The season may be over, but the real fight is just revving up.
The Oakland A's are once again on the hunt for a place to build a new stadium, eyeing a Port of Oakland property adjacent to Jack London Square as a potential site and hoping to avoid the kind of community backlash that tanked the team's last bid.
"The Laney experience was not managed great," said Taj Tashombe, A's vice president of external affairs, who hosted a community meeting on Sunday at a West Oakland restaurant near the proposed Howard Terminal site. "So I think that was a missed opportunity for everyone, for us, as well as the community to just have more opportunity to dialogue, like we're doing today."
The team's plans to build a 35,000-seat ballpark near Laney College were derailed in December when the Peralta Community College District that owns the land abruptly pulled out of talks amid student and faculty resistance stemming from fears of heightened traffic and gentrification.
Tashombe said the team is trying to do better on the community front this time around.