Harvard Stadium Fight May Heat Up on Tuesday

The ten year battle over Harvard Stadium is expected to heat up this week, when a committee of the Massachusetts legislature holds hearings on a bill proposing that the state use its power of eminent domain to take over the Stadium for use by the Boston Patriots professional football team.

Under the bill, the state would use the proceeds of a bond issue to buy the Stadium from Harvard, renovate it, and provide parking spaces around the facility. The bonds would be retired by the revenue from the Patriots' rental of the Stadium.

Harvard would receive a 99-year lease to use the Stadium for its football games, and other University functions. The bill's sponsors also envisions that other groups-high school football teams and evangelists, for example-would use the Stadium on occasion.

State Sen. Robert L. Cawley (D-Bos.) co-sponsor of the bill, had first proposed paying Harvard $10 million for the Stadium, but has now decided it isn't worth that much, and has indicated he will move to reduce the compensation to $5 million.

Cawley heads the legislature's Federal Financial Assistance Committee, which will hold hearings Tuesday on the bill. Among witnesses invited to appear are Pro Football Commissioner Pete Rozelle, Boston's Mayor Kevin White, and Massachusetts' Governor Francis W. Sargent.

Many of the witnesses will probably be hostile to Harvard's long-standing policy of refusing to let the Patriots play in the Stadium. Administration sources yesterday indicated the University will re-affirm that policy in the hearings. They also said it had not yet been decided whether Harvard will send a representative or merely a written statement to the session.

Lawyers for Cawley and the University have checked the constitutionality of the bill, and agree that it is legal, provided the state can prove a public purpose would be served by taking over the Stadium.

In addition to Cawley's bill, four others, now in the legislative hopper, deal with the Stadium. Hearings on the other four bills-which would either remove or reduce the facility's tax exemption-will be held on Feb. 12. At the moment, it seems unlikely that any of the bills stand a good chance of approval by the legislature.

The slew of bills represents a new peak in the battle over the Stadium, which began over ten years ago, even before the Patriots played their first game. Ever since then, the Patriots have made periodic bids for use of the facility, saying that without a stadium the size of Harvard's, they cannot afford to remain in Boston.

At first, the Patriots offered to pay Harvard $250,000 a year for the use of the Stadium, but they now say the most they can afford is $100,000 a year.

Harvard has always refused the team's requests, and has argued that the Patriots' use of the stadium would hamper Harvard's athletic program, produce trafficproblems and other irritations for Stadium neighbors, and slow down efforts to build a new stadium for the team.

Unofficially, the University's position has been that the pro team could play in the Stadium on a temporary basis, but only after the state legislature approved a bill to build a new stadium for the team, so that the temporary use would not become permanent.

Numerous bills to build such a stadium for the team have died in the legislature during the past decade, chiefly because of objections from neighbors to proposed stadium sites, and difficulties with arranging a method of financing the stadium's deficit.