Anaheim : Angels Official Rebuffs Offer to Address Council

A California Angels spokesman, who walked out of City Hall angry that officials did not let him speak Tuesday, will not address the council during its regular meeting next week, an Angels spokesman said Wednesday.

Angels Vice President Michael Schreter left Wednesday for a 10-day vacation in Europe and will not be able to address the council next Tuesday as city officials had suggested.

At the council meeting Tuesday, Schreter, Angels attorney Christopher Dubia and a handful of public relations people arrived at City Hall to present the council with the findings of an Angels-commissioned poll of Anaheim residents, which showed that most support the ballclub in its $100-million lawsuit against the city and the Los Angeles Rams.

But council members, after considering the Angels’ request to speak during a 40-minute closed meeting, decided to wait for their own attorney to be present for the Angels’ presentation.

Schreter said the council members knew the Angel delegation could not return in the afternoon and called the decision to not let him speak in the morning a “blunt refusal” to hear him at all.

Mayor Don Roth then invited the Angels to contact the city by Thursday to schedule a time to address the council at its regular meeting Tuesday.

The Angels’ suit against the city also names Anaheim Stadium Associates, a partnership between Boston-based developer Cabot, Cabot & Forbes and the Los Angeles Rams. The city promised part of the stadium parking lot for high-rise office development as part of a package to lure the Rams to Anaheim. But the Angels, protesting that the city violated its 1964 lease with the ballclub, said the development would take away surface parking spaces. Arguing that multilevel parking structures would discourage baseball fans from attending games, the Angels filed suit.

After two years of paper work, the suit came to trial Dec. 9, 1985. The non-jury trial hit a snag April 17, when Anaheim Stadium Associates asked Superior Court Judge Frank D. Domenichini to disqualify himself from the non-jury trial on conflict-of-interest allegations.

Anaheim Stadium Associates attorney Alfred E. Augustini said he is not expecting Domenichini to step down voluntarily. In that case, Augustini said, he will seek to disqualify the judge. If he is successful, the trial would have to begin again.