PUBLIC’S RIGHT TO USE PUBLIC STREETS AT RISK - The Court said, “No.”
After the City had authorized Whitley Heights to restrict access to its streets b y erecting gates, the Whitley Heights people spent a lot of money erecting gates. Later the court told the homeowners, “Tear Down those Gates.”
“Although we understand the deep and abiding concern of the City and appellant (Whitley Height residents) with crime prevention and historic preservation, we doubt the Legislature wants to permit a return to feudal times with each suburb being a fiefdom to which other citizens of the state are denied their fundamental right of access to use public streets within those areas.” Whitley Heights, at p 824
That was 1994.
With the advent of Councilman LaBonge, however, the gating in the Hills began anew. He was quite generous with authorizing the gating of public streets in the Hills. Did he or the city have that authority? Of course not! That is what the The Whitley Heights Case forbid. The streets belong to the State of California and restricting the use of any public street to a few favored campaign contributors was an unconstitutional infringement on the inalienable right to travel.
Nonetheless, Councilman LaBonge continued to champion his cause to create gated enclaves in the Hills. People were threatened that they’d be sued if they did not go along with the gating. The basis for the lawsuit would be a loss of property value by people wanting to sell their homes. Properties in a gated enclave are worth more than those outside the gates. Other people did not like tourists using their streets and sometimes their yards to reach the Hollywood Sign or people parking in front of their homes to take in one of the majestic views of the City or Runyon Canyon. Property owners had a host of reasons for wanting to gate their streets.
After several years, the unlawful gating of streets was gaining momentum. Two grassroots groups, Citizens Coalition-Los Angeles [CCLA] and Hollywoodians Encouraging Logical Planning [HELP], wrote to The City Attorney and Councilman LaBonge reminding them that the City lacked the power to authorize the gating of a public street and to restrict access to only a few people. Neither the City Attorney nor the councilman bothered to respond. After all, the groups were just annoying gnats; not real estate developers with mucho diñero. As we were to soon learn, the City Attorney was besotted with delusions of becoming the District Attorney. He had no time to deal with riff raff.
Thus, on November 15, 2011, CCLA and HELP sued the City. In filing suit, they had to decide whether to add the adjacent homeowners as defendants. That happened in Whitley Heights, and it cost the homeowners a fortune. The total figure is not known but with attorneys fees, and the expense to erect and then to take down the gates, and worse yet, to pay the attorney fees of the group who sued them, the bill was at least $350,000. Today that would be about $521,400. Whitley Heights had over 100 homes to defray the costs, but in this present case, far fewer homeowners are involved so each family could be on the hook for $15,000 to $25,000.
CCLA and HELP refused to financially burden other Hollywoodians. After all, the homeowners had relied on the representations of the councilman and on the invalid City Council authorizations.
For a variety of legal reasons, it is easier to win a lawsuit if one sues the people who actually installed the gates rather than only the City who authorized the gates. Even after His Honor tried to throw out the case by a surprise decision sprung upon them at a Case Management Conference, CCLA and HELP stuck to their decision not to sue the innocent homeowners.
The so-called trial is next week, Friday August 17, 2012 in Dept 36.
No one can predict what any court will do, but expect the inalienable right to travel to bite the dust. Representatives of Council District #4 have been bragging for months how they have this one in the bag and the judge will throw out the case – so prepare to erect your gates. In fact, two reports from the Hills relate that a few weeks ago, Councilmember LaBonge wanted to know why their group had not already applied for their gate permit. Hold your horses councilman! Let’s wait until the right to travel is officially dead.
Get your gating applications ready. All you have to do is claim that maybe once you might have seen a suspicious character on or near your street, and a crime wave will be declared justifying the gating of your own private enclave. In one case, the police captain labeled the residents living outside the proposed gates as “nefarious pedestrians.” One nefarious pedestrian was an 79 year old man who had lived there since 1973.
The great part of this case is that when the judge’s bag is opened, it seems that everyone down to Franklin Avenue will be able to have his/her streets gated. Most the streets between Beachwood (except Bronson) and St Andrews abut up against the Hills. Gramercy Place, for example, dead-ends up in the Hills. Let’s get ready to erect that gate at Franklin and Gramercy. Let’s put a huge gate across Beachwood Canyon right where it reaches the village.
Here’s the most fantastic part. If you have a through street, you can do this “enclave creating” in two parts. First, you have one end of your street closed so that it becomes a dead-end, and second, you discover serious criminal activity so you can have the other end gated. Instant private enclaves – just add a lie about criminal activity.
A new day has arisen. Council District #4 has predicted the return to feudal times by summer’s end. I wonder if His honor will also authorize moats. Can we have crocodiles?
(Richard Lee Abrams is a Los Angeles attorney. He can be reached at: [email protected] ) –cw
CityWatch
Vol 10 Issue 65
Pub: Aug 14, 2012