Caught in a Vise, Champion Grows into the Hero and the Victim of South Sepulveda Boondoggle

From the mayor on down, City Hall is acting as if their hideous mother-in-law is stepping on their flat feet, daring them to speculate.

They look nervously back and forth at each other, then shrug.

Ain’t nobody brave enough to openly make a prognosis about South Sepulveda.

Baa, Baa Black Sheep

Poor Bob Champion — you will recognize him as the slender, suntanned, medium-tall gentleman in the corner. He is holding an object labeled The Bag.

Now what does he do?

He says that two years after he made an original presentation to City Hall, he finally got a call back. They said, “Let’s roll.”

As a sound businessman, Mr. Champion presumed that Community Development Director Susan Evans and her staff had consulted the community, received reasonable assurance of support and was prepared to build.

Else why would Ms. Evans have waited so long to telephone him back?

A Kremlin Komedy

Turns out City Hall had done nothing of the sort. That contention now seems firmly established.

Why not? No one, so far, is telling. Sloppiness or greed?

Reminds me of the old Soviet era on Duquesne when Ted Cooke was Police Chief. Talk and you are gone. Scared, they look like vertical corpses.

While the complaining Sunkist Park community members have returned safely and triumphantly to their homes and businesses, what of Mr. Champion?

Speaking of Holidays

Does he go on an unpaid vacation for the next year?

Is he supposed to tap his fashionable shoes while Sol Blumenfeld, the new Community Development Director, and his staff sketch alternative designs? Mr. B has said he would need 9 to 12 months to finalize the recommended Specific Plan.

Mr. Champion keeps looking better, his employer worse.

Cruising the Boulevard

With an exclusive negotiation agreement clutched in his hand — almost five months before expiration — Mr. Champion said, “I told the city I am willing to continue to work with them.”

What is his sensible option? An all-expenses paid cruise along old South Sepulveda?

“There is a disconnect in your city,” Mr. Champion said, “between its policies, the citizens, the economic realities and good planning.

“Until these are addressed,” he anticipates no movement.

Restraint vs. Letting Loose

After studying him for eight or nine months, I know why Mr. Champion was chosen to redevelop South Sepulveda, not I.

Had I been the developer, I might have fired a baseball into a couple of those unruly mobs and strode out the door.

On the Edge

Civility teetered on the brink too many times. Citizen protesting not only was fine but necessary. However, it needed to be conducted within traditional behavioral bounds.

Ever since the stormy community meeting at El Rincon School last Dec. 5, I have admired Mr. Champion’s rigidly disciplined composure under fire.

He is as articulate, clear, honest, knowledgeable and succinct as a professor should be.

Don’t Ask, ‘What Is Next?’

Having invested heavily in time and money in the Culver City project, Mr. Champion does not plan to go anywhere else.

Before someone claims the dreaded mantle of victim, I will argue that the unfortunate winner of that reverse derby is Mr. Champion, the hero, actually.

Counting His Losses

For the honor of having apparently been submarined — misled? betrayed? — by City Hall, he has lost six figures worth of money, which is six figures more than the loudest complaining community member.

One of the towering ironies of this wrong-way tableau is that Ms. Evans retired 10 days after the community explosion at El Rincon — but no, the two events are not linked.

Undisclosed Story

More than ironic, dear reader, is the failure to tend to one of the rudimentary rules of redevelopment. This casts a pall on Ms. Evans’ tenure at City Hall.

This disappointing chapter of the story needs to be told.

As a prospective redevelopment in the short-term, South Sepulveda is wilting faster than flowers that challenge the sweltering summers of the San Fernando Valley. (For the unambitious, South Sepulveda is within easy range of both Hillside and Holy Cross.)

Anyone Have a Plan, a Clue?

With apologies to Warren Olney at KCRW, Mr. Champion only can ask — not answer — “Which way now, Culver City?”

Taking the requisite 4 seconds to review the breadth of his options, Mr. Champion said, sadly:

“Nothing would surprise me at this point?”