Editor's note: The above video is from Oct. 14, 2015.
As the primary opponents of the proposed Warriors arena in San Francisco, the Mission Bay Alliance has vowed from the start that as long as earth is revolving they’d be willing to litigate.
The group followed through on Thursday, taking the fight to court.
The MBA, according to spokesman Sam Singer, asserts that the defendants – the Warriors and the City of San Francisco – combined to steamroll their way to building an 18,000-seat arena in Mission Bay, four blocks south of the Giants ballpark.
“This is a dispute over whether San Francisco and the Warriors followed the law when it comes to environmental regulations and whether this was an appropriate decision by the City of San Francisco,” Singer said Friday. “We believe the decision was rushed, it was rubber-stamped and it’s the worst planning decision in the history of San Francisco.”
The Warriors, claiming the MBA is off base, issued a statement:
“During three years of intense public scrutiny, the Warriors arena won approval from 100 percent of boards, agencies and commissions that considered the matter: the Board of Supervisors, the Office of Community Investment and Infrastructure, the Mission Bay Citizens Committee, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency and the Planning, Entertainment, Port and Public Utilities Commissions.
“The decision of our elected leaders to bring the Warriors home to San Francisco will be upheld by the courts, and this frivolous lawsuit brought by a secretive group of wealthy donors will fail.”
The MBA’s expressed concern relates to traffic and environment impact to the medical facilities at the University of California-San Francisco medical facility a short walk away from the proposed arena site.
The group conducted a news conference Thursday in which the mother of a 6-year-old boy with a congenital heart defect expressed concerns about the impact of traffic on the ability to receive timely treatment at UCSF.
The Warriors, whose proposal already has been approved by UCSF Chancellor Sam Hawgood, plan to move forward with the process in hopes of moving into the arena in the fall of 2018. Hawgood is facing a separate lawsuit filed by the MBA’s legal team.
“Because it was made wrongly and illegally,” Singer said of the arena approval process, “we believe that we will win in court.”
