Raiders Cite Promises; Demand $18.4 Million : Club Charges Coliseum Commission Breached Verbal Vows on Stadium Seating Renovations

The Los Angeles Raiders have demanded at least $18,485,419 in damages from the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum Commission, charging breach of verbal promises to renovate the stadium made to the team when it moved here from Oakland in 1982.

The Raiders allege that the commission’s broken promises prevented the team from building luxury suites on the Coliseum rim. The damage claim was contained in a letter delivered to the Coliseum offices Monday. It was dated Friday--the same day team owner Al Davis formally announced his intention of building a new stadium and moving to Irwindale.

The damage claim letter is a prerequisite to filing a lawsuit, although no suit has been filed yet.

If the team succeeds in collecting the amount claimed, it would be a devastating blow to the financial future of the already marginally profitable 64-year-old stadium.

Coliseum officials have been expecting to receive about $18.5 million in damages, after paying attorneys fees, from the National Football League in settlement of a suit over the league’s attempt to block the Raiders’ move to the Coliseum.

The damage judgment already has been entered and the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to decide by November whether it will hear a final appeal. If it does not, the Coliseum probably will receive $21 million this fall. More than $2 million of that will go to the commission’s attorneys.

Coliseum officials already have said they look forward to using the money to cushion the stadium complex from the shock of losing the Raiders as a tenant and to modernize the Coliseum as a means of holding existing tenants and seeking new ones.

The Raiders stopped construction of their planned Coliseum luxury suites last February, charging that the Coliseum Commission was defaulting on what the Raiders contended was a pledge to go ahead with $9 million in stadium seating changes at the same time. When the proposed renovations finally collapsed in April, Davis immediately began reviewing offers of places to move the team.

Damages Claimed

The Raider claim letter, signed by team attorney Jeff Biiren, contended that the team had lost $16,076,980 in revenue because it has been unable to construct and license the suites.

It also claimed a $907,010 loss of interest on security deposits for suites, a $253,182 promotion and leasing cost, a $669,999 design and leasing cost and a $578,248 construction cost on the suites that the football club began to build but was prevented from completing. In addition, the letter indicated that the club might seek more damages later.

A copy of the letter was obtained by The Times.

Coliseum General Manager Joel Ralph said the Coliseum Commission will discuss the Raiders’ demands and how to legally defend against them in a special, closed meeting Wednesday.

Ralph said he got the commission’s vice president, Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich, to call the meeting after what he said were four days of fruitless attempts to contact the commission president, developer Alexander Haagen.

Haagen--who clashed with Davis over the Coliseum renovation project all last spring--has been out of public sight since Davis announced the Raiders’ move to Irwindale. At first, aides said he would be back from traveling Monday, but Monday his personal assistant said she does not know where he is.

One television reporter who did succeed in reaching Haagen last Friday in Pebble Beach said he had remarked that he did not care to discuss the Raiders’ move.

The Raiders’ claim letter noted that as early as April 24, after the final collapse of Coliseum renovation plans for this year, the Raiders had told the Coliseum Commission that they considered themselves “damaged by the bad faith reputation of the agreements, promises and representations that served as a material inducement to the Raiders to move to Los Angeles, to execute (a) lease and to commence construction of the luxury suites.”

It continued: “Your denial of your agreement and your repudiation of your promises and representations constitute a breach of . . . fair dealing and good faith.”

One member of the Coliseum Commission committee that negotiated with Davis, who declined to be identified, said Monday he believes that the claim proves that Davis “is an intimidator. He throws manure at you until it piles so high you throw in the towel.”

But the commissioner said that in this case the commission simply cannot throw in the towel.

Two former Coliseum Commission presidents who were instrumental in bringing the Raiders to the Coliseum, labor leader William Robertson and state Sen. William Campbell (R-Hacienda Heights), have both said recently that they promised Davis Coliseum renovations in exchange for his moving the team from Oakland. Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley has supported those recollections.

However, no such promise was put into the written contract and at the time that contract was released, Campbell specifically denied there were any unwritten agreements.

Haagen took the position last spring that it had not been proven that any renovation pledge had been made, although he conceded that one might have been. In any case, the commission last fall did adopt a resolution expressing its intent to do a seating-change project--lowering the stadium capacity and bringing spectators closer to the field of play--this year.

Later, however, Haagen said that there was not adequate money nor time to do the project before next year.

Other Developments

Meanwhile, in another development Monday relating to the proposed Raider move, Irwindale authorities released the final memorandum of agreement reached with Davis, and it varied in only one noteworthy respect from an earlier proposed agreement that was approved last Wednesday night by the Irwindale City Council.

The change involved a paragraph that now refers to Irwindale providing the Raiders with “mutually acceptable parking facilities.” Elsewhere, the agreement refers specifically to an 80-acre site as a requirement of the deal.

Use of the 80-acre site must be approved by both the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. There is some doubt that the approvals will be obtained, at least by a Nov. 4 deadline.

Irwindale negotiator Fred Lyte said Monday that the new language does not relieve the city of its responsibility to provide the 80-acre parking site. But, he said, if it proves unavailable, Davis would be empowered under the agreement to agree to another site.

Davis said three times at a news conference Friday that he would not go for another site. But a friend who has been in touch with him told The Times that the Raiders owner is not as inflexible on the point as he might appear.

Under other language in the agreement, Davis would be empowered to take a $10-million cash advance that he has been given by Irwindale and walk away from the deal if all the land and funds mentioned in the memorandum are not provided.

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors is expected to discuss the matter of approving use of the site today, although no final decision is expected.

One supervisor, Ed Edelman, reiterated Monday that he is opposed, at least at this stage, to granting the approval.

Yet to be heard from is the supervisor whose district includes Irwindale, Pete Schabarum. Schabarum is a member of the Coliseum Commission who sided with Haagen against Davis last spring and has long been critical of Davis and the Raiders.

Support Predicted

But Lyte has suggested that he is a friend of Schabarum and that Schabarum will be supportive of granting the parking site approval and bringing the Raiders to Irwindale.

Schabarum, like Haagen, has been out of public sight since the Raiders’ move was announced, and his press secretary said Monday that she was “unsure where he is, maybe Alaska.”

Edelman said in an interview that regardless of what Schabarum may say when he surfaces, the parking matter will not be a matter of “supervisorial courtesy,” where the other supervisors go along with something simply because the supervisor representing the area involved wants it.

“The Raider move involves the whole county,” Edelman said. “In no way, shape or form does it simply involve Mr. Schabarum’s district.”