A's ask to stay in Oakland five more years
The Oakland A's are asking to stay at O.co Coliseum for five more years.
A's owner Lew Wolff sent a letter to East Bay officials Friday requesting that his team stay put for the time frame, according to the Bay Area News Group.
The A's have one more year left on their lease with the Coliseum and reportedly talks to move the team to San Jose have not gone well.
Wolff wrote in the letter that the team needs five more years to try to work out a deal to move the team.
"We need to know if we're on the way to doing something that's mutually agreeable," Wolff told the Bay Area News Group. "Otherwise, we're going to have to find a temporary relocation somewhere, which we prefer not to do."
The Coliseum has been the home of the A's since they moved from Kansas City in 1968. The team has been attempting to move to the South Bay since 2009 but Oakland officials have tried to prevent the A's from leaving.
The Oakland Alameda County Coliseum Authority wants more time and money than what it gave the A's in 2006 -- the last extension the two sides agreed on.
"If baseball had given us permission to relocate, we'd still need this period of time," Wolff said.
Oakland Mayor Jean Quan said she is pleased that Wolff wants to stay in Oakland five more years and that she is "confident and committed that in that time we'll continue working together to find a permanent ballpark for the A's here in Oakland."
San Jose officials who want the A's to move to their city did not seem discouraged by the A's offer to stay in Oakland for five more years. However, the San Francisco Giants want to prevent the move, claiming San Jose as its territory.
"We continue talking to the A's ownership, and they continue to express a strong desire to see the A's playing in San Jose," city councilman Sam Liccardo said. "The San Francisco Giants' efforts to block this move in the courts and the commissioner's office we expect will ultimately be defeated, but it's stalling everything."
San Jose has twice the population as Oakland.
The A's share the Coliseum with the Oakland Raiders, who hope to have a new stadium built by 2017.
