CALIFORNIA COMMENTARY : Time Out on Coliseum Repairs : Why the rush to spend unknown millions on this white elephant? Why not build a new stadium --somewhere else?

Now I’m just a girl who has been to the Coliseum only when Notre Dame played USC, so I don’t pretend to be a sports fanatic. But I do smell something funny in the way we are racing to throw public money into rebuilding the earthquake-damaged Coliseum.

Let’s think about it. Just because there was a stadium built in Exposition Park in the 1920s, does it makes sense in the 1990s to keep pouring money into what might be just an antiquated and seldom-used white elephant?

The race to spend the money is based on the presumption that it will somehow ensure that the Raiders will play here next fall. Even a non-sports-nut like me knows that we have no guarantees. We could spend millions, and they might take their footballs and helmets to Baltimore, Hartford or St. Louis.

Last year, $15 million was spent renovating the stadium. Even then, the Raiders filled all the seats only a few times.

Another reason for putting money into the Coliseum, some argue, is that it is good for the neighborhood. A drive around the Coliseum calls that into question. The acres of empty parking lots contribute to the urban blight that plagues the area. On the few days of the year when thousands flock to see the boys play ball, they do not spend money dining or filling hotels in the neighborhood. At best, part-time parking-lot employees, concession workers and local residents who rent their front yards for parking may make a few bucks. But a jewel of urban development, the Coliseum has not been.

With the pell-mell rush to throw millions more into the Coliseum, it begins to look like some slick operators are taking advantage of a semihysteria to return everything in Los Angeles to just the way it was before the earthquake. Making it worse is that the construction company that has gotten a blank check from the Coliseum Commission to do the repairs, Tutor-Saliba, is the same company whose performance in building Metro Rail has been questioned. The company also has had questions raised about its lavish political and personal-luxury spending.

Let’s look at the sequence here. On Feb. 9, the City Council voted to spend $10 million of our federal earthquake relief to immediately start renovating the Coliseum. The vote came before members knew how much damage had been done and what the ultimate cost might be.

Then, on Monday, the Coliseum Commission voted to give a repair contract without any public bids and without knowing how much it might cost. The only elected official on the commission who had the common sense to vote “no” was County Supervisor Yvonne Burke.

On Tuesday, the City Council had some second thoughts. Led by Nate Holden and with support from Zev Yaroslavsky, a majority of the council tried to go on record as criticizing the move to repair the Coliseum without a fair bidding procedure. But Council President John Ferraro, who in his youth gained fame as a USC football star in the Coliseum, would have none of that. To reconsider would have taken a two-thirds vote; Ferraro lined up a few others and killed the proposal.

Having been to this point publicly quiet on the issue, Mayor Richard Riordan told the League of Women Voters on Wednesday that the issue of the Coliseum was “was one of those things where we should stand back and take a look,” but that pressure groups had gotten involved.

Riordan should not buckle under to those pressure groups. He should support Burke and the majority of the council in asking the Coliseum Commission to vote for reconsideration. Political leaders worked hard to get those federal funds for California; let’s not squander them.

The three Coliseum owners--the city, state and county--should appoint a group of smart people, including some non-sports-fanatics, who could make a decision that was good for the long-term interests of Los Angeles. The earthquake money might be the leverage we need to build a new stadium for the 21st Century. Maybe that stadium should be in a new location.

It’s a long time since 1958, when small-town Los Angeles lured the Dodgers here as an expression that the city had arrived. St. Louis and Baltimore may need teams to remind the country they are on the map. We do not.