In Coliseum ENA Pitting Black Developers AASEG vs. Dave Stewart, Oakland City incompetence shines | Oakland News Now

I’ll put that aside right now. The City of Oakland does not have to hold a meeting on the “Coliseum Complex ENA” given what the City of Oakland staff did not present in the form of a written analysis of the proposals of the African American Sports and Entertainment Group and Dave Stewart. Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf is expected to remove City of Oakland employees Larry Gallegos, Kelley Kahn and Alexa Jeffress from any continued work on this issue. In other words, the Director of Redevelopment, Director of Special Projects and Director of Economic Development and Workforce for the City of Oakland should not have organizational jurisdiction over the Coliseum ENA. Why?

Because Gallegos, Kahn, and Jeffress had well over a year to form a process not only to accept development proposals, but to present publicly known evaluation criteria, as we did when posting applications. of proposals. Even though the Supplementary Agenda Report says …

In July 2021, after receiving unsolicited proposals from several interested parties, the city council ordered the city administrator to negotiate non-exclusively with the AASEG and the Stewart Property Group regarding an ENA for the undivided interest of fifty percent of the city of Oakland in the Coliseum complex. City council also ordered staff to return in six months, or January 2022, for further guidance and / or action

The point is, this is not true. Oakland legend A, Dave Stewart, and his wife Lonnie murray submitted their original proposal in December 2020, and I know that because I wrote a detailed valuation of their $ 115 million story. , was based on a development project that the man they partnered with tried to portray as real, when in fact it wasn’t. It’s not personal against the couple, but the expression of extreme disappointment in a town in Oakland that primarily uses them to score racial political points.

When I worked as an intern, then consultant, then economic development advisor to the mayor of Oakland, then producer of the Super Bowl Bid, and between 1987 and 2001, the city of Oakland had a clear RFP process that exposed applicants to what was expected and in great detail, and because the expected result were intense documents and spreadsheets which together provided a kind of “risk insurance” that the applicant could, in effect, do the work of a real estate developer.

Each developer would hand over giant binders of carefully presented information, as that is what the call for tenders was asking for: pro-formas, examples of previous development work, economic impact analysis, proof of funding capacity and funding. business assurance, and proof of an active organization with staff. The City of Oakland RFP documents, as well as those from every California and, finally, every notable American city I’ve been to, had a roadmap of expectations that was easy to understand.

In contrast, Larry Gallegos told me in the summer of 2020 that anyone can submit a proposal of any length, even a page. I was then, and now I remain completely stunned that the City of Oakland is allowing itself to be the designer in a hyper-political way of dealing with potential developers. If I didn’t know better, I would swear the town of Oakland was begging to be sued and for a ton of money.

But it does and Gallegos, Kahn and Jeffress, and by extension when it comes to accountability, Oakland City Administrator Ed Reiskin has done just that. It’s no wonder retired Oakland City employees collectively say Oakland has lost its way. Because he has. This is all under Libby’s watch. The mayor of Oakland handled this so badly that I cry as I write these lines.

Do you know why I’m crying? Because it’s clear to me that nobody who works for Oakland in economic development cares enough about Oakland to get it right. In the past, if I wrote something like what you read, someone in town would call me and try to explain to me what was going on. They respected the fact that I was an intern and a consultant, and that’s how I ended up being hired by Oakland Mayor Elihu Harris, and doing a lot of good things including getting eight NFL votes to land the Super Bowl for Oakland.

I do not care. I cared. I wanted Oakland to win. Today’s Oakland government doesn’t call, complain and just look like a loser. I am not writing this with joy, but with extreme sadness. My ruined town of Oakland.

I’m going to sleep now, but I’m going to wake up knowing that this nightmare is going to continue because the people who take care of it just don’t care about making it better.

Choose AASEG to continue with this Coliseum ENA, then, someone, save us from the economic development staff in the city of Oakland. Please. AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE.

When I think of Oakland’s economic development effort, I feel like James Bond, returning to MI-6 to find it’s just a shadow of itself.

Stay tuned.

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