Coliseum Deal

* Re “Roski Presses Deal to Run Coliseum,” Feb. 9: The NFL may need Los Angeles, but Los Angeles does not need the NFL. The absence of professional football from the country’s second-biggest market may have lowered TV ratings a bit, but our city and county have not been harmed one whit. We will be harmed if we continue to tolerate elected officials meeting in secret with private entrepreneurs under pressure from artificial deadlines.

If Ed Roski and Eli Broad are so eager to make a deal with the NFL, let them. They can lease the Coliseum, if they choose, at a fair price. Let them build their own stadium if they wish, with their own money, at their own risk. But taxpayers should not subsidize them through tax breaks or by any other means.

MARILYN RYAN

IRWIN ROSTEN

Los Angeles

*

* I guess L.A. County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky is a true, blue UCLA Bruin. He is making sure USC gets stuck with a dilapidated stadium for its home games. I take deep pains as a UCLA alum to say that I apologize to USC for the non-Bruin-like conduct of Yaroslavsky.

MARIA OBENHAUS

Cerritos