Clippers Silent on Arena Talks : Official Denies Team Contacted Northridge About Venue Change

If the Clippers professional basketball team is planning to leave the Los Angeles Sports Arena and relocate, organization officials are not saying publicly.

Not yet, anyway.

Andrew Roeser, the team’s vice president in charge of business operations, said Friday morning that the NBA franchise is “very happy at the Sports Arena.”

Meanwhile, a Cal State Northridge official said that a Jan. 13 date had been set to meet with the Clippers for preliminary discussions on how the two might co-exist in an arena that is proposed for the CSUN campus.

What does exist is a major breakdown in communication.

And the central figure involved, Clipper president Alan Rothenberg, is out of town and unavailable for comment.

Elliott Mininberg, a CSUN adminstrative vice president, said that he has talked to Rothenberg and was told that the Clippers are “unhappy with their current arena situation.”

Roeser, who was either unaware that a telephone discussion already had taken place between the parties, or unwilling to confirm it, said: “No one has been and no one will be meeting with anyone from Northridge.

“The Clippers’ home is the L. A. Sports Arena, and that’s where we intend to keep it.”

At least until 1994. That is when the team’s 10-year lease with the Sports Arena expires.

Mininberg reiterated comments made by Athletic Director Bob Hiegert on Wednesday that talks between the school and the Clippers are at a preliminary stage.

“We talked about whether there was enough interest to have a meeting and the feeling was yes,” Mininberg said.

Northridge already has blueprints for a proposed 10,000-12,000-seat arena on campus. In recent months, Northridge officials have been investigating ways to fund such a project.