The Warriors’ plan for an 18,000-seat arena in S.F.'s Mission Bay are "suddenly running into big-time political problems," according to a front-page piece by Matier & Ross of the S.F. CHRONICLE. An anonymous group of "big-bucks donors" to the Univ. of California-S.F. has "hired an imposing cast of consultants ... to block the plan for the arena and adjacent twin office towers." The consultants include former S.F. Mayor Willie Brown and Jack Davis, who was "once the biggest political consultant in town and still a force to be reckoned with in semi-retirement." The emergence of the opposition group "comes just a month before the final environmental impact report for the Warriors’ arena is due to be released -- raising suggestions that the effort is largely aimed at trying to force the team to scale back its ambitious plan for developing 12 acres next to UCSF." Along with the arena, the project would include "two 160-foot-tall office buildings and a central plaza larger than Union Square." The opponents "have formed Mission Bay Alliance, a nonprofit whose contributors are allowed to remain anonymous" (S.F. CHRONICLE, 4/29).
COLLATERAL DAMAGE: In S.F., Ann Killion writes a "subplot of this Warriors playoff run is the team’s planned abandonment of Oakland." The new site across in S.F. "now appears to be full steam ahead." With every game at Oracle Arena, the Warriors, their fans, the media and the employees who have worked there, in many cases for decades, are "reminded of just what they are planning to leave behind." Local opposition or not, the Warriors are "wedded to the idea" of a S.F. zip code. That has "been clear ever since" co-Owners Joe Lacob and Peter Guber bought the team (S.F. CHRONICLE, 4/29).
