Spectacor Drops Bid to Impede Coliseum Critiques

The Los Angeles Coliseum’s manager, the Spectacor partnership, has asked a state senator to withdraw a bill introduced at its request that would have made it more difficult for historic preservationists to challenge reconstruction plans for the facility, a Spectacor lobbyist said Monday.

Cristina Rose said Spectacor decided that arguments against the proposal by the Los Angeles Conservancy, a leading preservationist organization, were sensible. She said she notified Sen. Robert G. Beverly (R-Manhattan Beach) Monday that his bill, introduced March 8, would not be necessary.

The bill would have shortened the process for obtaining environmental approval of the Coliseum reconstruction.

The conservancy objected to any tampering with California environmental laws. The group said that rather than be “diverted into a legislative fight,” it would cooperate with Spectacor on a Coliseum reconstruction plan that would preserve the stadium’s historical elements.

Beverly once quietly shepherded through a bill that exempted the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics from all state environmental review. His new bill would have cut the time by two-thirds that legal challenges to an environmental impact report could be filed. Only the Coliseum was affected by the proposal.

Spectacor recently brought ARA Services in as a business partner, thus securing new financial backing to carry out the $200-million deal to rebuild the Coliseum and keep the Los Angeles Raiders football franchise there. It is projecting to start the project early next year.

If the environmental report is delayed, the date could slide into 1993, destroying any chance that the renovation could be finished in time to host the finals of soccer’s World Cup that year.

Bill Delvac, a member of the conservancy board of directors who chairs the organization’s Coliseum Task Force, said he had told Spectacor representatives that the conservancy would like to see the reconstruction finished by the time of the World Cup. Delvac said the group does not intend to hold up the environmental impact report if the reconstruction plan is a reasonable compromise.