San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed said Wednesday that he has withdrawn his request to place an initiative on the November ballot to build a downtown baseball stadium to house the Oakland Athletics.
But he said Major League Baseball has pledged to cover the city’s costs if it ends up holding a special election on the issue in the spring.
The fate of the A’s has been in question since the team’s previous effort to build a new ballpark — a real-estate driven stadium plan in suburban Fremont — fell apart in 2009.
Team and baseball officials do not want the team to stay in the 44-year-old Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum.
Reed wants the team in San Jose and says a new stadium there would not require any new city taxes or draws on its general fund. The city’s redevelopment agency would help fund site acquisition and infrastructure.
While the A’s managing partner, Lew Wolff, has indicted his interest in moving his team 40 miles south, the idea of moving it to San Jose is complicated by “inside baseball” within baseball.
The MLB granted the San Francisco Giants territorial rights to Santa Clara County as part of long-ago efforts to move the Giants there, before the team developed its own stadium on the San Francisco waterfront.
The Giants have shown no interest in giving up those rights.
Baseball commissioner Bud Selig appointed a special committee to study the A’s stadium issue, including territorial rights, in early 2009. It has yet to report.
San Jose city law requires a public vote on any new sports arena. Reed was pressing to incorporate the vote with November’s general election, but backed down Wednesday after talking to league baseball officials.
“We look forward to a final decision from the commissioner, and will vigorously pursue an election next year if that decision is a positive one,” Wolff said in the statement issued by Mayor Reed’s office.
“The commissioner’s offer to help pay for a possible election in the spring was the first indication that the league is inching closer to a decision on territorial rights,” San Jose City Council member Sam Liccardo said in the same statement.
