Judge’s Ruling Leaves Hollywood Group Facing Uncertain Future : Redevelopment: Advisory committee defied city’s order to disband. Instead, it filed suit against the council. Court ruling leaves renegade group without legal standing or city funding.

Members of a citizens advisory committee on Hollywood redevelopment, losers in a court battle last week with the city of Los Angeles, have called an emergency meeting Monday to decide whether to disband or continue fighting.

The scrappy group of redevelopment critics has been meeting without the blessing of the City Council or the Community Redevelopment Agency. The city has shunned the committee since May, when the council named a new advisory panel to replace it, but 14 of the abolished committee’s 25 members have refused to quit.

The renegade group, known as the Project Area Committee, sued the city in June in hopes of overturning the council action, but a Superior Court judge sided with the city on Wednesday. The ruling has left the committee with no legal standing and no city funding.

The committee has been covering its expenses--about $300 a month--by passing a hat at its meetings and getting friends and family to chip in. The lawsuit had sought reimbursement from the redevelopment agency as well as funding for an annual budget.

Disappointed committee members called Monday’s meeting after Chairman Robert Nudelman telephoned them with news of the ruling. Nudelman said the group is confused and saddened.

“I don’t know exactly what we will do,” Nudelman said. “We have to deal with the issue of how the (committee) would function. We enter a gray area once we approach the first of the year because elections have to be held.”

Under redevelopment law, the committee would have been required to hold an election before the end of this month for 11 of its seats. The committee had put off the election in hopes of winning the lawsuit and getting funding from the redevelopment agency, which paid $12,000 for a similar election last December when the group was still authorized by the city.

“We don’t have that big of a hat to pass,” Nudelman said.

Even though the city refuses to recognize it, the committee has attempted to maintain its legitimacy by conducting meetings according to redevelopment law. The committee sends press releases, posts agendas, votes on proposed projects and continues to set aside time at its meetings for reports from the redevelopment agency, which now presents the reports to the other advisory panel.

The committee was created in December, 1983, to help the redevelopment agency draft a renewal plan for central Hollywood. When the council adopted the $922-million plan in May, 1986, the committee became an advisory group required by state law to report to the agency on “policy matters” affecting local residents.

The dispute between the Project Area Committee and the city revolves around one question: How long is the city and its redevelopment agency required to consult with the committee on redevelopment matters?

The debate whittles down to differing interpretations of a single sentence in the 57-page redevelopment plan: “To the maximum extent permitted by law, the activities of the agency pertaining to implementation of this redevelopment plan including formulation of work programs shall be developed in consultation with the Project Area Committee.”

Committee members argue that the sentence means the redevelopment agency must work with the group throughout the plan’s 30-year life. The city, however, contends the sentence falls within the limits of state redevelopment law, which only requires the redevelopment agency to consult with the committee for three years after adoption of the plan--a period that elapsed in May.

In a seven-paragraph written ruling, Judge Kurt J. Lewin said the sentence is too vague to be interpreted as a 30-year lease-on-life for the Project Area Committee. He said the council could have made such a provision, but did not. “The evidence taken as a whole . . . demonstrates that the adoption of the plan would in all likelihood have foundered had such clear and unambiguous provision been advanced,” the judge wrote.

Lewin also questioned whether such a provision would have been legal. He said it “would extinguish the council’s discretion for years to come, notwithstanding that the need for (the committee) might diminish and become an unwarranted expense.”

Committee members said last week that the judge’s ruling deprives residents of the 1,100-acre redevelopment area of elected representatives. They contend that Hollywood-area Councilman Michael Woo, a strong proponent of redevelopment, persuaded the City Council to abolish the group because redevelopment critics had gained control of it through the election last December.

“We were voted in by the people of this community, and they deserve our representation,” said committee member Chris Shabel, who won a two-year term last December.

Woo has said that he abolished the committee because it had become a forum for “wacky behavior” that was determined to derail the redevelopment effort. The new advisory panel, known as the Hollywood Community Advisory Council, consists entirely of Woo’s appointees, who he says share his vision for Hollywood.

Regardless of the legal issues, the decision to appeal last week’s ruling may come down to a question of finances. The Santa Monica law firm of Wallin, Kress, Reisman, Price & Dilkes has represented the Project Area Committee free of charge, but the firm was banking on winning the lawsuit and being reimbursed by the city.

Attorney Stanton J. Price said after Wednesday’s ruling that the firm is “not going to abandon the group,” but some committee members wonder how long the firm can afford to stick with them.

“A lot of this will depend on the attorney,” Shabel said. “He is doing this without any money. It is something that is time consuming and lengthy. I have my fingers crossed that he is going to say let’s proceed forward.”

BACKGROUND

The 1.7-square-mile redevelopment project covers the core of Hollywood, an area of 35,000 residents that encompasses Mann’s Chinese Theater, the Sunset-Gower Studios and many of the film capital’s most historic buildings. Its Project Area Committee, a citizens advisory group created under state law, has not always been regarded as a haven for redevelopment foes. A group of Hollywood residents has sued the city, claiming the committee was unfairly stacked in its early years with big business interests looking to make a profit off the renewal effort.