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THE FIGHT CONTINUES - The fight to save the Barry Building (HCM #887) and the sacred Tribal Cultural Resources resting beneath its foundation has officially entered a new, surreal dimension: the Twilight Zone of administrative incompetence.
While the City of Los Angeles usually prides itself on burying preservationists under a mountain of bureaucracy, they’ve managed to do the one thing no one expected—they buried themselves. Through a series of procedural face-plants that would be comical if the stakes weren't so high, the City has officially lost its authority to act. In the simplest terms for the folks at City Hall: you missed the deadline, you lost the keys, and the case is now, legally speaking, a corpse.
A Timeline of Failure
To understand how we got here, one must look at a three-week span of administrative chaos:
- February 24, 2026: The Quorum That Wasn’t. During the PLUM Committee hearing, the City failed to maintain the most basic requirement of a public meeting: a quorum. While Roy Payan, identifying himself as an indigenous person, provided testimony regarding the sacred Tribal resources at stake, Committee Chair Bob Blumenfield and Councilmember Nithya Raman were captured on video engaging in a private, face-to-face conversation. With Councilmember Nazarian already absent from the dais, the committee lacked the legal standing to proceed. It is a curious sight to see Councilmember Raman, now a candidate for Mayor, so distracted that she failed to notice the committee had lost its quorum. This wasn't just a lapse in decorum; it was a flagrant violation of the Brown Act that rendered the entire proceeding legally invalid.
- March 3, 2026: The Video Receipts. In response to the PLUM Committee's procedural meltdown, Angelenos for Historic Preservation (AHP) issued a formal Cure and Correct letter. This wasn't just a grievance; it was a dossier provided to the City Attorney containing undeniable video evidence of the quorum failure. The footage serves as a permanent record of the City’s disregard for both the law and the Kizh Nation’s formal support of the appeal. When the paper trail includes a video of the violation, a response of "we didn't know" is no longer a valid legal defense.
- March 4, 2026: The Buyer’s Remorse Vote. In a display of legislative whiplash, the City Council initially voted to deny the AHP appeal on the consent calendar, presumably hoping no one was looking. However, apparently realizing that a vote based on an illegal, quorum-less PLUM hearing is a legal ticking time bomb, Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson and Councilmember Traci Park performed a sudden U-turn. Hours later, they moved to reconsider the item, attempting to resurrect the case for March 6. It was a frantic, mid-meeting scramble to fix a done deal that they realized wouldn't actually hold up in a court of law.
- March 6, 2026: The Referral to Nowhere. Recognizing that their March 4th resurrection was more of a legal haunting than a viable strategy, Councilmember Bob Blumenfield—acting on a nervous recommendation from the City Attorney—requested the item be referred to the PLUM Committee. It was a desperate attempt to hit the reset button on a process that was already compromised beyond repair. Apparently, the City Attorney’s office believes that if you just keep moving the file from desk to desk, the legal deadlines might stop counting. Spoiler alert: they don’t.
The Current Reality: A Dead Case
The City’s legal window to act on this appeal didn't just close; it slammed shut on March 6, 2026. Without an explicit agreement from the applicant to extend this timeline, the City Council and the PLUM Committee have officially lost jurisdiction. In the world of municipal law, deadlines aren't goals, they are boundaries.
In their current scramble to refer the item back to committee, the Council is essentially trying to perform CPR on a ghost. To put it in clinical terms: You can move a body to the morgue, but you cannot resuscitate it. As far as the Council’s authority is concerned, the pulse has stopped and the matter is over.
Because the Council failed to act within its legal jurisdiction, the case now reverts by default to the Board of Building and Safety Commissioners' (BBSC) November 18, 2025, decision. By violating the Brown Act on February 24th and missing the mandatory March 6th deadline, the City has effectively forfeited its opportunity to hear public testimony or seek critical clarifications on AB 52 and the protection of Tribal Cultural Resources. They had their chance to lead, but they chose to talk over the public instead.
What Happens Next? (The Legal Fiction Edition)
The procedural reset currently being attempted by City Hall is more than just a reach—it is a total legal fiction. In their world, the rules of the clock apparently don't apply to the people who write the rules. We are calling on every Angeleno to pierce through this bureaucratic fog and ask a remarkably simple question of Councilmember Traci Park, PLUM Chair Bob Blumenfield, and your own Council representatives:
"Since the legal deadline has passed and the Council has officially lost jurisdiction, what is the City’s next move to ensure the permanent protection of these historic and Tribal resources?"
The City might be hoping we get distracted by their latest round of referring to committee, but the law doesn’t have a do-over button for missed deadlines. It’s time for our elected officials to stop playing musical chairs with the Barry Building and start answering for their failures.
The Paper Trail: Two Letters That Tell the Story
To ensure there is no confusion about the City’s misconduct, Angelenos for Historic Preservation’s attorney has filed two critical letters that lay out the cold, hard facts. In summary:
- The March 3, 2026 Letter: This is the formal demand for the City to Cure and Correct the chaos of the February 24th PLUM hearing. It highlights the exact moments the committee lost its quorum and chose to ignore public testimony while caught in private conversation.
- The March 13, 2026 Letter: This is the high-stakes follow-up. It points out the final whistle, confirming that because the City failed to hold a legal hearing before the March 6th deadline, their time to act has officially run out.
The City might try to ignore the calendar, but these letters ensure the record reflects the truth: the clock has stopped, the jurisdiction is gone, and the procedural reset is nothing more than a ghost story.
We’ll keep you posted as the City decides whether to follow the law or continue this descent into administrative fiction.
(Ziggy Kruse Blue and Bob Blue are freelance contributors to CityWatchLA. They can be reached at [email protected])
