(pulled from the ASNCAlert group on Yahoo)
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
http://arroyosecojournal.blogspot.com/2011/08/city-sued-over-autry-southwest-mer\
ger.html
The City of Los Angeles is being sued over its willingness to allow the Autry
National Center to absorb the Southwest Museum. A suit has been filed by the
Highland Park Heritage Trust and by the Mount Washington Homeowners Alliance.
The two Northeast Los Angeles organizations allege that the Los Angeles City
Council, in allowing a Recreation and Parks Board decision permitting the Autry
to remodel in Griffith Park, ignored city zoning law and state environmental
law.
The absorption of the Southwest by the Autry was presented to area residents in
2003 as a merger that would result in both the Autry Museum in Griffith Park and
the Southwest Museum in Mount Washington continuing to exist under one umbrella.
However, the Autry closed the Southwest and is planning on remodeling in
Griffith Park to present part of the Southwest collection there.
The community groups bringing the suit contend that city zoning law,
specifically the Northeast Los Angeles Community Plan, in essence, enshrines the
Southwest, the City's oldest museum, as a central cultural and geographic
component of Northeast L.A. and requires the City to take impacts on the
104-year old Southwest Museum and its 97-year old Mount Washington campus into
account in any land use decision.
However, at a City Council meeting on the subject of the Autry remodel,
Councilmember Tom LaBonge, who represents the Griffith Park area on the council,
declared that the Southwest Museum no longer exists.
The lawsuit takes the Autry to task for burying the Southwest Museum name and
for moving a land use from Mount Washington to Griffith Park--where new Autry
gallery and garden components will bear names and descriptions strikingly
similar to those of the Southwest Museum. The contention is that the move is a
violation of the City Plan and a violation of the 2003 merger agreement. The
lawsuit blames the City of Los Angeles for approving the actions.
The Highland Park Heritage Trust and the Mount Washington Homeowners Alliance
also contend that State environmental law needs to be taken into account.
The California Environmental Quality Act mandates that all negative impacts of
any significant action must be fully explored and disclosed before the action is
taken--a step the organizations believe the City skipped over in granting the
Autry permission to remodel on the land it leases from the City in Griffith
Park.
On the table before the City is the issue of conversion of space within the
existing footprint of the Griffith Park structure into gallery space and an
educational garden area. The Autry contends that this is the sum total of what
it has planned for the site.
The lawsuit points out, however, that "Autry's construction drawings submitted
to the Recreation and Parks Department staff in May 2010 showed Autry's total
construction project will convert tens of thousands of square feet of non-public
space (collections storage and back office space in the Autry Museum's Griffith
Park basement) into expanded new public use spaces (exhibition galleries,
special event areas for rental income, new restrooms, etc.)."
The bringers of the suit say that proposed new uses would bring corresponding
increases in visitors, traffic and parking needs, all of which mandate a
thorough review of impacts on Griffith Park and on its surrounding communities.
The case is being handled for the local organizations by the law firm of Otten &
Joyce. This is the firm that won a court decision in the well-known Lopez Canyon
Landfill case that found the City of Los Angeles to be in violation of its own
laws in authorizing a truck driving school on land that had been dedicated as
passive open space.
"Autry broke into pieces its proposal to expand the Southwest Museum land use in
its Griffith Park building," said Brigid Joyce of Otten & Joyce. "Then Autry
claimed the City had `no discretion' but to approve the move and no requirement
to review environmental impacts."
When the matter of the Autry remodel went before the City Council in June, only
Councilmembers Ed Reyes and José Huizar, who represent the neighborhoods around
the Southwest Museum, supported the contention that environmental review was
required.
"This is a classic real estate developer ploy to piecemeal a project to evade
environmental review," said Joyce, "and the City went along with a wink."
The Highland Park Heritage Trust is a nonprofit organization with a 29-year
history of advocating for the heritage and historic preservation of communities
along the Arroyo Seco in Northeast Los Angeles. The Mount Washington Homeowners
Alliance is a nonprofit residents' association with a membership of nearly 700
residents of Mount Washington.
Three City Council Members--Reyes, Huizar and Paul Koretz--voted to send the
Autry remodel back to the Recreation and Parks Board as opposed to giving it the
okay.
"Mr. Huizar, Mr. Reyes and Mr. Koretz at least took the vote for integrity,"
said Nicole Possert of the Highland Park Heritage Trust as the time.
But the three councilmembers were outnumbered by their colleagues who voted to
let the Autry move ahead.
The suit will take an estimated nine months to reach a hearing in the local
Superior Court.
Posted by Edward Rivera at 5:23 PM