Why Oakland Is Behind With Howard Terminal Ballpark Ok, here's the totally, completely, unvarnished, hard, difficult truth why the City of Oakland is so far behind where it should be in helping the Oakland Athletics build a ballpark at Howard Terminal. The simple set of reasons I am about to roll out can be summed up in one word: over-politicization. That's right: over-politicization. Robert Bobb's Downtown Ballpark Dream Dashed By Jerry Brown The fact is the structure for Oakland's bureaucratic slowness was formed with the passage of “Measure X”, then-Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown's version of a long-sought-after form of government called Strong Mayor. Passed in 1998, it took effect in 1999, and matted Brown with a person who was every-bit his match on the city administrative side: then-City Manager Robert Bobb. Mr. Bobb, who was trained in the traditional fashion of city managers, to, well, run a city, including it's public-private-partnerships, and who wanted Oa...