Dear fellow LACMA Lover,

Thank you for joining more than 1880 concerned citizens who have signed the petition urging the Los Angeles County Supervisors to reconsider their approval of the Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for LACMA's redevelopment plan.

On Tuesday, we went to Los Angeles City Hall to make public comment before full City Council, opposing the city’s granting of air rights over Wilshire Boulevard. This is necessary if the new museum building is to bridge the street.

Joining us was architect Barton Phelps, who has brilliantly transformed the Los Angeles landscape with innovative engineering and respect for our history and topography. He was instrumental in the battle to keep the city from demolishing Central Library, too.

Sadly, he learned first hand how outgoing City Council president Herb Wesson has dramatically curtailed public comment during his reign at the top of the horse shoe. The public gets just one minute to speak on matters of great significance, and most of our elected officials spend that minute chatting with staff, looking at their phones or out of the room entirely. It sucks!

But since the museum’s director Michael Govan was on hand to make his case, Barton Phelps took the opportunity to make his case directly to Govan, in an intense conversation about the significance of the LACMA site at a key portion of the landmark Miracle Mile, and how Peter Zumthor’s Wilshire bridge design demonstrates the architect’s failure to solve design problems on the north side of the property.

Also giving public comment against the giveaway of public air space to LACMA were Richard Schave and Rob Hollman, representing all of you petitioners and the Save LACMA nonprofit, preservationist Steve Luftman (Friends of Lytton Savings) and artist and ex-LACMA employee Oscar Peña, with a powerful reminder that the LACMA is doing business with some of the worst people in the world, including the murderous Saudi government, and demanding accountability from this ostensibly “public” institution.

We shot video of the brief public comment section, then a longer video with Barton Phelps, where he fleshed out his truncated comments to City Council and many design problems he sees with Peter Zumthor’s design for the new LACMA building. You can see that on our blog: http://www.esotouric.com/bartonphelps

There’s also a Facebook version of the video, here.

As to City Council’s decision? As expected, they eagerly handed off the priceless air rights to LACMA. Major civic land use decisions like this one are made long before public votes are cast, in the back room corridors of power. Usually, the public doesn’t notice or care, because the decisions are reasonable. But in the case of LACMA’s new undersized and overpriced building, the decisions being made are clearly reckless and destructive.

The air rights were granted, but the fight goes on.

LACMA will return to Los Angeles City Hall on April Fool’s Day 2020 to address land use concerns surrounding museum parking lots, which is subject of a lawsuit and considerable neighborhood concern.

Please keep sharing the petition link (http://chng.it/PBQw6hhzdX) with your friends who love LACMA and want it to remain at the heart of our city's culture and community. And stay tuned for updates as we have them.

Yours for Los Angeles,
Kim Cooper & Richard Schave
The LACMA Lovers League