The A’s bid to build a ballpark near Oakland’s Laney College put trustees of the Peralta Community College District in a tough spot.

“No matter what we did, we were going to have half the city hating us,” said Peralta board member Nicky Gonzalez Yuen.

He said he received an email from one ballpark booster vowing never to support the district again after the trustees shot down the prospect of selling land to the A’s. Such a deal, the email sender wrote, “could mean the salvation of the district in desperate times.”

The timing wasn’t good, either. The A’s offer came just two weeks after the district unveiled a facilities master plan showing the four-campus system needs $1.7 billion in repairs and upgrades — including $90 million to replace the district headquarters and maintenance yard where the A’s had hoped to build their ballpark.

With barely any financial reserves, the district is considering asking Alameda County voters within the next couple of years to approve a huge bond, perhaps upward of $400 million, to pay for the improvements.

Such a bond would need 55 percent approval — a tough task, and even tougher when you’ve annoyed baseball fans up and down the East Bay.

Gonzalez Yuen said letting the A’s build a ballpark wouldn’t have brought in nearly the amount of money the district needs, and that a stadium would have worsened the quality of life at Laney. But others think Peralta is missing the larger picture.

Among them are Chinatown Chamber of Commerce President Carl Chan and other business interests, who are pressing Mayor Libby Schaaf to try to revive the Peralta talks.

“We believe the recent action by the Peralta board to end discussions with the Oakland A’s, while certainly within their own purview, was done prematurely and without input from a larger set of community stakeholders,” Chan said. “We have to find a way to keep the A’s in Oakland.”

Schaaf told us, “I will be convening different interested parties who want to show a more collective force to help the A’s problem-solve and get something done in Oakland.”

But as far as revisiting the Laney site, she said, “If Peralta has a change of opinion, then it is definitely worth going back to — but that is not something I have heard.”

S an Francisco Chroni cle columnists Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross appear Sundays, Mondays and Wednesdays. Matier can be seen on the KPIX TV morning and evening news. He can also be heard on KCBS radio Monday through Friday at 7:50 a.m. and 5:50 p.m. Got a tip? Call (415) 777-8815, or email matierandross@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @matierandross