Here's a few points from the meeting:
For the most part, St. Louis was well represented. The tone for the most part was pro STL as opposed to negativity toward LA, though it would be disingenuous of me to say that there wasn't any of that. People were passionate and with a few exceptions presented very intelligently and with a lot of thought and consideration.
I think even those that are hoping the team leaves St. Louis can appreciate that the fans did their best to hold Eric Grubman and the other execs accountable when questions were asked, alas Grubman is a professional at the non-answer.
Randy Karraker was easily the highlight as he spoke from his heart as a fan, not as a radio host. He was emotional about being a professional football fan and being a true St. Louisan. He made several points regarding the relocation guidelines. He spokes of the lack of communication of Stan Kroenke. And a great takeaway was when he presented pictures of 31 owners working in the community. The only owner you can't find a picture of doing this is Stan.
The execs on a few different occasions on the night spoke to the passion of the St. Louis fans. The female exec (her last name was Hogan I believe) concluded that she believes that St. Louis is as passionate as any city in the league and the evening reminded her of what she loves about football and that is the relationships and connections (paraphrasing there...).
At one point a woman got up to talk about football and how it brings people together as a community and how important that can be. It was one of the best speeches of the night. Eric Grubman got up afterward (one of the few times he offered anything without being directly asked) that she gave the best description of a community that he's ever heard.
Another gentleman tried to speak but was so overcome with emotion his wife read his thoughts to us. He was 81 years old and described himself as the oldest Rams fan. He says this because he lived in Cleveland when the Rams came into existence and worked for the stadium. He was hooked. He followed the team to Los Angeles. Some years after the Rams moved to St. Louis his wife got a job offer in the St. Louis metro area. He told her she was taking the job because that's "Where my Rams are". Throughout the night when people would bring up LA he became animated stating that the team needs to stay in St. Louis because it's been a better home for the team. (And please don't take this out on me, I'm just reporting what was said) He also very vocally stated that LA has a much better soccer presence than football. Much of this was after Eric Grubman was asked about previous NFL teams in LA, in which he proclaimed that they failed.
There were a couple people that used the townhall meeting to speak against the stadium, which was clearly the wrong forum to do so. One lady spoke against using tax dollars and people were courteous to her and let her speak, but like I said the correct forum for that would have been to the BoA or the task force, not this meeting. The other person was there to sabotage the event to discuss racial inequality and other non-Rams related issues in St. Louis. Eric Grubman even seemed caught off guard and said to her that this meeting isn't to discuss or fix St. Louis problems...which promptly was followed by the real intention of this lady, the 4 or 5 protestors that were holding banners and were really quite embarrassing. But security hauled them away within seconds and the program continued very productively.
The guidelines were obviously a big point of discussion, as was the absence of Stan Kroenke. The work of the task force was highlighted by Grubman as he said that San Diego is about 10-12 months behind what St.Louis has done and Oakland hasn't done a thing. He also wanted to make it clear that he was the one that negotiated the Minnesota deal, not their ownership and that St. Louis very easily could have the same result, though he did not make any promises throughout the evening.
