Dear Friend of the Chili Bowl,
Thank you for joining more than 960 concerned citizens who have signed the petition urging councilmember Mike Bonin to pause the pending demolition permit and help to move L.A.’s last Chili Bowl from its longtime home at 12244 West Pico Boulevard to a safe location within the city of Los Angeles.
It’s been just over two months since we sent an update on this campaign, and boy howdy, how things have changed in Los Angeles City Hall!
On August 27, we told you about the Los Angeles Conservancy’s court filing asking a judge to reverse the illegal vote to reject the Chili Bowl landmark nomination on the basis of multiple Brown Act violations.
Angry over officials’ blatant contempt for the law and community, we Photoshopped the heads of the members of the offending PLUM Committee into a delicious bowl of chili, with recently seated member Mark Ridley-Thomas perched on the right edge. Turns out he’s got bigger problems than virtual beans in his ears: MRT has since been indicted on public corruption charges, for actions dating back to his tenure as Los Angeles County Supervisor, allegedly trading public funds for a plum USC gig for his sex pest son!
While we haven’t managed to find a new home for the building (yet), the Chili Bowl is still standing, and we’re keeping an eye on its legal status, as well as the unfolding legal challenges. In the last two days, the City Council file updated with a notice that City Attorney (and Mayoral candidate) Mike Feuer is asking the PLUM Committee, with Monica Rodriguez in the seat vacated by MRT’s Grand Jury indictment, to go into closed session to discuss the Conservancy’s complaints, as well as the more substantive charges of the scrappy Silver Lake Heritage Trust, involving similar violations over councilman Mitch O’Farrell’s fake “landmarking” of Taix French Restaurant.
It’s not uncommon for the City Attorney to send cases to City Council committees to be discussed out of public view. Typically, this involves a situation in which a person has been harmed by some civic failure to maintain a safe sidewalk or roadway, been assaulted by a city employee, or gotten hurt or killed in an encounter with LAPD. These matters are often settled quietly, with large payments from the city’s general fund.
So it’s weird to see the two preservation non-profit cases show up in the queue to be quietly discussed. They’re not asking for a financial payout for pain, suffering or loss of a loved one. All they seek is for the illegal votes to be reversed and their legal costs paid.
But we can see why the city might not want a judge asking questions about the damning circumstance of the entire civic machine violating the Brown Act, disenfranchising citizens and helping developers to destroy multiple potential landmarks—especially when the FBI is actively investigating City Hall and the County for public corruption!
This should be interesting, and we’ll keep you posted about opportunities to make public comment. And if you believe you have information to share with the FBI about possible public corruption, especially where historic buildings and real estate are concerned, you can join many of our preservation pals by sending a message to their email tip line (pctips-losangeles@fbi.gov).
In lighter news, Chili Bowl fan Kevin Toomey recently fired up his drone and flew over Pico Boulevard to make a short TikTok film to raise awareness about the threat to the landmark. Check it out and share with a friend.
That’s all the news that fits in a giant Chili Bowl. Please continue to share the petition (http://www.change.org/SaveTheChiliBowl) with friends who love the Chili Bowl and want to see it saved. And stay tuned for additional updates as they happen.
Yours for Los Angeles,
Kim Cooper & Richard Schave
Friends of the Chili Bowl