School District Sues Rams Over Practice Field : Football: Lease for use of facility in Anaheim has expired. The team is threatening to leave the city at the end of season.

The school district that owns the Los Angeles Rams’ practice facility filed suit Friday to evict the team because it has refused to sign a new lease.

The Magnolia School District filed the suit in Orange County Superior Court, asking that the team be forced to leave the former elementary school that was converted into “Rams Park” when the team arrived in town in 1979.

The team’s lease expired Dec. 31 and it has refused several offers made by the district and the city, which acts as the district’s agent under a complicated agreement.

“We’d be perfectly happy to keep the Rams as tenants, but not without a lease,” said Esther H. Wallace, acting president of the district’s Board of Trustees. “It wouldn’t be fair to the school district. We’ve offered them a pretty good deal.”

Rams Executive Vice President John Shaw refused to comment Friday on the suit and the lease. The team has told the city that on May 3 they will give notice that they may move out of Anaheim Stadium after the 1994 season. It is being courted by several cities, including Baltimore and St. Louis.

The city’s latest offer to the Rams for the practice facility would have had the city pay the teams’ $220,000 annual rent and would have allowed the team to break the 15-year agreement at any time by paying a $220,000 fee to the district. The city also would have paid half of the approximately $1.2 million cost of converting the facility back into a school if the Rams leave town after this season.

Anaheim City Atty. Jack L. White said the city supports the district’s lawsuit, and he is perplexed by the Rams refusal to accept the latest offer.

“I don’t understand how they can logically reject the offer,” White said. “There is no way they can get a better deal. . . . Now they’ve exposed themselves to paying attorney fees--not only their own, but the district’s and the city’s--and damages for (overstaying) their lease, not to mention the inconvenience and cost of moving.”