Eli Broad Gets $52 Million of Your Money For Parking Garage: Thanks, L.A. City Council

By Dennis Romero Wed., May 11 2011 at 12:16 PM

An artist's rendering of the Broad Museum.

We told you it was happening, and now it has. The cash-strapped city of L.A., which is having trouble hiring cops and keeping fire stations manned, is officially giving billionaire El Broad $52 million for a parking lot.

You heard it right. The L.A. City Council approved the deal this week. Of course, there are details that help public officials deflect the reality of of the situation.

Like the fact that the cash is coming from a separate fund -- from the controversial Community Redevelopment Agency, which is supposed to help redevelop blighted properties (not rich guys who want to house their art collections with the aid of your dollars).

Still, it's a bit of a boondoggle, innit?

Gov. Jerry Brown has been attempting to seize CRA money across the state for precisely this reason -- that it's being misused.

Broad is building a museum as part of downtown's Grand Avenue redevelopment project. His venue would house his multimillion-dollar art collection. [Added]: Actually we're told a large segment of the building will be used for Broad's private foundation -- only a portion of it will be open to the public. (Even better).

City Councilman Bill Rosendahl wants to make sure no "general fund" city money goes to the project.

"The fact is the city is broke," he said, according to the Daily News. "We need to make sure that this will not be costing us anything."

Downtown city Councilwoman Jan Perry, who appears to us to be quite adept at giving public money to rich guys, was, of course, all for it, saying the 370-space garage would be paid for out of Bunker Hill Redevelopment Project funds.

Read our original piece on Broad's grab for public cash and Jerry Brown's attempt to seize CRA money statewide here.

Tags:

Broad Museum, City Council, CRA, Eli Broad, Grand Avenue, redevelopment

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Sylvia Robles

Inland Empire San Berdoo and Riverside; sound like here? $120 million to felon to build San Bernardino International Airport, $6.3 to demolish two motels to build new In $ Out Burger?

Michael Zeleny

Eli Broad has endowed charitable foundations to the tune of $2.1 billion. A reciprocal contribution of public funds may not be out of order.

Nando

Micheal, in this financial climate every dollar counts and that is a punch in the face of every taxpayer in this city. In addition, if most of his collection is not available to the public then this sounds like he's doing it for more selfish reasons than you think.

Michael Zeleny

The article fails to disclose the extent and scope of Eli Broad's philanthropy, or discuss its connection to the planned construction. It does say that he is building a museum as part of downtown's Grand Avenue redevelopment project. By default, a museum is open to the general public. Disparaging him in this context as one of the "rich guys who want to house their art collections with the aid of your dollars" is disingenuous. Likewise, the fact that "a large segment of the building will be used for Broad's private foundation" is no reason to deny it support with public funds, given the charitable nature of said foundation. Finely honed moral outrage of LA Weekly's constituency would have been more fairly served by a complementary look into the public records of Eli Broad's charitable works.

Joselyn

Regardless of how much $ Eli Broad has given away to philanthropic ventures, does not balance out the fact that the City of Los Angeles is nearly bankrupt. Broad can afford to pay for his own parking lot, along with his museum. There is so much need in this city for funding, how can there be any justification whatsoever for giving $52M of taxpayers money to fund a this parking lot. People MUST stand up and speak out to their elected officials about this misuse of public funds. It's really an outrage.

Anno Mous

So, tell us, Michael, who's going to keep the parking fees collected?

bobofromtexas

Giving the little man/taxpayers money to fat cat billionaires. These are all Republicans, right? Got to be so since surely no Democrat/Progressive would dream of such blatant injustice.

Dennis Romero

bobo: Hubris see no party.