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04/06/2012 3:33:00 AM
Check Japan's Saitama Stadium (60,000+ seats) and you see that planners there refused to allow ANY parking at the stadium. Fans were forced to take public transportation--and that's exactly what they did. California transportation planners continue to support special interests by adding more parking, more lanes and more traffic, while giving cyclists and pedestrians very little consideration. Fully 25 percent of Los Angeles residents could move around their communities on bicycles or by walking--but that is not going to happen because planners are not making it safe and Angelenos don't want to wind up being part of the statistics that show almost 50,000 people killed since 2002 for simply walking or riding a bike.
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10/21/2011 4:16:00 AM
No, Ted, it's not "progress." Not for the 10 and 110 interchanges, and not for the people coming east on the Santa Monica Freeway who will have billboards beaming atificial light into their eyes coming from miles away. Not for the people who will be killed or injured or have their cars totalled in accidents that result from distraction at this major interchange. Sport-hating? We've got PLENTY of football! USC, UCLA, hello..what are they, chopped liver? Sport-haters? If you have to see men bashing into each other, there's also the KINGS!! What are they, chopped liver? Hockey's more fun than football anyway. Makes stuff up? "AEG adds more signage and value, no environmental impact study required (for major interchange that will be affected by safety issues)" ---so you admit this is being shoved down drivers' throats and you seem fine with it, Ted, and I'll tell you what, I'm not fine with it, because I'm the one who's going to have to drive on that freeway, and I'm also the one who's going to be talking about those accidents on the radio, as I do every day, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of them. "A little late in the game?" Are you sneering, Ted, that the Weekly only just found out about the backroom deals that were apparently made long ago? And how are readers supposed to find out about things "early in the game" if no media reports on them?
Something's not there, all right, and it's your selfish lack of civic judgement and responsibility.
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Janescott47 09/29/2011 12:03:00 AM
The local street should have to be re-constructed, not repaired. These street have already been "repaired" and "patched" a zillion times. The city hasn't even bothered to fill the potholes in the last couple of years.
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anonymous 09/14/2011 4:53:00 PM
A similar CEQA exemption will be given to the next mega-project-NBC-Universal. The Valley folks will realize too late that the AEG Stadium is not just a downtown/Westside problem.
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Rawhide 09/14/2011 9:43:00 AM
rickabrams, you got it right. Mostly. Except: L.A. has more square miles of public parks than any other city in the US. It's easy to forget that, but with our massive Griffith Park and Elysian Park land (among others) Angelenos have many open spaces in which to frolic. We're not always mindful of this here, especially in the central city areas where big local parks are few. And Griffith Park doesn't always come to mind as it's mostly a scrubland "native" park, as Griffith mandated when he deeded it to the city. Of course, Tom LaBonge's trying to change all that by opening up parcels for real estate... and he's solidly behind AEG on this stadium scam. Whattaguy.
Thanks to LaBonge and all the other cowards on our City CounciI, in years to come L.A. will add a whole new meaning to the disease called "Farmer's Lung".
The Roman analogy is good, except they didn't poison the whole city with smog when they built the colliseum.
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Rawhide 09/14/2011 9:17:00 AM
A Modest Proposal – for a really awful stadium proposal:
If the AEG Farmer's Field scam is truly a done deal and L.A. city gov't has been bought and sold and there's no stopping this wretched stadium monster from ruining our health and economy, we must insist on some damage control to protect L.A.'s future...
I propose that before AEG gets their pointless stadium approved, they must agree, in writing and under threat of default, revocation or imprisonment, to FULLY FUND all of L.A. Unified Public Schools for the next five to ten years: buses, school lunches, teacher hires, nurses, pencils, everything. If they want to ruin L.A.'s future, they must pay for some of the damages. Farmer's Field and its resulting traffic/pollution/budget disasters are going to destroy much of our quality of life here in SoCal and break our city budget for decades, so the least they can do is take care of the next few generations they're going to harm.
Let's not stop there. Let's demand that they match funding for all current Metro expansion projects and bus lines, and pay for finishing the Metro Rail Purple Line to the beaches and/or LAX. Sure the Federal Government's funding much of Metro, but since AEG et al will be perpetrating much of the damage which the Fed will later have to clean up, it's only fair that they pull their weight now. And deep discounts or FREE passes to Farmer's Field games must be offered to every attendee who takes Metro public transportation – or walks. They can hide these folks in the stands where the rich folks won't see them.
Taken a walk downtown lately, say, on Spring Street, during Art Walk or whatever? The sidewalks downtown (and all over L.A.) are barely passable, and they're very hazardous for anyone on a bike, stroller, two legs, four legs or disabled. Our city streets are in even worse shape, and repair funds are drying up. If you're going to create traffic chaos on our streets and freeways, and lock in more congestion for decades to come, you might as well pony up for the damage now, Bucko. Wanna create jobs? Great. Take your megabucks and put some unemployed workers onto patching up our streets and walkways.
For years now, L.A. and Hollywood have been getting some of the better regional air quality reports – much cleaner than Pomona, Glendora, SBDO or OC – because of emissions standards, smog following commuters and freeways out to the IE etc. Now, with the advent of AEG's stadium scam and attendant gridlock, that's all going to change; we can kiss any decent air in the L.A. basin goodbye. Someone's gonna have to pay for this decline in our air and health, and it might as well be the money guys who perpetrated it on us. Especially since AEG is trying to strong-arm our own city, county and state into waiving mandatory environmental laws to build this perma-Autogeddon monster.
At the very very least, AEG must be ordered by the county to build a brand new, state of the art, modern children's asthma/respiratory clinic accessible to downtown L.A. or MacArthur Park to treat all the children and teens who will be growing up unable to breathe in the shadow of Farmer's Field, choking on exhaust from backed–up freeways, streets and football fans, where nobody really rides the bus to the game because they can't afford tickets anyway. And – AEG must distribute for free , at their own expense, new asthma inhalers to every single student from K–12 within a 15–mile radius of the The Farmer's Field Football Stadium. They can even imprint the AEG logo on every inhaler as a promotion. Today's wheezers = tomorrow's fans!
