California stadium takes another step forward

The proposed construction of an NFL-worthy stadium near Los Angeles cleared another hurdle on Tuesday with a settlement with a neighboring community. The Vikings are one of several teams that are on the developer’s radar.

Although it isn’t making national headlines, the stadium proposal by developer Ed Roski in Los Angeles that many fear will eventually lure the Vikings out of Minnesota took another step forward Tuesday.

The stadium, which is expected to be privately built in the City of Industry just outside of Los Angeles, has had several hurdles to cross. Among them was a threatened lawsuit from neighboring Diamond Bar, a small town that felt it would be impacted by the brunt of building a 75,000-seat stadium near its backyard.

That hurdle was crossed Tuesday when the two cities agreed on a payment of $20 million to Diamond Bar to compensate for traffic, noise and light effects from the stadium. The payment would preclude the city from filing a lawsuit against the City of Industry.

Diamond Bar City Councilwoman Carol Herrera said that, regardless of opposition, she believes the stadium will be going in regardless of whether a deal is in place to relocate an NFL franchise to the Los Angeles area.

“Any way you look at it, the project is going in,” Herrera said told media in California. “There’s no way to stop it.”

While Diamond Bar has settled its dispute, the neighboring City of Walnut is similarly looking for compensation or to stop the construction. The city filed suit in court March 25 disputing the environmental report on the stadium, which could tie things up for a while if a similar settlement isn’t reached.

As it currently stands, there are five franchises being rumored as candidates for relocation to the proposed stadium – the Vikings, Chargers, Jaguars, Raiders and 49ers.

WEDNESDAY NOTES

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are going to work out quarterback Josh Freeman next week. With the Vikings apparently set at quarterback for the 2009 season, they might love to see as many QB picks as possible made before their pick at No. 22. The Bucs have been linked to Freeman with the 19th pick, which would make three QBs that would go before the Vikings were on the clock. As reported earlier by Viking Update, Freeman is scheduled to be among the nearly 30 visitors to Winter Park today and tomorrow.

Fantasy football player alert! There are rumors that Larry Fitzgerald is going to be on the cover of the next Madden video game. In recent years, being on the cover has been viewed as a jinx that has consistently resulted in that player being injured or having a dismal season.

The Vikings' offseason program began this week and several players and head coach Brad Childress are being made available for interviews. We'll have more on that throughout the week.

To get breaking news updates and story alerts from VikingUpdate.com, you can now sign up on Twitter at twitter.com/vikingupdate for online or text-messsage alerts.