Entrada Tower’s Strange and Twisting Path Is Full of Contrasts

First, I would like to make an observation. Is it in the City code that the City Council cannot make decisions on the Entrada Office Tower until after midnight?

As to the Council meeting itself, after all the committee assignments had been made and the Councilmen were making their final comments before adjournment, Councilman Armenta requested that the Council agendize the reconsideration of the Entrada decision.

After much discussion by four of the Councilmen, it became apparent that Councilman O’Leary had the deciding vote.

The result was that the item was not agendized. A discussion of the legal liabilities was held in a closed session last night.

And it seems to me they are basing their decision on the wrong criteria. The decision should be made on whether it is right or wrong to reconsider the item.

If the decision to revisit the Entrada decision is the correct decision, it should be made no matter what the legal liability.

It was stated at that meeting that there was no urgency in bringing the item to the Council.

The Community Development Director stated that permits had not been pulled, and it PROBABLY would be weeks before the developer would be in a position to pull permits.

Defining ‘Probably’

“Probably” is not good enough for me. The community will be upset if they discover that the Council had its closed session last night but then discover that the Council is unable to agendize the item because of actions the developer takes between May 5 and May12.

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Up until April 15, everything was in a big rush.

It is interesting how the sense of urgency has now changed.

When the item was before the Planning Commission for the last time, one Commissioner stated that he had concerns about the item but he would vote for it because it needed to get to the City Council and the Council had the final decision anyway.

Then it was placed as an Action Item on the agenda of the outgoing Council two weeks before they were replaced by the newly elected Councilmen.

A Sensible Call

Councilman Silbiger made a motion that the item be delayed until the new Council was seated. The motion died for the lack of a second. Since the new Council is the group that will be dealing with the project for the next couple of years, delaying it made sense.

But it was obvious that the new Council was less favorable to the project than the outgoing Council.

Entrada remained on the agenda and was acted on at the April 14 meeting. I compare the voting to approve the project by the outgoing Council to President Clinton’s pardoning of the Puerto Rican terrorists. It is legal but there is something about it that smells.

The outgoing Council approved the project on April 15.

Misplaced Sense of Urgency

When a group considering an appeal of the decision checked on the time frame for the appeal, they discovered that the appeal needed to be filed 30 days after the approval of the resolutions at the City Council meeting. This quick start of the clock placed a time constraint on those hoping to appeal the decision.

There was urgency when there were no time constraints. Where is the sense of urgency now?

When there are time constraints, the city takes the “no rush” approach. “We don’t need to rush to get this item agendized. They probably won’t be in a position to pull permits for a couple of months.”

Why this change in urgency?

As I look back on the discussion of the Entrada project at the April 14 City Council meeting, there are six minutes from the twelve hours, which went virtually unnoticed that night that now seem significant.

Being Consistent with Rules

These occurred during the time allowed for public input. The first one was a statement by a woman who spoke about handing out flyers opposing the Entrada project at a candidate forum. Not knowing who he was, she handed a flyer to Councilman Rose. His response was to ask her, “Why are you wasting your time with this? This project is going to be approved.”

This doesn’t sound like a decision maker who went into the April 14 Council meeting with an open mind.

There had been some concern expressed by the City Attorney that Councilmen O’Leary and Armenta wouldn’t be able to vote on Entrada because of statements they had made as candidates.

If there are concerns about statements made by candidates, shouldn’t there be concerns about statements made by a sitting Councilman?

No Mystery for Three

I believe that three Councilmen went into that meeting with their minds made up on the issue. But only Councilman Rose expressed his opinion on the item before the meeting and should have recused himself. The result would have been that the project would have been one vote short of approval.

Second was the statement made by the representative for the group that owns the property on which Albertson’s Market, CVS Pharmacy, and Kelly Paper are located.

He spoke in favor of the project.

That night I thought, so what? He is just a developer supporting a fellow developer.

Ferreting Out Its Significance

But as I look back on it, the approval of the Entrada project was very important to him. Not because 340,000 square feet of office space will mean more customers for the businesses on his property. It is important to him because it changes the development dynamics in the area.

Thanks to the efforts of the residents of Westchester, all the recent Los Angeles development on that section of Centinela has been limited to about 45 feet. But the approval of a 190-foot Entrada Tower will allow this developer to propose a tall development on his much larger parcel. He could propose a couple of 200-foot towers; after all they are only slightly taller than the neighboring Entrada building.

And this property is in Los Angeles. So Culver City has no control over what is built there. We also lost the moral high ground. We can’t complain about over- development in Los Angeles, along Centinela, making the area more like Westwood or Century City.

We are the ones who opened Pandora’s box.