AEG Farmer's Field: rammed thru city gov't, built on the backs of the poor. A multi–million–dollar football stadium that L.A. doesn't want, for a team we don't even have, which the NFL won't allow, because we couldn't hang onto the two teams we once had, because L.A. doesn't need this, and we already have a great Coliseum for football. Tell AEG: pack up your flimflam dog & pony show and hit the road!
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Rawhide 09/14/2011 8:41:00 AM
L.A. needs another football stadium like it needs another Northridge earthquake. Sure, these disasters create temporary jobs and bring money in (Fed and otherwise), but only at the peoples' expense. Kudos to the WEEKLY for publishing these expose articles, but you're at least 5 months too late – it was a done (back-room) deal last spring. That's when we needed serious press coverage on this scam – before the memos, votes, payoffs and secret deals with AEG and their pals. Plus you missed the bigger picture. It's not just that AEG gets to wreak havoc with glaring electronic billboards blinding drivers at one of our busiest freeway interchanges, or making life hell for the neighbors. It's not just that AEG plans on steam–rolling over California's mandatory health and environmental laws (one of our proudest legacies to date) while overriding our democratic process. It's not just that AEG now owns our Mayor and our City Council, who swallow everything AEG pumps out. The much bigger story – and tragedy – of this scam is the long–lasting damage it will do to our city, our homes, our lungs, and our children.
This is grand–theft municipal on a massive scale. AEG may pay for their fancy stadium and even buy a football team, but it's us working people who live here and can never afford skybox seats who will pay the ultimate price for their swell idea. We'll be paying for this stadium with health care cuts, closed schools and hospitals, gutted city services and crippled communities. Even if every street and off–ramp for miles around Farmer's Field is upgraded, this stadium and its inherent pollution and permanent gridlock will be our REAL Carmageddon – every single week. Traffic will be stalled on the 10 and idling in smog from the 405 east to Pomona, and from Hollywood south to Long Beach on the 110 every Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, or whenever there's a game/event crammed into Farmer's Field at the 10/110 junction. Anybody returning to L.A. from a weekend in Palm Springs or Havasu or the beach will be stuck in the same exhaust–choked mess. For this we can thank our lap–dog civic "leaders" who sold us out to a slimy billionaire and his cronies for a bit of campaign cash, while our city goes broke and shuts down one school or service after another. AEG can now confidently expect NO accountability while they're looting what's left of our city. Farmer's Field won't be built for us Angelenos; it belongs to Phil Anschutz and his billionaire corporate cronies.
It's painfully obvious that City Hall is now deep in the pockets of developer con–artists like AEG, CIM, and Eli Broad, whose M.O. is nothing but bribes, lies and greed. Last year, Broad got the okay to build his own dirty cement art museum on Bunker Hill, with a sweetheart deal of only $1 per year and little civic responsibility. He's paying the city more for the damn parking lot than to build and lease his godawful ego showcase – not an arts haven for the people, just a tax dodge for Broad. But this sort of developer hit–and–run is nothing new in L.A. Indeed, it's the long, sad story of L.A., and it breaks my heart to see this city slide into this mess now when we really need help. There is NO way you can stuff a convention center, sports arena, football stadium, parking, malls, off–ramps, streets and transit into this tiny pocket of lower downtown and make it work – not even a small–to–medium city could do that. Which Los Angeles is not. Long after Anschutz, Villaraigosa and this city council have shuffled off to their country clubs, L.A. will be reeling from the toxic damage they caused, and the budget they destroyed.
Let me get this straight. City Hall's fat cats have shut down dozens of our schools, hospitals, clinics, public libraries, public services and even much–needed city maintenance due to this budget crisis, while piling up a record city deficit ($200 million? $500 million?). Yet now they've somehow magically found mega-funds in our L.A. city budget to give away to Anschutz & co in order to promote and build a multi–million–dollar football stadium. That L.A. doesn't want. For a team we don't even have. Which the NFL won't allow. Because we couldn't even hang onto the two – 2 – teams we once had. Because L.A. has shown, time and time again, that it doesn't want or need football.
We've been doing just fine without a football team for over sixteen years, thank you. As the Huffington Post's Stu Kreisman has noted, "almost an entire generation of potential [football] fans in Los Angeles has been lost to soccer, basketball, the beach, going out to dinner and reading. Speaking for most of the populace, we don't miss the NFL one bit"*. If you haven't noticed, local major league sports are hurting these days, and game attendance is plummeting. Sure, the Lakers have a good record (usually) and we're rightly proud of them. But with the Dodgers on the skids due to their owners' greedy divorce fiasco and sorry leadership, the last thing we need is some billionaire coming to town promising to create a football franchise with little more than promises, lies and political extortion. Any rich guy can build a stadium. Filling it up, or even having a team, requires something more intangible. Like having a proud and stable city, confidence in our leaders, money to take to the game, food on the table. After earthquakes, fires, floods, mudslides, riots, Bush, massive service cuts and a sinking infrastructure, who here really wants to shell out $20,000 for a skybox? This stadium isn't being built for the average Joe Sixpack; it's being built for Anschutz and his cigar cronies, corporate sponsors, and any local suckers willing to mortgage their homes for a season ticket. For a team that doesn't even exist. That nobody wants.
