Question: Why do you believe a 30-day difference is so important to City Hall?
“They are trying to keep Mr. Surfas’ feet to the fire,” volunteered Ms. Sandifur, the lead attorney. “They are thinking he will lag, and have no interest in moving. I think that is totally disproved by the actions taken to date.” The city must be kidding, said Mr. Surfas. Brad Lipshy, the special events caterer who is leasing the site on Landmark that Mr. Surfas will take over this summer, will be paying rent for two locations until he is off the land. “Mr. Lipshy will be motivated as hell to go as fast as he can,” said Mr. Surfas, who sometimes flashes his wicked sense of humor. “He is moving to El Segundo, a v-e-r-y friendly city,” which was Mr. Surfas’ way of jabbing at Culver City. “If I had enough time,” he added, puckishly, “I would move there. I am motivated to move fast because the minute he leaves, I start paying rent. Why would I not hurry to move into the building? It is just common sense. But the city doesn’t have common sense.”
At that moment, Bruce Gridley, a congenial, open-faced attorney representing the city’s redevelopment interests, emerged from the sixth-story courtroom in downtown Los Angeles.
The first question was, Was there something he thought the judge, Commissioner Bruce E. Mitchell, did not understand before issuing his ruling minutes earlier? His truncated response to the outcome was the soul of placidity, as in, “That’s the way it goes.” At the outset, the lawyer’s reply introduced a refreshing new collegiality to the barbed-wire negotiations between City Hall and Mr. Surfas. Up to here, City Hall’s attorneys have said fewer words to the media than Francis the Talking Mule has since his much-lamented premature death.
“The court understands the case,” Mr. Gridley said. “His job is to balance the interests of the parties, and that is what he did. I advocated a different balance than the one he selected.”
Question: Why is the 30-day difference between the two parties so crucial for the city?
“I think the problem is this,” Mr. Gridley said. “If we read the declarations and do the calculations, you don’t come up with July 1. I was suggesting to the court that just because Mr. Surfas said he will be out by June 30, doesn’t mean that’s right if the mathematics of the declarations in the case say it should be a month earlier. Therefore, I said to him he should read the declarations, not the argument of counsel, and pay attention to what the declarations said. In that regard, the commissioner has given them every indulgence he possibly could — because the landowner asked for it, not because the mathematics of the declarations called for it.”
Question: You have been in courtrooms for 34 years. Why do you think Commissioner Mitchell ruled in favor of Mr. Surfas?
“I think because he is giving an indication to Mr. Surfas that he is not interested in further excuses,” Mr. Gridley replied. “By choosing July 1, he is saying, ‘I am giving you July 1 because you asked for it. While I am reserving jurisdiction, don’t expect for me to be indulgent at that time.’ I think the thought process was that more briefing, more time in court, is not necessarily in the best interests of the public, nor the private party in this case.”
Question: Was the trajectory of Commissioner Mitchell’s reasoning and ruling in line with previous experience you have had in redevelopment cases?
“No,” Mr. Gridley said with breeze-fresh succinctness. “I talked in the hearing about the way it is different. The court has allowed the landowner to dictate the timing. Under the law, typically, 90 days is given (to vacate). The court considers hardships. But the reason the law provides for 90 days is so people can address their hardships. The reality is that the (state) legislature thought the 90 days was enough time for that to happen. Here, though, because the landowner determined the date by his own activity, the court has not managed this consistent with what I think is the 90-day perception. That’s what it should be to be able to accommodate hardship. Ten and a half months is an extraordinarily long time to allow a landowner to remain in possession after eminent domain has been initiated. In that sense, the ruling is inconsistent with my experience.”
Question: Does the $40,000 Mr. Surfas paid the Landmark occupant Mr. Lipshy to end his lease early impress you? Does it suggest that Mr. Surfas is motivated, contrary to what was said in the courtroom?
“I think the $40,000 is an indication of motivation,” Mr. Gridley said, tacking on a caveat at the caboose. “I don’t think we should be deluded by it. When ultimately this case is valued in the valuation trial, and the losses of Mr. Surfas are alleged, I am reasonably confident Mr. Surfas will be asking the city to pay him that $40,000. While it may be out of Mr. Surfas’s pocket now, I would expect it to be a damage point later on.”
Question: In characterizing plans the city has for the 30,000 square feet of land presently occupied by Mr. Surfas’ warehouse, you spoke of The Project. Please define that.
“The job of a redevelopment agency is to create opportunities for developers to become interested in property,” Mr. Gridley said. “To do that, the city has to provide land that is available for that purpose. Utilities, perhaps, need to be installed. Commonly, there is not an identified developer because the city is creating opportunities for the developer(s) to move in. It is not unique in this situation. But the city has had a long-term relationship with Urban Partners. In this case, the relationship is fortuitous, and Urban Partners has shown a long-term interest. But this court needs to understand that is such an unusual situation the court should recognize what The Project really is. The Project, from the city’s perspective, is to provide cleared land to attract the developer. The Redevelopment Agency was fortunate to attract an interest from a developer early. But I would not want this court to accept the concept, for example, that The Project is something like the plans for the building to exist. That would be unusual. Here we are, in this particular instance, a little further down the line than agencies frequently are. When I urged the court to consider this, I was not doing so just for this case. I was doing it, generally, for the purposes of redevelopment concepts here. The Project is to clear the land, to make it available for developers. I wanted the court to understand that is the goal he should be looking at, not just as an interim point but an end product, from the Agency’s viewpoint.”
Question: Commissioner Mitchell persisted in trying to identify whether there was an ‘urgent’ hardship involved for the city in differentiating between June 1 and July 1. He did not find a sense of urgency. Why? Perhaps because he was looking for empirical evidence?
“I think when he expected ‘urgency,’ he meant something else,” Mr. Gridley said. “He said it is an urgent situation when it is about schoolchildren going to school. But removal of blight from a community isn’t. I don’t think that is what he really believes. But that is the implication that might come out of his statement. The fact of the matter is, communities that have blight, need to remove blight. A purpose of the Redevelopment Agency is to improve the city as quickly, as reasonably possible. When you have a situation where the city is being held back, economically, socially, because of blight, our advocacy position is, this is an urgent need. Maybe, in the judge’s mind, less urgent than it would be for schoolchildren, but… I am not sure I know how to value that. I would say improving the community of Culver City is an urgent need. I would like to think this court would put this on a par with some other things it was talking about.”
Monday: A view of the courtroom proceedings from the Surfas perspective.
