Coliseum Seats Project Appears Off, Officials Say

The on-again, off-again Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum seating reconfiguration project appeared Tuesday to be off again, following an inconclusive meeting at City Hall between Mayor Tom Bradley and Coliseum Commission President Alexander Haagen.

Haagen--who just last week, at the mayor’s urging, had signed a letter of intent stating that the $9-million project to put retractable seats over the Olympic track and lower levels of the stadium would go forward this year--said after Tuesday’s meeting that he had informed Bradley it appears too late to do it after all.

Bradley’s press secretary, Ali Webb, said of the meeting: “All we can confirm is that it did take place. Otherwise, we have no comment.”

But Bradley’s close friend and political ally, labor leader and Coliseum Commissioner Bill Robertson, said that based on what Bradley had told him of his meeting with Haagen, “I don’t see any light at the end of the tunnel” as far as doing the work this year. “I think it’s dead in the water.”

Architectural Report

Robertson and Bradley have been strong proponents of doing the work in time for the beginning of the 1987 football season. But Haagen said he received an architectural report Tuesday morning from the Kansas City firm of Hellmuth, Obata & Kassabaum, known as HOK, saying that even under a “fast track” construction schedule, the work could not be finished until Oct. 15, two months after the Los Angeles Raiders are to begin their 1987 home football games.

In addition, Haagen said, he told the mayor there was no way the Coliseum Commission could even meet to consider an authorization for the project until next Wednesday, five days after a deadline laid down this week by the projected contractors, Tutor-Saliba Corp., for having the Commission’s final approval, a contract and a bank loan in hand.

Finally, Haagen said, he told Bradley that the Coliseum Commission had no financial wherewithal to guarantee a pay-back to any bank willing to loan the money for the project and that the refusal of the main Coliseum tenants, the Raiders and USC, to make the full guarantees called for under the letter of intent made it impossible to get a loan now.

“Tom (Bradley) was acting as a moderator only,” Haagen reported of Tuesday’s discussions. “He did not take the Raider-USC position or insist that we make these guarantees. He recited the positions on both sides, and didn’t take a position on either side.”

A Raiders’ spokesman declined comment on the latest developments in the Coliseum seating controversy. The Raiders have said they will not go ahead with their $8-million luxury suite project this year either if the reconfiguration does not go forward.

There was, however, one piece of good news for the Raiders on Tuesday. A Superior Court judge in Salinas ordered the city of Oakland to pay $2.8 million in legal fees and interest to attorneys who successfully defended Raiders’ owner Al Davis in his six-year fight to retain ownership of the team against an eminent domain suit from Oakland.

Oakland had tried to seize the team to prevent its move to Los Angeles. Later Tuesday, Oakland City Manager Henry Gardner noted Oakland has a projected budget deficit this year of $8 million to $10 million and that it will be very hard for it to scrape up the money to pay such an award.