Roos to Offer Legislation to Keep Raiders in Coliseum

Assemblyman Mike Roos said Monday that he will sponsor legislation that could block the Los Angeles Raiders from moving to a proposed football stadium in Irwindale.

Two state experts on bond sales said that even the threat of legislation could effectively block the sale of $90 million in bonds that Irwindale plans to use to finance the stadium.

Roos, a Los Angeles Democrat, said his measure would prohibit public bond sales for sports facilities that would result in “destructive competition” with facilities wholly or partially owned by the state.

This applies to the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, which is partially owned by the state and which is the current home of the Raiders. Roos said he expects that it will take at least several months for the Legislature to act on his proposal.

“This will make the (bond) wholesalers and their counsels extremely nervous,” said Deputy Atty. Gen. Walter J. Wiesner, bond adviser to Atty. Gen. John K. Van de Kamp. “They will not want to recommend that anyone buy into a long dispute. . . .”

Acting state Treasurer Elizabeth Whitney agreed, saying, “I don’t think bond counsels will want to issue the bonds until the Legislature clears this up.”

Fred Lyte, one of Irwindale’s main negotiators in the deal to bring the Raiders to the San Gabriel Valley community, said city aides will have to study the matter before he makes a definitive comment.

But Lyte termed the Roos measure “just another blatant and ill-advised attempt to try and pull the Raiders back into the Coliseum.

“At best, it’s an exercise in futility,” Lyte added. “At worst, it could result in L.A. County losing its last football franchise.”

He charged that Roos is a Los Angeles Rams fan whose real motive is to prevent the Raiders from becoming more competitive in luring Orange County fans to a more accessible stadium. He accused Roos of taking a recent trip to London at Rams expense to see the team play an exhibition game.

Roos responded that the London trip was at his own expense. He acknowledged that he is a Rams fan but said it has nothing to do with the legislation he is offering.

Raiders owner Al Davis has said that he wants to leave the Coliseum because its governing board has broken promises about a renovation that would have allowed construction of luxury boxes. The football team has demanded more than $18 million from the Coliseum Commission for damages the team says it suffered.

Irwindale authorities, who have advanced Davis $10 million and promised he can walk away with the money if the city does not put the deal together by Nov. 4, have been arguing that everyone in Los Angeles ought to get behind the Raiders move. If the Irwindale deal fails to come off, they have argued, Davis may elect to move the team out of the area altogether.

‘Major Facility’

“There are going to be many, many difficult things we’re going to have to solve before we can build this major facility,” Lyte said. “These brilliant (outsiders) are either going to have to decide to fight us or help us out.”

Roos said his study of the Irwindale-Raiders agreement convinced him that there is “real cause to worry” whether Irwindale could pay off its bonds out of the new stadium’s revenue, as called for in the agreement.

“I’m concerned that the deal may be financially risky,” said Roos, who is chairman of an Assembly subcommittee on bonded indebtedness. “I don’t know if there’s an adequate revenue stream to repay the bonds.

“It’s going to take $9 million a year to retire the bonds over a 30-year period. But total Coliseum revenue was only $4.5 million in 1986. . . .

“In addition, the Raiders have only a 15-year contract to play in the stadium, and these are 30-year bonds. If they fail, it will adversely affect public entities throughout the state,” Roos said.