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Alameda County Moves Closer to Oakland Coliseum Sale; Final Vote Expected in 30 Days

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The Oakland Coliseum sits empty before the Oakland Athletics game against the Texas Rangers on Sept. 26, 2024, in Oakland, California.  (Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)

Updated at 6 p.m.

The long-awaited deal to sell the Oakland Coliseum could be finalized as soon as next month, after a vote by the Alameda County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday.

The county, which jointly owned the property with the city of Oakland until it sold its stake to the A’s in 2019, voted unanimously to formally cut ties with the site after reaching an agreement with the African American Sports and Entertainment Group, local developers aiming to redevelop the site. The lengthy negotiations have garnered attention partly because they’ve delayed AASEG’s purchase of Oakland’s 50% share, which would bring badly needed revenue to restore fire services and soften the city’s nearly $130 million budget deficit.

AASEG founder and managing member Ray Bobbitt said before the vote that the resolution and term sheet will finally put a deadline on the deal.

“It gives us a timeline to complete it, which is 30 days,” he told KQED. “We’ve reached outline terms, and so this would be a great opportunity for us to just sort of come out of today with some certainty.”

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The resolution directs the county’s counsel to approve the assignment of the A’s still-pending purchase of the land to AASEG. The Board of Supervisors also instructed the county counsel and negotiators to finalize deal terms within 30 days.

Board President David Haubert wrote in the resolution that he expects the supervisors to be ready to vote publicly on the deal in an upcoming meeting.

“I firmly believe that OAC’s acquisition of the County’s property interest will achieve two long-standing goals of the County … the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum complex will finally be under the control of a sole owner with capacity to make unilateral decisions regarding the property; and (2) the County will be out of the sports and entertainment business,” it reads.

Bobbitt said the deal has taken a long time to finalize because AASEG had to negotiate with four different entities. First, they made an acquisition agreement with the A’s, and then, had to settle pending litigation that the nonprofit Communities for a Better Environment had against the county over an alleged violation of the Surplus Land Act when it sold to the team.

AASEG also worked with the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Authority to guarantee that the stadium and arena’s outstanding lease revenue bond debt is defeased before reaching the current negotiating phase with the county.

“We thought this was going to be more of just an administrative process, but it turns out that there were all these elements that had to be addressed,” Bobbitt told KQED. “It was a really complex process, so that’s what took so long.”

Delays finalizing the county agreement have stalled AASEG’s scheduled payments to Oakland for the city’s 50% stake in the site since November. That controversial deal was already amended in the weeks after it was finalized, changing the payment schedule to complete the purchase sooner but halt the immediate transfer of revenue that former Mayor Sheng Thao had slotted into this year’s budget to save public safety funding and ward off layoffs.

The schedule change forced the city to implement a contingency plan that initiated drastic budget cuts across departments, including more than 90 layoffs and rotating closures of up to six fire stations.

While Oakland officials have been watching the Alameda County deal closely, it won’t immediately get the city out of hot water.

According to Bobbitt, AASEG will resume payments to Oakland when a deal with the county is final, but the funds won’t be available until the deal closes. He believes the deal is still on track to close by the end of the fiscal year.

“Once we get the vote and then the deal papered and executed, I think at that time, we can certainly, we’ll be in alignment with the city,” Bobbitt told KQED. “We will be trying to work together with the city to make sure everything aligns correctly.”

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