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Writer's pictureTom Dernoga

1994: Redskins Move to Laurel Race Track?


A composite rendering of the stadium as viewed from Rt. 198 in Maryland City. (Photo illustration: CATS-2)

Many long-time Laurelites remember 1994 as the year that Jack Kent Cooke sought to bring a Redskins stadium to Laurel adjacent to the racetrack near the Brock Bridge Road/Whiskey Bottom Road intersection in Maryland City. But 1994 was much more than that.


In 1990, the Redskins were in the midst of their Super Bowl era, Jack Kent Cooke was negotiating to build a new stadium near RFK, Baltimore was on its never-ending quest to woo an NFL team, Joe Robison was the newly elected mayor of Laurel, Frank Casula was the long-standing county council member, and the city and West Laurel were an appendage to Howard County’s District 13 (being part of the two-member delegate District 13A). That November, Howard County Republicans John Morgan and Marty Madden defeated the incumbent Democrats to take both delegate seats. Shortly after, the 1990 census moved West Laurel to District 21 but retained the city in District 13B (a single member district that included Delegate John Morgan).


In 1992, a gaggle of gadflies shook Prince George’s County politics to its core by proposing two charter amendments: a homestead property tax limitation and term limits on the county executive and the county council, with the council limit being retroactive. Led by activists Judy Robinson and Walter “Mike” Maloney (with legal advice from yours truly), volunteers collected over 15,000 signatures for each charter petition. After an acrimonious and close political campaign, when the votes were tallied on November 3, the property tax limitation passed 55-45% and the retroactive term limit measure squeaked by 52-48%. The term limit vote meant that seven of the nine council members, including Laurel’s Frank Casula, were precluded from running for re-election in 1994.


On the ominous date of December 7, 1993, Jack Kent Cooke announced the surprise move to Laurel to construct a 78,600 seat stadium with 15,000 club seats and 331 sky boxes. Cooke also purchased 55 acres adjacent to the site from the owners of Laurel Race Course. The Washington Post was replete with stories the next morning about the proposal. In due course, the stadium question became a staple story in the Laurel Leader, Prince George’s Post and Capital Gazette. Senate President Mike Miller was the leading cheerleader and guiding hand. Part of his impetus was to secure a profitable partner for the Laurel Race Course, which had long been in serious financial peril. Governor William Schaefer was a leading opponent—initially—because of the existential threat to Baltimore’s efforts to get an NFL team. Various residents were quoted about their support or opposition. The Russett planned community was just starting to sell houses, and new homeowners were appalled. Local church leaders were aghast.


The site, adjacent to the racetrack, sat at the conjunction of three counties, as does Laurel itself. Each county has its own politics and its own zoning laws, and Laurel is the only municipality in Prince George’s with its own zoning authority. The main focus was Anne Arundel, and the Redskins would have to obtain a special exception and a variety of zoning variances. Their plan impacted state roads and most of the traffic would have to traverse Prince George’s County and the city.


While there were a lot of issues that inspired opposition, the two leading issues were traffic and parking. Traffic impact was expected to be worse than with most suburban stadiums because the site was not adjacent to a major highway, and almost all of the traffic had to approach from the south. The Redskins’ fan base was concentrated in Northern Virginia, Montgomery County, and DC. From I-95 to the Brock Bridge Road/Whiskey Bottom Road intersection was over four miles and traffic would have to traverse 3-lane Gorman Road (Route 198) through the Route 1 intersection pre-game and do the same on Talbott Avenue post-game. Or traffic could go up the 2-lane Baltimore-Washington Parkway and travel almost two miles to the stadium. A spin-off traffic impact was that 1 p.m. kick-offs, with traffic peaking between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m., would have a dramatic effect on Laurel area churches. In particular, the Mount Zion Unified Methodist Church in Bacontown was immediately adjacent to the stadium site and its closest parking lots. Resurrection of Our Lord Catholic Church is on Brock Bridge Road just north of the stadium site and with most of its parishioners in Laurel, it argued that it would be landlocked.


As for parking, the proposal for a 78,600 seat stadium generated a never-resolved debate that bedeviled the Redskins from start to finish. Anne Arundel County zoning law required stadiums to provide a parking space for every two seats (39,300), an admittedly high standard. Data showed that most suburban NFL stadiums had 90-95% of fans arrive by auto with an average vehicle occupancy of 2.6 to 2.9 persons (24,400 to 28,700 vehicles). The Redskins made various arguments but generally maintained that they would have only 82% of fans arrive by auto and achieve an average vehicle occupancy of 3.5 persons, necessitating only 20,077 parking spaces. Early on, Cooke purchased an additional 25 acres to address the parking problem but even that was not enough.


