West Sacramento Officials Upset Over Mayor's Baseball Announcement
WEST SACRAMENTO (CBS13) - Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson's announcement Monday that the city is interested in acquiring a major league baseball team, preferably the Oakland A's, didn't sit well with West Sacramento officials.
West Sacramento Mayor Christopher Cabaldon said he only found out about Monday's press conference the night before and hadn't spoken to Johnson directly about it. He called it a bump in their relationship.
And Yolo County Supervisor Mike McGowan doesn't understand the logic of pushing out the River Cats, one of the most successful minor league teams in the country.
"I'm not sure what the game is," he said. "It's not making sense to me. We've got a tremendous success story here, which benefits the whole region.
McGowan says what's not good for the region is what he calls Johnson's single-minded, go-it-alone approach. McGowan says he and other county and city leaders had no warning from their next-door mayor about his MLB plans.
"I think the mayor's missing an opportunity to work with others in a constructive way by standing up on his own, having a press conference about what he's going to do," McGowan said.
The mayor admitted he had yet to have in-depth conversations with West Sacramento leaders but stressed they too could benefit from an MLB team.
"It very well may end up being, after we do our analysis, that the best place for MLB is West Sacramento," he said.
But McGowan believes the area not only doesn't need a major-league team but can't support one and he believes Sacramento's mayor needs to take a timeout from focusing on sports.
"Thinking big as they suggest, which doesn't make much sense to me, they just need to think more intelligently and more broadly," he said.
