Settlement in Costly Civic Center Case May Be Imminent

Campaign rhetoric will face a reality check as early as 8:30 this morning, when the Beverly Hills City Council meets in closed session to hear a report on the court-ordered mediation that may end an expensive two-year legal fight over the cost of building the city’s $120-million Civic Center.

Details of Tuesday’s talks were kept secret, but a settlement appears imminent, according to sources familiar with the case, the costs of which were a major issue in the city’s recent election campaign.

The question is: How much of the several million dollars that separates the two sides will the city agree to pay?

Lawyers for the contractor, the J.A. Jones Co. of North Carolina, claim that the city is responsible for $75.5 million to build the library, police station and outdoor courtyards that made up the final phase of the Civic Center project, plus interest costs and lawyer’s fees, which would bring the total close to $80 million.

The city argues that Jones should be held to the original cost of $53 million, plus whatever is agreed to on the large number of costly change orders resulting from design problems, asbestos removal and other delays. The city has paid Jones and its subcontractors about $62 million to date.

“It’s easy to settle a case,” City Councilman Allan L. Alexander said Wednesday, echoing his arguments during the campaign. “You write out a check for the amount the guy wants. The question is, is it prudent?”

The Civic Center litigation has already cost more than $3 million in attorney fees even before the start of a trial, a point that successful candidate Thomas S. Levyn hammered at in the weeks before the April 14 election.

With Levyn sworn in, his new colleagues managed to joke about the Civic Center lawsuit at their inauguration Tuesday night.

“Now we don’t have to do anything and he’s going to solve all the Civic Center problems,” said newly named Mayor Robert K. Tanenbaum.

Levyn, an attorney, credited the issue of the Civic Center legal costs, plus voter concern about traffic, school funding and declining business revenues, for his narrow victory.

“It wasn’t that things in town were so bad, just that things could be better,” he said.

Councilman Allan L. Alexander, who was sworn in for his second term Tuesday night, vowed to fight for a Metro Rail station in the city’s business triangle despite some residents’ opposition.

Similar opposition managed to block construction of the proposed Beverly Hills freeway more than two decades ago, he said, with the city suffering the consequences of daily traffic jams on Santa Monica Boulevard ever since.

Also sworn in for a second term was Vicki L. Reynolds, who wore a toy gavel on her lapel and made her own joke about how hard it was to give up the office of mayor.

When Tanenbaum asked if she was going to vacate the spacious mayor’s office, she replied, “I guess I’ll have to.” Then she read a list of 35 achievements during her term in office, headed by a balanced budget that did not lose any police or firefighter positions at a time of reduced revenues.

Tanenbaum is taking his turn as mayor despite the time demands of a countywide race for district attorney.

In the course of that campaign, he said, he found a general fear of violent crime. That is always a sensitive subject in Beverly Hills, where reduced revenues threatened to reduce the city’s vaunted three-minute response time for police and fire calls before cuts were made elsewhere in the city budget.

“We need to reach out to the men and women in blue who protect us,” said Tanenbaum, whose on-and-off relationship with the city’s police goes back to his first election campaign, when he spoke out against the elaborate facilities planned for the new department headquarters.

He also called for a countywide convocation of elected officials and suggested construction of a water treatment plant in the industrial area to reduce the city’s dependence of the Metropolitan Water District.

Tanenbaum also threw down the gauntlet to old rivals who controlled city government before his election six years ago, saying that former members should be barred from appearing before the City Council to represent commercial interests.

Two-term Councilman Maxwell H. Salter was named vice mayor. He would succeed the new mayor if Tanenbaum survives the June 2 primary and wins the county office in November.

Bernard J. Hecht, the one-term incumbent who lost his seat by only 97 votes in last week’s election, was honored by his former colleagues. Tanenbaum named him to head a public safety committee. Reynolds announced that the city will dedicate an entire month in his honor.

With the five council members taking one-year turns as mayor, it would have been Hecht’s year had he not been defeated.

“Nobody likes losing, but we gained a lot more than we lost,” Hecht said after he was given a key to the city.

Reynolds proved the most popular of the nine candidates, according to final figures released Monday, winning 3,496 votes to 3,093 for Alexander. Levyn, who walked door-to-door and enjoyed the support of the police officers’ association and local newspapers, totaled 2,409.

BACKGROUND

First proposed to the City Council in 1982, the Beverly Hills Civic Center was originally expected to cost about $30 million plus architectural fees. A firehouse and parking structure were built without problems, but the final phase proved otherwise, ballooning from an original bid of $43 million for construction of the police headquarters, library and outdoor courtyards to $75.5 million, according to the general contractor. Asbestos in the library, ground water under the police station and many architectural changes were blamed for the excess costs. Together with the first phase and a separate renovation of City Hall, the bottom line is about $120 million, city officials say.