Cooke and his stadium team commenced an aggressive campaign to woo legislators and local leaders. Cooke personally called numerous local business leaders and politicians. The Redskins engaged former Laurel Mayor and State Delegate Bobby Joe DiPietro as a volunteer to play a key role in their local public relations drive.


On December 9, Maryland City Citizens Association President Ray Smallwood held a community meeting at which most residents were in opposition. On December 16, Delegate John Morgan held a meeting at Laurel High School attended by over 400 residents. The Laurel Leader wrote a prescient editorial that the meeting would ensure Morgan’s re-election at the end of 1994.


The most active opponents quickly formed an area-wide opposition group: Citizens Against the Stadium-Part 2 (borrowing the name from the Alexandria stadium opposition). CATS-2 held a community meeting on December 22 and started organizing a broad and aggressive opposition operation. The initial President was Don Burgess, but when he dropped out, he was replaced by Co-Presidents Jeanne Mignon (future owner of Minuteman Press on Main Street) and Mary Lehman (future county council member and delegate). Other executive committee members were Cindy and Bob Buteh (community outreach), Nick Ruggiero (zoning), Gil Schoukroun (treasurer), John and Kelly Griswold (newsletter), Mike Maloney (legal), Ray Smallwood, Laura Waters, and Heywood Johnson.


Meanwhile, Governor Schaefer met with Jack Kent Cooke and pressure was put on Schaefer by Senate President Miller. As Mayor of Baltimore Schaefer had obtained $160 million of state funding to construct a new NFL stadium if a team moved to Baltimore and Miller threatened the continuation of this funding.


The first six months of 1994 saw an endless stream of machinations from all sides. And, to spice things up, 1994 was not only a gubernatorial election year, but the city held its elections in March. Now subject to term limits as a result of the efforts of his nemesis Walter Maloney, county council member Frank Casula announced that he was running for mayor. Mayor Joe Robison began making noise that he would run for the recently redrawn District 13B delegate seat (now dominated by the city) held by Republican John Morgan, who lived in Howard County. Walter Maloney, a leader of the 1992 term limit movement and legal adviser to CATS-2, made it clear that he would run for Casula’s council seat. And, sitting at the junction of Prince George’s, Anne Arundel, and Howard Counties, the Redskins stadium controversy stirred the political plots generating an endless supply of intrigue.


As 1994 opened, so did a Redskins office at Laurel Realty on Route 1. Cooke announced that he signed an option to buy 100 acres of Laurel Race Course property and that the stadium site would be moved slightly away from Laurel Highlands and Bacontown and would sit smack-dab in the middle of the Brock Bridge Road/Whiskey Bottom Road intersection with a ring road circling it. The Leader started a regular feature—Redskins Watch—with all of the latest twists and turns.


Amongst all of the briefings and meetings that the Redskins participated in, one of the more important turned out to be with the Laurel Regional Transportation Committee on January 26. I was a member of the committee and well aware of the many shortcomings of the Redskins transportation and parking plans. I came prepared to grill the Redskins representatives and did so. CATS-2 members taped the meeting and later produced a transcript of statements that demonstrated inconsistencies in the Redskins’ arguments.


In February, Craig Horn, John Harrison, and future Delegate Brian Moe formed Citizens for a Planned Stadium in Laurel (CPSL) to support the stadium. The stadium was also supported by the Baltimore Washington Corridor Chamber of Commerce and the Laurel Board of Trade. Pat Walsh, a Main Street business owner, sold Laurel Redskins hats, t-shirts, and buttons. CATS-2 countered with t-shirts, buttons, and bumper stickers.



Photo: John Mewshaw

CATS-2 leaders Mignon and Lehman hit the halls of the State House and the streets of Annapolis lobbying against state funding and seeking to counter the pitch of the Redskins’ high-powered lobbyists. They went toe-to-toe with stadium supporters and even button-holed Miller one day. CATS-2 held a State House protest.


Meanwhile, the mayor and city council were muted on their positions, which irritated a lot of residents, especially as the city election approached. Frank Casula faced off against city council member Linda Schulte for mayor. Council member Reggie Parks (who also was a long-time aide to Casula) decided to run for county council. Council President Bruce Dodgson and Faith Calhoun ran for re-election. When the votes were tallied, Casula prevailed by about 100 votes, Faith Calhoun became Council President, Dodgson retained his seat, and they were joined by Craig Moe (future mayor), Pat Howard, and Chuck Hulberg.