Here's a news flash for AEG and its pets in City Hall: L.A. already has its own landmark football stadium. It's called the L.A. Memorial Coliseum, it's a safe distance from freeways and congestion near USC, and it's done fine so far. Within its classic Greco–Roman Deco design, it offers easy seating (and ample parking) for 100,000 fans. The L.A. Memorial Coliseum has hosted mega–concerts by U2, Metallica, Van Halen, Pink Floyd, the Rolling Stones, the Beach Boys, the Wattstax Festival, and even the recent Rise Against concert – each drawing bigger crowds than your average NFL game. JFK gave his famous "New Frontier" speech here at the Democratic National Convention. The Coliseum hosted the very first Super Bowl in 1967: Green Bay Packers vs Kansas City Chiefs. It hosted Super Bowl VII and the undefeated Miami Dolphins in 1973. The L.A. Rams and the L.A. Raiders football teams both called the Coliseum home. It was good enough for the World Series, the X–Games, Motocross, and even Evil Knievel jumped cars here in the 1970's. Plus, the Coliseum is the only stadium in the world to host the International Olympic Games TWICE – in 1932 and in 1984. The 1932 Summer Olympics, held during the depths of the Great Depression, still turned a profit of over $1,000,000 according to press accounts. If our existing Coliseum can handle Super Bowls, World Series, a depression, concerts and two Olympics, I'm pretty sure it's up to the NFL, if they ever come round.
Our politicos in City Hall need to learn more about the city they govern. L.A. Memorial Coliseum is jointly owned by the City of L.A., L.A. County and the State of California. This means L.A. is never on its own when it comes to funding or maintaining the Coliseum; meaning we can better afford to keep using our existing L.A. Coliseum; meaning we don't need NO new football stadium. For a small fraction of the expense and traffic mitigation needed to build a new stadium WE DON'T NEED, the city can upgrade and maintain the L.A. Memorial Coliseum to meet the demands of any NFL team or Super Bowl to come. And the Coliseum's parking works, with a minimum of congestion after games or concerts (I know this from my own experience). If AEG and their con–men get their new stadium toy, it will be a greater disgrace to L.A. than if we never had a football team here again. Abandoning this historic L.A. treasure for the latest shiny LED mega–box to be pitched by some smarmy tycoon is the civic/cultural equivalent to having your husband of 35 years leave you for a twenty–year–old club chick. Let's stand by our city and its historic landmarks. Let's try to protect, preserve and treasure our own history, for once. There is no other place like the Coliseum; let's use what already works if we really want the NFL here.
This is about much more than towering LED billboards, urban blight or elite NIMBYism. Los Angeles is in free–fall mode right now, facing major cutbacks across the board, and we have our corrupt City Council, Mayor and entrenched media partly to blame. The rich–boy thugs at AEG have sized up their mark here and are confident they can bully their way in, make secret contractor deals, ignore California's public safety and environmental laws, buy any old football team, create a fan base where nobody gives a damn, bribe anyone who might object, strong-arm city and state leaders by imposing false deadlines, and force this scam on our struggling city against our will. Then they'll get all their developer/contracting cash and split, leaving us broke and holding the bag. Heckuva job.
We've seen this kind of developer hit–and–run before. You can drive around L.A. and see it everywhere: massive ugly malls, steel/glass eyesores built on the ruins of former L.A. landmarks, sitting there half–occupied or vacant. The once world–famous Cinerama Dome – now the Cinerama Lump, buried inside a mostly empty mall which can't seem to hold onto any restaurants or shops (tourists outside Amoeba Music have actually asked me where the Cinerama Dome is!). Sunset and Vine, gutted and rebuilt into ugly–box hell, with leases so impossible that even Borders Books – Borders! – had to vacate this year. Hollywood & Highland? Great to have a Metro Rail station inside a big mall, except the escalators never work, and folks are using the elevators as toilets. The once–promising Kodak Theater – Oscar's home – is dark most of the year. And the empty Galaxy Theatre Mall disaster? Please shoot me already. The Knitting Factory fled in pure shame. Or was it bankruptcy?
So you wanna inflict more urban blight and big ugly malls with giant LED signs? We got that. It'd be nice to keep some history around to appreciate, or something with class. If City Hall gave even a rat's ass about the people of L.A. or even our L.A.'s rich history and style, they'd demand first off that Eli Broad, CIM, AEG (et al) work EASTWARD from Bunker Hill to Main restoring Broadway's classic movie palaces and 20th–century wonders. Then they'd be required to upgrade the rest of L.A's neglected downtown before proposing a single flashy new complex L.A. doesn't need. Broadway is where Hollywood, the movie biz and movie theatres began. They're named the Palace, Orpheum, and Million Dollar Theatres because that's what they cost, and what they look like. Seems the only standout investor actually restoring Broadway these days is Andrew Meieran, the new owner of Clifton's and the Edison. Why not add Eli Broad's name and mega-millions to the Bringing Broadway Back redevelopment project? It's a win/win for Mr. Broad: he's the perfect patron for Broadway. The street's already named after him.
Doing right by L.A. and its people would require vision, commitment, courage and a keen understanding of L.A., its rich history and culture - traits which are now in short supply at City Hall. Why bother, when you can hustle the city for a shiny new stadium and then slink away to Denver with your ill–gotten gains? One tidbit: AEG secured $700 million from Farmer's Insurance for naming rights to the stadium. Another $350 million will have to come from our nearly–broke city issuing bonds. Farmer's Field and its imaginary team will be built for the rich, not the average Joe. Season tickets in other big cities like Dallas cost between $16,000 to $150,000 for just the per–seat licensing fees, and the seat itself costs extra (double that for a friend or a date). Other football franchises charge up to $20,000 for seat licenses. As Stu Kreisman said, " Super Sunday has become Corporate Christmas. The people in Los Angeles will be paying for a party they're not invited to... [2011's] Super Bowl is so ridiculously out of touch with the average American that the NFL is charging fans the bargain price of $200 to watch the game on large screen TVs in the parking lot of Cowboy Stadium!" – something you can do in a sports bar for free. And City Hall has handed these arrogant out–of–town billionaires the keys to the city. How does our Mayor or City Council actually sleep at night? Surely in gilded designer sheets, if at all.
