4 Council Members Assail Limited Seismic Upgrade of City Hall

Four City Council members, including half the members of a committee on the seismic retrofitting of Los Angeles City Hall, have criticized an advisory panel that urged a scaling down of the project to $165 million.

The council members were particularly opposed to two recommendations of the panel, which was formed by Mayor Richard Riordan and City Controller Rick Tuttle.

One recommendation urged that the retrofitting be limited to seismic safety, meaning that all mechanical and electrical upgrades, plus office space reconfigurations, would be put off indefinitely to save money.

The other was to keep all City Council members and the mayor in City Hall during the three-year project instead of moving them to other quarters. This was to save money on moving and leasing costs.

Last year, all employees who had City Hall offices on the 5th to 26th floors were moved out in anticipation of the seismic retrofitting.

Since then, soaring costs above the original authorization of $153 million--to as much as $300 million--have forced an indefinite suspension of the work.

Criticism in the last week has come from three council committee members--Rita Walters, Richard Alatorre and Hal Bernson.

And Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas, who is not on the committee, questioned in a sharply worded letter to the group whether saving money should be the main goal.

“The report seems to eliminate proposed investments that will increase ‘space efficiency’ in the building,” Ridley-Thomas said. “These are precisely the kind of investments that the city should make.

“More efficient space will save the city costs elsewhere, not just in real estate costs, but also in personnel and operating costs. Consequently, the ‘savings’ which are being proposed by the panel may not really be savings and therefore warrant further scrutiny.”

Ridley-Thomas also questioned saving money by eliminating air-conditioning, plumbing, electrical system and fire exit improvements.

“These expenses represent tenant improvement costs which will need to be incurred soon,” he said. “They will cost more and cause more inconvenience than if they were [done] during the seismic rehabilitation.”

In interviews, other council members made similar points.

“It seems to me while you have things torn up is the time to fix them up,” Walters said. “The panel talks about delaying the improvements 10 years. Well, City Hall has to be here for 100 years, and it will cost more 10 years from now.”

Walters said that if she stays in the building during the work, “I will worry about what may fall out” of the ceiling.

Alatorre said it is unrealistic not to vacate the premises during the retrofitting. And he added, “It is ludicrous to say we’ll come back to the needed improvements later if we don’t do them now.”

Bernson said he didn’t think that the advisory panel sufficiently considered building a new high-rise “either on this site or somewhere nearby” that would modernize city operations.

The ad hoc committee meets Feb. 26. Its chairman, City Council President John Ferraro, said he hopes that it will try to collect more facts and examine more options. City officials criticized by the advisory panel for purportedly managing the project poorly in its first stages will respond to the panel.

There has been little criticism thus far of the panel’s recommendation that a strong manager, fully empowered to act, be put in charge of the City Hall work, perhaps someone from outside City Hall.

Riordan said this week that he is convinced that he and the council members can work out what should be done.

Tuttle cautioned that whatever the council may wish to do, it has to figure out how to pay for it.

“I think it’s certainly fitting and proper that the council members ask a lot of questions about the report,” Tuttle said. “But if the first priority is to create a life safety environment, if additional improvements are outside the scope of seismic bonds, then these would possibly have to be financed from the city’s general fund.”