I need to start by illustrating what the two ideas are and some history behind each idea.
In 2000 the Administration and Board of Trustees of Marymount College, a private junior college located on Palos Verdes Drive East in the city of Rancho Palos Verdes submitted initial applications and necessary paperwork for the following program.
The Marymount College Facilities Expansion Project. For the purpose of this primer, I will use the term "The Project' when referring to this idea that was introduced to go through all the necessary studies and approvals by a great number of people and ending with a series of votes by the members of the Rancho Palos Verdes City Council.
As of this writing, all but one piece of The Project brought to a vote by the City Council has found preliminary approval for construction.
The one remaining issue that the City Council needs to vote on is where a regulation size soccer field will be constructed.
All the issues brought to the City Council for a vote were planned and agreed upon by the Administration, Board of Trustees, and supporters of Marymount College.
Earlier this year, Dr. Susan Soldoff, a member of the Board of Trustees of Marymount College submitted paperwork to begin the qualification process for a proposed initiative now known as: The Marymount Plan. For the purposes of this primer, I shall refer to this as "The Plan."
Included in The Project up until May, 2009 were two residence halls to be built on the Marymount campus having a total of 128 rooms with sleeping quarters for up to 250 students and 5 advisers/staff members.
What happened to the residence hall segment of The Project?
In May of 2009, the Rancho Palos Verdes Planning Commission was hard at work going through the entire Environmental Impact Report, having many meetings, staff reports, and long discussions concerning the various pieces of The Project.
During an earlier 'straw vote' by the entire seven-member Planning Commission, the result of that vote indicated that there was not going to be approval by the voting members of the Planning Commission to approve residence halls on Marymount's campus.
Between the time the 'straw vote' was taken and the actually voting on The Project by the Planning Commission, two of its members recused themselves from voting for various reasons.
By May, 2009, everyone attending meetings of the Planning Commission knew that they would approve every piece of The Project and send to the City Council a certified Environmental Impact Report, except for residence halls on the Marymount Campus.
Tragically and somewhat days before the commencement ceremonies for graduates of Marymount College, a second year student, driving while drunk along Palos Verdes Drive East and with a passenger in his car, lost control of his vehicle and in a single-car collision, the driver lost his life. The passenger was injured and recovered.
So, by late May with both a certain denial of on campus housing by the Planning Commission and what I personally feel was a very terrible PR situation, Marymount's President Dr. Michale Brophy along with Trustees and supporters voluntarily removed from consideration, any and all residence halls being built on the campus of Marymount College.
The Planning Commission ultimately approved the plans Marymount submitted, but without residence halls and sent their certification and approvals to the R.P.V. City Council to make the necessary municipal codes and variances necessary to allow Marymount College to proceed with their Facilities Expansion Project.
As happened so many times during the almost 10 years that The Project has been alive, Marymount College's President, Trustees, and Administration caused another delay by applying to the Western States College Accreditation Association to become a four-year institution and being granted the ability to offer three Bachelor's Degrees through a four-year program.
Editor's Note: It is my personal belief and something that Dr. Brophy has never denied that the real reason Marymount sought to become a four-year college is to secure the right to build dorms or residence halls on its campus.
It is well known that very few two-year colleges have on campus housing for students. There is a college in the Mojave Desert that had a residence hall for all of their students. it is more of a farm program college and very distant from towns and places where students could live elsewhere.
However, there are very few, if any college that offer four-year degrees that do not have either on-campus or campus adjacent housing for students.
I continue to not hear any denial that the real reason the Marymount sought acceptance to become a four-year institution, was and is expressly for the purposes of doing whatever is necessary, even filing lawsuits, to secure approval for on-campus student housing.
The application caused the city to seek what became known as "Appendix D" of The Project. That new Appendix was ordered to determine if there would be significant changes to The Project if Marymount became a four-year college.
The Appendix was also created to deal with studies and answers to an organized group of citizens who oppose The Project in part, or in hole.
The Concerned Citizens Coalition/Marymount College (CCC/ME) is a group of homeowners from several areas, predominantly closer to the College who firmly objected to residence halls, a large soccer field, and a gymnasium being built on the college's campus.
One of the Alternatives to The Project and one vigorously supported by CCC/ME was to have the off-campus housing that is situated along Palos Verdes Drive North, between Western Avenue and Five Points and called "Palos Verdes North" enlarged. CCC/ME also sought to have the soccer field, the gymnasium, and the entire athletic department built at Palos Verdes North.
This Alternative could not be considered by the Planning Commission and the City Council because in the opinion of the City Attorney, neither group has the jurisdiction to mandate or authorize anything that is on land within the city of Los Angeles.
So, now let me write about The Marymount Plan.
