Coliseum Gets Torn Down and Built Up by Readers

Last Saturday I read a letter by Sheldon H. Sloan, a member of the Coliseum Commission, still trying to say how great the Coliseum is. I have four words for Mr. Sloan: GIVE ME A BREAK!

The Coliseum is an old cemetery, and the only reason it’s still standing probably is USC is in the area. The Coliseum Commission has no clue, and that is the reason there is no football in Los Angeles.

Mr. Sloan also said, “The Hollywood Park and South Park proposals are run by people who are in it for making a profit.” However, with any expansion of the Coliseum, it is paid, not from Mr. Sloan’s pocket, but from taxpayers’ pockets.

There will be no NFL team in Los Angeles as long as the City Council, Coliseum Commission and mayor say the only place to play football is the Coliseum. So enjoy watching the games on TV for a long while!

ERIK WEINBERGER

Woodland Hills

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To Sheldon H. Sloan:

Let us examine the record, or, as Casey Stengel used to tell us, “look it up.” The Coliseum Commission lost the Rams and the Raiders. It did nothing to keep the Chargers, who left after only one year. The Coliseum Commission said bon voyage to UCLA.

It lost the Kings and the Lakers, operating in the Sports Arena administered by the Coliseum Commission. It almost kept major league baseball out of Los Angeles by demurring on plans to allow the Dodgers temporarily to occupy the Coliseum, whose “historic architecture” was threatened by a goofy left-field fence.

Intimidation by Coliseum Commissioners helped kill the stadium deal in Irwindale, where the Raiders were headed. The blueprint, drawn by the same architect who did the stadium at Irving, Texas, was a knockout.

So confused was the Coliseum Commission that it even brought in some fumbling management firm from the East to run the operation.

In 1998, the Buffalo Bills, dying in Buffalo, are contractually free. They would consider Los Angeles, but not the Coliseum and the Coliseum Commission. I wonder why.

MEL DURSLAG

Manhattan Beach

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Sheldon Sloan seems to have “forgotten” that he was a Coliseum commissioner. He also “forgot” to tell us how much it would cost to build a new Coliseum inside the old one. Why should the taxpayer support the Coliseum at all? After all, the commission has practically lost more teams through mismanagement, lies and infighting than all other facilities in the United States combined. His comments about private ownership of the new stadiums reeks of self-serving do-gooder hogwash. The tenants of these stadiums are private institutions mostly owned by billionaires. These billion-dollar institutions can take care of themselves without our tax money.

JAY STEINBECK

Van Nuys

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In response to the assertion from one of your readers that “everyone” wants our new football team to play in the Coliseum: everyone, that is, except the fans. Obviously, these gentlemen have never had to endure watching a game there.

BOB RAYMOND

Huntington Beach

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I was dumbstruck reading Randy Harvey’s article [July 22] regarding the return of professional football.

First, the article ignores the many reasons the historic Coliseum site represents the ideal location for the development of a new 21st-century football facility. Chief among these is the synergistic linkage that would flow from combining the stadium investment with the public and private sector-financed projects already in existence, under way or planned in Exposition Park, such as the California Afro American Museum and the new California Science Center.

Second, Mr. Harvey appears to have missed the news, frequently reported in his own paper, that the city leadership has formed a consensus around the Coliseum site and has been engaged in significant discussion with the NFL for some time along these lines. It would appear to me that the play has been called, the team is in motion and the last thing that is needed at this juncture is an armchair quarterback.

LESTER BOURAGE

North Hollywood