The Los Angeles District Attorney’s office is investigating a compaint that the Rose Bowl Operating Company violated the Brown Act, California’s open meeting law, in failing to list an agenda item concerning the financing of a $152 million stadium renovation. -db
Pasadena Star-News
October 22, 2010
By Brenda Gazzar
Prosecutors said Friday they’ve opened a probe into an alleged Brown Act violation committed by the Rose Bowl Operating Company when the agency considered a $152 million stadium renovation.
The complaint, received Wednesday, alleges the RBOC failed to list an item related to the renovation financing plan at a special Oct. 7 meeting, said Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney Dave Demerjian, head of the Public Integrity Division.
The Ralph M. Brown Act is the state’s open meeting law.
“We are currently reviewing that allegation,” Demerjian said. “If they took action on an item that was not on the agenda, then the action would be null and void and it would have to be revisited at a separate meeting where they did agendize it.”
Demerjian declined to provide more specifics about the complaint.
The RBOC’s vote that evening cleared the way for the City Council’s unanimous approval of the $152 million financing plan and project on Oct. 11.
Councilman Victor Gordo, president of the RBOC board of directors, defended the agency’s actions.
“I’m comfortable with the determination of our city attorney that the documents listed on the RBOC agenda containing the financing plan did not violate the Brown Act, and therefore, the recommendation made by the RBOC to the City Council was in no way in violation of the Brown Act,” Gordo said Friday.
At least one Pasadena resident, writer Weston DeWalt, has publicly questioned whether the RBOC violated the Brown Act at that special meeting.
“It’s my personal opinion the Rose Bowl Operating Company did not offer proper notice that the totality of the plan was going to be discussed or voted upon,” said DeWalt on Friday.
Jim Ewert, legal counsel for the California Newspaper Publishers Association, said in a recent email that the notice provided by the RBOC “seems pretty clear that it intended to adopt the financing plan to renovate the Rose Bowl.”
DeWalt, in a letter that he recently sent to city officials, also complained that very short notice was given of the RBOC’s intention to divert monies from the Rose Bowl renovation project from the creation of public art to preservation projects at the stadium.
The city’s Arts and Culture Commission on Oct. 6 voted 7-0 against invoking the conservation clause of the city’s Public Art Program guidelines, fearing an opportunity to create new iconic public art at the stadium would be missed.
Following the RBOC’s Oct. 7 recommendation, the City Council gave the RBOC the go-ahead to divert about $945,000 in public art funds toward restoration of items such as the stadium’s 1928 Arroyo stone wall.
DeWalt said Friday that he also questions whether the RBOC should have formally considered this particular item before asking the Arts and Culture Commission to take a position on it.
“Whether that is a violation of the Brown Act or whether it’s a violation of any other public meeting, I don’t know but I think it’s helpful for other agencies to resolve that,” DeWalt said.
Copyright 2010 Los Angeles Newspaper group FAC Content Use Policy