When you think Carson, you think car dealer Don Kott long before you think wheeler-dealer Michael Ovitz. Carson is a residential city that socially and geographically bridges the distance between Compton and Torrance. It’s got Nissan Motors’ U.S. headquarters, a Cal State campus, Kott’s sprawling auto dealerships and an IKEA-anchored mall, plus some of the scraggly bare spots that, in metro L.A., usually connote abandoned dumpsites.One of these latter venues got Carson in the news last week, with the airing of a landfill-based proposal that would turn this burg of 90,000 into an NFL city, complete with a half-billion-dollar stadium-cum-mall.It was a big day for Carsonites. There, on the front of the morning Times, was a tinted sketch of what appeared to be a luminous, 77,000-seat Taco Bell.The eulogistic article (which determined that this project was, instantly, “the leading contender” for the NFL’s proposed 32nd team) struck some townsfolk with much the same impact as those “you’re a $100 million winner” mailings hit the gullible.That night, about 300 Carsonites overflowed the 140-capacity council chamber to find out what this bid meant to them, and what the city’s contribution (ranging from $100 million to $180 million) would mean to a municipality with an annual operating budget of under $40 million.
Source: Taco Bowl | L.A. Weekly