Drop-kick this bill
San Francisco Chronicle
09/11/2009
On the pretext of encouraging jobs and luring pro football to Los Angeles, the Legislature is weighing one of the worst ideas imaginable. In the final hours of a special session, 26 legislators are lining up to gut environmental rules to allow a billionaire developer to build a 75,000-seat stadium.
The session is intended to focus on the state's weak economy. Creative minds have broadened this worthy notion to promote the stadium and wipe away local opposition to a privately built stadium in tiny City of Industry in Los Angeles County. The bill, which whipped through two Assembly committees on Wednesday before heading for an Assembly floor vote, would exempt the stadium from an environmental impact report.
This is special-interest lawmaking, pure and simple. The stadium's backer is Edward Roski Jr., who has donated more than $700,000 to state and local political figures since 2004. Roski, a part owner of the Los Angeles Kings hockey team and the Lakers basketball franchise, wants to redesign an office park his firm owns to include a stadium and then go hunting for an NFL team.
His plan has drawn the ire of nearby cities, which are demanding that City of Industry detail the traffic impacts in an environmental study. After talks broke down, Roski is pursuing the political equivalent of the nuclear option: a Sacramento action that takes away any local say in an important issue.
