Robles’ First Action: Approve Zone Change

Labor Makes Noise for Stadium Jobs

By Lyn Jensen, Carson Reporter

Normally a zoning change is a simple routine city council action—unless it has something to do with possibly building a stadium for the National Football League. Then, it turns into a major media event with boisterous representatives of organized labor crowding into the council chambers.

On April 21, the Carson City Council considered approving a zoning overlay that would allow for a 75,000-seat football stadium to be built on a former toxic waste dump. Hundreds of stadium supporters—some in labor union shirts, some in Los Angeles Raiders jerseys—crowded noisily into the council chambers, along with several TV news crews.

Petitioners, who were paid to collect more than 15,000 signatures, had swarmed the city for weeks. The effort was to put the zoning change to a vote just in case the council refused. Carson2gether, a group of more than a dozen labor unions, was behind the petition drive. The group had funding from the Oakland Raiders and San Diego Chargers.

Two agenda items pertained to clearing the way to build a professional football stadium. The first one concerned the certification of sufficiency of signatures on an initiative. The new city clerk and former mayor, Jim Dear, wheeled in carts loaded with boxes that he said contained enough valid signatures to put the zoning change on the ballot. He said the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder had indeed validated a sufficient number of signatures on the 300-page petition.

The three sitting council members—Albert Robles, Lula Davis-Holmes and Mayor Pro Tem Elito Santarina—voted unanimously to approve that item.

Next the council called for public comment and watched presentations about how much money a new stadium would make. Albert Robles—sworn in as mayor a few hours earlier—said public comments would be limited to one minute each, except “anybody out there with a Super Bowl ring, you get two minutes.” That remark was directed to Michael Haynes, who played for the Los Angeles Raiders in Super Bowl XVIII and spoke in favor of the stadium.

Nineteen persons spoke vehemently in favor of the stadium. Mike Hannan of the Los Angeles/Orange County Building and Trades Council discussed how much money a new stadium would likely make. Various speakers argued the stadium would create 17,000 construction jobs, 9,000 permanent jobs and produce $9 million in continued business revenue every year.

John Acosta of the American Federation of Musicians boasted how entertainer Bruno Mars and other superstars were waiting to headline concerts at the yet-to-be-built site. Several other labor representatives made comments about bringing the “Los Angeles Raiders” back, hysterically cheering about how “we need” football and “we need” a Super Bowl.

One speaker harped on how the planned stadium would create a “world-class tailgating experience,” apparently unaware of the fact that, when the nearby StubHub Center was built in the early 2000s, irate residents forced a ban on tailgating.

Harry Dew, a lone opponent at the meeting who spoke of the stadium plan, said he was furious about the proposal to build the stadium.

“Carson is my home,” he said. “This’ll take away my home.”

He left as another meeting attendee shouted an obscenity.

Shortly before 9 p.m. the council voted unanimously to amend the city’s general plan and create a stadium overlay on a parcel along Del Amo Boulevard and the 405 Freeway. The action approved the building of a professional stadium and “other permitted uses” within Carson. It eliminated residential uses from the site, a stumbling block in past attempts to develop the former brownfield.

Up the 405 Freeway, a few miles north of Carson, Inglewood is courting the St. Louis Rams of the National Football Conference, who were the LA Rams from 1946 to 1994. That city may be on the verge of bringing them to a new stadium proposed for the old Hollywood Park site.

Whether the NFL will allow two American Football Conference teams in the same division in the same city, while an NFC team plays in the same coverage area, is an issue no one has yet addressed. Both the Oakland Raiders and San Diego Chargers play in the West Division of the AFC.