Council to Decide Fate of Autry Expansion Next Week

With the deadline for action looming, the Los Angeles City Council's Arts, Parks, Health and Aging committee will on Monday morning consider a pair of items that will determine the fate of the Autry National Center's planned $6.6 million renovation and expansion of their Griffith Park museum space.

Hanging in the balance is the Recreation and Parks Commission's of the Autry's expansion plan, which was voted on Friday, May 20.  The city council over the Autry's expansion plan ten days later, prompted by complaints from community members who claimed that they were not properly notified of the rec and parks meeting.

According to Monica Valencia, press deputy for Councilman Ed Reyes (CD1) of the arts, parks, health and aging committee, the committee will be tasked with moving the Autry issue forward to the full city council with a recommendation to either uphold the rec and parks decision or to overturn it.

Though the agenda has not been finalized yet, the Autry issue is expected to go before the city council on Tuesday, June 21 at 10:00 a.m., which is the final day the council has to take action on the proposal before their jurisdiction runs out and the item is considered dead.

Daniel Finley, CEO of the Autry National Center, said that if the city council rejects the expansion plan, it would mean the loss of the $6.6 million grant that the Autry received from California’s Prop. 84 Nature Education Facilities (NEF) Program, which was established to support projects geared toward providing environmental and natural history education.

Also up for consdieration by the arts, parks, health and aging committee is a California Air Quality Act (CEQA)  appeal filed by the Mount Washington Homeowner's Alliance and Highland Park Resident Charles Fisher.

The appeal claims that, given the ramifications of the Autry expansion, it should not have been exempted from a CEQA review.

The appeal can be downloaded from the media assets box on the right.

Community members who oppose the plan, many of whom are among the membership of the Friends of the Southwest Museum, assert that the Autry's expansion of their Griffith Park museum space would further marginalize the .

The Autry National Center merged with the financially struggling Southwest Museum and took possession of its massive collection in 2002.

Since then, The Friends and the Autry's leadership have been locked in a battle over the future of the Southwest Museum's historic Mount Washington location and collection.

The Friends have accused the Autry of not living up to their initial merger agreement with the Southwest Museum by failing to support the Southwest Museum as a thriving display museum.

The Southwest Museum has been closed to the public since 2005.

The Autry has attempted to refute those claims, saying that they are in the process of making badly needed restorations to the Southwest Museum's collection.

Yadhira De Leon, a spokesperson for the Autry, said that given the collection's massive size, as well as the condition of the Southwest Museum itself, which was damaged during the Northridge Earthquake of 1994, there is a massive restoration effort that first needs to be completed before the museum can be reopened.

Additionally, De Leon said, the Southwest Museum's collection was not properly stored prior to its merger with the Autry National Center, so additional efforts are still underway to restore collection items.

"There's always been interest in reopening the Southwest Museum," De Leon said. We're bringing the collection out of the tower and into a wider open space, and there was just no room to lay out collection. There's about 15 to 20 people working there every day."

The arts, parks, health and aging committee is scheduled to meet on Monday, June 20 in room 1060 of the Los Angeles City Hall at 9:00 a.m. on 200 North Spring St.