Council OKs $13 Million for Museum, Parkland Purchase

A divided Los Angeles City Council approved $13 million Wednesday to buy open space from City Police Commissioner Bert Boeckmann and to move the Children’s Museum from downtown to Griffith Park, despite complaints by some council members that both projects slight inner-city children.

Councilwomen Rita Walters and Jackie Goldberg were among those who objected, saying that both projects spend scarce park funds in more affluent, remote, park-rich areas of the city to the detriment of children in the central city.

“Most of the children in park-poor areas will never see this part of the Santa Monica Mountains,” Goldberg said. “It’s another case of the rich getting richer. I think it’s a travesty.”

Motions to kill the purchase of the Mandeville Canyon property and scale back funding for the Children’s Museum from $10 million to $5 million were defeated on 9-4 votes.

The council went on to vote 11 to 2, with Goldberg and Walters dissenting, to approve the projects as part of a larger package for $32 million in bonds to be issued against future tax revenues from Proposition K.

The other funds will pay for expansion and improvements of the Los Angeles Zoo, Griffith Observatory and Cabrillo Aquarium and construction of child-care centers in the San Fernando Valley and southwest Los Angeles.

All of the criticism Wednesday was aimed at two expenditures: $9.4 million for construction of a children’s museum at Travel Town in Griffith Park, which would replace the smaller facility located downtown, and a $3-million allocation toward the $5-million purchase of 239 acres of undeveloped land in Mandeville Canyon from Boeckmann, a San Fernando Valley car dealer and a member of the city Police Commission.

Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski said buying the Boeckmann property in her 11th Council District would preserve pristine canyon land and save it from a proposed 30-home development.