New stadium deal for Raiders give s team land, pays off debt

The Oakland Coliseum The Oakland Coliseum Photo: Kat Wade, The Chronicle Photo: Kat Wade, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 25 Caption Close New stadium deal for Raiders give s team land, pays off debt 1 / 25 Back to Gallery

(09-03) 09:43 PDT OAKLAND -- A new Raiders stadium offer worked out by Oakland Mayor Jean Quan's development people calls for giving free land to the team and for city and Alameda County taxpayers to pay off $120 million they still owe for the 1990s overhaul of the Coliseum - which would be demolished.

For months, Quan has been predicting that a broad agreement for a new Raiders stadium, costing $900 million to $1.2 billion, would be worked out by the summer's end.

Now, Zach Wasserman, an attorney representing backers of a hoped-for sports, housing and retail complex called Coliseum City, says the "basic terms" of a financial deal have been worked out among his group, the city's negotiators and the Raiders.

"I expect it to be executed soon," he said.

In other words, everyone's waiting for the thumbs-up or thumbs-down from Raiders owner Mark Davis - who has been very publicly looking at other cities.

Even as Davis thinks it over, questions are being raised about whether the proposed deal will fly.

The idea is that the public wouldn't be on the hook for construction costs - those would be paid for by revenue generated by the project, the NFL and other private sources - but taxpayers would contribute the land and infrastructure improvements.

The city and county would also have to come up with the $120 million to pay off the Coliseum expansion that lured the Raiders back from Los Angeles. City and county taxpayers now pay $20 million a year in general-fund money for debt service.

Where would the $120 million come from? "That's a great question that we will probably not say anything about," Quan spokesman Sean Maher said - at least not until a deal is reached and made public.

County officials, who share oversight of the Coliseum, say Quan has kept them in the dark about the city's plan.

"I am still skeptical about the whole Coliseum City deal and if it's going to materialize," said Supervisor Nate Miley, chairman of the city-county Coliseum Authority, which operates the complex. But he said he's keeping an open mind.

Oakland City Councilman Larry Reid, another member of the Coliseum Authority, said the proposal for the city and county to pay off the debt on the old Coliseum took him by surprise. "I have asked that the (Coliseum City) item be scheduled for closed session for an update at our next (council) meeting," he said.

Another big question is how the Oakland A's - who just signed a 10-year lease extension at the stadium that would be demolished - fit into the picture.

Sources close to the Coliseum City negotiations tell us that if the A's won't play ball with the project's backers, part of the land could be turned over to team owners Lew Wolff and John Fisher for their own privately developed ballpark.

Immigration shift: California's growing Asian American population appears to be ambivalent at best toward the surge of children fleeing Central America, a new Field Poll shows.

The poll - which was done in six languages to better gauge the feelings of the state's minority populations - found that 45 percent of Asian American respondents said the U.S. should "offer shelter and support" to unaccompanied migrants while it sorts out their immigration status.

That was the lowest of any racial group surveyed and well below the 58 percent overall total who felt that way.

Karthik Ramakrishnan, a professor at UC Riverside who studies Asian American voting trends, chalked up the finding to a feeling among Asians that they're being left out of the immigration debate.

"Most of the debate has been over border control and the pathway to citizenship, while most Asians are concerned about family reunification, which can take years," Ramakrishnan said.

Another factor may be the lack of coverage about the Central American surge in Asian-language media, Ramakrishnan said.

Whatever the reasons, Ramakrishnan said the numbers present a challenge for the Democratic Party if it wants to hold onto the emerging Asian vote on immigration and other issues.

Fine by us: No sooner did a pair of administrative law judges levy $1.4 billion in San Bruno disaster-related fines and other penalties against Pacific Gas and Electric Co. than the tug-of-war began over where the money should go.

Consumer activists at The Utility Reform Network and San Bruno's mayor said that not enough would go into pipeline safety and too much would go was being classified as fines - money that would go straight into the state's general fund.

The $950 million in fine money isn't exactly small change. In fact, it's roughly equal to what California spends on 74,000 K-12 students annually.