Irate Owner Threatening to Move Angels

California Angels owner Jackie Autry on Thursday threatened to move the team when its lease at Anaheim Stadium expires in 2001, angrily blaming city officials for the collapse of a deal that would have finalized Walt Disney Co.’s purchase of the ballclub.

But Anaheim officials reaffirmed their commitment to keeping the Angels in town past the team’s lease, even as many civic and sports leaders said they are prepared to shift the focus of their efforts to bringing professional football back to the county.

After weeks of around-the-clock negotiations with the city, Disney announced Wednesday that it had dropped plans to buy controlling interest in the Angels because of an impasse with the city over sharing the cost of stadium renovations and other issues. The decision, just four days before a Disney-imposed deadline to reach an agreement, now has owners Gene and Jackie Autry searching for another buyer.

Infuriated at the city, Jackie Autry said in an interview with The Times that she will consider moving the team when its lease expires in 2001 and that Hollywood Park Chairman R.D. Hubbard has expressed interest in building the team a baseball-only stadium in Inglewood. She said there were other parties interested as well but declined to elaborate.

Autry said she believes the collapse of talks between Disney and the city boiled down to one major issue: professional football.

“I’ve come to realize that Anaheim wants football more than baseball,” Autry said. “This has to do with the fact that the city wants football to be played in the current stadium. They realized they couldn’t get [a team] to play there if Disney began renovations.”

She lamented the city’s plans for Sportstown Anaheim, a multimillion-dollar sports, retail and entertainment complex that would surround Anaheim Stadium and link it to the Pond arena nearby.

There are no known investors for the project, which the city hopes to use to attract a football team to replace the Rams franchise, which left for St. Louis last year. The Seattle Seahawks will begin practice Monday at Rams Park, and with the team’s owner anxious to move to Southern California, city officials hope to lure the team to Anaheim permanently.

Sportstown and the city’s hopes for a new professional football team were said to be two of the biggest issues that Disney and the city could not reconcile.

Jackie Autry said Thursday that Disney officials told her the city wanted the company to commit to a 33-year lease for the Angels, while the entertainment giant wanted a 15-year lease.

She said other sticking points were the city’s insistence on reserving the right to impose an admission tax on tickets at the Big A and on revenue from events from a second stadium, if it were to be built.

Anaheim Councilman Bob Zemel said the city is not favoring football over baseball.

“We believe a purchaser [for the Angels] will come forward and give her what she wants and allow the city to move forward,” Zemel said.

“We are there for [Autry], willing to work with her and help her,” Zemel said. “The entire council wants to make sure the Angels are satisfied after all this is over.”

Said Mayor Tom Daly: “The Angels have played in Anaheim for 30 years, they are the major tenant at Anaheim Stadium and they are the priority.”

Autry said she envisions several problems arising from the construction of Sportstown, including parking and concession revenue, particularly if a football team is added to the mix.

“We’ll make sure that the next [Angel] owner complies with the lease until 2001 and that the city complies with a 1994 legal judgment, which says they can’t touch any element of our parking lot without our consent, which means the soonest they can touch our facility is 2003.”

Referring to the uncertainty of landing a football team, Autry said the city “doesn’t realize that their primary anchor for Sportstown has to be a baseball club. I think they are living in a vacuum.”

“There’s blame to be laid at both parties’ feet,” she said. “It’s going to take some third party to try to get them back together into the room.”

American League President Gene Budig hopes to be that third party. He spoke with both Walt Disney Co. and Anaheim officials Thursday morning in an attempt to revive the negotiations.

“We’ve encouraged continued dialogue and we will continue to do so,” Budig said. “The [Angels] are a valued member of the American League and we believe Disney would be especially good for its future. We also believe that Disney has much to offer major league baseball.”

But both city and Disney officials said Thursday that nothing has changed.

“We have no official meetings planned,” said Disney Sports Enterprises spokesman Bill Robertson. “The ball is in the city of Anaheim’s court.”

City spokesman Bret Colson said, “At this point, we consider the negotiations to be ended and we’ve received no word to the contrary.”

