Irwindale Calls Roos Opposition to Raiders Deal a Racist Act of Ambition

Irwindale officials Tuesday lashed out at Assemblyman Mike Roos and others who are trying to block a stadium deal with the Los Angeles Raiders, charging that opponents were motivated by political ambition and racism against their predominantly Latino town.

City representatives questioned whether Roos and other Los Angeles politicians would be working so hard to kill the deal if Irwindale were a “lily-white town.” The small city is 97% Latino.

“This is one of the lowest forms of political deceit and trickery,” Irwindale spokesman Xavier Hermosillo said of a legislative proposal by Roos to block sale of the $90 million in bonds that Irwindale would use to finance a 65,000-seat stadium for the Raiders. “He thinks we’re a bunch of little Mexicans here who he can take to task . . . . Well, he’s wrong.”

Hermosillo added that Roos is “a man rumored to be a mayoral candidate” in Los Angeles and is exploiting the issue for publicity.

Roos’ press secretary, Lynn Montgomery, said the assemblyman was too busy with legislative matters to comment.

The lawmaker had announced his legislation Monday, saying it would prohibit bond sales for the construction of sports facilities that would result in “destructive competition” with state-owned sports facilities. This would apply to the Raiders’ current home, the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, which is partly owned by the state.

Roos, a Los Angeles Democrat, said it could take months before the Legislature would act on his proposal--a delay that some bond experts said could effectively scare off investors interested in purchasing the bonds.

He also had questioned the legality of spending city redevelopment funds on a stadium and said he feared local taxpayers would bear the burden if Irwindale failed to pay a bond debt of $9 million a year for 30 years.

In a press conference Tuesday, Hermosillo and city consultant Fred Lyte, who negotiated the Raiders deal, said Roos had promised Raider executives six weeks ago that he would help facilitate any Raiders move.

They said a Raiders executive had telephoned Roos because of concern about a bill that would limit industrial revenue bonds to $50 million. Roos is chairman of an Assembly subcommittee on bonded indebtedness.

The Raiders were worried that this might affect the deal, the city officials said, so they called Roos. “Roos said, ‘I’ll do anything I can to help you,’ ” Hermosillo said. “Now, all of a sudden, he’s a turncoat.”

Hermosillo also defended using redevelopment funds for a stadium. “You tell me a better use of public money.” Hermosillo said. “We’re turning a blighted area, an abandoned rock and gravel pit, into the finest stadium in the country.”

Local taxpayers, he said, would not be obligated to repay the bonds because any risk would be taken by the private investors buying the bonds. He said that Miller and Schroeder, a bond underwriting firm based in Minneapolis, had agreed to underwrite the bonds and would not be frightened off by Roos’ measure. Representatives of Miller and Schroeder could not be reached for comment.

“We’ve borrowed over a quarter of a billion dollars in the last 10 years and paid back every cent,” Hermosillo said. “We have a triple A bond rating. That’s one A better than the state of California itself.”

Hermosillo said in an interview Tuesday that if Roos had taken a closer look at the agreement with the Raiders, he would have seen that a 50-50 revenue split with the football team provides the city with at least $10 million annually, enough to service the $9-million yearly debt.

Assemblyman Richard L. Mountjoy, a Republican whose district encompasses Irwindale and several adjoining San Gabriel Valley communities, also criticized Roos’ measure in a letter Tuesday to Gov. George Deukmejian. Mountjoy called the legislation an attempt “to curtail what should be free and open competition.”

An aide to Mountjoy said he has already lined up 35 Republican assemblymen and possibly six Democrats to oppose the Roos legislation. Forty-one votes are needed to block the measure in the Assembly.