From the Sublime to the News Business

And... last September the same developer lost the final round in an EIR battle at Playa Vista Phase II

"Second Phase of LA's Playa Vista Development Overturned

Last Edited: Thursday, 13 Sep 2007, 5:40 PM PDT
Created: Thursday, 13 Sep 2007, 4:52 PM PDT MyFOX LA

A state appeals court panel overturned Los Angeles' approval of the second phase of the Playa Vista development, ruling that an environmental impact report for the project was flawed.

A three-judge panel of the Second District Court of Appeal ordered the city to vacate its 2004 approval of the project and ordered all construction activity to be stopped.

Opponents of the project filed two lawsuits in November 2004, a little more than a month after the City Council gave its approval, claiming the environmental impact report was flawed for the $1.1 billion second and final phase of the long-debated mixed-use project.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge William F. Highberger ruled last year that the city and Playa Vista "followed the law and the EIR provided the public and the decision-makers with all relevant information, allowing the decision-makers to make an informed decision."

However, the city of Santa Monica, the Surfrider Foundation, representatives of the Tongva/Gabrieleno Native Americans and the Ballona Wetlands Land Trust claimed the city of Los Angeles' support of the project was environmentally irresponsible.

According to the plaintiffs, the area is listed by the State Native American Heritage Commission as a sacred site, and considered sacred by the Tongva/Gabrieleno Native Americans.

The plaintiffs also claimed the development would generate large volumes of wastewater and worsen traffic in the area.

Playa Vista officials could not be immediately reached for comment on the court's ruling.

The second phase of the development is slated to include 2,600 housing units, 175,000 square feet of offices and 150,000 square feet of retail space on 111 acres.

The appeals court found, however, that the environmental review of the project "was deficient in its analysis of land use impacts, mitigation of impacts on historical archaeological resources and wastewater impacts."

Opponents of the project were quick to hail the decision.

"This victory for the people of Los Angeles is a victory for telling the truth on development decisions," said Rex Frankel, president of the Ballona Ecosystem Education Project. "The court didn't accept the developer's masquerade about benefits to the public that didn't actually exist."

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whatphotosb, that "bitter women" (sic) was exercising her protected right to protest earlier illegal firings by the News-Press, and in general, La Wendy illegally attacked and retaliated against her staff for having the temerity to demand their legal right to a voice in the workplace. This is still America, and Americans have the right to organize themselves into unions. I know Wendy can't believe that anyone would have the audacity to try to do so in her sacred, walled-off holy environment, but that is the reality. Let's call the true victim of Wendy illegality the victim, and the labor outlaw the outlaw. Wendy and her lying legions of management and representatives are the ones who committed the acts, and made and implemented and defended the decisions, that are contrary to the law of the land.

whatphoto, you are entitled to your clueless syntactically and spellcheck-challenged opinion, and hence, unlike Wendy, I imagine the Teamsters won't sue you for expressing it. When you find truly "sound information", perhaps your masters McCaw, von Wiesenberger, Cappello and Zinser will reward you with a dish of puppy chow.

whatphoto, now that you've improved your grammar and spelling, the substance of your ignorant comment can be addressed. Read the National Labor Relations Act, and the Norris-LaGuardia Act, and their state equivalents, not to mention a bit of history. The state permits capital to be organized in the corporate form for its own power, and therefore (according to the law), has permitted and encouraged working people to organize themselves as a counter measure for their own protection and advancement. It has historically been unions that have built and maintained the middle class in this country, brought you the 8-hour day, vacations, health care and pensions for people other than Dick Cheney and the cretins who run Wal-Mart. So, yes, unions are associations of working people, and some of the leadership in some unions do relatively well, but barely a fraction of what corporate malefactors make in good times and bad. The ratio of what CEOs make to what "line" workers make has radically increased as unions have declined in membership thanks to increased employer belligerence (encouraged by the likes of unjustly beloved President Reagan) and disrespect for workers' rights, coupled with feeble enforcement of labor laws. Without unions at the bargaining table maintaining a baseline and acting as a counter to employers' more harmful tendencies (to put it kindly), workers would work more and harder for less, and be denied health care, pensions, decent and fair treatment, and safe conditions at work. Union officers have significant responsibilities in leading their members to better themselves in these ways, do not generally make more than their higher-paid members, and can be voted out of office. In a society where "rugged individualism" is a myth often belied by acquired and inherited wealth and stifled by corporate greed and tendencies toward monopoly (e.g., corporate media, finance), unions are one of the few progressive forces that shield us from the worst elements of our political and economic system.

damn, I was just going to say that!

"You will eat, bye and bye,
In that glorious land above the sky;
Work and pray, live on hay
You'll get pie in the sky when you die."

"The Times employees would be wise to stay away from Dawn Hobbs. That bitter women helped get people fired last year."

Dawn Hobbs got no one fired, Wendy McCaw made the decision to fire them.

People can debate whether or not those who were fired were rightly terminated from their jobs, but to ascribe such powers to Dawn Hobbs is untrue.