Greek Theatre Contract Extended

Handing a victory to its president, the Los Angeles City Council extended the lease for the Greek Theatre on Wednesday, ending--at least temporarily--the long-running political drama over the 70-year-old concert venue.

The lawmakers clearly felt the pressure over the past couple of weeks, as council President John Ferraro and his aides pushed hard for the five-year contract extension and opponents lobbied fiercely against it.

The issue all along has been nothing if not personal. Ferraro is a close friend of the contractor, Nederlander-Greek Inc., and its attorney, Neil Papiano. Ferraro’s aides worked council members hard, even threatening a couple with opposition in future political races and upcoming projects of potential controversy.

To help sweeten the deal, and perhaps to win political support, Nederlander-Greek promised to give employees a retroactive raise to comply with the city’s living wage law and to immediately remodel the restrooms and the pedestrian walkways at the Los Feliz theater.

Their opponents, however, representing House of Blues/Universal, doggedly sought a competitive bidding process. Attorneys and political consultants well-known in City Hall turned up documents that they say show the city for years subsidized the wealthy contractors, also violating state environmental regulations and flouting various legal opinions calling for an open bidding process.

But Nederlander attorneys and lobbyists say that the company has acted within the terms of its contract for the last 25 years and that the opponents are merely worried about the potential competition from a revamped Greek.

“The bottom line is that we are looking forward to getting it built and being a very good competitor to the House of Blues,” said Adam Burke, an attorney representing the Nederlanders. “We’re very pleased; it was tough.”

But it’s far from over.

On Wednesday, House of Blues/Universal had a court reporter front row center in the council chamber transcribing the lawmakers’ debate on the Greek, a not-so-subtle signal that it will sue the city.

“The number of violations [of city and state law] is beyond what I have ever seen before,” said George Mihlsten, an attorney and lobbyist with Latham & Watkins. “It is staggering. We’ll be in court within the next few days.”

William Delvac, another Latham attorney, said: “I am completely confused and shocked by what the city is doing here today. . . . It is a Greek tragedy.”

The city attorney’s office has said the council could extend the contract without reviewing other proposals if certain findings were met, but that prospect appeared “extremely unlikely.” Moreover, the office has said the contract extension could violate the City Charter.

But a majority of the council voted, as the Recreation and Parks Commission also did, to grant the Nederlander family five more years to operate the 6,000-seat theater. Several council members said they believed that an open bidding process would take years, which they feared would hurt a theater in sore need of remodeling.

To add further evidence of the unusual aspects of this contract, two parks commissioners--Mike Roos and Maria Elena Durazo, political figures themselves--turned up at the council meeting to urge lawmakers’ support for the contract extension.

Still, five of the 13 council members present objected to the Nederlander deal, with Joel Wachs and Rita Walters the most insistent that the city should resist approving it.

“If they had wanted to pay the living wage, there was nothing to stop them, since the living wage law took effect two years ago,” Walters said. “To utilize that tool . . . is just beneath contempt. This . . . doesn’t need to be handed off to some favored few.”

An angry Wachs voiced sadness that organized labor--especially the Los Angeles Living Wage Coalition--supported the extension, because, he said, “this deal reeks of political favoritism.”

Some political aides speculated that Ferraro wanted to help his friends now that he has only three years left on the council. Others said some council members were more interested in avoiding a confrontation with the council president than they were in actually supporting the contract.

Whatever their reasons, one veteran City Hall aide said: “This is one of those issues that people want to vote on and then not talk about.”