Former Fremont councilman Dutra supports A's

Today's Argus has an opinion piece by former Fremont councilman Dominic Dutra. In it he argues that a win-win solution is still possible. The crux of his argument:

The city should strive to honestly and forthrightly address these impacts while also citing the potential for growth in office, commercial, residential and other development.

While impacts are certain to exist, the A's appear to be making significant and good faith efforts to address these concerns in order to mitigate them to an extent acceptable to most reasonable people.

Of equal importance, if traditional economic development patterns hold true, this planning effort should result in ample evidence that a stadium located adjacent to vacant land, major freeways and transportation hubs (such as the proposed BART station) would lead to significant economic growth for years to come.

Parallel with this planning effort, the city should perform a financial analysis to determine what the long-term financial benefits to the city would be in terms of additional property tax, sales tax, business tax, redevelopment tax increment, etc.

These future revenue enhancements then could be weighed against the cost of increased service demands.

Whether or not either of the alternatives is certified, it wouldn't be a bad idea to revisit the economic impact report released 20 months ago. The economy has changed drastically downward in the last 6 months, and it would behoove all to see how projections may have changed in that timeframe. It would be helpful for baseball village supporters or those who may want to put a similar concept in place in the "downtown" Fremont area.