We don't need no new football stadium! We Angelenos need to stop this rotten deal in its tracks, get our city and its economy back on its feet using local money, local imagination, and local hardworking talent. We built the film, music, arts, agriculture and aerospace industries here from scratch. We need to run these greed-mongers out of town and take care of our own. If Anschutz has such a hard–on to throw away money on a new football stadium, he can go build one in his own town, Denver. Go build one right next to your new Sports Authority Field at Mile High. Whatever.
New football stadium for L.A.? Already got one, thanks. We really could use some functioning schools, hospitals and libraries, though. Decent school lunches would help. Otherwise, don't let the door hit you on the way out, Phil.
* See: NFL In Los Angeles? No Thank You (and more) by Stu Kreisman, Huffington Post (02/03/11)
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Msfaboo 09/14/2011 12:48:00 AM
Anyone who thinks "the City Council has Angelenos' best interests at heart" has just arrived in town or hasn't been paying attention. The City Council has the City Council's best interests at heart -- but even then only in a short-term stupid kind of way.
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Msfaboo 09/14/2011 12:46:00 AM
Maybe BigMike was being facetious after all??
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Msfaboo 09/14/2011 12:45:00 AM
More than likely Mrs. Scott won't actually have to worry about getting into or out of her home -- because AEG or the City will be demolishing it in the name of "improvements." Mrs. Scott will be homeless.
Remember Pico-Union? No, I didn't think so.
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Msfaboo 09/14/2011 12:43:00 AM
We can only hope. And, obviously, I was TOTALLY wrong about Big Mike being facetious.
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Msfaboo 09/14/2011 12:36:00 AM
Thank you Rick for TELLING IT LIKE IT IS. If you have the $$, you too can own any piece of LA history or amenity you would like to buy.
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Msfaboo 09/14/2011 12:35:00 AM
Thank you. If i see one more piece of bullcrap re public transpo from pols who want THE REST OF US TO USE IT so they don't have to... i dunno, I've actually run out of puke by now so I don't know what I'll do when i see another piece of that bullcrap
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Msfaboo 09/14/2011 12:33:00 AM
Gee, I was thinking Big Mike had to be facetious -- but maybe not.
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Msfaboo 09/14/2011 12:25:00 AM
Where do you think the Feds are going to get the $$? It ALL comes out of your pocket - no matter how many pockets it passes thru on the way back here -- all of them w/holes in them.
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Msfaboo 09/14/2011 12:24:00 AM
So: How Can We Stop This?
I do not want to pay for football for a bunch of lying bigwigs so a bunch of lying bigwigs can make $$ while further ruining the quality of life in Los Angeles for the rest of us -- who are just, you know, taxpayers who live here. They're already lying about not spending taxpayer $$, why would you expect it to get any better?
It really pisses me off bigtime that there's soooo much $$ for football -- which is actually a minority interest -- & no $$ at all for libraries -- which is a majority interest.
I've been following this issue and I'm beyond appalled. Esp'y by the LA Times editorial supporting the special bill AEG wants passed in Sacto. so they can ram this through fast without an EIR and so the possibility of protest is foreclosed.
Why can't we have an actual referendum on whether we want football in LA or not?
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Msfaboo 09/14/2011 12:02:00 AM
Do the Math: 72,000 is NFL sellout game attendance + an alleged 50,000 new jobs (like I believe that? like you could get an economist in the country to back that up? – but that’s what they’re “selling”). AEG’s own assumption of 20,000 cars seems a woeful underestimate.
vs. 1600 net new parking spaces
Really?
Anyone who thinks you can shoot a cannonball down the 110 on a Sun. morning hasn’t been on the 110 on a Sun. morning in… oh, I’d say 10-15 years.
Ayone counting the # of homes & small businesses that will be destroyed IF any of this street upgrading for AEG’s stadium comes to pass?
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09/12/2011 9:26:00 PM
You are totally correct about two things. (1) Local authorities have moved at a snail's pace to build a badly conceived mass transit system that is out of reach of most Angelenos. (2) Sports teams should be owned by the public. I am eagerly awaiting the day when these visionary people (link: http://www.supporters-direct.org) mutate into their American form. Anybody who wants to open an LA chapter of this to begin our public takeover of the Dodgers, let me know and we'll get started.
However, your assertion that middle-class people will not ride buses has been stuck behind the TV dinners in your 1980s idea freezer. Middle-class people in other, more rationally planned cities throughout the world do this everyday. And I know for sure that Angelenos are, in fact, rational people who will make rational choices about transit when their menu of options is finally expanded.
If local planners had the right vision 25 years ago, Metro would have taken all those railroad easements and oversized thoroughfares and built a vast network of grade-seperated express bus lines like what has been done with great success in Curitiba and Bogota. These would come complete with more advanced queing systems and the type of comfortable, sleek rolling stock you see today. With this method, LA's public transit system would be far more extensive and patronized today...but we know what hindsight is like.
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09/12/2011 9:17:00 PM
And where in LA is there a freeway that isn't traffic choked? The area you talk about is one of the worst in the metropolis. The 60 is always awful and the 57 gets pretty bad in the Diamond Bard/Walnut area as well.
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09/12/2011 6:47:00 AM
Define "need," please. No town "needs" a professional sports franchise. (BigMike, you're killing me. I started commenting on this response before I even noticed the name. Come on, man, personal attacks aside, there is zero logic behind your thinking.)
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09/12/2011 6:41:00 AM
My guess is that BigMike is himself a football player who barely made his way through high school, while playing linebacker on the Varsity team. He then played ball at a JC, but never advanced his playing days beyond that. He works in construction or for his wife's dad. If he has kids of age, he probably coaches their Pop Warner team. His heroes are his football coach, Kevin Greene and Jesus Christ. Just a hunch.
