Politicians Still Trying to Get Their Act Together

On behalf of Los Angeles, City Council members Joel Wachs, Nate Holden and Rita Walters delivered a message Tuesday to professional sports leagues and their owners. It said, “Closed For Business.”

With their proposed “City of Los Angeles Taxpayers Right to Vote Act,” they may have killed the downtown arena deal, told the NFL it’s better off doing business elsewhere and turned the Kings into orphans again.

If all you care about is our professional sports teams, the impact probably won’t be enormous. It won’t affect whether you’re able to see them play in the metropolitan area as much as where.

But if you’re among visionaries who saw the Lakers, Kings, an NFL team, a majestic new arena and a renovated Coliseum as crucial pieces in the revitalization of downtown Los Angeles, Tuesday was a cold day in August.

“It’s over,” King President Tim Leiweke said, expressing little hope the initiative won’t go to a vote.

If the city clerk and city attorney approve the language within the next 10 days, and if 61,100 registered voters sign petitions before Dec. 24, the act will be put on next June’s ballot.

Its passage would require another vote in November, 1998, to approve the city’s expenditure of $70.5 million in bonds for the $250-million arena.

Even if they win at the polls, developers Philip Anschutz and Ed Roski, who also own the Kings, could not open the arena until the 2000 season, a year behind schedule.

Because of deadlines involving financing and acquisition of the land, that’s too late for the developers.

“We’re frustrated,” Leiweke said. “For the first time, we’ve started to think that what others say is true, that you can’t do business with the city of Los Angeles.”

In fact, they couldn’t do business with three obstinate council members. Wachs in particular drove a hard bargain, one giving Los Angeles an extraordinary deal when Anschutz and Roski last Friday guaranteed repayment of the city’s $70.5 million over the course of the 25-year agreement.

I, for one, thought the developers would have backed out long before reaching that point. Wachs, who must be a poker player, deserves credit for recognizing how much the arena meant to them and insisting on the best deal possible for Los Angeles.

Anschutz and Roski believed he would respond as graciously as can be expected of a politician, declaring victory and moving on to the next crusade in the eventual campaign for higher office. Even if he pursued a ballot initiative pertaining to arenas and stadiums for pro sports teams, they believed their deal would be exempt because it was risk free.

Not so, they learned Tuesday.

“We were kicked in the face,” Leiweke said.

As much as I usually suspect the motives of developers, this initiative is unfair to Anschutz and Roski. It also is unfair to Los Angeles.

“City of Los Angeles Taxpayers Right to Vote Act” sounds like something our forefathers would have fought for.

When it refers to the “billionaire and megamillionaire owners” and the “multimillion dollar salaries” they pay their players and contends we shouldn’t subsidize them without a vote, there is really no argument.

Except for this one. It ties Los Angeles’ hands like no other’s when trying to attract sports teams and events.

Roski, who along with Anschutz have said they will commit $500 million to luring a pro football team to a made-over Coliseum, is scheduled to start meeting this weekend with NFL owners to discuss an expansion team for Los Angeles.

Some have already told him they won’t take Los Angeles seriously as a place for professional sports leagues to do business until they see an arena going up downtown.

Now, they can say, “I told you so.”

This has far-reaching implications, perhaps even affecting how Rupert Murdoch feels about the purchase he’s about to make. Without a new arena and a modern stadium, Los Angeles won’t be a player in bidding for the Olympics, World Cup soccer and the Final Four.

In regard to the Kings and Lakers, who were supposed to start play in the downtown arena in 1999, Leiweke said he sees Inglewood’s fingerprints all over the initiative.

“When you wade through all the politics of this, it looks to me like somebody’s trying to drive us back there,” he said.

Leiweke said he doubted Roski and Anschutz would go back.

Asked if they would sell the team, Leiweke said, “That’s an option. The level of frustration around here is very high.”

Maybe that’s an idle threat. Or maybe Wachs finally raised the stakes too high and ended the game.

If so, can anyone tell me what he won?