The Marymount Plan is almost exactly like The Project in size, scope and what would be included with The Project.
All the new buildings approved of by the City Council in The Project, are in The Marymount Plan. The soccer field, by May 2010 will be approved to be in the same place with both The Project and The Plan.
The gymnasium, library, and many other pieces of The Project are identical in The Plan.
What is different between The Project and The Plan?
On campus housing for students.
Also, with The Plan, Marymount would be able to have powers to overrule city municipal codes that would apply to everyone else, but not to Marymount.
With The Project, Marymount would be granted a variance to the municipal code for the minimum number of parking spaces required. With The Plan, Marymount would ignore the municipal code and do as it pleases.
The ultimate number of on-campus parking spaces is identical in The Project and The Plan.
The Marymount Plan seek to have the residents of Rancho Palos Verdes vote on approving everthing already approved of by the City Council.
The Marymount Plan would also allow the construction of residence halls taken out of The Project by Marymount.
Voter approval of The Marymount Plan would also take all control and approvals made by the City Council Members and nullify everything the Council has decided and would be able to represent Rancho Palos Verdes residents as they were elected to do.
The Marymount Plan is for the benefit of one single private organization.
It is expected that the proposed initiative will qualify for the ballot.
An opposition group has been initially organized to combat The Marymount Plan.
The group, "Save Our City III" is organized to oppose this initiative process for a number of reasons.
Save Our City III members do not want an initiative that benefits just one business, organization, person, or party to find approval with voters.
Save Our City III will offer not opinion on whether the organization approves or opposes the elements of The Marymount Plan, including on-campus residence halls.
Save Our City III is not affiliated with CCC/ME and the new group has a different charter and does not have the same opinions as CCC/ME has.
I am not, nor have I been a member of CCC/ME but I do correspond with several of its members and I oppose their contention that the Alternative called The Living Campus/Academic Campus Alternative, the one that enlarges the off-campus housing site along Palos Verdes Drive North is the Alternative that would be successful.
It is viewed that if Marymount College finds success with the probably November vote, it opens up the floodgates for others, such and Donald Trump, the York organization and others to attempt to have voters decide issues via the initiative process.
The members of the Rancho Palos Verdes City Council were elected by voters to represent their best interests in deciding issues and keeping our city alive and growing. Our votes for City Council members signify that we find them responsible to represent our wishes and they take on responsibilities not many of us would want to do.
Our City Council makes up the brain trust that deals with city-wide and more local city issues and they are expected to perform their duties with high standards and keeping the residents of Rancho Palos Verdes first and foremost.
When you read or hear that The Marymount Plan will not cost Rancho Palos Verdes taxpayers any money, just the taxpayer funds needed to have the initiative as part of the November ballot will cost the city's General Fund an as yet unknown number of tens of thousands of dollars.
The bottom line on The Marymount Plan is that is was written and supported for one purpose only: To take away the rights and responsibilities voters entrusted to their leaders on the City Council and to find approval to build on-campus housing at Marymount College.
Everything else in The Plan is basically identical to The Project which is almost completely approved by the City Council. By May, the two will be identical, I am sure......except for residence halls.
Why are residence halls so important to Marymount?
Survival is the one and only reason and I would challenge anyone who believes otherwise.
Marymount currently has a maximum of 793 students who can attend the college. Marymount claims that even with the granting of four-year degrees, they will not seek to raise the maximum number of students allowed.
When the studies were taken for the Environmental Impact Report, the student population was about 658 students.
I have been told that currently, there are about 575 students attending Marymount.
Marymount is also quite a different type of two-year junior college. About 90% of students currently attending are full time students. I believe there are about 37% of the current student makeup that are residents of local communities all with the greater Los Angeles Basin.
Marymount need to attract students from areas outside the Los Angeles area so they can remain open.
The students Marymount probably wants to entice have parents willing to pay upwards of $37,000 to $39,000 a year tuition with room and board at either of the two off-campus housing areas.
Dr. Brophy has never denied to me that if Marymount doesn't receive approval to have residence halls on the campus, it will probably ultimately fail.
The college has failed before.
Residence halls were approved by an earlier City Council but Marymount ran out of money to build them years ago.
Rancho Palos Verdes has welcomed a college with on-campus housing for years and years. The Salvation Army's Officers' College has on-campus housing for single students and even families.
Marymount College was on academic probation and was removed only one year after its two year probation was initially given.
I oppose on-campus housing because of safety reasons I have written about in previous posts.
While I do continue to approve state-wide initiatives, I oppose a city initiative that benefits one private entity over the residents of the city.
I oppose the Marymount initiative because is benefits an organization that does not support the city through taxes as Marymount is a religious organization which is not responsible for taxes other entities are charged.
