about brieking him regarding what happened to Oakland's Super Bowl Bid and the Oakland Sports Commission I established in 1998. The Mayor said he would get back to me on the matter, er, have his secretary call me, but never did that, so I had lost any faith in his interest in solving Oakland's long-standing sports industry problems. Then I was approached by Steve Lowe and Chris DeBenadetti, both who have been active in Oakland politics and sports journalism respectively. We talked about such a task force with a member of the Mayor's Staff over a year ago. Then we waited, but to Lowe's credit he pushed for it constantly. Now it's formed. The first meeting was Thursday of two week...

East Bay Express | News | Darkness on the Edge of Town : Express: “Aaccording to a hard-hitting recent audit obtained by the Express, Oracle Arena remains an "underutilized" and "underperforming" public facility that falls short of expectations for a major event center in the middle of the nation's fourth-largest market. "The arena should be a 'must-play' by promoters of touring shows, including concerts, family shows, and special entertainment events," the audit stated. The arena also has fallen short of expectations in terms of offsetting the $20 million public subsidy that Oakland and Alameda County give to the arena and coliseum complex each year to keep it afloat. According to the audit, which was requested by the Golden State Warriors and completed last month, Oracle Arena has averaged just 99 events a year over the past three years, including 43 basketball games annually. By contrast, HP Pavilion drew 169 events last year alone, includin...

In mid August, Ann Haley, who for six years was the head of the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Authority staff, elected to step down.  My sources -- and there are several -- tell me that she was actually fired. There was no good reason for her dismissal, but it's well-known that Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Authority Board Chairperson and Oakland City Council President Ignacio De La Fuente was not happy with her performance. But in fairness to Haley, the Authority's structure and placement of many matters in the hands of SMG, the stadium management organization that still remains un-supervised, gave her little real power.  Plus, it placeed her in the role of dealing with the whims and requests of the elected officials that seem to insist on maintaining a system that is unprofessional in it's operation in the view of this observer.   But to add insult to injury, many insiders are asking the question why would the Authority have -- of all people -- long-time ...

I have it from a good unnamed source that the Oakland Raiders -- rumored by some to leave after the current lease expires in five years -- plan to remain in Oakland through 2016, when the original Raider bonds expire. The news comes as welcome on the day that Oakland opens a sold-out Coliseum and hosts the hated Denver Broncos. But the obvious question of if the Raiders retention will mean a new stadium is not settled. As the current Coliseum is vastly behind schedule for an upgrade and a mostly-privately-owned stadium could bring big bucks to the "Coliseum Redevelopment Area" surrounding the Complex, combined with corporate sponsorship, the targer appears to be an ungrade of the stadium. It's also clear that what I told GAP Founder and Oakland A's owned Don Fisher two years ago is coming to pass: the Fremont A's deal is a loser because of its design based on land-sales performance. While that scheme works in a great economy, it becomes more and more te...

Ok. I'm back from Denver and Invesco Field and a great tour and also meetup and walkthrough with Oreo of the great blog DemConWatchBlog.com Lots of news to report, which I will do in a separate blog. But some teasing. I learned that the total convention schedule is not finalized and that the media's premature in what it's reporting -- not that the Hillary Clinton speak date is wrong -- there's more to come. Invesco Field itself is a huge and well-equipped facility that makes me wish Oakland would wake up and rebuild the Oakland / Alameda County Coliseum. It has miles of storage space, wide cooridors, and a new smell -- still. I also learned that protest groups have filed suit to be closer to the convention than they are. But as you will see in my upcoming video from my trip, they're pretty close already!! I also discovered that the best Spinach Salad's at Brooklyn's bar and grill next to Pepsi Center, and that the facility will become " The Pol...

I found a website by Conde Nast called Portfolio.com and which shows the baseball stadiums that have the best -- and worst -- heath code records. The title of the article is "Foul Ballpark" and the subheading is "even the rats and flies have pretty good seats". If that's the case then one of the places with the best seats for Rats and Flies is The McAfee / Oakland Coliseum, home of the Oakland A's and the Oakland Raiders. According to the article, the home of these great teams had 493 Heath Code Violations In 2007. The website points to various online articles as the source for its conclusions. The website has Oakland front and center as a major violator in this area. It reports that food storage was so bad that food was exposed to "overhead leakage" and that "dirt, insects, rodents, and chemical contamination" was found. What's so embarrasing about this is that it happened 493 times in one year. There are only 365 days in the ...