After last evening’s hands-down vote by the shrunken City Council, approving actions taken to date to turn over the high-octane Parcel B property to a private builder, there was encouraging news about the Downtown plot’s short-term future.
“If the state Dept. of Finance approves this deal on time, say next month,” a City Hall source told the newspaper, “the construction documents and other papers can be obtained in 6 to 9 months. Then everything would be ready to go.”
That makes it sound as if ground could be broken by next June for the multi-story office/retail/parking complex between the Culver Hotel and Trader Joe’s, across the street from The Culver Studios.
The exasperating if remains the previously unrecognized Dept. of Finance, which, through the manipulations of Gov. Brown and the state Legislature, has usurped ethereal -level authority over every city in the state that had a Redevelopment Agency. More than 400 communities unwillingly surrendered their independence to Sacramento on Feb. 1, the day Redevelopment Agencies were pronounced irretrievably dead in Gov. Brown’s unprecedented and successful attempt to seize far more power than any cumulative number of his predecessors had dared to grab.
May They Go Home Now?
Following the Council’s drop-dead 4 to 0 vote – the absent Meghan Sahli-Wells is vacationing – City Hall’s role in the Parcel B drama is finished.
Until the state tells it that it can move.
Next to vote will be the Oversight Board, an unwieldy Rube Goldberg-shaped bureaucratic contraption that could be compared to a unicycle minus handlebars and a wheel. Comprised of Culver City members and out-of-towners who might not be able to pinpoint Culver City on a map, its late-August or early-September vote has been deemed debatably irrelevant.
The single verdict that count reposes deep inside the mysterious Dept. of Finance, which decides after the Oversight Board has acted. Contrary to previous reports, it emerges that the state agency is obligated to decide on Parcel B’s future not within 10 days of the Oversight Board vote but within 40 days.
Or Longer, if They Wish
If the bluebirds of happiness are not smiling on that day in Sacramento, the Dept. of Finance may yawn and stretch out its verdict for 60 days.
Who can tell them no?
Councilman Mehaul O’Leary asked the city’s downtown Los Angeles counsel if City Hall has any further recourse if the Dept. of Finance kills the deal.
After first saying that it was not clear from the vagueness of last year’s legislation, she said there appeared to be options that she was not yet prepared to explain, evidently because of their arcanity.
It is estimated that if the Parcel B verdict passes, a hefty $18.2 million will directly accrue to a state that claims to be starving for money.
Up and down the dais, the Council members were astonished that the project wasn’t a cinch.
“I am just baffled,” Mr. O’Leary said. “This should be a no-brainer. Ridiculous. I am hoping the state comes to their senses.”
His colleagues resisted the temptation to urge him to hold his breath until he becomes a new color.
