I’m sure every small town and resident between the Sierra and Appalachian Mountains is impressed. Perhaps we can agree on a bipartisan basis that wealthy MLB team owners are fully capable of building their own ballparks with the help of whatever local incentives they can leverage. It’s done elsewhere, all the time. They can leave federal tax dollars (and debt) alone. Especially while we have homeless veterans living under bridges. You might think the mayor of a large California city might know a thing or two about homelessness.

Read on, courtesy of sfgate.com:

On December 7, Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf issued a peculiar update from her Twitter account: that she’d “recently” met with Vice President Kamala Harris “to discuss the #BuildBackBetter agenda [and] infrastructure improvements around our future waterfront ballpark district.”

The latter half of Schaaf’s tweet caught the attention of Oakland A’s fans, who’ve been hungry for any sort of tangible updates alluding to progress (or lack thereof) at the proposed Howard Terminal development, the possible future home of the A’s if they don’t bolt to Las Vegas. 

The Alameda County Board of Supervisors’ non-binding vote in late October, which indicated a willingness to potentially help fund the project, comes closest to a significant bit of news, but even that vote was couched in all sorts of caveats and disclaimers. While the Oakland City Council and Schaaf have insisted that everything is going swimmingly, the A’s appear to have floated a few scary-sounding We Might Move to Las Vegas stories to various outlets, including a CNBC reporter who cast a dubious story that owner John Fisher and Co. may have decided to bid on Bally’s Tropicana site on the Strip. 

Schaaf’s tweet implied a major escalation in Oakland’s PR proxy war with Vegas – that she’s put this ballpark proposal on the radar of the second-most powerful figure in the U.S. government, a former California senator who was born in Oakland and grew up in the Bay Area. 

So SFGATE reached out to the mayor’s office with a handful of questions about Schaaf’s White House meeting: What role does the mayor believe the federal government could play in funding the proposed waterfront project? Where do those specific efforts stand? What was Vice President Harris’s view of the proposed waterfront project? Did she make any pledges about its development to the mayor? And can the mayor explain how much of this meeting was focused on the proposed waterfront project, as opposed to other issues?

That last question was a sticking point among Oakland residents on social media. Some were grateful the mayor was bringing up the ballpark development and surrounding infrastructure improvements; others were upset that she’d focus on a baseball stadium and its associated potential benefits as opposed to Oakland’s many pressing problems.

As it turns out, Schaaf’s conversation with the vice president wasn’t nearly as focused on the ballpark as was implied. Furthermore, their conversation was on Nov. 2, more than a month ago, even though the mayor tweeted out the photo on Dec. 7. And by mid-November, the public had already learned how much money the federal government is, at least for now, willing to disperse in off-site infrastructure costs: $14.5 million.

As a spokesperson explained to SFGATE, Mayor Schaaf was in Washington D.C. from Nov. 1-3 “to meet with Oakland’s federal representatives to advocate on several matters, including Oakland’s TOWN for All infrastructure improvement plan, which will improve safety, access, sustainability, and equity for all neighborhoods near the waterfront. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal creates hundreds of millions of dollars in grant opportunities for cities, and the Mayor was there to bring those opportunities to Oakland.”

While Schaaf was in D.C., she met with California Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Alex Padilla to advocate for “increased funding to Oakland for affordable housing, jobs, homelessness prevention, and crime and violence prevention.” Schaaf’s spokesperson says her meeting with Harris on Nov. 2 was about similar subject matters, with a sprinkling of waterfront talk.

“Mayor Schaaf discussed with Vice President Harris how the Build Back Better agenda can transform Oakland with increased investments in child care, affordable housing, and health care, as well as the importance of immigration reform,” a spokesperson wrote to SFGATE. “She also discussed the TOWN for All infrastructure improvements and the vision of a transformed waterfront – including the waterfront ballpark – and how the totality of the project exemplifies the Build Back Better agenda; it creates affordable housing and good jobs, addresses climate change, improves vital infrastructure to improve access and equity for all residents.”

