We, Oaklanders, long-time A’s fans, Laney and Peralta community members, workers, and supporters of maintaining a diverse Oakland, strongly oppose the proposal to build a new A’s Stadium at the Laney Peralta site. We are glad the A’s are committed to staying in Oakland after almost 50 years, and we want home runs for our team, but announcing Peralta as the preferred site on September 12 without conducting any impact studies or meaningfully engaging directly impacted stakeholders, is a strikeout and a loss for the home team.

The A’s are proposing to place the stadium in the middle of two vulnerable cultural and historic districts already facing major displacement of small businesses and affordable housing for families - Eastlake and Chinatown. This action will wreak further havoc on these Asian, African, Latino, indigenous, immigrant and refugee, artist, student and low-income neighborhoods. The Peralta location is the least equitable option of the three sites considered. We are dismayed that the A’s are completely disregarding serious and widespread concerns from neighborhood stakeholders who have built up these cultural districts over the last century.

To put it simply, this stadium could quickly wipe out one of the most diverse neighborhoods in Oakland and the heart of our Asian immigrant and refugee community.

Additionally, placing a ballpark next to Laney College would obstruct the learning environment at the most affordable higher education resource accessible to our low-income students, as well as nearby public schools. A stadium at this small site would create severe noise disturbance (both at the time of construction and during games), traffic congestion, senior and youth pedestrian accidents, air and light pollution, and trash blight. Altogether, this would significantly impact strained school facilities, with crowds streaming through campuses serving sensitive populations such as re-entry, newcomer, and high school students.

Stadiums across the country have accelerated displacement, spiked land prices, and decimated cultural districts. Oakland deserves better. There is no amount of mitigation that can stop displacement from a project this huge, and it’s irresponsible for the A’s to make an announcement without real engagement or buy-in when they know that speculators will immediately begin to push-out the existing community. As Oaklanders, we pledge to fight this plan that furthers the displacement that is already making Oakland less diverse, driving out families and closing schools, and diminishing the vibrant neighborhoods that make Oakland an incredible town. We demand that the Oakland A's choose another site, and pledge to boycott A’s games and all Major League Baseball products if the project moves forward at Peralta.

We urge Mayor Libby Schaaf not to back down from her publicly stated concern about the Peralta site’s impacts on our small businesses, and to advocate and vote against city approval. We urge our Councilmembers, Planning Commissioners, BART Directors, and State Officials to protect our neighborhoods by not approving land use and planning permits for the Peralta site, and passing immediate legislation to stop current displacement. And we urge our elected Peralta Trustees not to sell off or permanently lease public land for private profit. Now is when we need our public officials to stand up for our neighborhoods, our students, and our working class families.

Education, not gentrification!
Public land for public good, not private profit!
Don’t upROOT Eastlake and Chinatown!

#StAyTheRightWay