Use of Fighting Words ‘L.A.’ Inflames San Diego Battle

SAN DIEGO —  The two scariest, foulest, dirtiest words imaginable in any San Diego political flap are now center stage in the stadium controversy: Los Angeles.

A civic dispute already at the boiling point has gone volcanic with the specter that San Diego could lose the 1998 Super Bowl to the Rose Bowl and that the San Diego Chargers are looking to the Rose Bowl or the L.A. Coliseum as a possible venue for this fall’s season--all because a $78-million expansion of San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium has hit a snag that could halt construction.

The problem came to a head after the City Council on Dec. 10 approved adding $18 million to the existing $60-million price tag that had been agreed to in 1995.

As they try to rally public support in San Diego behind the plan, boosters are warning that the big city to the north is ready to pounce if San Diego falters.

“This is a competitive area,” warned Mayor Susan Golding during a televised grilling by former mayor Roger Hedgecock, a leading expansion opponent. “I know there have been conversations already with Los Angeles.”

Said Chuck Nichols of the San Diego Host Committee for Super Bowl XXXII: “To lose the Super Bowl and the Chargers would be bad enough, but to lose them to Los Angeles would be adding insult to injury.”

“Does San Diego want to risk losing the Chargers to Los Angeles or some other sports-starved city?” asked the editorial page of the San Diego Union-Tribune.

Opponents of the expansion project--who want the city to arm-wrestle the Chargers into a better contract than the one struck by Golding in 1995--accuse the mayor and others of playing dirty by trading on San Diego’s historic disdain for Los Angeles.

“The whole L.A. argument is just a boogeyman to try to move public opinion back into supporting this terrible contract,” said Robert Ottilie, attorney for a citizens group that mounted a referendum drive to block the expansion.

Los Angeles may be a boogeyman, but it is a boogeyman that plays well in San Diego. Remember, this is a city where “Stop the Los Angelesization of San Diego” is a potent political slogan.

“L.A. is a four-letter word in San Diego,” said Steve Erie, professor of political science at UC San Diego. “It’s very effective to play the L.A. card in San Diego politics. It’s the race card of San Diego.”

Meanwhile, it would take a John Madden-esque diagram to detail all the political, legal and civic strategies underway.

On Thursday, a judge set Feb. 20 for a trial to decide whether a possible public vote should deal with the entire $78-million project or only the $18-million addendum approved in December.

NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue said that if the referendum deals with the full $78 million, and thus construction, which began Dec. 31, has to be halted until the vote is taken in May, the league will probably pull the 1998 Super Bowl from San Diego.

And Charger President Dean Spanos said that even a one- to two-week delay in construction could force the team to look elsewhere for at least some of its 1997 games because construction would not be complete in time for the opening game.

The team has delayed sending out season ticket applications lest it have to relocate. A source close to the Coliseum says the Chargers have expressed interest in visiting the Coliseum and the Rose Bowl.

“I think it’s naive to think that if the Chargers leave for 1997 that they’ll be back for 1998,” said Jim Brown, chairman of San Diego’s Super Bowl committee. “If they leave for L.A., they’re gone forever.”

Pasadena officials talked to NFL brass in New Orleans at this week’s Super Bowl to reiterate their eagerness to step in should either the Super Bowl or the Chargers need a new site. “We’ve made it clear to the NFL that we’re ready,” said Ed Sotelo, assistant city manager for Pasadena.

Also waiting to step in is the Los Angeles Sports Council, which served as the host committee for Super Bowl XXVII in 1993 at the Rose Bowl and is prepared to function as the host committee for Super Bowl XXXII.

“I don’t wish San Diego ill, they won the right to have the Super Bowl fair and square,” said David Simon, executive director of the L.A. Sports Council. “But we’re ready to go when, and if, the call from the NFL comes.”

On Monday, Tagliabue will come to San Diego for what was supposed to be a joyous kickoff luncheon for the San Diego Host Committee for Super Bowl XXXII but has instead taken on an aura of crisis and uncertainty.

The $78-million project, which includes 10,000 new seats, more sky boxes and restrooms and a new practice field, would be paid for by increased rent by the Chargers and other stadium tenants--not with property taxes or other public funds. But opponents say the deal would push up ticket prices and does nothing to keep the Chargers in San Diego.

Even if professional football is not played in San Diego this fall, there could be an offsetting amount of hand-to-hand combat in local courtrooms.

Ottilie and co-counsel Michael Aguirre say they will sue if the NFL moves the Super Bowl or if the Chargers play even a few games elsewhere. The suit against the NFL would challenge the league’s antitrust exemption; the suit against the Chargers would accuse the team of breaking its contract to play at the stadium.

On the other hand, if expansion is halted, the city attorney has warned that the city faces lawsuits from the Chargers, the Padres, the construction firms and bondholders.

A central problem in resolving the controversy is that the referendum--which gathered 60,000-plus signatures in record time--is a pigskin-in-a-poke until Superior Court Judge Anthony Joseph makes a ruling about its scope.

Under the city Charter, the City Council has two options when faced with a referendum to overturn a city ordinance: It can overturn the ordinance itself or call an election and let the public make the decision.

On the surface there would appear to be a way for the City Council to dispose of the referendum, mollify at least some of the critics, avoid a delay in construction and keep the Super Bowl and Chargers from heading north--by simply rescinding the Dec. 10 decision that added $18 million to the expansion project.

After all it was the Dec. 10 decision by the council that triggered a referendum drive by expansion opponents, who had earlier fought and lost a legal battle to block the original $60-million project--approved in March 1995--on grounds that the lease-revenue bond funding method was illegal.

But rescinding the Dec. 10 motion could backfire on Golding and the council. The council has until Feb. 10 to decide what to do with the referendum.

Referendum attorneys Ottilie and Aguirre--both tenacious litigators and political veterans of San Diego--say that even if the council rescinds the motion, they will press their case before Joseph.

Their case is that the referendum and the Dec. 10 motion that inspired it concern the full $78 million, not just the $18 million addendum. They argue that by adding $18 million to the original $60 million, the council was, in fact, creating a different project, one that is subject to being “referendized” through a petition drive.

If the council decides to rescind the Dec. 10 motion, and Joseph later buys the Ottilie-Aguirre argument, the council would then have, unwittingly, done exactly what the council is trying to stop from happening: Scuttled the full expansion project and sent the Super Bowl and Chargers packing.

To thwart the Ottilie-Aguirre offensive, the City Council this week hired the law firm Luce, Forward, Hamilton & Scripps. The firm defeated the earlier court challenge to the expansion plan’s funding.

Pending a ruling by Joseph, demolition of the eastern end of the stadium continues apace. If the expansion is scuttled, the city manager estimates that it would cost $30 million to put the stadium back the way it was before the bulldozers began their work.

“Stopping construction in the middle and almost universally forcing the team to go elsewhere makes no sense,” said Golding.

Expansion opponents insist that is not their goal. Rather, they want the city to strike a better deal by, among other things, strengthening its grip on the Chargers and dropping a rent discount for any game that is not a sellout.

The contract as approved by the City Council in 1995 binds the Chargers until 2020 but allows several “reopeners” where the team could field offers from other cities.

* MIKE DOWNEY: While L.A. goes after San Diego’s Super Bowl, it might as well go for the Chargers too. C1