NFL Fails to Score Touchdown With the Governor

Gov. Gray Davis is prone to punctuate strong statements with little gestures. So when I asked whether he could see spending state money to help return pro football to Los Angeles, he leaned across a table, stared at me intently and held up his thumb and index finger in a circle.

“Zero,” he exclaimed. “Getting another pro football team in California is not in my top 100 priorities.”

Several state legislators and L.A. politicians previously had spoken out against using public funds for pro football. But the governor had remained silent until I asked him Tuesday.

Because two of his biggest political backers--billionaire Eli Broad and grocery magnate Ron Burkle--are among the moguls competing to bring an expansion team to Los Angeles, the National Football League apparently believes Davis might be ripe for squeezing. Prodded by the NFL, which has been spoiled by government subsidies, Broad is talking about a $67-million handout and Burkle’s partner, former super-agent Michael Ovitz, is fantasizing about $225 million.

They shouldn’t waste a phone call to the governor.

“Hey, they’re entitled to invest in anything they want,” Davis declares.

“Do I think it’s a bad thing if a team comes to L.A.? No. Am I willing to be helpful in ways other than spending state money? Yes.” But he notes the state didn’t pony up for pro football stadiums in San Diego or San Francisco.

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The Coliseum is different, however, because the state owns it and the rest of Exposition Park, with its four museums. So Davis does foresee the possibility of helping a new team indirectly.

“Am I open to expenditures that might serve the legitimate purposes of those other very important assets?” he again asks rhetorically. “Yes, if they are reasonable. Could they have some marginal benefit to a refurbished Coliseum? Conceivably.”

But he vows not “to do anything that diminishes the appeal or effectiveness” of those museums. “Quite the contrary.”

Indeed, Davis thinks the NFL should be more politic and less greedy--not so demanding of tax dollars and intrusive parking garages. He equates the process to “a developer who wants to build in a community and has to go around, like a politician, to all the neighbors to find out what he can do to enhance the neighborhood so they will support his project.”

“And that’s the attitude I think the NFL ought to take to Exposition Park.”

After all, Davis says, the upfront money--franchise fees, remodeling costs--is “chicken feed” compared to the long-term benefit to the NFL from pocketing local TV revenues. The NFL “absolutely” needs L.A. more than L.A. needs the NFL, he asserts, echoing apparent public sentiment.

“This is a different deal out here. We didn’t pay for the [1984] Olympics. If you want to come here, we’ll be delighted to have you. But we’re not clamoring. We’re not going to do cartwheels.”

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Anyway, this is not football season at the Capitol--it’s budget season. I walked in on Davis as he sat at the end of a long table, studying budget documents.

His top priority now is to get a budget enacted by the July 1 deadline--a feat that hasn’t been accomplished since 1993--while preventing fellow Democrats from committing his administration to permanent spending increases just because there’s a temporary surplus of $4.3 billion.

“You know, this surplus is a one-time gift from God,” Davis says, raising both hands to the ceiling, his head tilted back with eyes cast skyward. “I don’t anticipate $4.3 billion raining down on us next year. If it happens, great. But I don’t want to be in a position where it has to happen.”

The governor wants to spend much of this windfall on one-time projects--a new prison, road repairs, updated textbooks--while rebuilding the state reserve. Legislative leaders prefer to increase local government aid and pour more money into health care for the poor.

“It falls to someone to develop priorities and to rein in unbridled spending,” Davis says. Then he goes into another gesture, leaning first to the left then the right: “We’re not going to go too far over here or too far over there.”

“You know,” he adds, “there’s a reason why more governors of this state have looked and acted like me than Jerry Brown or Ronald Reagan. They were the exceptions rather than the rule. Most governors were good stewards. They kept the state out of trouble. . . .

“Here’s the point: Nobody believed what I said in the campaign. I’m doing exactly what I said I was going to do. I got elected charting a centrist course, and that’s the course I’m going to follow.”

And, as Davis quickly points out, the voters never asked him to spend tax dollars on billionaire football team owners.