Several sources confirmed Thursday that the City Council’s decision to reject Disney’s final offer was unanimous. The council had earlier been split on issues such as renovation costs and stadium revenue.

City Hall operators fielded dozens of telephone calls Thursday, with opinions split over whether the city had made the right decision in rejecting Disney’s offer to pay for 70% of a $100-million renovation to the Big A, which would have been turned into a more intimate, baseball-only venue, Colson said.

County Supervisor William G. Steiner, whose district includes Anaheim, said he is optimistic about professional sports in Orange County despite this week’s developments.

“I’m not surprised the deal fell apart,” Steiner said. “I know there was a great deal expected from both sides and there was a lot of strong will involved. Any time there is strong will involved, you’re in jeopardy in terms of closing a deal.”

Former Disneyland President Jack Lindquist, who had publicly urged the council to make a deal with Disney, questioned the city’s decision.

“To me, I’ll take something that you have over something that you might get in the future if a whole lot of things fell into place,” Lindquist said. “I really doubt that anybody would make a better offer.”

But prominent sports agent Leigh Steinberg, who was a leading member of the local group that attempted to keep the Rams in Anaheim before the team left for St. Louis last year, disagreed.

“The key in all of this to me is Sportstown,” Steinberg said. “It’s an idea that is so cutting edge that we’re lucky no one else has gotten to it first. Once the teams are in place, it becomes a magnet for investment.”

City officials said that although Disney’s offer may have seemed generous on the surface, it would have forced the city to compromise too many of its plans for the future and possibly dig into the city’s reserve funds without a guaranteed way of making their investment back.

“I can just assure the community that we did not give up and we did not walk away from our commitment to baseball,” Zemel said. “What we did was say no to a deal that just simply could not be done. If community leaders had the transaction laid out in front of them, I think they could clearly see there was a difference in vision.”

Anaheim officials say their top priority is keeping the Angels in Anaheim for decades to come, despite this week’s setback.

“The Angels have played in Anaheim for 30 years, they are the major tenant at Anaheim Stadium and they are the priority,” said Mayor Daly.

Said Councilman Frank Feldhaus: “I feel bad for Gene and Jackie Autry because I know they were counting on this deal going through. I’m confident that something can be worked out with another purchaser of the ballclub or with Disney itself.”

Disney would have put up $30 million for the Angels now, and the rest of the $120-million price tag after the death of Gene Autry, who is 88.

Former baseball Commissioner Peter Ueberroth, who was negotiating with the Autrys before the Disney deal was announced, is reportedly ready to resume talks with the owners.

Still, it is not known how much a new buyer would be willing to put into stadium renovations. City officials concede that they will have to invest in a face-lift for the 30-year-old stadium, but some say privately that it can probably be done for less than the $100 million that Disney had in mind.

But regaining a National Football League franchise remains a goal for the city.

The city hopes to begin talks with Seattle Seahawks owner Ken Behring this spring over possibly bringing his team to Anaheim next season. Behring has stated that he wants to relocate his team to a Southern California city if he wins legal battles with Seattle and the state of Washington.

Behring is scheduled to meet with business leaders next week, said Frank Bryant, president of the Orange County NFL Booster Club.

“There’s not an agenda,” Bryant said. “It’s more social. We have no strong, preconceived ideas but are not restrained [to talk with Behring] like the city is. We also have the attitude that if [the Seahawks] make the decision to come here, we want to welcome them and work with them.”

The Seahawks are also scheduled to begin practicing at Rams Park on Monday, said Magnolia Elementary School District Supt. Paul Mercier.

The school district owns Rams Park, the site of a former elementary school, and held meetings with both city and Rams officials Thursday. Mercier said they appear to have cleared the path for the team to begin practices.

Although a formal lease has not been signed, the team can begin using the site through a “letter of understanding” signed by Mercier.

Steinberg said, “I think the future for professional sports in Orange County is very rosy. The critical factor in some ways is getting a professional football team and there seems to be an owner interested.”