Tag Archives: Board of Supervisors

Supervisors Approve Seriously Flawed LACMA Plan

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LA BOS Image 2

On Tuesday the LA County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to approve a massive make-over of the LACMA campus. This was a major mistake. There’s been a lot of debate about the aesthetic quality of architect Peter Zumthor’s latest design, but really that’s a secondary issue. LACMA is a public institution and its primary purpose is to serve the public. I’m not the only one who feels that the project as proposed fails to accomplish that goal.

I wrote about the drawbacks to the plan a couple days ago, so I won’t go through it all again, but one of the main concerns is that LACMA is getting ready to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to create a new building with 10% less exhibition space. Does the LACMA Board really think that’s the best way to serve the public? Another serious problem with the new structure is that it doesn’t contain office space for most staff members, including curatorial staff. The museum will be renting space in a building across the street. Separating the staff from the exhibition space is a foolish and potentially costly move. How can anybody think this is a good idea?

To those who are angry about the loss of exhibition space, LACMA Director Michael Govan has said he wants to get away from the traditional idea of what a museum is. Rather than expecting people from all over LA County to come to the Wilshire District to look at art, Govan has proposed bringing the museum to the people by having LACMA open new spaces in various communities. Here are a couple paragraphs from the story in the LA Times….

Supervisor Kathryn Barger praised LACMA Director Michael Govan, who hopes to offset the loss of gallery space in the new building with future satellite locations in South Los Angeles and elsewhere.

“You really do have a vision, and it’s not just about four walls,” Barger said, later adding: “We believe it’s important to give exposure to people who wouldn’t otherwise have it.”

In theory this is a great idea. We shouldn’t keep clinging to old ideas about what a museum is, and the notion of creating different spaces in LA’s communities to engage the public directly makes perfect sense. But where’s the proposal for these satellite locations? What’s the budget? What’s the timetable? How is it going to happen?

Various sources reported that Govan pitched this idea in January 2018, and at the time he talked about the possibility of opening five different spaces anywhere between South LA and the Valley. What’s happened since then? Well, that same month the LA City Council approved an agreement which would allow the Department of Recreation & Parks to lease LACMA space at South Los Angeles Wetlands Park. The idea was that LACMA would gradually renovate an existing building at the same time it was providing programming in the park. Here’s an excerpt from the agreement.

LACMA proposes to begin providing museum programming services at designated recreation centers near the South LA Wetlands Park within six months of the execution of the Lease while the repair and retrofit work is being conducted in Building 71. Programming at the Park will be provided within eighteen (18) months of the execution of the Lease.

The LA City Council approved the lease in January 2018. The agreement says LACMA would start providing programming near the park within six months and that programming at the park would begin within 18 months. I looked all over the net. I looked at the Rec & Parks web site. I looked at the LACMA web site. I didn’t find anything about art-related activities provided by the museum anywhere near South LA Wetlands Park. The 18 month period will expire in July of this year. Will LACMA be providing programming at the park beginning in July?

What about the other locations? In July 2018 it was reported that LACMA had opened a small gallery at an elementary school near Westlake/MacArthur Park, but at that time it wasn’t yet open on weekends. Another site that’s been mentioned is Magic Johnson Park in South LA, but an article published in the LA Sentinel last month merely said that LACMA was “considering” a location there.

In other words, there is no plan in place. There are no details. Govan’s idea of bringing the museum to the people sounds good, but at this point it’s all up in the air. The locations haven’t been determined, there’s no timetable, and apparently no budget. This last part is especially concerning. Since fundraising for the new Wilshire campus has slowed, it’s hard to believe donors will be rushing forward with millions to fund this new idea of off-site locations. To say that the loss of exhibition space in the proposed building will be offset by new satellite locations without offering any concrete plan for how that’s going to happen is pathetic. Could some satellite spaces open in time? Possibly. But it’s also possible none of them will open.

I can’t believe anybody could buy this half-baked idea. But apparently the Board of Supervisors thought it all sounded great. You can read the write-up in the Times here.

LACMA’s $650 Million New Building Wins Approval from County Supervisors

 

Stop the Insanity at LACMA

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LACMA Plaza

If you care about the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), and you haven’t heard the latest about the massive makeover planned for the campus, please check out the articles below. There’s some crazy stuff going on. When the project was being discussed back in 2015, I wrote a post supporting the demolition of existing buildings and construction of new gallery space. But after reading reports in the media about the latest twists in the LACMA saga, I say we need to slam on the brakes. The project as currently proposed is just insane.

Read the articles below for more details, but the upshot is that LACMA will be spending hundreds of millions of dollars to create a new campus with a lot less gallery space. Even worse, the new buildings won’t contain offices for curators and other museum staff. LACMA will be leasing space for them in a building across the street. Unbelievable.

But it hasn’t been approved yet. The LA County Board of Supervisors will consider approval of the plan at their meeting on Tuesday, April 9. If you care about LACMA’s future, please write to your Supervisor TODAY and let them know you oppose the current plan.

LA County Board of Supervisors

Here are two articles that lay out what’s going on. The first is by Christopher Knight, who gives an overview of the proposal. The second is by Joseph Giovannini, who breaks down the numbers in excruciating detail. Both authors oppose the current plan

LACMA, the Incredible Shrinking Museum

LACMA: Suicide by Architecture

When the idea of remaking the LACMA campus was first proposed it seemed like a good idea, but over the years the proposal has morphed into an awful, pathetic mess. Please tell the Board of Supervisors to reject this idiotic plan.

