Ravine Roadblock

For Walter O'Malley, Los Angeles is a sort of Garden of Eden and Black Hole of Calcutta rolled into one. While the turnstiles of mammoth Memorial Coliseum click toward a smashing major-league attendance record, his Dodgers languish at the bottom of the league and his plans for a new baseball home in Chavez Ravine run into snags from all quarters. The voters last month approved the city's plan to make over to the Dodgers 169 acres of city-owned land in the Ravine so the Dodgers could build a stadium and parking lot there. But last week a Los Angeles court ruled the contract illegal.

Rumbled Superior Court Judge Arnold Praeger, in ruling on two taxpayer suits: "This is an illegal delegation of the duty of the city council, an abdication of its public trust and a manifest gross abuse of discretion." Pending an appeal, O'Malley stayed mum on renewal of his Coliseum lease (which expires next year), observed plaintively that "our timetable is completely out the window."

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