Seating Ruckus Clouds Coliseum Future : Dispute Over Boxes, Reconfiguration May Bring a Raiders Move

The venerable Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum once again faces an uncertain, and possibly bleak, future.

Coliseum Commission President Alexander Haagen, saying that he has the votes to prevail, declared last week that the proposed reconfiguration of the stadium’s seating to make it a better viewing place for football must be put off another year. He said there is insufficient time to do it before the next season begins.

The former commission president, William Robertson, chief negotiator of the deal that brought the Los Angeles Raiders here from Oakland, charged that Haagen has reneged on an agreement to support the reconfiguration--retractable seats that would cover the Olympic track and bring spectators closer to the action--and is, in fact, obstructing it. He warned that the result may be that the Raiders will move to another city, possibly even before their Coliseum lease is up in 1991.

The Raiders on Feb. 18 halted their $8-million project of building 60 luxury suites on the Coliseum’s north rim until the reconfiguration is given a go-ahead, and are making their own threatening noises. A spokesman insisted, despite denials from New York, that team owner Al Davis had met with New York Mayor Ed Koch and implied that a Raiders move there had been discussed.

The Raiders spokesman, senior administrator Irv Kaze, also insisted that Haagen is wrong that there is insufficient time to do the reconfiguration work this year. “It can be done on time,” he said, “if they get the go-ahead this week, if we don’t have any more obstruction.”

While the thrusts and counter-thrusts went on, the stadium itself remained in disarray. There is no question that football will be played there next fall, but more than 1,700 seats that traditionally have gone to the Raiders’ and USC’s most valued season ticket holders were ripped out to facilitate construction of the boxes. Two light standards not only were taken down, they were smashed.

The result is that if the current impasse cannot be resolved, if neither the reconfiguration nor the luxury suites go forward, it will cost $463,000, according to estimates made by the Coliseum staff, just to restore the stadium to its former state. And there is not even agreement as to who--the Raiders or the Coliseum Commission--would pay that bill.

Haagen said last week that while he still thinks compromise solutions are available, he is not optimistic that they will be adopted. In fact, he said, he expects the Raiders to end up suing the commission.

What led to the development of this mess?

The answer goes back as far as 1978 and the earliest discussions leading to Davis’ decision to bring the Raiders to Los Angeles over the objections of the National Football League.

In recent weeks, Davis has declared that he was promised that the Coliseum Commission would pay for stadium improvements, including new seating arrangements, making it a better place for watching football and also lowering its capacity to make it easier to sell out, avoiding local television blackouts of Raiders games.

Robertson and another past Coliseum Commission president, state Sen. William Campbell (R-Hacienda Heights), as well as Mayor Tom Bradley have supported Davis on this point. Robertson said that he discussed a $9-million seating reconfiguration not only with the Raiders but even with the Rams, before they announced that they were moving to Anaheim. Campbell told the Los Angeles Herald Examiner recently, “We made firm commitments. . . . We promised to redo the stadium.” Bradley said that refurbishments were promised, although he added that they were never defined.

Close examination indicates that whatever transpired, it fell short of an ironclad guarantee.

For one thing, nothing was ever put in writing.

Maxwell Blecher, Coliseum Commission attorney, said last week that in 1982, when it came time to write the first formal agreement bringing the Raiders to the Coliseum, the issue was discussed. He said that Davis tried to get a flat statement included that would have committed a large share of any damages received in the Coliseum’s lawsuit against the National Football League for trying to block the team’s move into a fund for Coliseum improvements.

Blecher said the Raiders owner was turned down.

“Robertson said it would be imprudent to make an absolute commitment to do that in writing,” he recalled. “He said there might be a considerable time gap before the damages were received and he didn’t know what would happen in the interim. He said, ‘I can’t agree to it in writing, but barring unforeseen circumstances, that’s what we’re going do with the bulk of the money.’ ”

Robertson, shown Blecher’s statement last Thursday, said he agreed with it.

Campbell also backed down slightly from his claim that there were “firm commitments” when he was read a statement he made Dec. 8, 1984, at the signing of a final lease agreement between the Coliseum Commission and the Raiders. Campbell was quoted then as saying that there were no unrevealed side agreements and that the only understandings between the Raiders and the commission were contained in the language of the agreement. The agreement did not say anything about such a commitment.

