Raiders--No ‘Huddle’ at the Coliseum

As Oakland officials Thursday unveiled new details of their offer to the Los Angeles Raiders to return to the East Bay city, the private managers of the Los Angeles Coliseum complained that the Coliseum Commission will not even meet to discuss how to keep the team from moving away.

Officials of the MCA Inc.-Spectacor Management Group business partnership, designated last year to manage the Coliseum, released a letter sent by Antonio G. Tavares, president of Spectacor, to Richard Riordan, president of the commission, saying the private managers have been seeking such a meeting for four weeks.

Tavares said that besides discussing the future of professional football at the Coliseum, he also wants to discuss an offer the managers have made to the Los Angeles Clippers basketball franchise to build a new indoor arena to replace the Sports Arena.

“Please accept this letter as a formal request for a meeting of the . . . commission,” Tavares wrote. “This formal request follows four frustrating weeks in which verbal requests for such a meeting to take place have proven unsuccessful.”

Tavares said he had traveled from Philadelphia to Los Angeles on Wednesday “because I thought this meeting had been set, and subsequently found out that communication problems allegedly exist that prevent this meeting from taking place.”

Riordan is traveling in Ireland and could not be reached for comment, but a Coliseum staff member said Thursday that there is no commission meeting scheduled until Oct. 4.

The commission has often been accused of helping to prompt the departure of previous tenants such as the Rams and the Lakers by dilly-dallying in negotiations. But in the Raider case, Riordan and other Coliseum officials have blamed a stalemate in talks on the failure of team owner Al Davis to sign a document guaranteeing that what is said in such talks won’t be used in pending litigation between the commission and the Raiders.

Riordan said Aug. 25 that he did not believe, in any event, that the Raiders would stay in the Coliseum and that if Sacramento or Oakland could deliver on their offers to entice the team, he thought one or the other city had them locked up.

Since then, both Sacramento and Oakland have enhanced their offers, but there has been no commitment by the Raiders to move. Davis told some interviewers at the end of August that he would make a decision in two weeks, but none has been announced.

Oakland officials said Thursday that under their offer, the Raiders would get revenues of $3.7 million a year from 83 luxury suites at the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum, would be guaranteed a cash payment of $54.9 million over 10 years, with $31.9 million payable by June, 1990, and would be guaranteed by the city annual sellouts of all seats for all home games in an expanded stadium for 10 years.

Critics in Oakland

However, the offer must go before the City Council and the Alameda County Board of Supervisors for approval and no vote is expected until October. Some critics complain that it would be wrong to put up such large sums of money to lure the Raiders back at a time when the Oakland school district has a $10-million deficit and has been taken under state trusteeship.

Oakland Mayor Lionel Wilson cautioned Thursday that there are “serious issues to be resolved” before the offer is formalized, namely a commitment by the Raiders to sign a long enough lease to guarantee repayment of municipal bonds used to finance the deal.

Davis’ unwillingness to sign long-term leases has complicated past negotiations with Los Angeles for renovating the Coliseum and keeping the Raiders in town.