Is the City Jeopardizing Itself Again?

If many of you who live in West Hollywood do not know of the strange tale of how our own city violated its historic preservation ordinance to favor a developer’s application, well you should know now.

The city has declared its own prejudgment against a legitimate historic preservation application that got switched and delayed intentionally to favor the Centrum Sunset project. This tale is not so strange if you know our city’s own odd battle with approving and not approving applications for historic preservation in the last two decades.

A well-known author and Sunset Strip historian fills out an application and spends considerable time at the planning commission department’s counter in getting help, input and instruction on what is needed before he hands in his application to preserve the Tower Records store.

The applicant's name is Domenic Priore and he is a Los Angeles native and has over 20 years of professional experience in television and film production. While in college, he began his career by producing his own public access TV show, It’s Happening!, a tribute to 1960s dance shows Shindig! and Ready, Steady, Go!. In 1991 he began four years of work as a writer/producer for Paramount Television, then served as a source, fact checker, commentator, writer and/or director for several subsequent projects (including the PBS documentary Rock ’n’ Roll for WGBH, Boston, in 1995). Currently, he and producing partner Richard Waltzer are developing a long-form documentary about the music scene of Hollywood’s famed Sunset Strip during the mid-60s.

Domenic is also an accomplished author, specializing in sociology, pop culture and music. His books include Riot on Sunset Strip: Rock ’n’ Roll’s Last Stand in Hollywood (2007 Jawbone Press, London), Beatsville (with Martin McInstosh, 2004 Outre Gallery Press, Australia), Smile: The Story of Brian Wilson’s Lost Masterpiece (2005 Bobcat Books, London) and most recently Pop Surf Culture: Music, Design, Film and Fashion from the Bohemian Surf Boom (with Brian Chidester, 2008 Santa Monica Press). He was the primary writer on four and a half hours of AMC documentaries called Hollywood Rocks the Movies: The Early Years (2000, hosted by Ringo Starr) and Hollywood Rocks the Movies: The 1970s (2002, hosted by David Bowie).

So here is an experienced historian and author, who after spending time at the planning commission department, files his application.

During this same time, Sol Barket’s application with his architect had been rejected and kicked back by the city’s planning department with a dated letter with a long list of things that needed to be addressed and fixed, wven though Domenic Priore’s historic preservation application was filed timely and he got a staff member at the planning department to say his color photo of Tower Records was okay to use even though it was not a black and white photo.

During this same time an email is sent to Domenic Priore regarding this photo and a new black and white photo is dropped off at city hall, but somehow this photo does not get lodged and filed promptly and properly by the planning department. Over a week passes, and now while there is a big stall by the planning department with non-communication.

Suddenly a letter is sent to Domenic Priore by the planning department that is dated and supposedly mailed on the date of the post marked, which is done with one of those electronic dated postage meters, but his letter takes over 10 days to get to Domenic Priore’s home in the Valley, which leads me to think that the letter was really mailed over week later than the date of the metered post mark and date of the letter.

During this same day, another letter is dated suddenly approving Sol Barket’s application for his Centrum Sunset project, which is extremely odd since the long list of things that needed to be fixed, corrected and changed still exists. And to top this off, over 60 more days after Centrum Sunset’s application is turned around and approved, the long list of items that initially rejected and kicked back this developer’s application still are not revised or changed?

So how can the planning department deny Centrum’s application based on a letter filled with items to be corrected and addressed, but then the planning department can then approve the application and not of the items are done or revised at all?

I’ve never seen such a prejudgment before by our own city on a historic preservation application for Tower Records that has so much merit to be considered. And why would our city want to violate their own historic preservation ordinances? In addition, why would out city want to jeopardize itself again with a possible lawsuit over this?