Irwindale OKs $115-Million Raiders Loan

The City of Irwindale late Wednesday approved an amended agreement with the Los Angeles Raiders to loan the professional football team $115 million, and city negotiators said they were traveling to Oxnard immediately to sign an agreement with Raiders owner Al Davis to carve a 65,000-seat stadium out of a rock and gravel pit.

But Raiders officials refused to say the deal had been made.

Reached at Raiders pre-season training headquarters in Oxnard, Raider senior executive John Herrera said:

“We were obviously participants in that council meeting. There are several offers on the table from various places. We haven’t taken any of them yet. They had to get their proposal in order and obviously they have done that.”

Asked Wednesday night if the Raiders were committed to signing the deal, Herrera responded, “No, absolutely not.”

City officials said they had a check already drawn for $10 million and would hand that to the Raiders when they meet today.

Xavier Hermosillo, one of the city’s chief negotiators, said he was sure the deal would be made.

“We will have a deal with the Raiders before the sun shines in the morning,” he said. In a 3-1 vote, with one council member hospitalized and not voting, the council agreed to loan the Raiders $10 million in up-front forfeitable cash that Davis said he wanted before he would build a stadium and team headquarters in the little industrial city.

The cash advance had been a chief obstacle to a signed agreement, with two council members unwilling to risk advancing the money.

Wednesday’s council meeting, which dealt with the single issue of the cash advance, took nearly three hours during which the last holdout, Councilman Robert Diaz, was lobbied by his mother, close family friends and other members of the audience.

Diaz wanted the $10 million advance to be given on condition that the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors approve a plan for a parking lot adjacent to the stadium site, which is owned by the Corps of Engineers and leased by the county.

“I don’t think I can go out and risk $10 million without an agreement on the parking lot from the county,” he said.

But city officials pleaded with Diaz that such a condition would effectively kill the deal.

Fred Light, Irwindale’s chief negotiator, said, “You’ve got it on your shoulders, Robert.” “It’s tonight or never,” Hermosillo said. “You make it or you break it tonight.”

The Raiders have explored several playing alternatives since plans collapsed in April for improvements to the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, the team’s current home. For weeks, sources close to the team said Davis had narrowed his choices to Irwindale, Inglewood’s Hollywood Park, and the City of Oakland.

In a vote two weeks ago, the Irwindale City Council agreed to loan the Raiders--who are presently headquartered in El Segundo--$115 million to build the stadium, practice field, administratrive headquarters and a Raiders Hall of Fame.

The $10 million front money, plus an additional $10 million that will be forwarded to the Raiders upon the approval of a Nov. 3 general obligation bond vote, would be part of that loan.

The Raiders would own the structures and repay the city through the stadium’s cash flow over a long-term lease.