CommentsCORRUPTION WATCH-Power corrupts, and corruption destroys, but corruption breeds something worse – a grandiose sense of hubris. The attitude that “I can do whatever I want and screw you” describes Valley Village’s Councilmember Krekorian.
Councilmember Krekorian’s hubris is not misplaced. He is the absolute ruler of Council District 2 where there are no laws. Rather it operates at the whim of the councilmember. If you want to destroy historic homes? No problem, someone in CD 2 will ring up City Planning’s Office of Historic Preservation and you can be certain the historic home will be bulldozed.
Concerned about the loss of affordable housing in established neighborhoods? No matter who you are, Krekorian ignores you. Assemblywoman Patty Lopez, who district is contiguous to Valley Village and who therefore will be directly impacted with a rise of homelessness in this area, requested that the City Planning Department take the time and effort to meet with her so that the housing crisis will not worsen. With Krekorian’s blessing, Garcetti’s Commission rejected out of hand Assemblywoman Lopez’ request for a meeting.
Assemblywoman Lopez’ focus on the needless loss of affordable housing is allegedly shared by the Mayor, Councilmember Krekorian and the LA City Council in general which declared homelessness to be a crisis. That is all propaganda PR for the March 2017 re-elections. All the units which Raffi Shirinian’s Urban Blox will destroy are rent-controlled units and none of the new units are affordable. However, the behind-the-scenes secret dealings with politicos to push through Raffi Shirinian’s Urban Blox destruction of affordable homes is more nefarious.
The Theft of State Property
The long established rule in California is that city streets belong to all the people of the State. “It is settled that the public streets of a municipality belong to the people of the State,” it is stated in Keller vs. City of Oakland (1921 Calif Supreme Court) 54 Cal.App. 169.
Krekorian and his cohort Raffi Shirinian recognize that Shirinian’s destruction of poor people’s homes requires the theft of state property. According to City documents, Shirinian’s entire project is 42,342 square feet and about 14,070 square feet (33% of the land) is being stolen from the State of California. Weddington does not even belong to the City of Los Angeles and certainly it is not the personal property of Councilmember Krekorian, even though he treats it as such.
Weddington Street (photo left) sits between Shirinian’s south side of Weddington and the parcel to the north. Weddington Street is 60 feet wide. That means that without Krekorian’s ripping out all of Weddington Street’s 14,070 square feet and giving all that land to his buddy Raffi Shirinian, there is no viable project.
Instead, Raffi Shirinian has a small parcel south of Weddington and a small parcel north of Weddington which are unconnected to each other. Neither parcel is large enough to support the cost of destroying the nine homes of the poor and disabled people now at stake, but with Krekorian’s gift of the connecting State property, Raffi Shirinian now has enough acreage to construct his 26 high-end homes.
Giving Away State Property Makes Money for Corrupt Politicos
It has become quite the rage for councilmembers to give away city streets to their friends and campaign donors. (More about how that works later.) The target can be any dead-end street or cul de sac. A councilman like O’Farrell declares that the street is no longer necessary and councilmember’s friends get to incorporate what used to be a public street into their property. This ploy is favored by the wealthy who want to live in illegal gated communities. Because gating off a public street is unlawful, the councilman simply gives the entire dead-end street and -- like magic -- the landowners now have a private driveway where there used to be a public street.
But Weddington Street is used all the time as a street. The residents have showed how it is being used by the neighborhood children as a play area – and as a dead-end street, it lacks the dangers of a through street. It provides on-street parking for about fourteen cars. After this project is constructed, none of these current residents will have any place to park; there will be no play area for children. The street also serves the function of providing open space in a residential neighborhood. In fact, any city that cared one whit about the quality of life of its citizens could make the intersection of Weddington and Hermitage much safer by installing a modest roundabout.
A roundabout is a circle often filled with flowers which is placed in the middle of an intersection so that cars cannot speed directly down the street, but rather, when they come to the roundabout, they must slow down and drive counter-clockwise around the circular garden.
We Know that this is Corruptionism
We know that this gift of Weddington Street to Raffi Shirinian is slow-motion corruption which could be stopped dead in its tracks – except for the overwhelming hubris that the unanimous vote trading pact has created in city councilmembers like Krekorian. Krekorian knows that no councilmember will mention the fact that there is no basis – other than cronyism - to give Raffi Shirinian 14,000 sq feet of state land. Rather, the City Council will unanimously approve this additional bit of corruptionism.
Judges are very familiar with how this delayed compensation-bribery system functions. While on the bench, many judges are very nice to insurance companies, real estate developers, and other business interests. Then when they retire on fat pensions, the judges go to work as arbitrators and mediators for insurance companies, real estate developers and large “downtown” law firms. These ex-judges can pull in $750 an hour. How does anyone tie their bizarre rulings on the bench with the generous compensation which they receive after their “retirement?” There is no way.
There is no way to trace future campaign contributions to Krekorian or to his deputy Karo Toussian, who is running for Council District 7, to this deal with Raffi Shirinian or to the deal whereby Krekorian needlessly destroyed Marilyn Monroe’s home.
The Los Angeles City Council’s Unlawful Vote Trading Pact Makes Los Angeles Safe for Criminals
This gift of state land to Raffi Shirinian is the result of LA City Council’s unlawful vote trading pact. Each councilmember agrees to vote YES for every construction project no matter how corrupt, and in return, each councilmember is guaranteed the same “respect.” This type of “respect” is also known as “omerta.” In other words, “I won’t talk about your illicit deals if you don’t speak about mine.”
(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.
Valley Village: Corruption Out of Control … Lopez Meeting Vetoed
