CommentsCORRUPTION WATCH-CityWatch has had a few articles recently about the harm which secrecy does to our society. On September 5, 2016, Daniel Guss described, in “Garcetti Playing Dirty Pool?” the behind the scenes attack on John Vidovich of the Los Angeles Fire Department. It seems his misdeeds were reduced to the number uninspected buildings in Los Angeles and trying to save the homes and lives of those living in the Hollywood Hills near Lake Hollywood.
On the same day, CityWatch ran a piece about the harm that the Brown Act’s secrecy causes by permitting city government to hide its corrupt machinations from the public.
CityWatch has also written more than a few times about the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative that calls for no more secret meetings between developers and city councilmembers.
A major factor in this widespread secrecy is the unanimous voting at City Council where all items pass unanimously. As reported by the Los Feliz Ledger, Councilmember David Ryu admits that it is futile to vote No since all the other councilmembers will vote Yes. Ryu’s reasoning seems to be: What sense would it make to expose the dirt behind the scenes when each councilmember is obligated to vote Yes?
A Case Study of Secrecy and How It Pollutes Society
Let’s take a look at just one case of secrecy that shows the relationship between not only the secret dealings between developers and city councilmembers, but illustrates how the entire system is enveloped in a cloud of criminality. We shall analyze the secret dealings between Councilmember Krekorian’s Office, City Planning and the developer to see how Marilyn Monroe’s home was demolished and how the entire system, including the courts, closed ranks to protect the criminal voting system at City Hall.
Developer Purchased Marilyn Monroe’s Former Home, Knowing its Historical Significance
The listing for the family home at 5258 Hermitage Avenue in Valley Village included the express statement of that it was the former home of Marilyn Monroe. Thus, when the developer bought the property, he already knew he had a problem.
Although the City still has failed to provide all the documentation about the contacts between Councilmember Krekorian’s office and the developer, during litigation a significant email was discovered from the developer’s attorney to City Planning stating:
From: Mary Neifert <[email protected]>
Date: Thu, Mar 19, 2015 at 1:03 PM, Subject: 5258 Hermitage Historical Assessment
Hi Tom,
The APC appeal hearing is
Per your suggestion last month, the owner of 5258 Hermitage Avenue had a historical assessment done on the property to defend against the appeal on file. I have attached it hereto for your review. Hopefully it can be included in your report to the Committee. Please contact me if you need any further information.
This email was not shared with the public. Not only does it tell us was there was prior contact between the developer and City Planning, but it also reveals that City Planning had expressly asked the developer to prepare a biased report against finding any historical value to Marilyn Monroe’s former home. In case anyone questions whether this communication between the developer and City Planning was intended to be secret, the attorney concludes with:
The contents of this email and any attachments are confidential and may be protected attorney work product or subject to the attorney client privilege. If you are not the intended recipient, kindly notify Mary Neifert immediately by telephone at **** - or by e-mail at****.com. Please also destroy all copies of this message and any attachments hereto.
While the City has chosen to keep the prior contacts between Councilmember Krekorian, City Planning and the developer secret, it is clear that prior to receiving any data about the property’s historical status, City Planning was asking the developer to provide a slanted report on which the Planning Department’s Ken Bernstein could then rely to claim that there was no historical significance to Marilyn’s home.
In what type society is the City allowed to be the biased and dishonest advocate for a developer who wants to destroy a historic structure? On April 9, 2015, we found this email from City Planning’s Ken Bernstein.
Ken Bernstein <[email protected]> Zhu, Apr 9, 2015 at 12:47 PNI
To: Tom Henry <[email protected]>
Cc: Tom Glick [email protected]>, Lambert Giessinger <[email protected]>
Thanks, Tom, for checking back with us on this — I hadn't noticed that the APC hearing was happening today. Yes, we reviewed the ARG historic resources assessment, found it complete, and agreed with the findings.
understand from Lambert that another consultant, Charlie Fisher, may raise the argument that Marilyn Monroe was first discovered during the period she lived at this property, but I would agree with ARG's conclusion that this alone isn't sufficient to make the building eligible for designation.
Ken, Ken Bernstein, AICP, Manager, Office of Historic Resources. & Principal City Planner, Policy Planning
Ken Bernstein’s office, which had requested the biased ARG report, agrees with the report’s conclusion, despite the fact that he has learned that the community will be submitting a report from noted historian Charlie Fisher. Nonetheless, without bothering to wait for the Charlie Fisher report, Ken Bernstein agrees that the home is not significant.
About one hour later at 1:49 pm, and before that afternoon’s meeting of the Area Planning Commission, Ken Bernstein re-writes his email with some interesting changes.
On Thu, Apr 9, 2015 at 1:49 PM, Ken Bernstein <[email protected]> wrote:
Tom,
I wanted to let you know that the Office of Historic Resources' staff did review the historic resource assessment for 5258 Hermitage, prepared by Architectural Resources Group. We found the report to be thorough and complete, and concurred with the report's findings. While we understand that Marilyn Monroe was initially "discovered" to begin her modeling career while living at this property, this alone is not sufficient to qualify the property for historic designation. Our eligibility standards for Survey LA, our citywide historic resources survey, are consistent with the guidance from the National Park Service: properties achieving eligibility for designation due to their association with historic persons should be those associated "with a person's productive life, reflecting the time period when he or she achieved significance." Because this property is from the earliest stages of Monroe's career, and she was not discovered at this particular site, the historic association at this site is not sufficient to meet designation criteria.
