Debate Over New Arena and Stadium

* Arena mania seems to be causing some bizarre ideas to take hold of our city. First is the notion that a sports arena will bail out the Convention Center by somehow attracting a major hotel and lot of shiny new retail to the area. Could someone please explain how the occasional sporting event that attracts mainly a local population will be just the ticket for keeping a big new hotel’s rooms full? How are restaurants and shops supposed to break even with major customer traffic on just a few days a week?

Lastly, why this obsession with sports? If the city wants to subsidize a downtown revitalization with taxpayer money, shouldn’t we be examining other themes than just professional sports?

KENT STRUMPELL

Los Angeles

* Once again the taxpaying citizens of Los Angeles are being conned into providing financial support for a professional athletic team. The mayor’s office and City Council are proposing a $60-million or $70-million bond issue to fund a private enterprise and build an arena for privately owned athletic teams (Sept. 6).

Why should the public foot the bill for the robber barons who own the professional teams? If they can afford to pay outlandish salaries for their players, charge outrageous prices for tickets and receive enormous revenues from television, why can’t they build their own facility?

The city and county are both in desperate financial straits. Funds are needed to keep the hospitals open, staff the new jails, expand the overcrowded school system, take on the new welfare requirements, repair the streets and other infrastructure, ad nauseam, and here are our elected officials worrying about new stadiums!

HAROLD A. HAYTIN

Los Angeles

* I want to applaud Bill Boyarsky for weighing in on the debate regarding the Los Angeles Coliseum’s “neighborhood” (Sept. 12). If the NFL’s neo-brand approach to “redlining” were practiced by any other private entity, there would be a massive call for legislation to end the practice.

As Boyarsky points out, facts belie the unsafe stereotype. Interesting that an organization that romanticizes and relies upon statistics and factoids would ignore Los Angeles Police Department data.

MIKE ROOS

Coliseum Commissioner

Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum