Arena Lacks Support, Private Poll Finds

City voters do not support spending taxpayer funds on a privately owned and operated sports arena at the Los Angeles Convention Center, according to Loyola Marymount University poll findings released Monday.

Only two of the poll’s 70 questions, involving 20 issues, touched on the sports arena proposal; much of the survey, conducted last week by the university’s Center for the Study of Los Angeles, focused on questions that voters will decide in November or in next spring’s municipal elections, said the center’s director.

“These results do not resolve the question,” said Fernando J. Guerra, director of the center and associate professor of political science and Chicano studies. But they do indicate that additional information could be gleaned “with a new survey that would ask several more questions” that could sound voters out on what they do or do not like about the arena proposal, he added.

But the two questions--and the voter skepticism they seem to tap--do provide some guideposts for the City Council, which is scheduled to vote today on arena project opponents’ call to commission an independent, professionally conducted public opinion survey before making a binding decision on the project.

Arena developers--owners of the NHL’s Los Angeles Kings--say they need the city’s decision by Oct. 15 or they will pursue a competing bid by the city of Inglewood to keep the Kings in town, where they currently share the Forum with the Lakers. The NBA team owner has signed an agreement to join the Kings in a new arena--whether in Downtown Los Angeles or at Hollywood Park in Inglewood--for 25 years.

In the poll, 400 randomly selected city voters were asked last week whether they would “support or oppose the construction of a new sports arena for basketball and ice hockey next to the Los Angeles Convention Center.” Opponents outnumbered supporters 55% to 32%, with about 13% saying they had no opinion.

On the second question, which asked voters how they would regard the project if visitors picked up the entire share of the city’s tab through a hotel tax, answers were about evenly divided. Forty-three percent still said no to the arena project, while 45% said they would support it under those circumstances.

The poll has a margin of error of from 3 to 5 percentage points in either direction; likely voters were defined as anyone who had voted in at least one of the last four statewide elections or who had registered after the most recent, in November 1994, Guerra said.

The city is being asked to provide $60.5 million in bond proceeds to acquire and clear land for the $200-million, privately financed arena. But that does not take into account other city expenses, including the annual $5 million to $7 million for 25 years it would take to pay off the bonds. Total taxpayer-funded amounts would be well over $200 million, city fiscal officials acknowledge. Arena owners would keep all of the profits, including advertising rights and parking revenues.