Last in a series.
Re “Would There Have Been Time to Evacuate Apartments Next to Arena?”
Swinging into the final round of questions for Bill Litvak, the West L.A. attorney hired by City Hall to handle their controversial enforced shutdown of the Culver City Ice Arena until allegedly perilous ammonia was removed last Thursday:
Question: The rink was not going to fall down because of the purported threat of ammonia leaking.
“We are not talking about falling down. We are talking about gas. We are talking about people coming close to that environment.”
No one outside of City Hall has expressed any concern about the ammonia leaking, someday, and causing a tragedy.
“That is exactly the case. That is the illogical aspect of this. Why was everybody so complacent about a substance that the state and federal governments regard as ultra-hazardous?
“The reality is, I find it difficult to understand why people were this complacent.”
There may be two answers – lack of awareness and lack of conviction that the danger was legitimate.
“There are many instances where children have been placed at risk. I don’t mean in Culver City but in any community. Unfortunately, things happened and people got hurt. I never have heard anyone say it was okay to let the children stay in that building after the facts. And yet we have a large group of parents who are more interested in skating within Culver City than they are in having a safe skating rink.
“No one at any time – if you go back to every document I have worked on and everything the city has published – not once did the city require the closure of an ice rink.
“There is absolutely no indication in the public record that anyone has suggested that that property be used for any other purpose. Nor have they indicated they would preclude the property owner from doing what a property owner has a legal right to do.”
From appearances’ sake, could City Hall have handled this situation more smoothly?
“Absolutely not. The city acted responsibly and quickly, and dealt with an evolving situation in a very balanced fashion. They eliminated as much of the risk as was reasonably necessary. They did not go overboard by overreacting by creating the tumult you are suggesting might have occurred,
“I believe there was a misguided understanding about what the true nature of the issues were. People were very quick to view this as a zoning issue, which it was not, or some kind of use issue. Somehow there was an interest in controlling the use of that property. There is nothing to substantiate that. Not only that, I never have seen anything indicated. You have people with feelings because they are extrapolating from the event. The events they are extrapolating from are wrong. They were misreported, not necessarily by you, but by each other.
“You know, the rumor mill that has been going around the hockey and the ice skating communities is completely inaccurate.”
You mean about the Kings?
“About it all,” said Mr. Litvak. “About the Kings, about what the city was doing. People actually believe the city shut down the arena, not the landlord, who had terminated the lease without any involvement from the city. He rented it to a rock-climbing facility, and the city did not participate in any of that. What had happened was, until that time, the city had not been aware of the condition of the equipment in its current state. The arena was put on notice by Planet Granite’s environmental company. That environmental company is the same one (owner Michael) Karagozian hired. If you read the plant closure report, that doesn’t say this is safe stuff. Nothing in that report suggests anything but what the city was focusing on, including wanting to sample the ice. The landlord refused that, and then his own people had to do it.
“The city was responding properly, and in compliance with federal and state law regarding hazardous discharge of materials,” Mr. Litvak said. “The city balanced the needs of everyone. It didn’t go down there with a bulldozer and knock down the facility.”
In a public relations sense it did.
“I don’t believe that. If you look at the public commentary from the city, it was always balanced.”
Except that Mr. Litvak was the only person allowed to speak.
City Manager John Nachbar was muzzled.
Fire Chief Chris Sellers was muzzled.
Fire Marshal Mike Bowden was muzzled.
City Hall department heads were muzzled,
Otherwise, it was an open, democratic process.
