While sideline observers wondered if the heavy-stepping Hayden Tract landowner Frederik Smith —he who is a magnet for aroused feelings — was telegraphing a personal message last night in Council Chambers, the reclusive gentleman himself further annoyed his already infuriated critics by scoring a comfortable doubleheader victory.
What made Mr. Smith’s latest sally into City Hall particularly galling to his drum-banging claque of rivals and critics was winning a year’s extension on a soon-due payment on a disputed patch of precious land that he is said to have obtained — from the city — for below-market value, a so-far unverified assertion.
Snickering opponents of Mr. Smith — there is no shortage — have proclaimed ever since the hotly argued deal was crafted 25 months ago that the second-generation land baron is a kind of Svengali who snookers City Hall when he wants, or needs, to. Their claim, however, has made noise but no progress, in two courtrooms as well as before a jury of Mr. Smith’s peers, the City Council.
No Doubt About the Winner
At the sentimentally draped final full meeting City Council meeting for three members who are imminently being term-limited after 8 years, Mr. Smith emphatically prevailed. He was granted a 3-year payment extension on property at 3535 Hayden Ave., that he obtained 13 years ago, a lesser issue to his critics, plus he won an added 12 months on his sizzling deal with City Hall for the closely watched Warner Parking Lot at 8511 Warner Dr., which offers 242 parking spots in a parking-starved location. The vote was 4 to 1 on the former, Councilman Gary Silbiger demurring, and 3 to 2 on the latter, with Councilman Steve Rose joining Mr. Silbiger.
After fulfilling his obligation to pay 50 percent of the Parking Lot price at the close of escrow two years ago, Mr. Smith’s company, Conjunctive Points Warner Development, will pay $436,608 on June 12, the original due date, which is two years of interest on the principal, and $2.9 million on June 12 next year, covering the outstanding principal and accrued interest of 8 percent, covering $218,304. Mr. Smith had sought a three years’ longer extension. Chief Financial Officer Jeff Muir said one year was as far as City Hall would bend.
Triumph on Berryman?
The good news for the departing Mayor Alan Corlin, Vice Mayor Carol Gross and Mr. Rose is that each one has earned renewed pillow time. After whizzing past midnight and debating until 1 o’clock in the morning — after stretching to 3:15 last week — they are fatiguingly finished with late-night meetings.
In what will stand as this Council’s generally lauded closing act, members imaginatively established a form of peace with harassed, traffic-swamped residents of Berryman Avenue and surrounding streets on the near West Side. Since the middle 1990s, residents have been pleading, fruitlessly, with City Hall for what are known as traffic-calming solutions. When the sleepy-time gals and guys from the Berryman neighborhood went home either late last night or early this yawning morning, it was judged that 95 percent of them were pleased. If residents were not unrequitedly thrilled, said Mayor Corlin, “they went home at least satisfied that the city understands their problem and is doing something about it.”
Besides the promise of a hopefully traffic-uncluttering signal light at the intersection of McLaughlin and Washington Boulevard, making it easier to turn left, Councilman Scott Malsin’s latest creative contribution formed the other half of the dealmaker. In the name of relief and to deter northbound traffic on Berryman, he suggested positioning delineators in the middle of Washington, forcing north-bound vehicles to turn left or right when they reach the big wide street.
Traffic-choked Berryman is one of those odd streets that does not have the accessibility or supposedly clear-sailing imagery of, say, a through street such as Inglewood Boulevard, just a dense parade of cars because Berryman looks and feels so convenient. “The problem with Berryman,” said Mayor Corlin, “is that it is the only street other than Sawtelle and Inglewood that goes through to Culver Boulevard.”
Anger Level Holding Strong
Fumes of fury floating across the Hayden Tract over Mr. Smith’s supposed sweetheart arrangement for the Warner Parking Lot scarcely have receded since the City Hall deal was approved 4 to 1 (Mr. Rose dissenting) on the eve of the ’06 Council election that brought Mr. Malsin to the dais in place of Albert Vera.
Critics are swimming in what they regard as a pool-full of logical targets of alleged violations, complaining that the deal should be rescinded because the transaction never was put out to bid, that numerous environmental considerations were ignored or broken, and that they stand to eventually lose 242 badly needed parking spaces.
Sorting Out the Facts
This is where the story of unresolved claims turns cloudy. At least technically, Mr. Smith is obliged to provide 242 parking spaces for the first 10 years of the deal while simultaneously following up on his sharply modified plans for building a mixed-use project. His original design, an elaborate theatrical complex, was scrapped some months ago.
Even as protestors were asserting that there was a crucial wink-wink aspect to Mr. Smith’s acquisition of the Parking Lot for $ 5.4 million, others hinted that he was sending a distress signal over the allegedly crimped state of his finances, one of commercial Culver City’s tightest secrets. Mr. Smith’s almost legendary inaccessibility combined with his tough-guy image may have turned up the volume of an arrangement that already was jarringly loud. “The Warner Parking Lot belonged to the people of Culver City,” one partisan told the City Council, typifying the attitude of critics.
For all of the beefing raised by protestors, amidst charges that the so-called violations were egregious, they have gained almost no relief, or encouragement, in their ongoing war with the parties of the first part.
A View from the Other Side
City Hall fired back at them last night. After listening to the plaintiff identify his charges in a so-far toe-stubbing lawsuit, Murray Kane, counsel for the Redevelopment Agency, insisted that “there is no giveaway involved here.”
Mr. Smith met stiff but strictly minority resistance from the City Council. Mr. Rose, the only dissenter on March 27, 2006, said he retains his opposition for the same two reasons, the 242-space parking lot is not surplus property, as City Hall has maintained, and there was no open bidding. Mr. Silbiger, who voted for the original deal, pulled back this time on the now-familiar grounds that the new Council majority, to be seated next Monday, should take charge of the vote since it will have to live with the outcome. As has become customary during Mr. Silbiger’s term, his motion for action failed because of the lack of a second.
Ms. Gross, a supporter, said City Hall behaved properly throughout the deal, conducting itself “the way that banks do every day” in shedding property. In the view of supporter Mr. Malsin, “there are stunning misconceptions” circulating among the anti-deal crowd.
COUNCIL NOTES — An experimental valet parking program for all Downtown businesses interested in participating — for a 6-month trial — swept to enthusiastic approval, including endorsement by the Downtown Business Assn. — another long step forward in the gentrification of the once slumbering commercial district…Police Capt. Scott Bixby reported that the Police Dept. placed second in its category in the annual Baker-to-Vegas 120-mile relay race, checking in just past 15 hours. Recent City Council candidate Loni Anderson volunteered as a timekeeper…
In the most lavish tribute yet to the departing Council majority, Friends of the Dog Park Board Chair Vicki Daly Redholtz, surrounded by a bristling brigade of Boneyard backers, celebrated the Dog Park’s second anniversary. With the help of a video and Ms. Daly Redholtz’s words, the Dog Park leaders cited the Boneyard’s escalating value to Culver City, and the separate significant roles that Council members Mr. Rose, Ms. Gross and Mr. Corlin quietly played in mid-wifing the land to life…