Being elected mayor meant that Casula resigned from the county council creating a vacancy. In 1990, the council had enacted a special election process, but this was challenged as being in violation of state law. Maloney believed in filling the vacancy via special election and challenged the matter in court. The case rocketed all the way to Maryland’s highest court, which ruled in June that state law required the vacancy to be filled by appointment and the appointee serve until after the November election. Reggie Parks and Linda Schulte vied for the appointment, but Maloney refused to participate on principle. Ultimately, the county council voted unanimously in July to appoint Parks.


In March, the State Highway Administration and Anne Arundel County released a traffic study recommending $52 million in road and rail improvements. In April, the Redskins filed their formal stadium plan with Anne Arundel County calling for only 20,500 parking spaces. They asserted that carpooling incentives would reduce the need for parking and road improvements. The next day, the Anne Arundel County planning director granted the Redskins a 25% parking-space waiver.


CATS-2 lacked funds to hire many experts, but it did not lack for over-qualified volunteers holding security clearances that precluded them from discussing their day jobs. A “technical team” was put together and set up a “war room” at Resurrection Catholic Church (key members were Nick Ruggieri, Jim Sari, Peter Militch, Doug Grodt, Gil Shoukroun, and Dale Lehman). Because Walter Maloney was committed to running for Casula’s county council seat, he recommended that CATS-2 hire me to be their lead attorney. I had been working behind the scenes for months with the technical team. Maloney agreed to focus one on aspect: organizing the Laurel Clergy Association to officially oppose the stadium plan.


Since the special exception requirements included a comparison of other properties that were zoned the same, the technical team got a volunteer pilot to fly them around Anne Arundel County to photograph sites. Some team members went to take street level photos, and one day while photographing sensitive commercial sites near BWI Airport they were challenged by security that became concerned that they were involved in espionage. When Pink Floyd played a concert at RFK, the technical team was there—inside and outside of the stadium—to take sound measurements.


The Redskins hired Harry Blumenthal and Kathryn Dahl to handle the special exception application. Blumenthal was considered the premier zoning attorney in Anne Arundel County and had written many of the zoning laws. The developer of Russett, facing pressure from many of its new homeowners like CATS-2 President Mignon, hired Richard Talkin, a well-known land use attorney, to oppose the special exception application and to oppose a related aspect in Howard County to relocate stables to make room for the stadium.


Robert Wilcox, the Zoning Hearing Examiner, decided to hold the hearing close to the stadium site and selected Meade High School. The date was set for Monday, July 11, and was projected to take several days. CATS-2 decided to subpoena a few key players to ensure their availability. On July 7, I went to Wilcox’s office to pick up the subpoenas and, as I was leaving, he asked in an off-hand manner whether anyone had confirmed the Redskins’ legal status. Technically, the Redskins were owned by Jack Kent Cooke, Inc. (a Nevada corporation) doing business as The Redskins, Inc. Such a “foreign” corporation is required to register to do business in Maryland. The zoning application, all documents, and hearing exhibits were made in the name of “The Redskins, Inc.”


The way that Wilcox asked the question suggested that he knew the answer and that it was probably an interesting answer. Today, you can find the status of any corporation online in about 30 seconds. In 1994, one needed to go to the State Department of Assessments and Taxation in Baltimore. Donna Militch volunteered to go on Friday morning when the office opened. When she arrived, she noticed two men in suits coming into the building behind her and her intuition told her that she had competition. She raced them to the elevator and beat them to the desk that handles incorporation. The two men stood behind her while she made her inquiries. No, there was no record of a foreign or domestic corporation by the name of The Redskins, Inc. But the men behind her were there to register the Redskins to do business. So, thinking fast, Militch filled out an application to “reserve” the name “The Redskins, Inc” for 30 days. The Redskins representatives were beside themselves. Their lawyers threatened to sue all of us for copyright infringement, but we never used the name—we just “reserved” it.


When the hearing opened on Monday, the Redskins treated it like an Opening Day. They brought busloads of supporters and cheerleaders. TV crews, journalists, and spectators filled the high school auditorium. Excitement built. And then, Richard Talking and I filed multiple motions to dismiss, mostly related to the Redskins not being registered to do business in Maryland. However, over the weekend, the Redskins transferred all of their assets to a newly formed Maryland corporation: the Maryland Acquisition Holding Corporation (which was not the actual applicant). So, rather than the day being all about the merits of the stadium, the spectators sat and watched a bunch of lawyers arguing about boring and arcane elements of corporate law. By early afternoon most of the media and spectators got bored and left. In the end, Wilcox denied the motions to dismiss but admonished the Redskins for sloppiness. Even though the motions were unsuccessful, the opposition won the day by setting the tone and making clear that the Redskins were not going to have an easy time.


