Commissioner Expected to Quit

Reports circulated at City Hall and at the Coliseum Commission on Thursday that labor leader William Robertson, who was instrumental in negotiating the deal that brought pro football’s Raiders to Los Angeles from Oakland in 1982, would resign from the commission today.

Robertson, secretary treasurer of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, said he would not confirm or deny the reports before a news conference he scheduled for 9 a.m. today.

He has been bitterly critical of commission President Alexander Haagen’s negotiating posture toward the Raiders and wrote in a commentary that appeared in The Times on Thursday that the villains of the Raiders’ decision to leave the Coliseum are “Haagen and his cronies for repeatedly obstructing and delaying the negotiations.”

The article concluded, “The only remaining act of public service that the present commission could perform would be to resign en masse.”

Robertson’s close friend on the commission, Richard Riordan, said Thursday that he would not be surprised if the reports of a resignation are true, and Robertson’s alternate on the commission, J. Stanley Sanders, called it “a better than 50-50 chance.”