I love football. It’s a great sport to watch on television, but even more fun to attend in person. As someone who grew up in Los Angeles, much of my life was spent with no close-by National Football League team, once the Rams picked up and moved East. While the absence of an NFL team for Los Angeles was unfortunate, it was significantly mitigated by some great college football teams in the area. But I do get my hopes up every time I hear that someone is thinking about bringing an NFL team back to my home town. So I have been following with some interest the 
efforts of billionaire Ed Roski (pictured) to construct a stadium for NFL play over in East Los Angeles, and bringing a team to Los Angeles County.
Of course it is no surprise that one of th hurdles to engaging in a major construction project in California is regulatory cost. This state is one of the leaders in the nation in the unfortunate catagory of making it much more expensive to build than virtually anywhere else in America. So it is no surprise that Roski and advocates of the construction of a new stadium have sought and are the verge of obtaining waivers from the state’s draconian environmental regulatory law (CEQA). The legislation, which passed through both houses of the legislature and is now off to Governor Schwarzenegger, had strong bipartisan support. By and large, Republicans have been consistent that these regulations come with too heavy of a price tag, so their votes to exempt this major project are no surprise. But it is ironic that support for this legislation also was won from many Democrat legislators, including legislative leaders Darrell Steinberg and Karen Bass. Apparently their support for CEQA laws is strong until a major project comes along that could provide an economic boost to a region dominated by Democrat legislators. I noted that a proposal by Senator Mark Wyland of San Diego to waive the same CEQA laws for the construction of a new NFL stadium in San Diego County wasn’t even considered (too many Republicans down in that area, I suppose).
Assuming that Governor Schwarzenegger signs the bill, I applaud the success of Ed Roski. There is no doubt that building a stadium and bringing another NFL team to California is more economically feasible without those costly regulations in place. Were I in the state legislature, I would have trouble not supporting legislation every time that bill would lift burdensome regulation from any potential project. But there is a distinct possibility that I would, in fact, have voted against this bill.
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October 16th, 2009 at 12:00 am
Jon: Very good commentary.
Now, lets see if other future critical projects will be given the blessing of a CEQA wavier, so that we can get the California economy going again!
I can only pray to tell!
October 16th, 2009 at 12:00 am
The whole way professional sports teams get communities to bid against each other has always bothered me and I think should be stopped.
Most economists believe that recreational development doesn’t increase the overall economic well being of an area because if someone doesn’t spend their money on a ticket to a ball game, they spend it somewhere else and the tax dollars still go back to the state, but by forcing communities to compete for the glory of an NFL team while using their tax dollars as a lure, average people are the losers.