Gadfly’s Grant Has Its Critics : One Venice Activist Says $200,000 From Builder Is ‘a Sort of Extortion’

The gentleman prefers skirts.

His eye-catching ensembles, the dangling earrings, his boots and beard make him a standout even with the anything-goes Venice crowd. But community activist Arnold Springer, a professor of Russian history at Cal State Long Beach, is not just another seaside eccentric.

Despite his non-traditional attire--which he says he wears to “make me happy”--Springer prides himself on working within the system.

And the system, under which he has long toiled, has rewarded him.

At the 11th hour and under threat of a lawsuit by Springer, Channel Gateway developer Jerry Snyder endowed Springer late last year with his own foundation, a $200,000 grant over five years. “It’s my play money,” Springer said with obvious delight in an interview last week.

Springer named his one-man show the Ulan Bator Foundation, after the capital of Mongolia, where he was vacationing when the California Coastal Commission considered the controversial project on Lincoln Boulevard next to Marina del Rey. The $400-million project is to include two 16-story condominium towers, 544 apartments and 314,000 square feet of office and retail space.

Among the stated purposes of the Ulan Bator Foundation is to educate the public about “Mongolian life and culture by focusing on Mongolian concepts of space, light, air, horizons, physical, popular and spiritual culture and the quality of life there.”

But now, as Springer, 52, readies an upstairs apartment in his Venice bungalow for foundation headquarters, a group of more traditional activists has questioned the ethics and propriety of what they believe is tantamount to the extortion of funds from a developer.

In an unusual move for the moderate group, the 200-member Venice Action Committee has issued a statement signed by its president, Jack Hoffman, criticizing the deal. Hoffman and his board say the Springer deal sets a dangerous precedent by bankrolling the personal agenda of an individual who claims to represent the community. They contend that Springer supported Channel Gateway in its early stages, then--”typical of Springer’s tactics,” they say--he raised a challenge at the last minute that threatened to delay the project.

“A few people in Venice will say Springer won one for the community and the slow/no-growth side,” Hoffman’s statement said. “However, it is consumers and taxpayers who will finance Snyder’s payoff to Springer” because “exactions from developers are added to the cost of building housing and passed on.”

“It basically comes down to a sort of extortion,” Hoffman said in a later interview. “Springer’s made the statement that developers are greedy. Isn’t this just greed in another dimension?”

Obtaining concessions from a developer in exchange for community support of a project or with drawal of legal challenges to it is a controversial tactic of the slow-growth movement.

Its advocates argue that negotiating with a developer to provide community benefits, such as low-cost housing and child-care centers, is better than getting the project and nothing else. Landowners do have a legal right to build on their property, subject to local zoning guidelines, but organized homeowner groups can bring considerable pressure to bear on developers to make changes in their plans.

As a result of negotiations with Venice community activists, for example, Channel Gateway will include 109 units of affordable housing, the largest number ever agreed to by a developer in the area.

Critics of the practice see community members as being potentially co-opted by the chance for a stash of money, especially if it goes into the coffers of the activists themselves or their pet agencies.

In a highly publicized 1989 case, Los Angeles hotelier Sheldon Gordon, whose Ma Maison Sofitel was sitting empty while a citizens group fought it through months of hearings, wrote a check to the Westside Civic Federation for $250,000 and put $800,000 into a bank account jointly controlled by Gordon and the homeowners to find more parking. The hotel, across the street from the Beverly Center, had reportedly lost $800,000 while the fight dragged on.

Last year, the Saddletree Ranch Homeowners’ Assn., in the Sylmar area, accepted $300,000 from an industrial developer who wanted to mar residents’ view by putting in a sprawling center at the bottom of the San Gabriel Mountains.

Defenders of the concession-extracting practice say it gives civic groups the wherewithal to finance continued efforts to slow growth. In fact, the Westside Civic Federation has provided money to several other Westside community groups who have used it to challenge developments.

Springer was one of the negotiators with developer Snyder when he was a board member of the Venice Town Council. As is her custom, Los Angeles City Councilwoman Ruth Galanter, whose district includes Venice, had asked the group what the community wanted from the development. Later, when the board quit amid criticism that it was selling out to the developer, Springer remained involved as president of a newly formed community group.

A stalwart activist who has for years appeared and testified at myriad hearings and meetings, Springer was doing just that last spring when he scrawled a handwritten appeal to the Coastal Commission. It complained that traffic from Channel Gateway, already approved by the city, would impede coastal access to Venice.