Ken, Ken Bernstein, AICP, Manager, Office of Historic Resources & Principal City Planner, Policy Planning
Here we see secrecy in action. Any mention of Charlie Fisher and his report has been deleted. Ken Bernstein, who is the Manager of the Office of Historic Resources, is concealing that fact that there will be another historic report with a different conclusion. Wouldn’t one think that the Area Planning Commission would like to know that there is contrary report?
While Ken Bernstein refers to the ARG (Architectural Resources Group), one could never find that Ken Bernstein allowed the Area Planning Commission to see the ARG report. Thus, we have double secrecy: The actual ARG report and the fact that it had been solicited to be biased are withheld from the Area Planning Commission. It turns out that the ARG report contained many facts which showed that the property had historical significance and that its conclusion was not supported by its facts. Thus, one may reason that the contents of the ARG report were kept secret from the Area Planning Commission because the Commission disagreed with Mr. Bernstein and it might decide that the city should conduct a study of alternatives to demolishing the home.
SaveValleyVillage Sues the City of Los Angeles
SaveValleyVillage sued the City and the developer over destruction of Marilyn’s Valley Village home due to its failure to proceed in the correct legal manner. For the legal case, the city was required to identify all pertinent documents so that they could be included in the Administrative Record on which the court would base its opinion.
Did City Planning provide any copy of the ARG Report on which Ken Bernstein said he relied? No. Although the city certified that it had produced everything, the ARG report remained secret. Ken Bernstein also failed to provide the City Attorney’s Office a copy of the Charlie Fisher report which explained why the property had historical significance. Thus, City Planning had cleansed the Administrative Record of any historical report from which SaveValleyVillage could argue that the property had historic significance. Also, there is no reason to believe that the City Attorney’s Office knew about the missing documentation.
After SavevalleyVillage had submitted its brief to the court, the City saw that a member of the public had attached the crucial four pages of the Charlie Fisher report to an email and that those four pages, which had not been routed through Mr. Ken Bernstein, had made it into the Administrative Record.
This breach of secrecy was devastating to the developer and to Ken Bernstein’s opinion. The only factual evidence in the Administrative Record supported the position that Marilyn’s home had historic significance.
Then and only then a miracle occurred: the City Planning “discovered” the ARG report. Despite the fact that SaveValleyVillage had already submitted its brief and had laid out its entire case for all to see, the court thought that it should consider the ARG Report. The court believed that if Ken Bernstein had the opportunity to review the ARG report in secret and to conceal the ARG Report from the Area Planning Commission and keep it out of the Administrative Record, then the court should most certainly rely on that secret document. Why, anything less would be unfair.
In rendering his August 29 decision, Judge Fruin relied on a case from August 12, 2016 even though the briefing in his Marilyn Monroe case had been completed in July.
The Criminogenic Nature of Los Angeles Culture
Members of the public need to understand the criminogenic culture that permeates Los Angeles. The lynchpin in this criminal culture is the vote trading pact which Penal Code § 86 criminalized in 2006.
If city councilmembers were free to complain about and vote against a developer who secretly colluded with the Department of Planning to destroy Marilyn’s home, then Councilmembers such as Paul Krekorian might not feel so secure in being able to subvert the law. Without the City Council’s criminal voting pact, Councilmember Krekorian would have had to risk the project’s being voted down due to the illicit manner in which the council office, city planning and the developer conspired to destroy the property.
The public needs to understand the vital importance that the criminal voting pact plays in Los Angeles. It allows every councilmember to know that no matter how illegal a project may be, no matter what may have transpired in secret behind closed doors, his or her project is guaranteed unanimous support. What good is secrecy between the council offices, city planning and developers when it can be brought into the open during a public debate a city council?
If the City had followed CEQA and issued an Environmental Impact Report concerning the limited issue of the historic significance of Marilyn Monroe’s home, one CEQA alternative would have been to move the small structure to another location. For example, the Lasky Production Barn was moved from Gower Gulch in Hollywood to opposite the Hollywood Bowl.
As for the City’s permitting the public forum, which an EIR would have provided, Judge Fruin wrote:
Petitioner suggests that the structures, or at least the back house in which Norm Jeane and her mother-in-law lived, could have been moved to a different location and serve as a Hollywood attraction. See rd Am. Pet. @ 21:23-25 and 22: 2-6; see also Pet. Br., p.8 and Reply Br., p.8. (Moving a structure to a different location is considered to diminish its historical integrity. [bold added] August 29, 2016 Statement of Decision page 8 ¶2
Thus, Judge Fruin seems to believe that considering the historic value of Marilyn Monroe’s Valley Village home would have been a waste of time since moving a historic structure “diminishes it historical integrity.” Apparently, smashing it to smithereens so that not even a match stick size parcel of wood remains is a suitable option to relocating the home.
Judge Fruin shows no concern about Mr. Bernstein’s secrecy or his own reliance on a report which the developer’s own attorney admits was asked to be biased against finding the property to have historic significance. In some judicial systems, judges question the reliability of such evidence.
Could there be any stronger judicial support for secretive collusion between a developer and the City than relying wholeheartedly on a secret report that was solicited to be biased and withheld from the Administrative Record?
Secrecy and the culture of criminality go hand in hand.
(Richard Lee Abrams is a Los Angeles attorney. He can be reached at: [email protected]. Abrams views are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of CityWatch.) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.
Vote Trading, Secrecy and LA’s Culture of Criminality
