How upset is the City Council with the leaders of West Los Angeles College and the Los Angeles Community College District over their apparent disregard for agreed-upon but ignored parameters for the school’s muscular building program?
Starving for dollars as a result of the recession and a maximal lawsuit against Plains Exploration & Production Co., City Hall must have looked homeless-adjacent to the decision-makers at the college this summer.
However, the Council may have fooled their opponents down the street this week when they pledged to bring suit against West if one more all-hands-on-deck meeting in the next few days failed to resolve the thorniest problems in their 41-year feud.
What rankles Council members more than anything, it seems, is the perceived highhanded manner of immediate past President Dr. Mark Rocha. They contend that without consulting anyone on the Culver City side, Dr. Rocha scratched out those parts of the previous agreement that he didn’t like, then handed the document back to City Hall for its perusal and approval 12 days after he had safely left his position at West.
Council members are feeling snookered.
As recently as a week ago, the Acting President firmly informed the city the college would not extend the 30-day deadline for filing suit after an environmental impact report has been approved. That is exactly what spurred the Council to stiffen its back.
The new Interim President, who took office two days ago, has not been heard from.
As August takes its final choking breaths, a Council-inspired lawsuit is a better bet than rain. They have until Sept. 10 to declare.
Councilman Andy Weissman, an attorney, provided financial contours for the potential lawsuit scenario.
“If a decision is made to file the lawsuit through the City Attorney’s office, without having to retain counsel,” he said, “I would guess the cost would be about $10,000 to prepare and file the complaint.
“If the city were to file a lawsuit and seek a restraining order at the same time to prohibit the college from proceeding with its construction, you probably can double that $10,000. But it is hard to say.
“It could be that the city and the college are in negotiation, the college maintains its refusal to enter into a tolling agreement (extending the deadline) and the city files a complaint as a protective device, but continues to negotiate and reaches some resolution.
“However, if this thing goes all the way, you could be looking at 24,000 to $100,000.”
For an analogy, Mr. Weissman mentioned the year-long suit against the oil drilling company PXP.
“The West L.A. College matter is not the same, but it is not wholly dissimilar from PXP, where the city was challenging the EIR,” Mr. Weissman said. “Here we would be challenging the certification of the Final Supplemental EIR — different facts, different level of complexity. Not as involved. But if you start going through discovery and having to take depositions and respond to written requests, the price goes up.”
As for Mr. Weissman’s outlook, “I am still hopeful but not optimistic, that there is going to be a meeting between the city, the college, and one representative from each of the three homeowners’ groups.”
Last seen, the principals still were trying to coordinate schedules for a last-ditch meeting.
Meanwhile, the price tag for fighting PXP, so far, is $1 million, according to Mr. Weissman.
