Documents give a behind-the-scenes look of Clippers' Inglewood proposal
LOS ANGELES - During the final minutes of a June 2017 council meeting, Mayor James T. Butts Jr. hailed progress being made across Inglewood: Crime had plummeted. The budget was more robust. And a $5-billion stadium for the NFL's Los Angeles Rams and Chargers soon would anchor a sprawling mixed-use development at the heart of the city.
The transformation included another potential jewel: City lawmakers had just approved an exclusive negotiating agreement with a company controlled by the NBA's Los Angeles Clippers for a proposed arena that would be privately financed by team owner Steve Ballmer.
But there was one major obstacle.
The Clippers wanted to use 22 acres of vacant, city-owned land across West Century Boulevard from the NFL stadium development - parcels that had been leased to the Madison Square Garden Co., the New York-based sports and entertainment giant that owns the nearby Forum, for overflow parking.
A year and a half later, the land is the subject of a bitter legal fight pitting Inglewood and Ballmer, the former Microsoft CEO estimated by Forbes to be worth more than $42 billion, against MSG, whose holdings