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anonymous 09/11/2011 7:09:00 AM
Rick, you are one of the few voices of reason on this site. AEG knows they are playing to dumb people who'll be on their side, as demonstrated by several people here & labor leaders like Durazo. Maybe, she won this battle, but I'll never support labor again. In the end, a lot of people for this stadium will be the ultimate losers. It is a matter of time. Let's look at the reality, shall we. Each & every politician is a sell-out. NRDC, the big environmental whoof-fa is a bigger sell-out. This is the last time, I respect another environmental organization. These two organizations are the biggest losers. But the biggest losers are the dumb residents of LA who don't even know what goes in their city. Won't happen today but will sooner than later. The middle class won't be there to even protest.
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09/11/2011 1:30:00 AM
As far back as 1915, Los Angeles recognized that subways and other fixed-rail mass transit do not function in large circular cities. People will not walk more than 1/2 miles to subways. Thus, subway stations have to be about one mile apart. If you can do the geometry, you will see why subways will never solve LA's transportation problems and subways will not bring fans to Anschutz's stadium.
The alternative is the bus system. That is not workable. The bus system is for the third world segment of L.A.'s population. These people cannot afford to attend NFL games. Anyone who thinks that Angelenos will give up driving to a football game and use slow, dirty, crowded buses has not used due diligence in assessing transportation in LA. The income level that can afford to attend will not use buses, unless they charter them.
The Anschutz stadium will be several blocks north of the Coliseum and a mile south of Dodger stadium. All the SF Valley traffic will use either the 101 south or the 405 to the 10 East. That will cause terrible traffic nightmares on the Hollywood southbound and the 10-110 intersection. The purpose of SB 292 is to prevent this environmental nightmare from coming to the court's attention.
If Angelenos want an NFL team, then let's get together and buy one. But first, let's buy the Dodgers from McCourt. These sports teams should be owned by the citizens. If the city council and state legislature want to help someone, they should help the citizens and not a much of out-of-town goniffs and mamzers.
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09/11/2011 1:12:00 AM
The city council did not overlook those factors; the council did not care about them. Los Angeles is a Pay to Play town, and if the developer pays, he gets to Play anywhere he wants.
In a Pay To Play town, the council has no need to know the contents of any measure on which they vote. They councilmembers don't even have to be present as they have automatic pre-voting. Go the the council chamber some time and watch the votes tally up for councilmembers that you can see are not there.
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09/11/2011 1:06:00 AM
dumb, dumber, and BigMike
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09/11/2011 1:05:00 AM
The AEG Stadium is a fraud on Angelenos. Of course, wannabee mayor Garcetti knew all about Anschutz' owning the NFL team that locates to his own stadium and that's where the city is giving billions of dollars to Anschutz.
The fraud is on the people who were told that the stadium won't cost the taxpayer anything. On the other hand, fraud has the element of "justified reliance." You cannot be a victim of fraud if you're abysmally stupid and believe what this pack of liars tells you. Well, I guess a judge gets to decide whether the council defrauded the taxpayers or the taxpayers were not justified in believing that the city council would ever tell them the truth about anything.
There may be karma as this fiasco may explode while Garcetti is running for mayor. He's destroyed Hollywood and the 2010 Census proves that he and the CRA have driven out the more educated and talented residents, leaving the rest of us subject to more and more crime.
Only time will tell whether Angelenos will continue to be patsies or whether the will fight back.
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09/10/2011 8:42:00 PM
thats why you need a blade runner.
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09/10/2011 8:41:00 PM
the feds should pony up some big new stim infrastructure money and fix and widen the 110. the good thing about football ;though most games will be on sunday, so unlike the lakers, getting into downtown on a sunday am is ok... but it will have a huge impact for other events, and sightseer's...
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09/10/2011 3:22:00 PM
Ted sounds like an AEG marketing guy, and not a smart one.
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Miss V 09/10/2011 3:12:00 PM
thank you for this fabulous article. I know I can always come to the Weekly for articles with some depth. I just can't my head around people supporting a football team and not looking at anything else that goes along with it. Sort of like fois gras, it's tasty and delicious...and yet for the people eating and enjoying that tasty morsel of food, they never see cruelty and suffering the duck has to go to before it's delivered onto a plate. NFL in downtown, tasty and delicious, but taxpayers and neighbors will be suffering for YEARS. Move it to Industry.
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trafficguru 09/10/2011 11:18:00 AM
Your logic is flawed, Robert. By building a stadium in the City of Industry where there are few traffic problems and a large space for people to park means people won't be stuck in traffic with their cars idling and producing more emissions than if those same people had gone to a downtown stadium. The quicker you can get cars off the road, the fewer emissions. It has nothing to do with having to drive an extra 15 miles to a stadium and everything to do with sitting still in traffic belching gas.
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fishouttawater 09/10/2011 11:11:00 AM
You're right, Big Mike. If we could only shoot all the tree hugging liberals in this country this great nation would be perfect with gun-toting morons like yourself doing our bidding. Oh, wait. We already had someone like you in the White House for the first eight years of this century and look where that got us, in debt with no end in sight to the two wars we started.
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fishouttawater 09/10/2011 11:00:00 AM
Ted S., you poor misguided soul. There is no traffic downtown? That statement is false on its face considering 300,000 people pass by the 10 and 110 every day. Seems like a lot of traffic to me. Yes, the state Assembly passed 292, a move to weaken the California Environmental Quality Act that protects you, me and everyone else from unscrupulous developers. Seems to me the Weekly isn't opposed to the stadium, just to the lies perpetrated by AEG snake-oil salesmen, kind of like that guy in the white suit selling booze in his white suit in "The Outlaw Josey Wales."
