Councilman Holden Turns This Festival Into Sideshow

The sun was shining, the executives were beaming and the bulldozers were bulldozing. It seemed like a perfect day for the movers and shakers of the Staples Center, who held a news conference Friday at the Los Angeles Convention Center to announce that the Clippers would be joining the Lakers and the Kings in the new building.

Then with a roar and a rumble, along came Nate to crash the party and find the nearest camera.

What would a Los Angeles news conference be without Nate Holden? We may never know as long as he is a City Councilman.

Holden was warning that the addition of the Clippers to a building that will already house the Lakers and Kings will create monumental traffic jams. He was threatening to go to court to reverse the council decision to approve a $70-million bond measure for the new arena because the vote was “illegal.”

“This place will become a mothball,” he said, pointing to the Convention Center. “We can’t have a competitive convention here. How are we going to pay off the debt? We are going to have to default on the bonds. This place will go dark. Oh boy. It all falls back on the taxpayers. They are the ones who are going to pay.”

Tim Leiweke, executive vice president of the new arena, had an answer for Holden about his traffic concerns.

“You get 350,000 people into downtown every workday,” Leiweke said, “and 350,000 people out of downtown. I’m sure we can figure a way to get 20,000 people in and out of the arena at night. . . . We’ll get Nate Holden a limo to and from the Staples Center so he can avoid the traffic.”

Just make sure he isn’t asked to avoid the glare of the spotlight.