“I don’t regard this (the claimed assurance to Davis that the Coliseum Commission would pay for stadium improvements) as a side agreement,” he explained. “I regard this as just a good, honest, common-sense business decision. The reason we couldn’t make a commitment at that point was that we didn’t have the money.”

Even Davis, questioned last week on why he did not secure any promises made to him in writing, responded vaguely that there was a reason why they could not be put in writing and that, anyway, they were only general in nature.

Nonetheless, Raiders officials, Campbell and Robertson all have been complaining loudly that it is wrong that the new Coliseum commissioners are refusing to honor the promises made years ago to finance stadium improvements.

Haagen responded last week, “Bill Robertson and Bill Campbell say they made a promise. I can’t find anyone else who agrees.”

The present furor, however, even more particularly involves events of the last 4 1/2 months, beginning with a resolution authored by Haagen and adopted by the commission on Nov. 5, 1986.

That resolution said that the commission approved “the concept of improving the spectator seating in the Coliseum by installing before the next regular football season retractable seats in closer proximity to the playing field.”

Even if no previous promise was made to Davis, he and his supporters say, that resolution committed the Coliseum Commission to doing the reconfiguration at roughly the same time as Davis was building the first 60 of his suites.

Not so, Haagen said last week. He pointed to the words “the concept of” within the resolution and said the commission only endorsed the idea of doing the reconfiguration. Actually doing it was contingent on getting a bank loan and finding that there was sufficient time to finish the work before this year’s first Raiders game on Aug. 15, he said.

He credited an unnamed lawyer with suggesting the qualifying “concept” language, thus making the resolution less of a commitment than it would have been otherwise.

Haagen added that he had written the resolution at the request of Robertson, who was then the commission president and who continued in that post until Feb. 4 when Haagen took over. But he indicated in answer to questions that he was never enthusiastic about pursuing the project quickly, saying that it should be done in an orderly way and in balance with other Coliseum improvements.

Between Nov. 5 and now, neither financing for the reconfiguration, nor plans or building permits have been obtained, despite a series of meetings to explore options. The commission is no closer to doing the work this weekend than it was then.

Why?

Robertson said: “I had an agreement with Haagen. I was going to support his park improvement plans, the parking structures he wanted, and he recognized the parking structures didn’t make sense unless we had the Raiders as a tenant, so he was going to support helping them. He told me many times, ‘We’ll get this thing done.’ But when he became president, it became apparent he was going to obstruct this deal, at least for this year.”

Robertson said he has never been able to divine Haagen’s motivation in acting as he has.

Haagen, for his part, acknowledged in an interview that he had begun to “stymie” the plans even before he took over from Robertson. Robertson, he said, could not push ahead with the reconfiguration plan between Nov. 5 and Feb. 4, “because I had the votes (to prevent it).”

The replacement of labor leader Robertson by shopping center developer Haagen represented a passage of commission control into more conservative hands, from interests allied with Bradley and former Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr. to the current conservatives on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors and appointees of the Deukmejian Adminstration. The commission is a tripartite agency of state, county and city.

Most of the time, Haagen has indicated, as he did in authoring the resolution, that he favors the reconfiguration in principle. But he also has tied it, as he did in writing last week, to establishing “a proper capital improvement program, identifying not only the seat issue, but other improvements as well.”

In a recent interview, he said $30 million is needed to do everything that should be done to modernize the Coliseum-Sports Arena complex, and that even with a bank loan and the lawsuit damages, not enough money will be available.

While not discussing his motivations explicitly, Haagen also indicated at various points in two interviews some reserve over new seating that might alter the character of the stadium. Haagen remarked at one point that Davis “has only a commercial interest” in the stadium, while he has an aesthetic and historic interest.

Haagen’s critics have begun to accuse him of stopping the work by the simple tactic of stalling so long that no one will be able to maintain that there is time enough to do it.

Ron Tudor of the Tudor Saliba Corp., the general contractor for the Raiders’ suites, said last week: “All he has to do is defer those Coliseum meetings and he’ll win just on sheer time. At this point, I think he is winning.”

The contractor spoke out after Haagen, in a meeting with architects Wednesday evening, said it would be May 15 at the earliest before a contract could be awarded to do the reconfiguration. He said that even if financing is arranged, it will still be necessary to put the project out to competitive bid and ensure participation by minority groups in the work.

“If everything went out in the conventional way, and it couldn’t start to May 15, he’s right, you can’t do it,” Tudor said.

But he said minority participation has already been arranged, and suggested that emergency provisions could be invoked that would bypass much of the normal bidding process.

