Roos Drops Bills Aimed at Blocking Financing of Stadium in Irwindale

Two bills that would have blocked public financing for the proposed Raiders stadium in Irwindale in hopes of keeping the football team in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum were abruptly dropped Thursday by their sponsor, Assemblyman Mike Roos (D-Los Angeles).

But Roos said he will seek to advance the same legislation soon by incorporating the provisions in amendments to other bills.

It was the second time in the last two months that Roos has, without warning, withdrawn Raider-related bills from Assembly floor action rather than press for a vote.

Deadline for ’87 Bills

The assemblyman explained that Thursday was the deadline for moving bills that originated in 1987 through the Assembly to the state Senate and that at the last moment he had determined that amendments added to his bills in committee had caused serious problems for the measures on the Assembly floor. “I did not have time to rectify them,” he said.

He said that under the amendments a prohibition he had proposed on debts incurred by local governments to build stadiums for professional teams would have applied much more widely than he had intended and might have adversely affected financing arrangements for county fairs. Under those circumstances, it would be hard to get the votes to carry the bill, he said.

“My ideas are still flourishing, however,” Roos said. “I will simply seek a new vehicle to put them into effect.”

Just hours before the bills were dropped, Irwindale representatives at a news conference had expressed concern they would pass the Assembly on Thursday.

Spending Limits

The news conference was devoted mainly to the continuing controversy over attempts by the state auditor general’s office to determine whether Irwindale exceeded spending limits under the Gann initiative when it advanced $10 million last August to the Raiders as part of the $115-million deal to bring the team to the city. That audit, requested by Roos, was halted last week by a temporary court order obtained by Irwindale.

Irwindale attorney Kenneth L. Adams said at the news conference that official records show Irwindale did not exceed the spending limits.

Adams said that Irwindale is ready to prove the point to the auditor general by making available all the records sought in a subpoena the auditor general prepared last week, provided that the subpoena is not issued.

In Sacramento, however, Chief Deputy Auditor Kurt Sjoberg said questions remain whether the spending limits, in fact, have been exceeded.

In any case, Sjoberg said, the auditor general’s office will not agree to send staff members to look at Irwindale’s books unless the temporary court order is dissolved. A hearing on the order is scheduled in Pomona for Feb. 8. The order prevented the subpoena from being issued.

Adams is with a Washington law firm retained by Irwindale to fight efforts in the Legislature and elsewhere to block the Raider move from the Coliseum to a new stadium to be constructed in a gravel pit in the San Gabriel Valley community.

Adams said an accountant’s report shows that Irwindale has a spending limit of $10.25 million for fiscal 1988. He quoted the report as saying Irwindale had underspent its previous annual limits by a total of about $21 million.

The Gann initiative, adopted in 1979, puts limits on the amount of money government entities can spend unless they win voter approval for higher limits.

Adams suggested that the $10-million advance to the Raiders had come out of the $21 million “accumulated surplus.”

Sjoberg said he did not believe the $10 million could legally be credited against accumulated unspent limits of past years unless it was made clear at the time that that was going to be done.