Seahawks Vow to Leave Seattle, Don’t Say Where

The Seattle Seahawks announced Friday that they are leaving their name, their logo and their uniforms behind, presumably to become the Los Angeles Whatevers once a tangle of lawsuits is resolved in Washington.

King County Superior Court Judge Dale Ramerman granted the county a 14-day restraining order and scheduled a Feb. 16 hearing to listen to arguments on whether to issue an injunction to keep the Seahawks from being moved or sold.

A legal technicality has already stopped Ken Behring, the Seahawks’ owner, from immediately pinpointing the Los Angeles area as the club’s destination, but team sources said that Behring will be coming to the city to make a deal and that they have been advised to make preparations to move here.

The Seahawks closed their administrative offices and practice facility Friday and changed the locks. Employees were told business would reopen at Rams Park in Anaheim. Anaheim city officials said they have yet to hear from the Seahawks, although Rams Park could be available for the team’s use as a practice headquarters and administrative center almost overnight.

Team sources said the coaching staff has been advised that the team will play its games, at least temporarily, in the Rose Bowl. But Al Moses, president of the Rose Bowl Operating Co., said that if the Seahawks called Friday, they got a recorded message because the Rose Bowl offices were closed.

“Mr. Behring has made it clear that he has decided to take the franchise out of the Northwest and head south to his home in California,” said King County Executive Gary Locke. Behring is a developer from Danville in the Bay Area.

“He made it absolutely clear that he is not interested in staying in town, no matter what the offer,” Locke said. “Mr. Behring insisted that he has not made any deals with any other party or city, that he has no place to play, does not know where he will be playing in California, but that he will not be playing in Seattle next year.”

So Seattle sued to keep him there.

The Seahawks fired back with their own lawsuit in Kittitas County, Wash., seeking a declaratory judgment to let them out of their Kingdome lease.

Behring told King County officials that a study he commissioned showed that the Kingdome needed $90 million in repairs to make it safe from an earthquake. As a result, he said, the Kingdome was no longer a first-class facility.

“It is with great regret that I am announcing today that the NFL franchise we purchased in 1988 is leaving Seattle,” Behring said in a video statement made available to the news media after the county took legal action. “This decision was an extremely difficult one to make and one that was not made in haste.

“In the end, however, the insurmountable problems with the Kingdome and the county’s unwillingness or inability to solve those problems made the decision for us. Many of our problems with the Kingdome have been well documented.”

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Behring offered to pay the county $1 million a year for 20 years and make the team’s practice facility available for public use in return for letting him out of his lease at the 20-year-old Kingdome. The county rejected the offer.

In his video statement, Behring cited “serious seismic concerns” with the Kingdome as grounds for leaving.

Behring said in closing his statement, “The Seahawks’ name, logo and heritage will remain in Seattle where they belong.”

King County officials came out swinging in a morning news conference after efforts to convince Behring to sell his team to local millionaire Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft Corp., failed.

“Today, the owners of the Seahawks announced their intention to leave Seattle,” said Norm Maleng, King County prosecutor. “And our response is simple: We will fight. Behring’s ploy is not the end of the battle. The battle has just begun. The owners of the Seahawks franchise have betrayed our trust, they have turned their backs on 20 years of loyal community service, they have broken their contract. It is illegal, it is wrong, and this shall not stand.”

While skirmish lines are being set in Seattle, Anaheim officials are ready to roll out the welcome mat.

“We would love to have [the Seahawks], but a deal has not been cut in Anaheim,” Councilman Bob Zemel said. “I think the city is prepared right now to begin negotiations with the Seahawks, as we are with any NFL team owner that is interested in Anaheim.”

Councilman Frank Feldhaus said, “I hope there is a way to make a deal. This is a good venue. But it’s premature for people to get all excited about it at this time.”

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But city officials did say that Rams Park, a former elementary school that the team used as its practice facility from 1979 until it left for St. Louis last year, is immediately available for an NFL team.

“Anaheim is ready to accommodate a team,” said Councilman Lou Lopez. “If [the Seahawks] want to use the school, they are welcome to it. We would welcome any team to Anaheim.”

Anaheim officials said the city has neither a signed nor an oral commitment with the Seahawks to use the facility, but they acknowledged that the team could move there as soon as this weekend.

Rams Park is on “a long list of amenities that the city has talked about to all teams at NFL meetings,” Zemel said. “It’s immediately available.”

But Paul Mercier, superintendent of the Magnolia Elementary School District, which owns the site, said Friday that he had not been informed of any plans for the team to take up residence there. For that to happen, he said, the city would have to come to an agreement with the school district, which had not been done as of Friday night.

When the Rams used the site, the school district leased it to the city and Anaheim subleased it to the football team. The lease expired in October, and the property reverted back to the school district.

Mercier said the school district still is in the process of closing the Rams’ lease, which includes stipulations that the team pay the costs of renovating the site to be used again as an elementary school, if it’s not used by a team.

