OXNARD : Council Extends Raiders Contract

The Oxnard City Council has extended for a year an agreement to keep the Los Angeles Raiders in Oxnard for their six-week summer training camp.

The agreement would remain binding regardless of where the Raiders play their regular season football games next year, city officials said.

The one-year agreement would allow the Raiders to pay $1 a year to hold summer training on city-owned land near the River Ridge Golf Course. Under the agreement, the team has the option of extending the contract every year for the next four years and a five-year extension after that.

In 1986, the Raiders built two football fields and a field house on the land. For its part, the city helped buy the property and solicit a developer to build the Radisson Suite Hotel, which has been used to house the football team and its staff.

Civic leaders originally sought to lure the Raiders to train in Oxnard in 1985 as a way to generate publicity for the city.

The football team and staff--a total of about 140 people--also spend about $500,000 a year in the city, mostly at restaurants and local shops, said Rob Varley, executive director of the Oxnard Convention and Visitors Bureau.

City officials also hoped the Radisson would generate enough revenue to help pay off a $9-million bond that the city issued to help buy the hotel land and develop its parking lot.

But because of an overly optimistic financial forecast and competition from nearby hotels, the Radisson was initially unable to pay its annual $985,000 rental payments to the city.

Robert Burk, director of sales and marketing for Radisson, has said that the city renegotiated the Radisson contract last year to include a new schedule for repaying the owed rent.