As uncertainty has grown that the reconfiguration can go forward this year, the status of the Raiders’ luxury suites has become ever more tenuous.

Davis began construction of the suites on Feb. 1, but stopped it 18 days later, rather than put up a performance bond demanded by the Coliseum Commission and which the contractors say would have cost no more than $60,000.

“That was just paper work,” said Kaze of the Raiders. He said Davis simply decided that he did not want to proceed with the suites until he was sure that the reconfiguration would go forward at the same time.

There has been an angry flow of charges and countercharges relating to both the start and the stop of the work on the suites, especially since the Coliseum’s north side has been badly torn up and left, for now, in that state.

Davis claimed last week that the Raiders had been authorized to start the work, with no conditions being put on the start-up, in a Jan. 28 letter from Glenn Mon, the Coliseum acting general manager to the Raiders’ Doug Albo.

The letter said: “As per our recent conversation, we will remove the necessary seats in order to accommodate the construction of your luxury suites, commencing immediately. . . . In a spirit of cooperation and because time is of the essence, we will perform the work and bill you for that work on its completion.”

Mon and Haagen now say that this did not mean that the Raiders were free to go ahead without providing a performance bond or, for that matter, a set of plans and specifications for the commission’s approval.

And, they said, as soon as it became apparent to them that the work was proceeding without either, they began to press for their delivery. At first, they have said, the Raiders responded that they were in the mail.

Finally, on Feb. 16, acting on advice of legal counsel, Mon wrote the Raiders a cease-and-desist order on the work until the performance bond was forthcoming. The Raiders responded two days later with a letter announcing that they were stopping construction. And they upped the ante by demanding that the reconfiguration go forward at the same time as any resumption, thus linking the two issues.

A set of plans has since been delivered to the commission.

Both sides agree that the performance bond is not the real issue. But what is puzzling is why Davis gave an order to start the construction on Feb. 1, when to most appearances the reconfiguration already seemed stalled, if he really intended to insist on a link of the two projects.

Davis and Kaze declined to answer questions about their motivations in starting work, ripping up the Coliseum’s north side, and then stopping the work rather than putting up the performance bond.

But their contractor, Tudor, said that when it came down to actually putting up the bond, Davis realized that if he were to do it, he was guaranteeing that the luxury suites would be completed, and that he recognized at that moment that if they were indeed completed, he would have such a substantial investment in the Coliseum that he could not easily leave even if he wanted to.

In short, Davis, who has delayed the luxury suite construction several times since 1983, had, according to this view, shied away once again, because he was not willing to make that commitment without getting the reconfiguration in return.

Is it a bluff?

Some think so. Howard Daniels, a former associate of the Coliseum’s lawyer, Blecher, said last week that while Davis “has always legitimately felt that the Coliseum has been less than forthcoming, I just don’t see Al (Davis) moving.” He said that Davis is too proud a man and that moving the team would amount to admitting defeat in Los Angeles.

And he speculated that if Davis does not get the reconfiguration he wants now, he will still go ahead with the suites. The suites, he said, are a more vital economic interest to him than the reconfiguration.

Robertson, on the other hand, said: “What I’m afraid of is when the contract is up and maybe even before, Davis might be looking to go elsewhere.

“He sees history repeating itself,” said Robertson, who has long been friendly with Davis and talks to him frequently. “He had similar dealings in Oakland. They wouldn’t do what he wanted either. He could very well be thinking of moving on.”

Haagen, looking forward to the probability that the reconfiguration will not go forward this year, has proposed that Davis resume work on the suites and that the Coliseum install temporary retractable seats only on the east end of the stadium. These seats, placed where no seating now exists, would, in effect, replace regular seats that have been torn out to make room for the suites.

The commission president said he has been told by the Raiders that seats on the east end, close to the playing field, probably would be better seats than the regular ones on the north rim. He estimated that the work could be done for about $1 million, that a loan would be easy to obtain for it and that it would not take very long to do.

This, however, would not be satisfactory to USC, according to Anthony D. Lazzaro, the school’s senior vice president for business affairs. Lazzaro and USC Athletic Director Mike McGee said at a recent meeting that they had not yet informed any of their season ticket holders that their seats, at least for now, do not exist, and they were not looking forward to the reaction when and if they had to be so informed.

USC supports the reconfiguration, they said. But if it cannot go forward, they hope that the ripped-out seats will either be restored soon or replaced with equivalent seating.