L.A. Council Wants Action on Seahawks

While NFL owners gather here to vote on the Cleveland Browns’ move to Baltimore and to talk about the Seattle Seahawks’ jump to the Southland, battle lines were being formed in Los Angeles.

Seven of the 15 members of the Los Angeles City Council urged Mayor Richard Riordan on Wednesday to “work more aggressively and effectively” to bring the Seahawks to the Coliseum, rather than let the team play in the Rose Bowl or Anaheim.

“It is disturbing to see officials from nearby Anaheim Stadium and the Pasadena Rose Bowl enthusiastically trying to lure the Seahawks to their venues while less action is evident from your task force,” the council members told Riordan in a letter.

“It is urgent that the political and business leadership close ranks and rally for the Coliseum site,” they said, citing jobs, prestige and recreational opportunities afforded by having a new team in Los Angeles.

The letter, signed by Mark Ridley Thomas, Rita Walters, Nate Holden, Mike Hernandez, Jackie Goldberg, Ruth Galanter and Laura Chick, called for the City Council to form an ad hoc football franchise committee to aggressively work with the NFL.

Riordan established such a committee--Football LA--months ago, but there are several council members who have expressed disenchantment with the mayor’s group because of its willingness to accept the NFL’s rejection of the Coliseum as permanent site for a new team.

Steve Soboroff, vice chairman for Football LA, said, “Had the people who signed that resolution digested the facts, facts not only readily available to the public, but given the courtesy of a phone call to one of us, they then would no more have put this kind of resolution through the City Council than the man on the moon.”

Soboroff, along with Riordan and John Ferraro, president of the City Council, met with Seahawk owner Ken Behring earlier this week and told him he must choose a permanent site for his team in Los Angeles County or he will get no support from Riordan and Football LA. At that meeting they did not rule out a renovated Coliseum as a permanent site.

While Behring, Seattle and the Los Angeles area are probably another two or three NFL owners meetings away from resolving their situation, the framework is in place to send the Browns to Baltimore, without their nickname and colors.

Negotiations among selected NFL officials, the city of Cleveland and Modell continued into the evening. The talks come on the eve of the meeting at which the owners are finally expected to formally discuss the move. A vote is expected Friday.

Modell probably will get approval from the owners for the move. There appear to be only four negative votes, half the number needed to block it.

Even Jack Kent Cooke, owner of the Washington Redskins, appears ready to to support a move that would put a team only 30 miles from his proposed new stadium in the Maryland suburbs.

Staff writer Kenneth Reich contributed to this report.