Fate of two Los Angeles cultural icons unites activists,....with some conditions

The efforts to preserve Griffith Park and the Southwest Museum will continue this Wednesday, October 15, with activists converging on City Hall for the regular 10:00 AM meeting of the City Council.

The Save Los Angeles Project with a broad spectrum of community groups, plan on taking their campaign to gain "historic cultural monument status" for Griffith Park and preserving the Southwest Museum with its collection of art work, on the slopes of Mt. Washington in Council District 14, directly to the fifteen people that will decide their respective futures.

But as more citizens and groups join the growing movement to grant historical status for Griffith Park, do they all care in preserving the Southwest Museum in its current location??

The Los Angeles Conservancy for example has jumped on the "Cultural Historical Monument Bandwagon" and has posted a "action alert" on their web site that call upon their supporters to attend the October 30, 2008 meeting of the The city’s Cultural Heritage Commission, which will vote on the Griffith Park's HCM nomination.

But its Executive Director, Linda Dishman is a founding, blue-ribbon member of the "Southwest Society", a group of political hacks and associates of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Councilman Jose Huizar who were suppose to raise money to restore the museum. Thus you have the Executive Director of LA's leading preservation organization backing the effort to preserve Griffith Park but yet is supporting the expansion of the Autry National Center which would adversely impact the park, what gives??

Associations?? One can type into the Google search engine, William Delvac of Latham and Watkins, Brenda Levin, and Linda Dishman and get this .

All three contribute to the Los Angeles Historic Resource Assessment Project, a project of the Getty Conservation Institute. This summery report came up with strategies for preservation of cultural entities such as neighborhoods, churches, buildings, and yes, museums.

But when preservation of our cultural, historic locations is predicated on our public institutions and their political overseers, then the best of intentions become political considerations that are expose to the whims and political needs of the powers to be, and those who seek to preserve our civic treasures become beholden to those who control preservation funds.

Thus a person such as Jackie Autry can spread around the "Benjamin's" to the likes of Steve Sugerman, William Delvac, Brenda Levin, Linda Dishman, Councilman Jose Huizar, Councilman Tom LaBonge and Mayor Villaraigosa, in her quest to make off with the Southwest collection, in what would go down as the greatest "legalize" heist of Northeast Los Angeles Cultural History.

........and spread the "cancer of development" on the sacred land that Col. Griffith sought to preserve in its natural state.