Wolff, JPA to meet next week

The Trib reports that a meeting between members of the Coliseum JPA and Wolff/A's VDC is scheduled for sometime next week. The VDC will likely present its "wishlist" containing site details and requirements.

In the article is a quote from Ignacio De La Fuente, who "showed frustration that talks have not progressed since Wolff announced last year the team was going to take control of the planning and site location for a new ballpark."

"We talk a lot, and nothing happens," he said. "I want to make sure that we are not just talking. ... It is going to be up to them to at least show, or give us some indication, what area they are looking at."

DLF also had this to say about the public share:

"I'm prepared to work with the A's and explore possibilities for sites, but I can't make a blanket statement that we are going to put land together for them," he said. "I want to be absolutely clear. It has to be their money. (Putting land together) does not mean it is their money."

Sounds like we have a potential problem looming regarding financing. Surely even DLF realizes that SBC Park, which is considered the best (and the only recently built) example of a privately built major league ballpark, had some public involvement? There were much more insidious ways of doing this, such as the machinations that created Dodger Stadium. Considering Wolff's previous comments that while the ballpark will be a mostly private transaction, he doesn't think an SBC-type deal is likely, one wonders what the gap between the two positions will be when the presentations are made.