Girls School's $840k of Lobbying Helps Charm City Hall … Foes Say Fight Isn’t Over

WINNING THE INFLUENCE DERBY--The Archer School for Girls spent nearly $840,000 to lobby city officials in the run-up to the LA City Council vote last Tuesday (Aug. 4) approving the school’s controversial $100 million campus expansion project that opponents claim will worsen congestion along an already traffic-paralyzed segment of Sunset Boulevard in Brentwood. 

Archer’s large expenditures on lobbyists helped protect the school’s multi-million dollar investment in a massive project that calls for nearly a quarter million square feet of construction and 100,000 construction-related vehicle trips at the campus, located at 11725 Sunset Blvd. 

Public records show Archer had already spent at least $7.2 million as of the tax year ending June 30, 2014 on lawyers, environmental and traffic consultants, architects and a construction firm to help lay the groundwork for its campus expansion project. Records about Archer’s expenditures since July 2014 have not yet been filed publicly. As a non-profit, Archer’s income tax filings are a matter of public record; filers are only required to name the five contractors they spent the most money on and only if those contractors were paid more than $100,000 each. 

After Tuesday’s council decision, project opponents vowed to keep their fight going. 

“We are obviously disappointed by the council action,” said David Wright, a Brentwood resident and co-chair of the Sunset Coalition, an organization newly-formed to protect Sunset corridor communities from over-sized projects like the Archer school.

“Despite Tuesday’s council decision, we know the vast majority of Brentwood and Pacific Palisades residents oppose this project,” Wright said. 

“Sunset Coalition is committed to represent Brentwood and Pacific Palisades residents who oppose this project and carry our fight – and their fight - into the courts if necessary,” added John Binder, president of the Upper Mandeville Canyon Assn. and a member of the Sunset Coalition steering committee. 

The coalition’s goal is to secure a significantly scaled-down Archer project that will allow the school to grow and continue offering a top-notch education while also being a responsible neighbor in the Brentwood community. 

The Sunset Coalition is particularly upset by Brentwood’s own councilman, Mike Bonin, who urged his council colleagues to join him in supporting Archer’s project. 

Bonin and the lobbyists were key to Archer’s campaign to win over City Hall. 

“Archer had a big-time lobbying team to help it flex its muscle at City Hall and make sure its huge investment in this project – probably now close to $10 million - did not go to waste,” said Eric Edmunds, president of the Brentwood Hills Homeowners Assn. and a member of the Sunset Coalition’s steering committee. 

Archer’s lobbyists included the giant law firm of Latham & Watkins and the public relations firm of Sugerman Communications. Archer’s expenditures on lobbyists totaled $839,943 as of June 30, 2015. Of that total about $600,000 went to the Latham team, led by attorney Cindy Starrett. The firm of Greer/Dailey Public Affairs was also retained to help Archer. 

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“The public is often out-gunned in these development battles,” Wright said. “The silver-lining is that the Sunset Coalition is finding that the momentum against this project is only now starting to pick up steam.” 

The Archer project managed to slowly move forward for years. It did so largely under the radar screen of thousands of Brentwood and Pacific Palisades residents who will be heavily affected by the giant traffic crunch the Archer project will cause on Sunset Blvd. for three years of construction six days per week. 

“The media coverage of the project in the last few days has been like an alarm bell, finally awakening many residents about the traffic threat posed by this massive project,” said Stacia Thompson, a member of the board of the Upper Riviera Homeowners Assn. “I have met more than a few people who didn’t realize until just recently what was going on.” 

Tuesday’s council action was covered by the LA Times, four TV stations and numerous other news outlets. 

Coalition leaders said they were deeply disappointed by Bonin. They say Bonin misled the public and his own council peers by falsely suggesting that the so-called “compromise” plan he supported was meaningful and endorsed by the wider community. “That’s all hogwash,” said Binder. 

“Councilmember Bonin completely failed to address the public’s concern about the traffic nightmare that will be created by at least three years of construction at the Archer site,” added Wendy-Sue Rosen, a co-chair of the Sunset Coalition. “There’s no guarantee that construction will be completed in three years.” 

“Never once has the councilmember explained to us, to his constituents or to the media what Archer is doing to mitigate the brutal traffic that will be caused by 100,000 plus construction vehicles, including large dump trucks and concrete mixers, moving in and out of this project on Sunset Boulevard at Barrington,” Rosen said. Bonin has called that intersection “one of the worst traffic choke points in the city.” 

Sunset Coalition leaders say Archer has failed to produce for public inspection any studies showing what the traffic impacts will be of its late-breaking decision to compress the construction period from six to three years. “This intensified construction schedule changes everything and yet Archer hasn’t provided studies disclosing the  impacts of the three year construction schedule and what they are proposing to do to mitigate them,” Rosen said. 

Wright said Sunset Coalition’s legal team, led by attorney Doug Carstens, is exploring the question of whether Archer and the city violated state environmental protection laws. “An applicant like Archer must honestly address the environmental impacts of its project and then propose ways to mitigate those impacts as much as possible,” said Wright. “That’s not happening with the Archer project.” 

(John Schwada is a former investigative reporter for Fox 11 in Los Angeles, the LA Times and the late Herald Examiner. He is a contributor to CityWatch. His consulting firm, MediaFix Associates, is now assisting the opponents of the Archer project. )

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CityWatch

Vol 13 Issue 64

Pub: Aug 7, 2015