The next day, the Redskins began the heart of their case and produced boxes of reports and other evidence to present. The Redskins had refused to share their evidence in advance and Wilcox had refused to require them to do so as there is no right to “discovery” in an administrative hearing. However, due to the volume of new evidence, Wilcox ruled that he would postpone the next hearing date for a couple of days so the opposition could review the evidence and prepare for cross-examination.


The CATS-2 technical team reconvened in the war room and began the herculean task of dissecting and critiquing all the Redskins’ arguments and preparing their attorney for cross-examination. Working in loose cooperation with Russett, this preparation resulted in every Redskins’ expert witness being subjected to detailed cross-examination. The war room buzzed with activity almost every evening until the end of the hearing.


What began as possibly a one-week case played out as a slow, ponderous tragicomedy over six weeks on a high school stage. A group of spectators, known as the Coffee Club, came every day to watch the drama play out. My pro-stadium neighbors, John and Jennie Lee Kalie, video-taped the entire proceedings for Laurel Cable. As the case dragged into August, one day was set aside for community member comments. Another day featured testimony from religious organizations led by Maloney.


At one point Wilcox observed that both sides engage in hyperbole, with opponents arguing that people would be prisoners in their homes. He said, “That’s pretty strong stuff. But people will be able to go to church. Religion, as we know it in the Western world, will not end. Somewhere in the middle is the truth—and that’s what we’ve got to flush out.”


There was a feeling among observant spectators and the opposition that the Redskins could very well lose. To try to find enough space for parking, at one point the Redskins proposed allowing cars to park in the infield of the racetrack. They proposed that they would organize dozens of buses to bring fans from DC and Virginia. For their rebuttal case, the Redskins introduced a new wrinkle to their plan on the last day, the creation of an “Entry Pass Program” to try to assuage concerns about fans parking in neighborhoods. Wilcox closed the hearing and allowed the parties to submit written arguments and make closing statements on September 7.


In the midst of all of the attention to the stadium controversy, the 1994 gubernatorial election went forward. In 1994, state primaries occurred on the second Tuesday in September, leaving less than two months before the general election. Former Mayor Joe Robison, known as a stadium supporter, lost to a virtual unknown challenger, John Giannetti. Reggie Parks, who had won the county council appointment in July, was edged out by CATS-2 attorney and term limit leader Walter Maloney by a mere 35 votes. Prince George’s County Executive Parris Glendening, who came out forcefully against the stadium late in the zoning process, won the Democratic nomination for governor.


On October 12, Wilcox’s office called the attorneys for the parties to announce that his decision was available to be picked up. Nick Ruggiero raced to Annapolis to get the decision: Denied! A photo of Ruggiero standing in front of the county office building with his arms raised in a touchdown pose graced the cover of the Capital Gazette. An impromptu celebration formed at the Mignon house in Russett with many renditions of “Hit the Road, Jack.”


However, soon after, reality set in. The Redskins announced an appeal to the Board of Appeals and the very long 1994 year started to look a lot longer. The appeal was slated for February. CATS-2 also decided to file an appeal to the one variance that Wilcox had approved.


When the general election occurred on November 8, John Morgan narrowly defeated Giannetti, undoubtedly helped by his opposition to the stadium that won him support from local Democrats (and helped by the 1994 “Republican Revolution” that flipped the U.S. Senate and the House). Giannetti defeated Morgan in a 1998 rematch and, in 2002, after being redistricted into District 21, he defeated long-time Senator Art Dorman. Important for stadium opponents, Parris Glendening withstood the “Republican Revolution” to eke out one of the narrowest gubernatorial victories ever in Maryland. As an electoral footnote, on the Anne Arundel side, the Democrats lost the senate seat and two of the delegate seats. Of note, 23-year-old Republican stadium opponent Jim Rzepkowski received by far the most votes of the delegate candidates.


With Glendening as the incoming governor, the writing was on the wall. On November 14, Cooke’s lawyers requested a postponement of the Board of Appeals hearing until the end of April. Soon thereafter, Jack Kent Cooke started shopping for stadium sites in Prince George’s County, including in Konterra. In early 1995, the Redskins attorneys requested another postponement of the Board of Appeals hearing until June. After wooing the Prince George’s County executive and county council (which now included Maloney, who still opposed a stadium in general), in May 1995 the Redskins withdrew their appeal and Laurel residents could at last close the book on a most eventful 1994.


Thirty years on, the stadium may seem like ancient history, but a look at the roster of people involved shows that its influences may still be seen if you know where to look.


 

Tom Dernoga represents District 1 on the Prince George’s County Council.

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