I have found and documented what I believe are deceptive practices and utterances by those representing Marymount College, including and unfortunately its President Dr. Michael Brophy.
After more than a year of consideration and reading volumes of information, I found that I have little trust in the words and deeds of the College's Administration and too many supporters.
You are most welcome to make comments or send questions to me. If you want to reach me by Email, please do so at: mrichards2@hotmail.com.
The City Council does not "represent our wishes" in reviewing permit applications. As I understand it, the City lacks the administrative power to approve or reject a construction permit based on the opinions of city residents. For example, if I want to build a balcony on my house and the Code allows for it, then the City must approve my balcony, no matter how many of my neighbors (or City Council members) may hate balconies. And if the City rejects my balcony for improper reasons (e.g., political ones), then a court will overturn their decision despite the wishes of the residents.
ReplyDeleteMany people choose to (quite vocally) express their wishes at City permit hearings. As I understand it, however, the purpose of such hearings is not to gather opinions, but rather to allow residents and other interested parties to present any direct evidence they have that is legally pertinent to the permit application.
In the Marymount situation, in particular, great effort was expended to form coalitions of like-minded community members so that the wishes of more and more people could be presented to the City Council. Yet, as best as I can tell, that was all a waste of time because those opinions were not something that the City could legally take into account.
By contrast, under the initiative process our opinions are not only relevant, they are determinative. I can’t speak to Marymount’s motivations, but, it seems they’ve given residents on both sides of the issue what they have sought all along – the right to have their opinions be heard. Further, I can’t imagine circumstances where a commercial developer would want to follow Marymount’s path. If an investor like Trump wanted to build a project that is permitted by our local Code, why would he want to put his fate into the hands of the local residents and their opinions?
PV Homeowner
Thank you PV Homeowner, for your comments.
ReplyDeleteWhile I usually approve of having initiatives that are state wide, I still feel that this particular type of initiative, one that benefits only one private party at the expense of so many others is not something I hope is successful.
In your last paragraph you opinied that if Trump wanted to build a project that is permitted by out local code, he wouldn't want to put his fate in the hands of the local residents and their opinions.
Well, that is exactly what Marymount was originally doing. The applied for and had studies done to built according to permits and local codes, with only a few exceptions.
Marymount was also seeking and received approval to remodel its parking lot that would still not meet local code for the number of spaces mandated. The Council, with their preliminary approvals have approved the variance Marymount was seeking.
I am still frustrated that an organization like Marymount, a Catholic Junior College continues to market the initiative with misstatements, half truths and unclear perceptions.
I bet the majority of residents who read or hear that the construction time for the entire Marymount Plan will be 36 months......from first turn of the shovel to the final finish touchup paint.
Potential voters are seemingly purposely led astray by Marymount in that Marymount's marketers won't tell those same potential voters that the 36 months of construction will take about 8 years to complete.
When the ads continue to state that The Marymount Plan will not cost taxpayers money, again Marymount's marketers fail to mention that taxpayers' funds will be used to do a great deal of the mitigation for the Marymount Plan. Marymount refuses to disclose in their ads that taxpayers' funds must be used to have the proposed initiative on the ballot, and a unknown about of taxpayers' funds will need to be used for the signalization of the intersection of Miraleste Drive at P.V.Drive East, restriping of Trudie Drive at Western, and the remodel of the intersection of P.V. Drive South at P.V. Drive East.
How come so many folks are letting Marymount skate on thin ice with the facts without challenging them.
And what is most troubling is that Marymount won't divulge in their ads for The Marymount Plan that is basically identical to The Marymount College Facilities Expansion Project with the only exception being on-campus housing which Marymount voluntarily removed from consideration.
Perhaps 'wishes' is an improper term. I believe the Council was elected to represent the citizens of R.P.V. to use their best judgements within the law to provide the best leadership of the city and we provide them with the means, by our voting for them, to enact ordinances and provide permits that are legal and conform to the General Plan we all are supposed to live under.
In the Marymount situation as I have seen, there are only two 'coalitions'; the Marymount support side and CCC/ME. The rest of us are single individuals who still have the right to speak up and offer our opinions as to the facts as we percieve them to be.
Usually I am the only one speaking to either the Planning Commission or the City Council on the Marymount issue that is not a member of either coalition.
I am still waiting to have a real discussion or debate on the safety issues I have with on-campus housing and I still look forward to Dr. Brophy having the guts to acknowledge that Marymount will probably fail again if on-campus housing is not approved this year or next.
I do think you are very correct about Trump. I highly doubt that he would ever entertain the idea of bringing anything to our voters. He knows that he would be laughed at and he doesn't seem to have a good sense of humor.