Chamber Fails to Back Coliseum

Indicating a possible fissure in the united front that politicians have sought to portray over the last year, the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce failed this week to approve a resolution backing the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum as the top choice for the return of pro football to the Los Angeles area.

The impromptu vote Thursday could be a setback for the plan to build a state-of-the-art stadium inside the Coliseum’s historic walls, giving NFL owners already wary of the stadium in Exposition Park more reason to worry about it.

“It is critical, not just important, it is critical. . . . If your chamber is not with you, what is?” said Mayor Richard Riordan’s senior advisor, Steven Soboroff, who has been active in the negotiations with the NFL. “We have to show that this is what L.A. wants, and this is where we want it.”

But despite months-long efforts by Soboroff and City Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas to shore up support for the Coliseum project--and to quash competing proposals--the chamber’s high-powered board of directors fell one vote short of the two-thirds majority needed to approve the resolution. Sources said that with 32 of 69 board members present, 20 backed the motion, three cast “no” votes and nine abstained.

Introduced by USC Vice President Jane Pisano, the motion simply stated that the organization supports the NFL’s return to Los Angeles and wants a team to play in what has been dubbed the “New Coliseum.” The agenda had only called for an informational update on the drive to bring pro football back to Los Angeles, but Pisano said she decidedly to spring the Coliseum motion on her colleagues in an effort to get the chamber on board as early as possible.

“The NFL has indicated that the support of the business community is very important,” said Pisano, who has been an active proponent of the New Coliseum project as part of a broader revitalization of the area surrounding USC. “What I wanted to do was test the waters. . . . It really did indicate to me that we have some communicating to do.”

Sources who attended the meeting said some board members were leery of supporting the Coliseum while rumblings remain about alternative stadium plans near Dodger Stadium or next to the Convention Center. Several other executives were unwilling to sign on to the Coliseum project without more research and discussion with their companies’ leaders.

NFL officials declined to comment on the matter.

Pisano, Soboroff and other Coliseum backers said they would be lobbying business leaders hard in search of a unanimous, no-abstention vote when the chamber reconsiders the matter at its next board meeting, in July.

Even if the agency eventually signs on to the plan, observers said the hesitation could hurt the city in its struggle to revive a stadium that NFL teams have already abandoned three times. Since the Raiders left in 1995, league owners and executives have emphasized the importance of unity among civic and business leaders in selecting a site where the team would play.

Ridley-Thomas has led a dogged public relations campaign to showcase that unity, collecting signatures of support from more than 200 political, business and other community leaders--including Gov. Pete Wilson, International Olympic Committee member Anita DeFranz and Danny Bakewell of the Brotherhood Crusade. He has also persuaded Dodger owner Peter O’Malley and a group called South Park Sports Inc. to shelve their stadium proposals until the NFL decides yes or no on the Coliseum.

Behind the public cheerleading, however, some business moguls and City Hall leaders continue to dismiss the Coliseum project. The chamber vote, taken at a private directors’ meeting, indicates that Coliseum backers may still have work to do at home before they can sell the NFL.

Among those leading the opposition to Pisano’s motion were former chamber Chairman Sheldon Ausman, a principal in the South Park group, which plans to publicly unveil its proposal at state hearing next month.

“It wasn’t that I was opposed to the Coliseum, that’s not it. Before the chamber takes a position on anything, it ought to have all the facts,” Ausman said in an interview. “To make this motion to support the Coliseum telegraphs a message that we’re supporting it, and in fact we don’t know about anything else.”

But Soboroff and Ridley-Thomas insisted there is nothing else.

“They were given a presentation saying there were three venues,” Soboroff said. “Well there aren’t three venues on the table. There’s one.”

Ridley-Thomas expressed confidence that the chamber would officially join his team in July.

“There’s no question in my mind about the support of the majority of the members of the chamber,” he said. “Those who are working against the effort will be once again placed in the position of realizing that their particular proposal is not garnering support simply because it is not viable.”

John Semcken, a spokesman for Los Angeles Kings owners Ed Roski and Philip Anschutz--who are building a Downtown hockey and basketball arena, and hope to own an NFL team at the New Coliseum--also put a positive spin on the failed vote. He noted that about 40 local companies have already made $10,000 deposits for luxury boxes, indicating support among the business community.

“There was a lot of support in that room, from what I heard. I could not have been happier,” he said. “I wasn’t upset at all, I thought it was great, 20 to 3 without even trying.”