Coliseum Panel to Huddle Over $60-Million Bid to Raiders

Pushing forward with its plan to keep the Raiders football team in Los Angeles, the Coliseum Commission will hold a special session Wednesday to consider approving the concept of a proposed deal and authorizing a formal offer to give the team a new Coliseum to play in and $60 million in cash over the next 10 years.

Meanwhile, as skirmishing continued over the historic preservation questions raised by the proposed demolition of most of the present Coliseum, it was revealed that Mayor Tom Bradley has summoned business leaders to City Hall on Monday to solicit their help in keeping pro football in the city.

Of Wednesday’s commission session, the group’s president, Richard Riordan, declared Friday: “I haven’t decided yet on whether it is to be an open meeting. We are having our lawyers advise us on that.”

Since becoming commission president last year, Riordan has held almost all discussions of Raiders matters and the future of the Coliseum in closed session. He and his eight fellow commissioners have cited the exception in the Brown Act, the state law that allows public meetings to be closed when litigation is being discussed.

They could argue they are still discussing litigation, even while voting whether to support the offer to the Raiders. One part of the proposed agreement the Coliseum’s private managers, Spectacor Management Group and MCA Inc., have been negotiating would be a payment of a possibly tax-free initial $20 million to the Raiders in “settlement” of the commission’s $57-million breach-of-contract lawsuit against the team.

But soon after Riordan spoke, Ray Girvigian, chairman of the state Historic Building Code Board and the architect who was instrumental in getting the Coliseum designated a state and national landmark in 1984, said he believes any meeting to discuss a deal that would result in the demolition of the existing Coliseum should be open to the public.

“This is a matter of public trust,” said Girvigian. “There is a possibility here of public giveaways. We’ve got a real deep problem here if they try to do it in private.”

Coliseum sources have maintained that ultimately only private money will be used in what could end up a $200-million venture in all, although they concede that initially the commission would be asked to put in $20 million of its own money, to be reimbursed later.

Raiders owner Al Davis has cautioned negotiators that he reserves the right to suggest further revisions in any formal offer authorized by the commission.

Girvigian and other state officials charged with protecting the state’s historic heritage, meanwhile, have said that under state law the Coliseum authorities would be required to submit their plans for state review before taking any action to demolish the facility and replace it with a new one.

However, the project review coordinator for the state’s Office of Historic Preservation, Hans Kreutzberg, said Friday that the law does not give state officials authority to finally stop demolition. He said that, after the review, the law doesn’t say what happens next if state officials want a project stopped and its promoters want it to go forward.

Riordan said Friday he has been told that the proposed reconstruction would not be impeded in any major way by historic preservation laws.

Other Coliseum sources, speaking on condition they not be identified, have said in recent days that the Coliseum Commission might seek state legislation to get around the historic preservation review, which can be protracted, or may simply try to abandon the landmark designation on its own.

The state officials said Friday a historic landmark cannot be “de-designated” by anyone but the historic preservation agencies.

In another development, Los Angeles County Supervisor Pete Schabarum, a member of the Coliseum Commission, let it be known he will oppose commission support for the offer being made to the Raiders.

Schabarum, who was critical of the first deal that brought the Raiders to Los Angeles from Oakland for a payment of $6.7 million and has been a bitter foe for years of team owner Davis, disclosed that, once again this year, the Raiders are late in paying their Coliseum rent for the season just completed, and that they still owe half of it.

Peter Lucco, the stadium’s general manager, confirmed this, but Lucco said he believes the matter has been worked out and “we expect payment in the next day or two.”

Meanwhile, there were these other developments in the Coliseum/Raiders situation:

- Deputy Mayor Mark Fabiani said that Bradley will announce a new initiative designed to “maintain professional football in Los Angeles” on Monday, after meeting with the business leaders. There were also unconfirmed reports that Davis would meet with Bradley on Monday.

- USC Athletic Director Mike McGee said he does not believe the Rose Bowl would be a feasible playing site for regular-season USC games during a Coliseum reconstruction because of restrictions on use of that stadium by the city of Pasadena.

“It is so preliminary at this point that we have not given any serious consideration to any alternative site at this point,” McGee said. Sites mentioned by other sources for USC and Raider playing alternatives include Anaheim Stadium and Dodger Stadium.