Decision on Coliseum Operation Plan Put Off

Public officials led by Mayor Tom Bradley supported a proposed private management contract for the Los Angeles Coliseum complex at a hearing Wednesday, but representatives of community and conservationist organizations expressed either outright opposition or had reservations.

After listening to an hour’s testimony, the Coliseum Commission turned aside pleas for a quick vote on ratification from an attorney for the MCA Inc./Spectacor Management partnership that would take over management of the Coliseum and Sports Arena under the agreement and decided to delay any decision until May.

Commissioners expressed hope that in the meantime some of the concerns that were expressed at the hearing could be assuaged. Generally, these were that private management of the Coliseum complex would disrupt the surrounding community, restrict public use of Exposition Park and possibly cut attendance at the museums in the park.

Both the commission president, Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich, and another supervisor-member, Deane Dana, expressed support for the management deal.

Under the proposed contract, the partnership would initially invest $10 million in improvements, mainly to the Sports Arena, guarantee the commission against losses, and pay at least $500,000 a year in rent as long as the Raiders football team remains in the Coliseum.

Bradley, Los Angeles City Council President John Ferraro and state Assembly President Pro Tem Mike Roos (D-Los Angeles) also supported the contract. They said it is the best means of keeping the Coliseum and Sports Arena financially viable.

But a number of speakers said they feared that to the extent the private managers were successful in bringing more business to the facilities, it would spoil the surrounding park and deprive the public of its use.

Marvin S. Holen, chairman of the executive committee of the California Museum Foundation, said private management “would not be compatible with the best purposes” of the Museum of Science and Industry, the Afro-American Museum and the Museum of Natural History. But he also expressed hope that guarantees against their disruption might yet be written into the contract.

At a meeting Wednesday morning, the board of the Museum of Science and Industry took no firm position on the private management contract, essentially calling for new negotiations on it.

A member of that board who also serves on the Coliseum Commission, Alexander Haagen, has expressed opposition to the contract. But he missed both meetings Wednesday, blaming food poisoning for his absence.

Several witnesses insisted that Exposition Park had been donated to the city on the condition that it be used in perpetuity as a park and that private management would violate that condition.

One of these witnesses, Alexander Mann of the Federation of Organizations to Conserve Urban Space, went so far as to suggest that even construction of the Coliseum in 1923 had been illegal. That drew laughter from some commissioners.

After the hearing, Irving Azoff, head of MCA’s Music Entertainment Group and the firm’s top man on the Coliseum project, expressed optimism that the commission will vote to ratify the agreement next month.