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≡ L.A. CONVENTION CENTER ≡
The battle royal over whether the City of Los Angeles will undertake a $2.62 billion expansion of the Los Angeles Convention Center, which will potentially impact the use of the Convention Center for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Games, was moved from the regular Friday meeting of the City Council to a special meeting to follow.
Over a two-and-a-half hour session, the Council heard from the City’s Chief Legislative Analyst, Matthew Szabo, who outlined the enormous cost of the program and the considerable risks attached, including borrowing costs for 30 years that will average $89 million more a year than the increased revenue the expansion will bring in during that time. The City of Los Angeles will have to pay those interests costs “out of its own pocket,” meaning the General Fund.
But in order to get the project going and substantially completed enough to allow the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games to host events in the Convention Center, the decision had to made today, on a project that had been discussed and delayed for more than 10 years.
Council member Katy Yaroslavsky, chair of the Budget and Finance Committee, submitted an alternative proposal to do deferred maintenance and modernize the facility and then do the expansion when there was no longer an Olympic-Paralympic deadline looming over it.
She told the Council she opposes the expansion in no uncertain terms:
● “The question before us today is not whether to invest in the Convention Center, the question is whether we commit to a nearly $3 billion expansion on terms that put our city’s finances and our basic city services at risk for decades.
“This expansion is unrealistic, it’s unaffordable and it’s fiscally irresponsible.”
● “The schedule just does not work. We are gambling bills of taxpayer dollars on a best-case scenario that everyone in this Chamber knows is highly unlikely to come to pass. We can wish for it, but we know it’s not going to happen. This is not careful planning, it’s dangerous wishing thinking.”
● “That [debt service] obligation is going to eat up all projected General Fund growth for the foreseeable future. I am not making that up, it comes directly from the CAO’s report.
“So what does that mean, colleagues? It means when we want to accelerate the hiring of police officers or expand the Fire Department, there will be no money left to do it. If we want to repair the sidewalks that are costing us more than $100 million a year in liability, or build new bike lanes and walkable communities … there will be absolutely no money to do it. …
“If you think City services are bad now, and I think all of us would agree that they suck, and you thought one day we would have funding to restore service, I have bad news. It’s going to get worse. We won’t be able to afford the level of service we have now, which is crap.”
Questions and comments came from 10 other Council members, crystalized by Eunisses Hernandez, who had carefully considered Yaroslavsky’s lower-cost alternative, but told the Council:
“The reason I am voting yes is that there are people around this horseshoe who are incredibly smart, diligent, solutions-oriented who will do the work to find new money and new revenue.”
Essentially, the pro-expansion Council members cited the risk of doing nothing as greater than the $2.62 billion project. Tourism officials have said for years that Los Angeles is no longer competitive in the major convention market without the expansion.
Ultimately, the vote was 11-2 to proceed, with two Council members absent and only Council member Nithya Raman joining Yaroslavsky.
The LA28 organizers plans to use the Convention Center for fencing, judo, table tennis, taekwondo and wrestling for the Olympic Games and boccia, para judo, para table tennis, para taekwondo, and wheelchair fencing for the Paralympic Games.
LA28 requires the exclusive use of the fully-functional Convention Center – as it is now – on 1 June 2028; should the expansion interfere with that, the City will be on the hook for any and all relocation costs to other sites and any lost revenue.
The Convention Center successfully housed the Main Press Center during the 1984 Olympic Games. The question now is whether it will be able to host Olympic and Paralympic events again in 2028.
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