PASADENA DECLARES THAT NFL IS DOA.

Byline: Billy Witz Staff Writer

PASADENA - The patient flat-lined in the wee hours of Monday night and was stone cold by sunrise, but that didn't stop Pasadena and NFL officials from trying to breathe life into the proposal to bring pro football to the Rose Bowl.

``It's not dead,'' reported Rose Bowl general manager Darryl Dunn, about eight hours after declaring it otherwise. ``It's like freeze tag. It's frozen.''

Said NFL executive Neil Glat: ``We're still trying to evaluate it and understand it. From our standpoint of trying to move a process forward, it was not encouraging.''

If there was some reluctance to bury the issue just yet, it's understandable after the bizarre twists from the City Council meeting that began at 7:30 p.m. Monday and extended into Tuesday morning.

In the end, opponents had the votes they needed to kill the project but didn't - at least officially. The only action that took place was asking for further study of Plan B - whatever that is, wondered Little.

The NFL issue had consumed the council, city staff and a good many residents the past month, as they vigorously debated the economic benefits of a potential $500 million, NFL-financed renovation of the Rose Bowl and the social and economic costs of allowing the NFL into its town. Monday was the third council meeting on the subject in the past month, and four hours into it, there was little indication that Bogaard and the seven council members were headed toward resolution.

The key document they were considering - a statement of overriding considerations - states that a project's benefits outweigh the negative consequences outlined in an environmental-impact report, which the council certified three weeks earlier.

Without it, a project can't go forward.

For weeks, opponents of the NFL project - primarily residents near the Rose Bowl - had counted on three votes, from Bogaard and Councilmen Steve Haderlein and Sid Tyler. For the fourth, which would tie up the deal, they targeted their own councilman, Steve Madison.

An early proponent of the project, Madison turned mum. Not so for many of his constituents, who last week sent out thousands of mailers branding Madison a sellout and threatening a recall.

At about 11:40 p.m., after the news cameras had been broken down and the standing-room-only crowd at the Pasadena Senior Center had mostly emptied, Madison reinforced the handicappers' expectation the issue would be put over.

``I need to be measured,'' Madison began. ``I need to not be influenced by this radical fringe. I need to represent the people who elected me and respect me.''

With that, he declared that he could not support the NFL project.

``I am not going to support (the NFL),'' Madison said. ``The impacts are too great. The risks are too uncertain. Believe as we might, I'm not sufficiently persuaded we can control the risks.''

Although Madison was unequivocal in his opposition, he said afterward that he hadn't made the decision until the meeting was under way.

``What it came down to is that being a pro-sports town would change the fabric of Pasadena and impact the quality of life in ways that cannot be expected,'' Madison said. ``The pro-sports environment is a lot different from college. The fan base is totally different. You can build in all these safeguards for traffic and public safety, but I couldn't take all the risk off the table. Who knows what another council might do?''

After Madison's declaration, a motion that passed 5-1 with two abstentions. directed the city to spend up to $150,000 the next six months exploring alternatives beside the NFL that would help secure the future of the 83-year-old stadium.

Motions by Little to continue discussing the NFL and by Joyce Streater to vote on the statement of overriding considerations never received a second.

Billy Witz, [phone]

billy.witz(at)dailynews.com