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Ted S 09/09/2011 9:20:00 PM
Obviously, article failed to make it's point. SB 292 passed by a vote of 59-13. There are no traffic problems, the taxpayers are going to make a profit with a gurantee on the bond issues. Signage, separated issue was decided and implimented. Farmers Field is what is making L.A. great. When the press just makes stuff up as a feature and it becomes a dud article. Calling upon USC engineering for references was stupid. The signage in place is up and running with no obstacles. AEG adds more signage and value, no enviromental impact study required. Just a bunch of sore sport haters that don't see or want progress downtown, although they are a little late in the game. If I were AEG, I would not allow LA Weekly on my property, which is already not there.
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09/09/2011 7:53:00 PM
I think your headline writers may have inadvertently stumbled upon the perfect name for L.A.'s new football stadium. Face it, "Farmers Field" has got to be one of the worst bits of branding ever foisted on an unsuspecting urban population. "Blade Runner Stadium," on the other hand, is awesome! It gives a nod to L.A.'s film heritage, while at the same time acknowledging our precarious present and dystopian future. I love it, and would be happy to attend games there in my flying car. My only question is, how will we tell the real football players from the replicants?
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BigMike 09/09/2011 1:28:00 PM
Fish, what's that smell? Oh, it's the same old liberal bullcrap. Just give me football. Nobody cares about all this environmental crap. We want football back in LA. If it takes shooting every tree-hugger, so be it.
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fishouttawater 09/09/2011 1:25:00 PM
Robert, you missed the point of the story entirely. The LA Weekly writers in their two stories point out quite well how the city council failed to perform due diligence. They gave away signage on the convention center and signed off on the stadium before finding out how much it was going to cost the city and public to repave roads and upgrade intersections downtown to accommodate the 20,000 cars that will show up for games, concerts and tractor pulls. And if you think AEG and the city are going to retrain LA drivers and those who buy NFL tickets that likely will average $300 a seat, then you are misguided, Robert. People who pay that kind of money for a ticket are not going to get on a bus in Santa Monica and ride it downtown. People with money likely have never ridden a city bus in their lifetimes mostly because they fear the passengers who regularly ride the bus. Same for the Metro line, whenever it gets to the west side. And what about all those folks from Orange and Ventura counties? I don't see them taking a bus or train downtown.
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anonymous 09/09/2011 1:04:00 AM
It is the same BS argument made by the Planning Department and the 9 City Planning Commissioners appointed by the Mayor who all drive to City Hall in their SUVs/cars even as they lecture the proletariat on public transport. These idiots continue to reduce parking in every development even as they create parking hell for nearby residents. The intent is to make it cheaper for the developers to develop with more density without the cost of Code required parking. Even as we speak, the Planning Department has a proposal to change the RPD (RESIDENTIAL PLANNED DEVELOPMENT ZONE), which currently allows only single-family dwelling to multiple-family and commercial-mixed use projects. The project received an ND or of no environmental consequence. That this joke in the guise of a "old" Zoning Code being revised for minor issues belies the fraud being perpetrated on the residents by City Hall & the corrupt developers.
Even as they reduce parking, the Planning Commission in the guise of being "pseduo-progressives" like you, probably fed cool-aid by the professor at UCLA, Shoup, who lives in a multi-million dollar mansion close to UCLA, & thus able to commute to work on his bike, continue to force social engineering on an LA that continues to reject it. There are cities in the world that satisfy every need, and LA as it is, satisfies ours. So let's quit pretending that you or someone else know more than some commenters here.
I don't base my life on theories & projections & neither do most people. Many of us live in LA because we like this life style & we like it just fine. Those who want to live in car-free societies, well, you must know where they are. Go enjoy that life-style. As for the Planning Dept: & the Planning Commission, entities, we'll hear from again & again. They are in the back pockets of developers & will do anything to increase density so they can safeguard their positions granted to them by bribe-taking politicians.
So here is my proposition to the Planning Commision & all the car-free acoloytes. Increase the densities in each & every building you want to stick in LA, and build the AEG stadium too, but with 0 parking. Next, make each & every street in LA is reserved for current residents only so they don't have to suffer the results of official stupidity & corruption. If developers and new developments can flourish despite this, I say more glory to them & to the residents willing to live in such buildings and to AEG to have a nearly "carbon-free" stadium. A win win for all sides.
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09/09/2011 12:00:00 AM
You missed the point. I never said people should never drive cars (that would be completely naive). I said that we must stop planning cities as if cars are the paramount concern, or as if vehicle traffic is even something worth addressing (it is not- reducing traffic only creates capacity for additional traffic-producing uses).
I actually don't drive often. But, when I do, I don't blame city planning when I encounter the inevitable traffic jam consisting of other cars.
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anonymous 09/08/2011 8:59:00 PM
"We must start imagining LA as place where cars are not the alpha/omega of human existence" and again "I drive through Pico-Union on my way to my Saturday basketball game and it seems like a fairly liveable place by central LA standards".
Robert, practise what you preach.
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09/08/2011 7:39:00 PM
I never imagined that new roads and off-ramps would be necessary. There are numerous express buses and soon two rail lines within a few blocks of the stadium site- and this is just the regularly-scheduled service. Event managers could easily set-up a satellite commuting system (e.g. Hollywood Bowl) of spectacular proportions for NFL games.
We must start imagining LA as place where cars are not the alpha/omega of human existence.
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09/08/2011 7:36:00 PM
The article brings up important points about due process and the proliferation of electronic signage. Sadly, June Cleaver continues to set the editorial policies of the LA Weekly when it comes to urban planning issues. Once again, the Weekly gets its wires crossed on theories of sustainable urbanism.
Vehicle traffic downtown is terrible all the time, and sporting events have little to do with it. But the article approaches the traffic issue from the antiquated perspective of cars are the alpha/omega of mobility. This is a fallacy. If you insist on driving downtown rather than taking transit, than you deserve to be stuck in the mess you help create. The stadium is an opportunity, of sorts, to re-train Angelenos on methods of getting around.
