OAKLAND — Ignacio De La Fuente, the gruff, straight-talking, influential former Oakland councilman, is returning to the limelight, this time as a member of the Coliseum authority board at what is perhaps its most critical time in two decades.

His return comes as the Raiders are packing for Las Vegas and the Warriors are headed across the bay to San Francisco. It’s also an opportunity for redemption for the man who helped orchestrate the Raiders’ return to Oakland in 1995, a deal that brought the NFL franchise back but saddled the city and county with millions in debt.

He will be part of the team that signs off on negotiated contracts for the arena and the football/baseball stadium, along with the Oakland City Council and the Alameda County Board of Supervisors.

This month, the county supervisors approved Supervisor Scott Haggerty’s appointment of De La Fuente to the Oakland Alameda County Coliseum Authority to replace Mary Warren. Warren died at age 94 in August.

“Right now we have the possibility of losing two teams,” De La Fuente said this week. “I live in Oakland; I love the city; I’ll definitely do whatever I can.”

De La Fuente represented the Fruitvale district from 1992 to 2013 and was one of the council’s most powerful members. He served as council president for nearly a decade, assembling votes to usher in economic development proposed by then-Mayor Jerry Brown. A walkway at the Fruitvale Transit Village in his district bears his name.

De La Fuente ran for mayor twice, losing to Brown in 1998 and Ronald Dellums in 2006.

“Ignacio just ran into some bad luck there,” said county Supervisor Nate Miley, a former Oakland councilman and current authority board member. “He would have won if he weren’t facing two giants.”

Part of De La Fuente’s legacy stems from the central role he played in helping lure the Raiders back from Los Angeles in 1995 when Al Davis owned the team. As part of the deal, $197 million in bonds paid for Coliseum renovations, including building a tall section of seats derisively dubbed “Mount Davis” and adding luxury boxes. The money was supposed to be paid off by selling “personal seat licenses” to season ticket holders, but not enough fans paid upward of $4,000 to be able to purchase season tickets long term.

That left taxpayers on the hook: $95 million in debt remains for the Coliseum renovations, with another $68 million in debt for renovations made at Oracle Arena, where the Golden State Warriors play, according to Scott McKibben, executive director of the Coliseum authority. De La Fuente also served on the Coliseum authority in the 1990s.

“The biggest problem about ‘95 was the city and county hung themselves out” by relying on using the seat licenses to pay it off, said Ralph Kanz, a former Oakland public ethics commissioner. “Outside of that, it didn’t look that bad, but it was a big assumption that that many people would be willing to pay that much money for the right to buy a ticket.”

Looking back, De La Fuente acknowledges mistakes were made, but said that isn’t going to stop him and local leaders from working to keep the sports franchises in Oakland.

“You can call it a bad deal, you can call it whatever you like, but we spent $200 million back in the day, remodeled the Coliseum, Oracle and retained three teams,” he said. “The way I see it, I don’t think it was a terrible deal. Could we do better? Absolutely, but talk is cheap and we just got to get it done.”

Haggerty, who appointed De La Fuente, said the authority needs his institutional knowledge as it negotiates a new lease with the Warriors for their remaining seasons in Oakland, and tries to stop the Raiders from leaving to Las Vegas.

“I wanted to pick somebody who can hit the ground running,” Haggerty said.

The Warriors’ current five-year lease expires June 30. The team has paid $1.5 million a year in rent at Oracle. On Friday, the authority hired a law firm to advise them on their talks with the NBA team, which in addition to the lease includes negotiations on the remaining debt.

Local officials have an uphill climb to try to keep the Raiders in Oakland. Owner Mark Davis has filed for relocation to Las Vegas, where he has $750 million in public money and another $650 million from casino mogul Sheldon Adelson to build a $1.9 billion stadium. NFL owners, who need to approve the move, could vote in March.

A group led by NFL Hall of Famer Ronnie Lott is working with Oakland officials to build a stadium, hotels, restaurants and offices at the current Coliseum site. They are expected to present their plan for the $1.3 billion development to an NFL committee in the coming months.