Local News in Brief : Sierra Club Sues to Halt Arts Park
The Sierra Club filed a lawsuit Friday to stop the development of an arts park in the Sepulveda Basin, charging that alternative sites were not thoroughly examined as required by federal law.
The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, says Arts Park L.A. would damage the basin as a public recreation area and a habitat for migrating Canada geese.
The corps owns land in the basin that the San Fernando Valley Cultural Foundation plans to lease for the 60-acre Arts Park, which would include a 2,500-seat concert hall, a natural history museum and three other buildings.
The Sierra Club has publicly opposed the plan to put the Arts Park on the east end of the 2,150-acre Sepulveda Basin, the largest remaining piece of open space in the Valley. The Sierra Club maintains that it should remain open space.
Linda Kinnee, executive director of the Cultural Foundation, and a spokeswoman for the corps, said they could not comment on the lawsuit because they had not seen it.
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