This much is true: big/important cities like LA host big cultural events of all varieties, hosting these events means there are impacts to the way we experience the city (most take it as a given). With that in mind, it is so much more logical to put your largest event venues in central locations where the transit services are most densely located and where virgin land does not need to be sacrificed. The author infers, probably without meaning to, that it would be better to build a stadium on the distant edge of the metropolis, forcing epic hoards of cars onto roads that would surely need to be expanded with public money, making LA that much more un-sustainable from an ecological and lifestyle point of view.
I drive through Pico-Union on my way to my Saturday basketball game and it seems like a fairly liveable place by central LA standards. I am occasionally lucky enough to attend a Staples Center event, and I see none of the traffic catastrophe people talk about. I sometimes commute to USC football games, and while the traffic sucks a little, it's nothing we're not used to.
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09/08/2011 7:18:00 PM
Makes me sick to see how big money overrides the laws passed to protect the public and ensure environmental protections. I have no problem with the stadium. I don't go downtown and wouldn't for a stadium anyway so it's not my fight but it still makes me sick to see how quickly LA, LA County and the state sell out to what amounts to bribes to skirt the law. The 2 biggest crimes going on right now are this stadium deal and the Santa Monica sellout to Edge who wants to build a huge ridge-line complex overlooking the coastline. Villaraigosa and Perez are just the latest in a long line of thieves.
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09/08/2011 5:23:00 PM
And when they build that new stadium, lets see how fast LA Weekly gets to farmers field with a Dewalt impact drill bolting in multiple newsracks all around that place attempting to benefit from all that "TRAFFIC".
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isthattheskyfalling? 09/08/2011 5:05:00 PM
Big Mike. It isn't a question of whether the stadium is good or bad. It's probably a good idea. But the point of the Weekly story is to point out that this venture is not going to be free to the public as AEG promises. As the story says, the city signed off on the stadium without determining the cost or redoing roads and intersections to accommodate the stadium. It's going to cost millions, probably much more, to repave downtown streets. When the city says AEG will pay its fair share, well that's wide open to interpretation. As one traffic engineer points out, road mitigation never works in favor of the city and the public, only the developer.
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BigMike 09/08/2011 2:45:00 PM
Leave it to LA Weekly to stand in the way of progress. Come on, people. This town needs football. We've needed it for 20 years. If AEG is going to be the one who finally gives this city what it deserves, then I'm on their team.
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09/08/2011 6:11:00 AM
It does not matter how many subways the stadium can handle. They serve less than 5% of the county and do not go near where most people live. When thinking about a subway, you have to think about both ends.
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09/08/2011 6:09:00 AM
Angelenos have had years to vote out people like Garcetti, LaBonge, Wesson, Perry, etc, but instead the voters keep re-electing them. The voters must be satisfied that we have the worse roads in the nation, we are substandard in number of parks, we are cutting fire services, we have given over $1.5 Billion tax dollars to real estate speculators, and each year the city cries that it is broke.
Now the voters are again supporting an atrocious project with dire ramifications for the environment. It reminds me of the Romans and their circuses.
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09/08/2011 6:01:00 AM
Generally in America, the government has three branches - legislative, executive and judicial. The courts are a crucial part of American government because legislatures (city councils) and the executives (mayors) often do stupid and/or illegal things (AEG Stadium deal).
For Philip Anshutz, the rabid anti-Gay bigot, however, Los Angeles is willing to kill off the courts. First, it was to be mandatory arbitration and later, they proposed the appellate court do the case on a hurry up time table. However, skipping the trial court is against the Constitution and the State legislature cannot pass a law that is contrary to the constitution.
Well, I guess they can pass the bill, and then its constitutionality will challenged. That should blow AEG timetable.
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Holycrappers 09/08/2011 1:53:00 AM
Last I checked, they play NFL games on Mondays and Thursdays too.
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muckraker 09/08/2011 1:26:00 AM
I attended the city council hearing where 50 people cheerleaded the AEG football stadium. People were drunk with visions of an NFL team returning to LA. They praised his lordship the Great Lieweke who basked in the glow from a front-row seat. Everyone was having a good time, the city council included. Hell, Magic Johnson his own self to praise Caesar Lieweke. Then Mrs. Scott, who lives next to the 110, ambled to the podium to protest. She told the council her Pico Union neighborhood was overrun with whores, traffic, limousines and Staples Center employees' cars when there's a basketball game at Staples Center. Scott is an elderly woman. She sometimes can't get to her home for the traffic and there's nowhere to park. She asked the city council to reconsider building AEG's palace of greed. Scott's pleadings were met with silence. Councilman Eric Garcetti then called the next cheerleader to rah-rah-rah the stadium. The scene reminded me of being at a protest against going to a war in Iraq eight years ago. A handful of protesters were ignored, even shouted down for being unpatriotic. Scott felt the same derision. The Iraq war protesters were right. We'll see if Scott is, too.
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anonymous 09/07/2011 9:29:00 PM
A "carbon neutral" stadium? I can't wait for the EIR to explain what this means. The term "green" is so bandied about in LA that it has almost lost all meaning. Just a reminder that there is no such thing as being carbon neutral, an impossibility to accomplish by anyone. The initiative that launched the recent "green" movement was primarily to reduce global warming and greenhouse gas emissions to improve air quality. To accomplsh this are dozens of measures with reduction of energy being the foremost. Our energy as understood by consumers is electric consumption that comes mainly from coal-fired plants that emit greenhouse gases. Will sticking solar panels on the stadium roof neutralize all the power consumption? What about the 41+, 24/7 billboards & the jumbotrons in the stadium & other power consumption? We want the EIR to provide us with power consumption numbers and how their additional usage will affect the power bills of other consumers.
