VOICES-Dear Mayor Garcetti … I am writing to urge you not to approve the “Legal Fees Reimbursement Special Fund” ordinance voted on by the City Council during its meeting of March 3, 2015 (Council File 14-1606). As the City Attorney’s transmittal explains:
On December 16, 2014, und er Council File No.14-1606, the City Council adopted the recommendations set forth in City Attorney's Report No. 14-0431, which included the establishment of a panel of outside legal counsel to defend the City in lawsuits challenging land use and other approvals pertaining to private projects.
The City Attorney is authorized to employ firms from the panel in those instances where the cost of hiring the outside counsel is, pursuant to conditions previously imposed by the City, to be paid by the recipient of the project approval…
The proposed draft ordinance establishes a Special Fund to facilitate the City's receipt of funds received from private project applicants, and provides for the use of such funds to pay for the City's defense costs.
This Ordinance is as inequitable as it is carelessly drafted. It is an embarrassment to a municipality of LA’s stature but more importantly it is an affront to the people of this community. It must be sent back to the Council for reconsideration or at the very least sent to the Ethics Commission for due diligence.
As you know, one of the City’s most important responsibilities is to ensure that our land-use laws are applied evenly to all residents of Los Angeles. Understandably, that application results in lawsuits against the City—sometimes by private developers (when the City denies them a permit) and sometimes by community residents (when the City rules in the other direction). Both types of lawsuits require the City Attorney’s office to mount a legal defense.
The Ordinance here discussed creates in effect two separate City Attorney’s Offices— one for defending against lawsuits from community residents opposed to a particular development project, the other for defending against lawsuits from the developers themselves.
The first “City Attorney’s Office” has instant access to a pre-selected panel of top law firms for whose services it is required to pay nothing. The second Office, the one charged with defending against lawsuits from developers, has none of the advantages just described—no panel of high-powered lawyers to enlist, no unlimited budget.
When sued by developers, the City has to pay for its own legal defense. When sued by City residents opposed to a development, if this ordinance is approved, the City gets a free ride. For these reasons, the Ordinance under question creates a system in which the City continues to apply the land-use laws which protect its taxpayers and citizens, but it does so unequally, because of the very structure of its legal apparatus, regardless of good or bad intentions.
This point can be demonstrated clearly with reference to the current situation involving the Harvard-Westlake School, which has submitted plans to the City to construct in an “Open space” area a three-story parking garage with flood-lit playing field on top and attendant private pedestrian bridge over the public thoroughfare Coldwater Canyon Boulevard.
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In the event that the city approves Harvard-Westlake’s plans, it is probable that one or more groups of residents will seek to protect their interests via the only mechanism our society affords, legal action. Should such a lawsuit arise, Harvard-Westlake will be delighted to learn that the City has already created a panel of five outside law firms, hand-picked for their expertise in defeating community group challenges to private development projects -- a “dream team” of outside law firms. Moreover, Harvard-Westlake will be able to subsidize that dream team.
To take the opposing scenario, by which the City denies Harvard-Westlake’s parking structure permit request, it could be that Harvard-Westlake sues the city. Just as in the earlier case, the city will have to defend itself against a lawsuit. And yet, though the city in both cases faces a litigant, the plaintiffs of Coldwater Canyon will be disheartened to learn that the City will not be able to deploy the kind of dream team panel of outside law firms and “sky’s the limit” budget created by the ordinance here discussed. They will find that no panel exists.
And of equal importance, unlike developers, the tax-paying residents of Coldwater Canyon, who could be very interested in the opportunity to bulk up the City’s defense against Harvard-Westlake, by raising money and contributing to a special defense fund, those residents won’t be able to do that.
The Land Use Panel of Attorneys Ordinance is riddled with inequities. It needs to be stopped and sent back for reconsideration.
(Eric Preven is a city resident from Council District 2.)
-cw
CityWatch
Vol 13 Issue 21
Pub: Mar 10, 2015
