Coliseum Panel to Try to Talk Davis Out of Move

The embattled Coliseum Commission, meeting in a special closed-door session to discuss the Los Angeles Raiders’ announced plan to move to Irwindale, decided Wednesday to hire new attorneys and make another attempt at talking team owner Al Davis into remaining at the Coliseum.

“We didn’t want to send bad vibes to the Raiders,” said Coliseum General Manager Joel Ralph after the two-hour meeting. “It is our strong feeling that the Irwindale deal may not fly. We want to try to talk to Davis again.”

When he announced the Irwindale move last Friday, Davis said emphatically that he does not want any more talks with the Coliseum commissioners. The same day, his attorney sent the commission an $18.5-million claim for damages, saying that the commission had reneged on promises to him.

Won’t Press Claim

Ralph said the commission had decided, for now, not to press any counter damage claim against the Raiders, despite its feeling that the Raiders should pay for repairs to the stadium resulting from Davis’ abandonment of a luxury box construction project last February.

The commission’s new attorneys in the Raiders matter are former City Atty. Burt Pines and Marshall Grossman, a former California coastal commissioner and former head of the community relations committee of the Jewish Federation Council of Greater Los Angeles.

Grossman, who has a reputation as a tough attorney, said Wednesday night that his first mission now is to try to reopen a dialogue with Davis, although he also said his firm will represent the Coliseum Commission in litigation against him, if it comes to that.

Commission President Alexander Haagen, resurfacing after five days out of public view since the announcement of the Raiders’ agreement to move to Irwindale, had drafted a statement to read to the press, but at the request of his fellow commissioners did not issue it.