Backers of NFL Team Prepare Last-Ditch Plan on Financing : Football: As league’s deadline approaches, Councilman Ridley-Thomas seeks to head off defeat with a report backing subsidy for Coliseum parking.

With less than a week to go before the National Football League’s self-imposed deadline for Los Angeles to make its case for a football team, backers of that effort are sending up one last Hail Mary attempt to snag a franchise.

The City Council today is scheduled to take up a motion that would put the council on record as opposing the use of any public money for football. But Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas, the leading advocate for a team at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, is trying to head off the opposition, bolstered by a new report that recommends opening negotiations on a controversial financing subsidy for parking.

“This is a very significant development,” Ridley-Thomas said of the latest report, written by the city’s chief legislative analyst and city administrative officer.

The proposal, which virtually all players in the deal agree is the city’s last chance to turn the NFL’s head on the Coliseum, is to have the state and city governments give up a portion of the tax revenue that a team would generate and use it to pay for new parking spaces at Exposition Park.

Supporters of the tax proposal say it would let the city get a new stadium at the Coliseum and a return of professional football at no net cost to taxpayers--essentially the formula that Mayor Richard Riordan has long said he would support.

The city report does not recommend that Los Angeles enter into such an agreement--a lot depends on how much the team’s prospective owners and the state government would be willing to contribute. The report instead recommends that the council authorize negotiations to determine those details.

Ridley-Thomas will ask council members to endorse the idea, and turn down the motion to reject all public financing.

City Councilman Joel Wachs is among those opposed to using public money for football, and a top aide said the new report does not alter that.

“The position is ‘no public money,’ ” the aide said. “The position hasn’t changed.”

As Wachs and others note, the trouble with the approach advocated by Ridley-Thomas is that it reduces the tax benefits of football.

In addition, it requires the state to forgo its economic interest in the franchise at a time when other Southern California sites are lobbying for a team. Why, they ask, would the state government be willing to give up income taxes and other revenues from a team in Los Angeles when it might be able to collect those taxes if a team went to a neighboring city?

In addition, observers say, the idea of skimming off the tax revenue that football would generate and using it to pay for football parking calls the entire enterprise into question. The diversion of money back to the team and stadium offers little public benefit, other than the occasional Super Bowl and whatever civic pride a community receives from hosting NFL football.

Ridley-Thomas says that is not true. Some but not all of the tax revenue raised by the team would be used to pay for football-related expenses, he said. That would leave some money for state and local governments to spend. And if the NFL decides not to bring a team to Los Angeles, obviously the state and local governments will get nothing.

Moreover, the improvements to Exposition Park, most notably the construction of thousands of parking spaces and a stadium inside the existing Coliseum exterior, make the deal a good one for the public, football supporters say.

While Los Angeles debates the never-ending question of how much public money football is worth, the city’s rivals are stepping up their campaigns to secure a team.

Representatives of Carson and Inglewood are making their case to the NFL now, arguing that if the league wants to return to the Southern California market without the headache of negotiating with Los Angeles, they are open for business.

Inglewood, in particular, appears to have significant backing. Oil magnate Marvin Davis has floated the possibility of building a stadium at Hollywood Park, an idea that interests league representatives.

On Thursday, members of the NFL’s expansion committee will meet in Washington, where they are expected to receive an update on Los Angeles’ bid. After that, Los Angeles and Houston representatives have been invited to meet with league officials in New York on Sept. 13, the last meeting before the NFL deadline.