WOODLAND HILLS : College District Seeks Expense Repayment

The Los Angeles Community College District is seeking several hundred thousand dollars of reimbursement from backers of the aborted Warner Ridge commercial project in Woodland Hills for expenses the district claims it incurred when its side agreement with the developer also collapsed, officials said.

Members of the district’s seven-person board of trustees, citing the possibility they might have to sue the project’s partnership over the expenses, received a private briefing on the negotiations this week. But district general counsel Martha Torgow said negotiations are continuing and she was not anticipating a lawsuit.

Under a deal approved by the trustees last August, the developer was to pay Pierce College about $1 million in exchange for permission to dump 425,000 cubic yards of soil from the project site onto adjoining vacant Pierce property. But that agreement collapsed when financial problems scuttled the project in January.

The district is not seeking the $1-million payment since the dirt was never moved, Torgow said. But she said the district is seeking about $200,000 for various related expenses. One issue is that the district let fields that normally produce food for the college farm animals go fallow in anticipation of the Warner Ridge project.