Sacramento Kills $50-Million Bid to Lure Raiders : Pro football: Owner Al Davis had told the mayor he was not ready to commit to moving his team from Los Angeles. - Los Angeles Times
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Sacramento Kills $50-Million Bid to Lure Raiders : Pro football: Owner Al Davis had told the mayor he was not ready to commit to moving his team from Los Angeles.

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TIMES STAFF WRITER

The City Council late Tuesday night voted to kill the city’s offer to pay a $50 million “franchise fee” to attract the Los Angeles Raiders to the capital, effective midnight tonight.

The vote came as part of a motion that also directed that a 5% admission tax to repay bonds sold to raise the fee be deferred until July 1, 1991, and that a 1.5% increase in the city’s hotel bed tax be deferred for 30 days.

The vote on the motion was 5 to 3 after lengthy debate on the possibility of using the money that had been destined for the National Football League team for other purposes.

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Not a single council member spoke up in favor of keeping the offer to the Raiders alive. The three negative votes had to do with how the money would be spent in the future.

The vote came one day after Raiders owner Al Davis called Sacramento Mayor Anne Rudin to say that he was not ready to commit to move his team to either Sacramento or Oakland, or to stay in Los Angeles.

Rudin and other council members noted that the Sacramento offer had been held open for 90 days, a period they felt was long enough for Davis to make up his mind.

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The mayor said that she felt the end of the Raiders deal was “a good thing. . . . The city comes out stronger, because we understand the way the game is played at soliciting professional teams. We may be a little wiser now.”

Councilman Joe Serna Jr., who had been the prime official booster of the offer, said he felt that any chance of the city getting the team now was over.

“I don’t think it was a lost exercise, however,” he said, “because I think people have taken notice of Sacramento more than ever before.”

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The only person present who held out any hope for the deal was developer Angelo Tsakapoulos, one of four partners in the private group that has sought to build a stadium for the team. He said he felt that if Davis changed his mind in the next 30 days, the council would reconsider its position.

Rudin and other council members denied such a possibility.

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