The only other appeal was filed by Culver City, which is trying to build a major shopping mall called Marina Place a few blocks from Channel Gateway.

Then Springer took off for a six-week sojourn to the Ukraine and Mongolia, returning to find his request for a hearing denied. That gave the project automatic approval, but it also gave him legal standing to file a lawsuit challenging the Coastal Commission’s refusal to have a hearing on his appeal.

The Coastal Commission, it turns out, had acted swiftly at the urging of Galanter. Delays, she wrote, would jeopardize the tax-exempt bond funding that developer Snyder had lined up for the affordable units.

While considering his options, Springer read that Culver City had reached a settlement with Snyder for $600,000. Springer said he figured that if it was good enough for Culver City, it was good enough for him.

After finding out that Culver City actually would get about $200,000 plus a $400,000 performance bond, Springer said he told Snyder that $200,000 was his “cover charge.”

If he didn’t get it, he said, he would follow through with his threatened lawsuit. That would delay construction, imperil the bond financing and risk the loss of the affordable housing units so wanted by community leaders.

“I would go to court for my honor on this one,” Springer said. “It was like a bluff.” It worked. In the final hours, Snyder folded his hand and gave the activist his pot of gold.

In addition to the $200,000 foundation bequest, Snyder agreed to raise $250,000 for a Venice community center and put up a $400,000 performance bond to ensure that he complies within two years. Snyder further agreed to reserve 20% of the spaces in the Channel Gate way child-care center for low-income Venice residents, who would get a 50% fee reduction.

Finally, Snyder told Springer that he would give low-income Venice residents priority for the affordable housing units, a condition Snyder now says may be acceptable to the city.

Snyder was reticent about the Springer deal, except to say: “It was the proper thing for our company to do. It’s something we agreed to in order to forestall any litigation and allow us to proceed.”

Asked for his sentiments concerning Springer and his foundation, Snyder said: “Not a word.”

Sitting at his dining room table, with pictures of Lennon (John) and Marx (Groucho) visible behind him, Springer said he is worried that his foundation could become a target of politically motivated criticism aimed at Galanter. Critics, he predicted, will say it “is a slush fund for Ruth’s friends.”

Galanter is seeking a second term in office against a dozen challengers in the April 9 city elections.

Another Galanter ally, Dell Chumley, who quit as Venice Town Council president amid criticism that she was making unauthorized deals with developers on behalf of the group, also could benefit from the Snyder project.

Chumley spearheaded the formation of a nonprofit group that hopes to obtain $210,000 from a fund of $1.25 million promised to the community by Snyder, which Galanter will control. With the money, Chumley’s group would set up a shuttle service for Venice beach-goers.

Galanter planning deputy Jim Bickhart, acting as a private citizen, was among those who wrote a check to provide seed money for the group.

Springer insists that neither Galanter nor any of her aides was involved in his deal with Snyder, though Chumley was someone he consulted.

Venice Action Committee President Hoffman stops short of suggesting that there is something amiss about the arrangement, except to say: “It seems curious that Springer and Chumley, who are in Ruth Galanter’s inner circle, are the ones who got the money.”

Galanter spokesman Rick Ruiz denied that Chumley or Springer had benefited from their relationship with Galanter. Chumley will have to go through a competitive process to obtain the beach shuttle money, he said.

As for Springer, Ruiz said, the councilwoman played no role in the establishment of the foundation. “That’s something Arnold is going to have to explain on his own,” he said.

Although Springer has not unveiled detailed plans for Ulan Bator, he explained that he hopes to meld the mystical world of the East with the pragmatism of the West, with a goal of reducing the stress of urban life.

The teachings of the Dalai Lama, slow growth and transportation systems also figure into the agenda. Springer has total control of the money, out of which he said he will pay himself a $5,000 annual salary and scrupulously account for the rest.

He so far has donated $1,000 to keep the Neighborhood Youth Assn.’s child-care center afloat. The contribution was solicited by Galanter, according to her spokesman. Springer said he is also interested in pursuing a lawsuit against Culver City to thwart its effort to build Marina Place, a project Galanter has sought to block.

Snyder, meanwhile, now that Channel Gateway finally has the green light from the government, has found himself caught in the recession. Construction of the office tower has been put off because the anchor tenant he had lined up, L.A. Gear, has decided to pull out. For now, only the affordable housing units are under construction.