Griffith Historic Ap Moves Forward with Last Minute Deal-Making
The City Council's Planning and Land Use Management Committee moved the Griffith Park Historic Monument application forward with a number of last minute changes brokered by LaBonge's office, the Griffith Trust, the Autry, DWP, and the Department of Recreation and Parks.The standing room only crowd was fairly quiet after the vote, obviously confused by the last minute legal wrangling that the PLUM committee chose to include in its recommendation to the full council. Autry lobbyist Bill Delvac described his portion of the wrangling in his public comment as both 'excluding all non-contributing element projects already in the pipeline at the time of the historic application', and as simply excluding any project related to non-contributing elements (regardless of when they are initiated) ... So which is it, Bill?
In the last allowed public comment, a lawyer for the Griffith Trust said that they had just then agreed that Toyon Canyon - where LaBonge has wanted to build ballfields and cable cars - was to be excluded from the designation as was the Autry and the DWP's pending Headworks project. (All of these are on land that is truly part of Griffith Park.) Rec and Parks maintenance employees were to be granted six months training time to understand exactly what the designation would mean to their protocols.
No public comment was heard on these changes since no language was available for anyone to look at prior to the hearing, including the PLUM committee members themselves. However, given that Jack Weiss didn't even bother to sit up from his perpetually-bored and uninterested chair slump the entire meeting, it's pretty clear this so-called last minute wrangling was pre-planned.
Next stop for this issue -- and the only time the public will be able to comment on the new exclusions -- is the full City Council on Jan 27th.
Labels: Autry Museum, griffith park, Griffith Park Historic Designation, Griffith Trust, plum, tom labonge, Tom LeBong, toyon canyon landfill
Posted by Petra Fried in the City @ 1/13/2009 04:46:00 PM
8 Comments:
Latham & Watkins is the most anti
community firm in Los Angeles.
I hope they get their ass kicked over this like they did in Sunland over Home Depot.
Tom LaBonge gets support on another issue from another quarter: LA ist features with a video, "Slash Says Keep Billy at the Zoo," today's posting.
I don't know if Tom even knows who Slash is, but he must have heard of Guns 'N Roses and his staff can clue him in. If he can get Slash gunning for him, can't get better PR than that.
Bill Delvac likes to toot his horn about saving St. Vibiana's Cathedral from the wrecking ball. It was the best thing he ever did for preservation but it was years ago.
Then he sold his soul to Latham and began assisting historic resource owners tear down and destroy their buildings. Thus, we lost a great deal of Lincoln Place and many others.
Thanks Bill, The Darth Vader of Preservation.
The PLUM Committee are also City Council members who have balls of brass to infer that Neighborhood Council members cannot be trusted. Those clowns are the most corrupt people I have ever seen and the thought of jail would be entirely too humane.
Lathan & Watkins,the Autrey Museum, LaBonge and all the other yahoos who are destroying our park ought to get their ass kicked by the Griffithfamily. In fact the park should revert back to the family because the city is ruining it. I am sure they would do a lot better job of preserving it. With the City Council and their special interest involved, soon there will be nothing left and where the park was will be unrecognizable.
How Tom LaBonge can stand up for the pathetic Autry Museum is beyond me. It is so clear to people in the Griffith Park area that the Autry expansion proposal is just some grandiose ego trip by Gene's widow, Jackie Autry.
LaBonge likes to remind everyone about what a booster he is of LA's history. Well he could start by just telling Jackie Autry she has to continue to use the Southwest Museum instead of obviously trying to abandon it and put the Southwest's important artifact collection under the "Autry" name.
But LaBonge is now trying to figure out some fig leaf excuse to justify continuing to subsidize the Autry with free use of our Griffith Park -- and now he thinks it would be great to rape other parts of town to build up his own.
Pathetic Tom. What a great booster of LA's culture and history you are.
Leave Tom LoBonge alone!
I was at this meeting and I didn't know this at all until now!!! Must do investigation...
Also, the first person to get screwed here, is the cartoonist above who wasn't credited or paid. Is this clip art, Petra Fied? Seems important for this honorable blog to list sources for art as well as quotes.
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