On Friday, Rams Park was deserted. But one neighbor said he had seen some activity during the day.

“The city maintenance truck came out today,” said Scott Robertson, who lives two houses from the facility. “It’s the first time I’ve seen them out here since the Rams left.”

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After the Rams and Raiders left the Southland, the NFL identified four potential sites for a new football stadium in the Los Angeles area: Dodger Stadium, Hollywood Park, El Segundo and Anaheim.

Dodgers owner Peter O’Malley released a statement after Behring’s announcement, saying: “We are still moving ahead with our study to determine the feasibility of building a state-of-the-art football stadium on Dodger property. I continue to believe that the ideal way to bring the NFL back to Los Angeles is to introduce an expansion team at the grand opening of a dynamic and fan-friendly football stadium.”

R. D. Hubbard, chief operating officer at Hollywood Park, said: “We are pleased to hear that Los Angeles may once again be home for an NFL team. As soon as the team and the league are able to negotiate, we will be at the table.

“We are ready to give the football fans of L.A. a fantastic new stadium. We are ready to give the new team and the league the best facility ever built. And we’re ready now.”

The El Segundo site, near Los Angeles International Airport, captured Michael Ovitz’s fancy some time ago. Ovitz, now president of the Walt Disney Co., worked on behalf of Behring a year ago while he was still with the Creative Artists Agency. Some in the NFL believe Ovitz will eventually become a minority partner with Behring in Los Angeles.

Ovitz has not made himself available to the media, but a Disney spokesman said such a scenario is “absolutely untrue.”

The Seahawks are the fifth NFL team in the last year to move or state their intention of moving to another city.

“This madness in football of abandoning loyal fans simply must stop,” Locke said.

The NFL, which has demonstrated to date that it is powerless to keep a team from moving, also issued a statement.

“The Seahawks advised our office last week of their view that the Kingdome was unusable and unsafe due to seismic risks. This office is not in a position to determine whether there is a seismic risk in the Kingdome. We also are not in a position to determine whether the Seahawks’ stadium lease has been broken. As a result of the litigation filed today, both of these issues evidently will be determined by the courts.

“Until these matters are resolved, the team will remain in Seattle as far as the league is concerned. Any further comment at this point would be speculative. We will discuss this week’s events regarding the Seahawks at our previously scheduled league meeting” in Chicago next week.

The NFL anticipates voting on the Cleveland Browns’ proposed move to Baltimore next week, but King Country Prosecutor Maleng said the Seattle situation is different from those in Cleveland and in Houston, where the Oilers are planning to move to Nashville. The Browns have only two years remaining on their stadium lease and have no specific performance clause in their contract with the city. The Oilers’ lease on the Astrodome has expired.

Maleng said the county’s obligations have been met, in that the contract does not require what Locke called a “Taj Mahal” facility, only the maintenance and repair of the stadium so that it remains a first-class playing facility.

“All this talk about a seismic study is just a smoke screen,” Maleng said. “It’s grasping at a straw to try and sneak out of town.”

The NFL has a July 1995 agreement in hand, signed by all NFL owners--including Behring--that prevents any individual team owner from making a deal for a Los Angeles site without league approval.

The agreement, passed after the Raiders moved back to Oakland, states that the NFL would “collectively own and will control any league franchise opportunity in the greater Los Angeles area.”

“Mr. Behring gave his word to the National Football League that it would be the league that would decide which football franchise would move to Los Angeles,” Locke said. “And he gave his word to the people of our region by assuming a lease that keeps him here in the Kingdome for 10 more playing seasons.

“Well, we will do everything we can to keep Mr. Behring to his word. We will see Mr. Behring in court.

“Let us remember that last September, on the ballot, there was a minimum of $100 million to renovate the Kingdome. Mr. Behring refused to endorse that ballot proposition [which ultimately was defeated]. . . . One has to really seriously question whether or not Mr. Behring was ever serious about staying in Seattle.”

Behring, who has had a rocky relationship with the fans of Seattle, bought the team from the Nordstrom family in 1988. During his tenure the Seahawks have compiled a 46-66 record. They have not had a winning record since 1990, and have not been to the playoffs since 1988.

“I’m really depressed,” said John Nordstrom, who has led a business-community effort to negotiate a Kingdome renovation package with Behring.

“We worked so hard to bring the team here,” Nordstrom told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. “I’ve tried to work with Ken Behring and be a friend and not an adversary. We worked hard to get Ken on the same page, but it was all uphill. I couldn’t catch up.”

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And Seahawks guard Kevin Mawae, who bought a house in Seattle six months ago, told reporters: “It’s horrible. I signed a contract to play with the Seattle Seahawks and now I’m going to be with the Anaheim Somethings.”

Times staff writers Kim Murphy in Seattle and Greg Hernandez in Orange County contributed to this story.

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