Coliseum Press Box

* Paul W. Bernstein (letter, Aug. 18) asks, “Is Commissioner Sheldon Sloan, a lawyer, more of an expert than John F. Hall, a Caltech engineer? How can he say that enough has been done to satisfy critics of the press box work?”

My bio and qualifications are available by request from the Los Angeles County Bar Assn. (of which I am the president). My qualifications include being a retired judge and holding a general contractor’s license from the state of California.

My statement was made after I inquired, in a public session of the Coliseum Commission, of the president of Smith-Emery, the leading inspection company in California; Nabil Youseff, the leading structural engineer in the western U.S.; a special independent expert in the inspection and testing of welds and steel structures from Seattle and the chief inspector of the L.A. City Department of Building and Safety as to whether further testing was recommended by any of them. The unanimous answer was “no.”

SHELDON H. SLOAN

Los Angeles