O.C. CAN SAY AU REVOIR TO NFL.

Byline: STEVE DILBECK

ANAHEIM - Well, Anaheim, you'll always have Paris.

The NFL, though, I'm thinking is not going to happen.

The National Football League wants to return to Los Angeles. Which leaves the town that Walt Disney built with this name problem. It's own.

Anaheim.

It's a great place and a wonderful town. Has a terrific amusement park - Come celebrate Disneyland's 50th anniversary! - a gorgeous arena and a beautiful ballpark.

But it's in the O.C., which ain't L.A., and that - as Arte Moreno could tell you - is a serious obstacle.

Which means the big winner looks like - surprise, surprise - the often-ridiculed, sometimes-ignored, frequently dismissed Los Angeles Coliseum.

Left for dead, written off more than Paula Abdul, hounded by safety concerns, it is the venerable Coliseum which now appears most likely to land an NFL team.

And pigs can fly.

Anaheim tried to put on its best face Tuesday at a press conference. And indeed, much of its presentation was truly impressive.

The city plans a mile-long grand parkway to connect its sports venues to its theme parks and convention center, a tree-lined boulevard it breathlessly compared to Paris' Champs-Elysees. Just sort of ending with giant mouse ears instead of the Arc de Triomphe.

The plan is ambitious, makes perfect sense and - as city administrators constantly mentioned - is going to happen with or without an NFL team.

Best focus on that ``without'' plan.

At the end of its NFL presentation, as mayor Curt Pringle was thanking the media for attending, councilman Harry Sidhu suddenly shot up and made like the party crasher from the mind of Wes Craven.

``I would love for them to come here, but they (have) got to pay the price,'' Sidhu said. ``NFL owners (are out to make money for themselves), not for the people, not for the taxpayers of the city.

``My vision is, that if the NFL does not want to pay the price, this property is going to go for sale. At $150 million. I will landscape the entire west Anaheim with that.''

Pringle, a former State Assembly speaker, remained remarkably calm. Afterward, he tried to be pragmatic.

``We're a five-member city council, not a nine-member Coliseum Commission with three members appointed by the state, three by the county and three members the city,'' Pringle said. ``This is a pretty streamlined form of government. It's always hard to have unanimity on every single thing. At the end of the day, we work very well together.

``But there's three cameras here, you know?''

Yep, cameras and notepads and microphones capturing just the sort of faux pas that used to constantly undermine the Coliseum's efforts.

``They can do whatever they want to do; we're just staying focused on what we have to do,'' Coliseum general manager Pat Lynch said. ``In our estimation, this time around, we're just doing it businesslike.''

Six years ago when Los Angeles lost out to Houston for the 32nd expansion team, the Coliseum bid was brought to you by Barnum and Bailey, complete with more characters than a Russian novel.

Now they have almost been - shh - quiet.

``The scenario is different now,'' Lynch said. ``Everybody learned. We learned, they learned. We had too many players last time.

``We've all made a conscious decision that this is a staff-to-staff thing. We don't need politics. We don't need PR. We don't need anything. We just need to do a deal.''

Despite its fractious past, city officials have remained behind the Coliseum. So if you're going to have an NFL team in Los Angeles, wanting to be a part of its glitz and glamour, it will have to be at the Coliseum.

Anaheim's best chance might be if the NFL were to send two teams to Southern California, returning the way it left. Yet it probably wants one team to be the focus, which likely means Anaheim is left out.

While Anaheim tries to make its case with the NFL, the city is also in court trying to force Moreno to call his team the Anaheim Angels instead of Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.

Poor Anaheim. Diminished as a location by the team it already has, while trying to lure another. It's not that there's anything wrong with Anaheim; it's just not L.A.

A little something to consider along the Parisian boulevard.