Another issue is transportation, as in 70,000+ people driving to the stadium for a game. AEG claims that 10% will take public transportation. Sure! Even if we believe them, that are still 63,000 people driving cars to the "carbon neutral" stadium emitting gases. And, let's not ignore that the congested 110 freeway is also a lifeline for the San Gabriel Valley to LAX & the westside. Don't know when AEG found the freeway to be desolate. It is almost as bad on weekends as on weekdays. So now we can add the emissions of thousands of cars at an almost standstill, when they emit the most gases, anytime there is a football game. And, don't for a moment believe that the stadium is only for football games. There will be dozens of other events. The air quality will be horrendous & we'd like to see air quality measurements in the EIR, not only for those stuck on freeways but on residents who already suffer from bad air quality due to their living in proximity to freeways. Environmental health is a serious issue about reducing emissions.
Another huge factor in "green" is reduction of water consumption. Within the context of the stadium, we'd like the EIR to discuss how many millions of gallons of water will be consumed to keep the field green & how many will be consumed by the patrons and their effect on water rates in LA.
Another factor in "green" is Waste reduction. This is just as complex and difficult to reduce to a simplistic explanation. It will suffice to touch upon a couple of points. A perfectly good convention centre will be demolished and transported to landfills via thousands of truck trips. The EIR needs to quantify this in its impact to air quality, traffic, landfills and production of materials & their similar impacts to build the stadium & the convention centre. How much waste will be generated by the 70,000 people and who will pay for their disposal as landfills continue to fill up. In other words, it is the rest of consumers who will help pay the additional costs.
The point here is that being green is far more complexed than what we have reduced it to. No EIR will do justice to all the environmental damage caused by such a stadium. AEG knows it & is the reason why they are making it difficult to be challenged. I'd have more respect for Lieweke if he'd just admit that he is a mafia don who with AEG money can buy all the political whores in our city & state and the leagl system too than wrapping himself in a green mantle.
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Truly 09/07/2011 7:59:00 PM
LA City Hall is a sewer of opportunists and crooks. No wonder AEG is right at home. If they bring back those gang-bangers called the Raiders, I'm outta here.
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09/07/2011 6:01:00 PM
I generally think this article underestimates the usefulness of public transit access to the stadium, which will be served by dozens of bus lines, 6 Metro Rail lines, Metrolink and Amtrak by the time it opens.
This piece also totally glosses over any environmental impacts of the Majestic plan, including the fact that everyone would *have* to drive -- traffic, pollution -- and that it would be a greenfield development.
That said, I think the article fairly calls into question how much we can be sure that the City Council has Angelenos best interests at hearts.
I say that all as someone who generally supports a stadium in downtown L.A. -- with the big caveat that driving to games should be discouraged with high-priced parking and DUI crackdowns, and that AEG should subsidize free transit rides on gameday and capital improvements.
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09/07/2011 4:59:00 PM
AEG just added a form to their website to mass-email these California State Senators to pass SB 292 to give them special treatment - their own legal system to get past the traffic issues. It is important that these Senators hear both sides, so please email, call, write them a letter showing that we are OPPOSED to the creation of special loopholes for only one developer.
Bill Emmerson, Senator, District 37
Bob Dutton, Senator, District 31
Bob Huff, Senator, District 29
Carol Liu, Senator, District 21
Charles M. Calderon, Assembly Member, District 58
Connie Conway, Assembly Member, District 34
Darrell Steinberg, Senator, District 06
Elaine K. Alquist, Senator, District 13
Ellen Corbett, Senator, District 10
Fran Pavley, Senator, District 23
Isadore Hall III, Assembly Member, District 52
Jerry Brown, Governor
Mark DeSaulnier, Senator, District 07
Norma J. Torres, Assembly Member, District 61
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Watchdog 09/07/2011 1:08:00 PM
Once again a wealthy developer plans to fatten his wallet at everyone else's expense. Building the Farmers Field football stadium may not cost Angelenos a dime as AEG claims, but taxpayers sure are going to be on the hook for resurfacing downtown streets and revamping intersections to accommodate AEG and the 75,000 people who show up for a game. Californians fought hard to guarantee there would be an environment left over once the developers were finished raping the land. Now it seems Lieweke and AEG have driven a wedge into state environmental laws by trying to weaken the California Environmental Quality Act. AEG wants the state to exempt it from "frivolous" lawsuits challenging the stadium's impact on the environment. There used to be honor among thieves, but not these thieves that include not just AEG but the entire L.A. City Council for failing to do their job -- due diligence as per the cost of road upgrades before the council swooned at Lieweke's feet and signed off on the memorandum of understanding giving AEG carte blanche to do and build whatever it wants. Caveat emptor. If AEG believes public transit is going to solve game-day gridlock, the developer is wearing rose-colored glasses. If AEG believes Westside folks will get on a bus or train and ride with the unwashed to a game, then AEG is more deluded than the city council. Fans who pay hundreds of dollars for a football ticket don't ride buses. So just more of the same from politicians and the rich who daily bring us the story of the Decline and Fall of the American Empire. I have to go now. My stomach's churning.
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09/07/2011 7:13:00 AM
Wow, this is THE BEST article I have read about the LA stadium competition, and I have read hundreds of them. I remember a few months ago, Leiweke kept telling the public and the city that AEG would not seek any exemptions to the EIR. Here we are, they are asking the legislature to give them a customized legal system. Is it fair that just because you're a rich developer you can create a traffic bottleneck in the worst spot in LA?
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09/07/2011 3:36:00 AM
"Leiweke claims the Legislature must act before it adjourns late on Sept. 9, and cannot wait until lawmakers return on Jan. 4, or the stadium project could implode."
Governor Brown - Veto this turkey and let it implode!
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09/07/2011 1:31:00 AM
Well, I think that is enough to do this. Why not just keep some natural fields and stop more large high mansions. LA has got plenty of them.
