Seeing Red Over Silver and Black : Raiders: Some Oxnard leaders call deal that landed team’s training camp one of city’s worst.

It has been described by some Oxnard leaders as one of the worst deals in city history.

When city officials lured the Los Angeles Raiders’ summer training camp to Oxnard in 1985, promising the team a practice field and a hotel, they knew the team would never be a source of profit for the city--not directly anyway.

But civic leaders thought the football team would help put Oxnard on the national map, attracting tourists from as far as San Diego to watch the Silver and Black practice.

In a move that caught Oxnard officials by surprise, however, Raiders owner Al Davis erected a large black tarp around the entire practice field, preventing outsiders from watching the team train.

Meanwhile, the Radisson Suite Hotel, partly underwritten by Oxnard in exchange for playing host to the Raiders for six weeks in July and August, ended up costing the cash-strapped city almost $1 million annually and is currently in foreclosure.

The Raiders hold only one open practice a year in Oxnard--Raiders Family Day, which takes place today at Channel Islands High School.

Regardless of original expectations, some Oxnard leaders say they believe the annual visit by more than 100 Raiders players and officials has had a positive impact.

“I think the recognition that Oxnard has the Raiders is enough,” said Carol Lavender, executive director of the Greater Oxnard and Harbors Tourism Bureau. “(The Raiders) have press conferences from their training camp every day, and people all over the world know where Oxnard is now.”

But not everyone thinks Oxnard has gotten its money’s worth.

“I don’t see any direct commercial influence from the Raiders being here,” said Steven Kinney, president of the Greater Oxnard Economic Development Corp., a city-funded agency.

And one Oxnard official, who asked not to be identified, said that in a recent staff analysis of city projects, the Raiders deal was ranked as the worst ever.

William Fulton, a Ventura-based essayist on urban planning, said that Oxnard, like many smaller cities in the mid-1980s, exercised poor judgment when faced with the prospect of luring a major sports franchise.

“Al Davis was willing to take a deal from the city knowing full well that he didn’t want any tourists around. The city was too caught up in the mystique of having a major sports team to think effectively,” Fulton said.

“You have to remember that they’re businessmen, and they are looking to get the best of you, so you can’t get starry-eyed because they’re the Raiders.”

Fulton likened the 1985 Oxnard-Raiders deal to the current effort to build a minor-league baseball stadium in Ventura County, despite warnings that the facility could be a drain on city treasuries.

“Oxnard isn’t the first small city to get involved in a bad deal with a sports team,” Fulton said, “and it sure won’t be the last.”

Mayor Manuel Lopez, who was a City Council member at the time of the deal, said city officials expected a surge of tourism and publicity to follow the arrival of the Raiders. Name recognition has improved, he said, but the tourist dollars never materialized.

“We did not know the practices were going to be closed,” Lopez said. “We really expected the Raiders to be more a part of the community . . . but the Raiders have never lived up to that.”

Lopez added that city leaders also expected the hordes of journalists who cover the Raiders to stay in Oxnard, but most simply commute from Los Angeles every day.

In 1985, Oxnard sold $9 million in bonds to purchase land and build a parking lot near the River Ridge Golf Course, and solicited a developer to build the Radisson on city property to house the football team and its staff.

The Raiders built two football fields and a field house on the land. The team is charged a $1 yearly fee to use the field.

Oxnard officials originally hoped that the Radisson would generate enough revenue to pay off the bonds, but the hotel was unable to deliver its annual $985,000 payment, and the city has since had to foot most of the bill.

Oxnard renegotiated the Radisson deal in 1989, allowing the owners of the hotel, Westland Co. of Ventura, to pay a minimal annual rent of $30,000 the first year with steadily increasing payments again reaching $985,000 in 1999.

Westland Co. has made its minimal payments--about $300,000 over the past five years--in accordance with the new contract, city officials said.

However, the hotel owners currently face foreclosure after failing to repay $18.8-million in loans to Manufacturers Bank, and it is unlikely that they will ever be able to repay the city for the bond payments, city officials said.

Despite its problems, the Radisson is the busiest hotel in Oxnard, with an 80% occupancy rate in the past three months, said Vern Heitzenrader, the hotel’s general manager. He said the Raiders have always been good business for the hostelry, bringing in about $275,000 a year.

Unlike the practices of many professional football teams, Raider camps have been closed to the public since Al Davis took over the club in 1963, said Gil Lafferty Hernandez, the Raiders’ director of marketing. The secrecy allows the team to experiment with trick plays and new formations, safe from observation by opposing scouts, he said.

“We have never had an open practice to the public. We’ve always had the mystical black tarp around the field,” Hernandez said. “It’s part of the Raider mystique.”

For the Raiders’ rabid local fans, having the team in Oxnard is better than nothing--they can always mill around for autographs and catch a peek of the practices from several small openings in the infamous tarp.

“There’s a gate over there that opens just so wide. We just look through there,” said Ricky Guzman of Oxnard, 24, who brought his six nieces and nephews to the Radisson Friday in search of autographs. “You just have to try and see if you can see something.”

FYI

The Los Angeles Raiders will open their training camp to the public today during Raiders Family Day. The entire Raiders team, along with coach Art Shell and the Raiderettes, will sign autographs and pose for pictures. The free event will take place at Channel Islands High School, 1400 Raiders Way in Oxnard, beginning at 11:15 a.m. About 2,500 people attended last year’s event. For information call (310) 322-5901.