The Mayors of West Hollywood, Santa Monica, Culver City, and the Vice Mayor of Beverly Hills discuss local redevelopment and planning in the face of state intervention. The conversation centers on politics, projects, transportation, and parking.
While some cities deal with stalled projects due to a listless economy, the Westside cities of Los Angeles County are knee-deep in public and private developments. Mayors John Duran of West Hollywood, Richard Bloom of Santa Monica, Mayor Micheál O'Leary of Culver City and Vice Mayor William Warren Brien of Beverly Hills participated at a panel recently to talk about the possibility of redevelopment going by the wayside.
The Planning Report provides some excerpts from the conversation:
MAYOR BLOOM: "To take money away from these poor cities in order to make the state work is simply an unsustainable and unworkable solution..."
MAYOR DURAN: "I think what they fail to realize is that redevelopment is a tool. Of course there's some calculated risk: financial risk and political risk. You're never popular... There is political risk that we take to do redevelopment."
FULL STORY: WUF Westside Mayors Panel: Just Leave Redevelopment Alone!

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