The spokesperson continued: “Mayor Schaaf also spoke to the Vice President in her role as co-chair of Mayors & CEOS for U.S. Housing Investment, where she advocated for more housing resources in the Build Back Better bill, including more Sect. 8 housing vouchers, and a reduction in the bond threshold that would allow California and other maxed out states to double affordable housing production. Mayor Schaaf also advocated for additional Low-Income Housing Tax Credits, which was included in the House-passed bill. Mayor Schaaf also had some private time to catch up with Vice Present Harris, whom she has known long before they both were elected officials, and requested that Vice President Harris film a brief video congratulating Oakland public school students on their achievements.”

There are a few discrepancies with the timeline presented above. For one, TOWN for All had not been coined as such to the public when Schaaf’s spokesperson says she was discussing it with senators and the vice president. It’s a newfound slogan that hasn’t caught on in a meaningful way, but is supposed to encapsulate a “comprehensive package of infrastructure improvements that will provide safer, more sustainable and more equitable access to the waterfront for all Oaklanders.” A TOWN for All flyer calls for at least $500 million in eventual infrastructure improvements, presumably regardless of whether the A’s ballpark plan is enacted. For the Howard Terminal ballpark proposal to work, the city needs to cobble together a comparable amount of infrastructure funding to that of TOWN for All: at least $352 million, a number the city has admitted will grow larger over time.

Schaaf’s spokesperson also repeatedly invoked the Build Back Better bill. Currently withering in the Senate, the bill offers critical, if watered down, investments to fight climate change and poverty in the United States. Schaaf’s office believes the Oakland waterfront project “exemplifies the Build Back Better agenda,” but that doesn’t specifically address how the Build Back Better agenda funds the waterfront project.

Additionally, Schaaf’s office can’t draw a straight line from the infrastructure bill signed by President Biden in mid-November to the waterfront project – at least not yet. Schaaf says she was advocating for a chunk of the infrastructure bill when she was in D.C, but the $14.5 million grant announced by the Department of Transportation on November 19 has very little to do with President Biden’s bill.

Instead, those infrastructure improvements were pitched and submitted to the federal government many months ago as part of the RAISE Discretionary Grant program, which has existed since 2009. This year, the federal government doled out around $1 billion in grants for local infrastructure projects, including $14.5 million to Oakland. The passage of Biden’s infrastructure bill in mid-November means the government will begin adding $1.5 billion per year to the RAISE program. Schaaf’s in-person advocacy could very well make a difference in the semi-distant future, depending on the grants they submit, but it wasn’t materially part of the equation with this year’s slate of requests. And let’s keep things in context: $14.5 million is barely a dent in the $352 million the city of Oakland is trying to secure in off-site infrastructure funding around the ballpark.

Nevertheless, on Nov. 19, a reporter asked Schaaf if the $14.5 million federal grant was connected to the A’s ballpark efforts. Schaaf enthusiastically answered yes.

“Today’s announcement absolutely supports a new waterfront ballpark for our beloved Oakland A’s,” she said. “As part of our early agreements with the A’s, the city of Oakland accepted the responsibility to raise the funds to pay for off-site infrastructure. Today’s announcement is a significant milestone towards that commitment… This additional $14.5 million is really taking us close to the finish line on delivering on all of the improvements that will be necessary to make an A’s waterfront ballpark a smashing success.”

In reality, the grant’s origins were unrelated to the A’s ballpark plan, Build Back Better, the infrastructure bill, and the newly coined TOWN for ALL initiative, regardless of Schaaf’s claims to the contrary. It’s all gravy at this point; even if that grant money wasn’t connected to the ballpark efforts before, it clearly is now. Every dollar helps, and it’s entirely possible the federal government’s infrastructure grant could make the difference down the line. (Schaaf insists that the Port of Oakland has secured much more potential infrastructure funding from the California state budget.)

But it’s still worth considering the full, proper context of Schaaf’s lofty proclamations and oddly belated tweet, especially as the mostly quiet A’s remain in a holding pattern. Public figures in both Oakland and Las Vegas are adjusting to the franchise’s silence by tossing out a dizzying array of announcements — and that makes it more difficult for Oakland residents to keep up, regardless of where they fall on the idea of a waterfront ballpark.

Hold your elected officials accountable.

Disclosure: The author was chief of staff to then-Rep. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) from 1987-89.