Jailing the Mentally Ill Doesn’t Help Anyone

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Mens Central Jail Photo by Mark Ibirby

Does this look like a good place to send people who are mentally ill?  Photo by Mark Ibirby.

Here’s some disturbing info from the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI)….

“In a mental health crisis, people are more likely to encounter police than get medical help. As a result, 2 million people with mental illness are booked into jails each year. Nearly 15% of men and 30% of women booked into jails have a serious mental health condition.”

Throwing mentally ill people in jail doesn’t help anybody. It certainly doesn’t help the person who’s stuck behind bars, because getting locked up just adds one more layer of trauma, and will most likely prevent the person from getting the help they need. And it isn’t good for society at large, because instead of hooking mentally ill people up with treatment that will help them get back on their feet, it makes it more difficult for them to find employment and housing, meaning they’re more likely to end up homeless.

Over the past several years there’s been a push to rethink the way we care for people dealing with mental health issues. Last week the LA Board of Supervisors approved a plan to tear down the Men’s Central Jail and build a mental health care facility instead. At first glance, this looks like progress, but local activists fear the plan may only offer cosmetic changes. For more details, read the story in the LA Times.

LA County Will Replace Men’s Central Jail with Mental Health Hospital for Inmates

At this point it’s hard to say how this will all play out. The plan approved by the Supervisors could be a step in the right direction, or it could be a way to defer meaningful action that would lead to real progress. But however this plays out, we should all be thinking about how we can push for change in this area. If you’ve lived in LA for any time at all, you’ve seen mentally ill people wandering the street. Many of these people have spent time in jail, and were released with little or no support to help them transition back into society. If we don’t change the way the system operates, we’re certain to see the number of mentally ill homeless increase.

I’ll leave you with another quote from NAMI.

“Jailing people with mental illness creates huge burdens on law enforcement, corrections and state and local budgets. It does not protect public safety. And people who could be helped are being ignored.”

No Need to Get the Public Involved

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Twin Towers Correctional Facility near Downtown LA

Twin Towers Correctional Facility near Downtown LA

Last week the LA County Board of Supervisors voted to approve the construction of two new jails, at a combined cost of more than $1 billion. By itself, this probably doesn’t seem too alarming, since the County has been facing severe criticism over the conditions in its jails for years. But in their rush to approve these projects, the Supervisors forgot one little detail. Somehow they neglected to let the public know that this item was coming up for a vote.

These projects have been under consideration for a while, and the need to fix this problem is very real. But the agenda posted before the meeting says absolutely nothing about taking action on this issue. The agenda did mention that a proposal to transfer mentally ill prisoners to a different facility was going to be discussed, and they’re claiming that the vote to approve the jails was related business. What a joke. The public was completely bypassed. There was no serious debate. The three alternatives considered were not properly analyzed. This is a travesty. And aside from being a travesty, it’s totally illegal. The Brown Act requires elected representatives to give adequate notice for any item they plan to take action on.

The Board has had transparency problems before. Back in 2011 it held a secret meeting with Gov. Jerry Brown to discuss the transfer of mentally ill prisoners, which triggered a lawsuit by Californians Aware. Last year the Board refused to turn over records detailing payments to private lawyers who had defended the Sheriff’s Department in excessive force cases.

But the County isn’t alone in its efforts to shut the public out. The sad fact is, this kind of thing is common practice for our elected officials and government agencies. The City of LA has a less than stellar record when it comes to public participation. City agencies hold public meetings, declaring that they want to hear from the citizens, but often these meetings are so poorly publicized that nobody knows about them. They scheduled a series of five open forums on re:code LA, a massive overhaul of the City’s zoning code. I did receive notice of the meetings. Unfortunately it didn’t arrive until the first three had already taken place. I wasn’t able to attend the last two. I still remember the meeting held by the Housing and Community Investment Department a while ago in Pacoima. The purpose of the meeting was supposedly to get input from the community on how to use millions of dollars in federal funding. Only about 20 people showed up, and they were all either city employees or reps for non-profits. Why were there no citizens from the communities that might benefit from the funding? It came out during the meeting that the HCID had neglected to contact local groups within these communities in order to help publicize the event. They hadn’t even distributed flyers within the areas under discussion.

It happens at the regional level, too. Earlier this year the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) announced a series of open houses to get comment on their Regional Transportation Plan/Sustainable Communities Strategy (RTP/SCS). I bet a lot of people would’ve liked to attend. Unfortunately, all but one of the meetings were scheduled during working hours, meaning anybody with a job would have to take time off to be there. On top of that, of the six open houses planned, none of them were located in the City of LA. In other words, there wasn’t going to be a single meeting within the boundaries of the largest city that SCAG serves. SCAG took some heat for this, and they did end up scheduling three more meetings. But why do we have to put the screws on just to have our voices heard?

This is really maddening. These people are supposed to be serving us. Instead, they’re routinely shutting the public out of discussion on important issues. And with the Board of Supervisors voting to spend $1 billion without even putting the item on the agenda, we seem to be hitting a new low.

If you want to contact your Supervisor to let them know how you feel about this, here’s the link.

Board of Supervisors