Comments
LOS ANGELES — In the heart of Brentwood, beneath the pavement and the mid-century architecture of the Barry Building at 11973 San Vicente Boulevard, lies a history that predates the City of Los Angeles by thousands of years. It is the site of the sacred village of Kuruvungna, a landscape of immense cultural and spiritual significance to the Gabrieleno people.
Under California’s Assembly Bill 52 (AB 52), state and local agencies are legally mandated to consult with Native American tribes to protect such resources. However, public records uncovered from the Department of City Planning (DCP) reveal a narrative of administrative negligence, a breach of legal confidentiality, and a disregard for the sacredness of the land that has now collided with a landmark 2025 appellate court ruling.
The "Confidential" File That Wasn't
In August 2024, an in-office records review at the DCP revealed documents that should never have been in a public-facing file.
In November 2020, the Gabrieleno Administration explicitly warned the City:
"The information provided herein is to be kept confidential... [it] shall be available for use to those associated to the project but no entity outside of the project."
Despite this clear invocation of Government Code Section 6254.10 (which was recodified in 2023 to 7927.005) - which protects the location of Native American graves and sacred sites from public disclosure—sensitive tribal archive information, historic maps, and explanatory texts were left accessible. This breach not only violates the trust of the Gabrieleno people but also contradicts the very protections AB 52 was written to provide.
The Koi Nation Precedent: A New Standard for "Meaningful" Consultation
The City’s "check-the-box" approach to these archives is no longer just a moral failure; as of March 2025, it is a legal liability. In the landmark case Koi Nation of Northern California v. City of Clearlake (A169438), the Court of Appeal ruled that "meaningful" consultation requires an agency to engage in a genuine, two-way dialogue aimed at reaching a mutual agreement.
The Koi court found Clearlake’s process "perfunctory at best" because the city failed to formally respond to a tribe’s proposed mitigation measures or provide a rationale for rejecting them. The records for the Barry Building tell a similar story. In a July 21, 2022, email, City Planning admitted it "recognize[s] the Tribe's concerns," yet unilaterally moved to close consultation, claiming "no evidence was found identifying any tribal cultural resources on the Project Site".
Substantial Evidence vs. The "Artificial Fill" Fallacy
The communications between the Tribe and City Planner Bradley Furuya show a Tribe pleading for the recognition of a "Cultural Landscape." The Tribe provided "substantial evidence" that the project site is located within a sacred village adjacent to traditional trade routes and water courses. The Gabrieleno Administration was clear:
"There is a high potential to impact Tribal Cultural Resources still present within the soil... [the project] may have a significant impact on our TCRs."
Emails from November 2020 show the City attempting to minimize this impact by claiming the first two feet of soil was "artificial fill." The Tribe countered by asking a vital question: Was that fill imported, or was it original material? Under the Koi Nation ruling, a lead agency is now explicitly forbidden from dismissing tribal expertise in favor of narrow archaeological records. The court confirmed that Tribal Cultural Values must be weighed as heavily as physical "scientific" evidence when evaluating a site's significance.
A Pattern of Neglect
The Barry Building project is a test of the City's commitment to indigenous rights. When a lead agency treats AB 52 as a bureaucratic hurdle, it risks erasing the last remaining vestiges of the Gabrieleno heritage. As noted in a 2018 letter from archaeologist Gary Stickel to Tribal Chairman Andrew Salas:
"The only exception [to a monitoring program] would be if a given property has had all of its soil deposits removed and/or destroyed beyond any reasonable doubt of containing cultural resources."
By proceeding without rigorous, tribal-led monitoring and by failing to protect the confidentiality of the Tribe’s ancestral knowledge, the DCP has turned a blind eye to both the letter and the spirit of the law.
A Call for Independent Accountability
The handling of 11973 San Vicente Blvd is no longer just a planning issue; it is a matter of legal accountability. By failing to sequester confidential tribal data, the DCP may have violated Government Code Section 7927.005. By failing to properly conclude the AB 52 consultation despite the new standards set in the Koi Nation case, they have sidestepped the California Environmental Quality Act.
While the LA City Attorney typically acts to shield city departments, the gravity of these procedural failures requires a more independent look. The Los Angeles District Attorney’s Public Integrity Division and the California Office of the Attorney General should examine whether the DCP willfully disregarded state mandates designed to protect Native American heritage.
The City cannot claim to be a partner to indigenous communities while leaving their sacred archives in the public square and their sacred sites at the mercy of a backhoe. It is time for an independent audit of the Barry Building file before the history of Kuruvungna is lost forever.
(Ziggy Kruse Blue is a freelance contributor to CityWatchLA) Ziggy and Bob can be reached at [email protected])
