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Thursday, Mar 28, 2024

Delgadillo’s Opinion Draws Reaction Over Panels’ Roles

Since the Los Angeles City Attorney found that giving neighborhood councils the authority to administratively appeal land use decisions does not violate city code, debate about the function and mission of the councils has reignited. “The city attorney’s opinion doesn’t seem to be consistent with the neighborhood council’s role as an advisory committee,” Valley Industry and Commerce Association president Brendan Huffman said. “By giving them the right to appeal, it turns them into advocacy organizations.” And that could be dangerous for developers, Huffman added, because neighborhood councils tend to side against them. Jill Banks Barad, president of the Sherman Oaks Neighborhood Council and founder of the Valley Alliance of Neighborhood Councils, believes this is a misperception. “People think that neighborhood councils are just obstructionist,” she said. “If a good project comes into a community that makes the community better, we are going to be supportive. They put homeowners’ associations and neighborhood councils into one group, and they’re not. The naysayers think we’re going to file frivolous appeals. I don’t think that’s going to happen.” Barad played a key role in inspiring City Council members Wendy Greuel and Jack Weiss to file a motion April 24 that would allow neighborhood councils the right to appeal tentative tract and parcel maps, specific plan exceptions, conditional use permits and variances. “In Sherman Oaks, we wanted to appeal a decision regarding the parking ordinance,” Barad said. “We were told councils could not appeal, so I appealed it as a private individual on behalf of the council.” Later, Barad said that she and Councilman Weiss reviewed the city charter and found nothing to indicate that neighborhood councils should be prohibited from appealing as a group. Weiss called the city attorney’s decision a victory for Barad and her supporters. “This was their idea, (initiated) because other agencies in the government had the ability to appeal. They’re just being treated the way everybody else was being treated.” Huffman, for one, disagrees. He said that neighborhood councils are like city agencies. “How can the city appeal itself?” he asked. “The Department of Recreation and Parks can’t appeal projects. The Ethics Department can’t appeal projects.” In his July 11 finding, city attorney Rocky Delgadillo acknowledged that departments which function as administrative arms of a city cannot sue or be sued. But, in citing the 1994 case Cohan v. City of Thousand Oaks, Delgadillo pointed out that “courts give considerable deference as to how a city establishes its own internal processes, including its administrative appeal process,” such as allowing departments to administratively appeal land use decisions. It will be months before the city attorney’s finding becomes law. Next, the motion is scheduled to go to the Education and Neighborhoods Committee. “It’ll be heard in that committee, and we’ll bring it to the full council and enact it into law, hopefully by fall,” Weiss said.

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