News of the Arroyo

Title:	Coliseum offered as alternative to Rose Bowl
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Date:	2003-05-06
Summary:	May 6, 2003 - The Coliseum is back in the picture as a potential for an NFL franchise. LA officials admit they are badly trailing Pasadena and the Rose Bowl in luring the professional football league back to this region after eight years of absence. LA Councilwoman Jan Perry says, ""I think they don't realize the extent of NIMBYism they might find in Pasadena. I am not sure the people who live around the Rose Bowl will want professional football there."
Author:	Rick Orlov, Staff Writer
Publication:	Pasadena Star News
Content:	Panel calls play for NFL\'s return Conceding it is badly trailing the efforts of Pasadena to lure a professional football team, a Los Angeles city panel on Monday again sought to revive the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum as a possible home for the National Football League. \"Right now, we aren\'t even at the table,\' conceded Councilman Bernard C. Parks, in whose district the Coliseum is located. \"But, it is up to us as elected officials to make sure that the Coliseum is considered if the NFL is coming back to the Los Angeles area, as it looks like it will.\' The first step by Parks was getting the City Council\'s Ad Hoc Stadium Committee to back the Coliseum, which it did in a 3-0 vote, and now move the issue before the City Council and Coliseum Commission for support. Holding a football from the ill- fated L.A. Extreme under his arm, Parks said he is considering whether he should attend an NFL owners meeting later this month in Philadelphia, where Pasadena officials are scheduled to make a formal presentation of their proposed $450 million Rose Bowl face lift. Rose Bowl officials have kept the Los Angeles region in the forefront with the NFL over the past year, bringing in John Moag, who was instrumental in getting a team in Baltimore and pulling off other NFL deals, as a consultant. Pasadena officials are focused on that goal as well. \"Los Angeles needs to look at its own future and what it needs to do, just as we do,\' said Darryl Dunn, general manager of the Rose Bowl. \"Our approach is to deal with the league, and that\'s what we are doing.\' Patrick Lynch, general manager of the Coliseum, said he believes Los Angeles needs to take a similar approach in laying out what it could do to privately finance the remodeling of the Coliseum and lay out the benefits of the Exposition Park area. Lynch said the Coliseum Commission, aided by a lawsuit filed by the Oakland Raiders against the NFL, has been able to track nearly every lease and deal signed by existing teams and develop a financing plan to pay for any remodeling of the Coliseum. Mayor James Hahn said the lack of any public money was a key issue. \"I do support the Coliseum as being the best place for professional football,\' Hahn said, adding that his support for another site in downtown Los Angeles was based on representations by the NFL that it would not return to the Coliseum. \"The only point is that I will not support use of public money for the NFL.\' Assemblyman Mark Ridley- Thomas, D-Los Angeles, who preceded Parks on the council, announced that he has introduced a measure to give an NFL team a five-year tax credit if it locates in the Coliseum. If approved, he said, it would provide an incentive to a team to move to Los Angeles or for the league to place an expansion team in the city. Part of the problem is continuing to overcome the NFL\'s attitude toward the area around the Coliseum, Councilwoman Jan Perry said, as well as making the league aware of potential problems in Pasadena. \"I think the league has failed to recognize all the changes to this area,\' Perry said, citing nearly $1 billion in improvements made or planned for Exposition Park, including a science magnet school, libraries and cultural centers. She added that Pasadena residents\' \"not-in-my-back-yard\' attitude might surprise league officials. \"I think they don\'t realize the extent of NIMBYism they might find in Pasadena. I am not sure the people who live around the Rose Bowl will want professional football there.\' -- Rick Orlov can be reached at (213) 485-3720.
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