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January 24, 2001 Arroyo, Pasadena lawsuit to stand by Leslie Simmons and Laura Loti, City News Service A judge refused Tuesday to dismiss a lawsuit filed against the city of Pasadena by the Arroyo Seco Foundation over a 50-year lease of public land in Brookside Park granted to the Kidspace Museum. City Attorneys contend the foundation missed a deadline to contest the 1998 lease of the 1929 Fannie Morrison Horticultural center in the Arroyo Seco to Kidspace. But lawyers for the foundation said city officials violated the City Charter when they approved Kidspace's plan t renovate the three existing building and build an 18,000 square-foot new structure on the 3.4 acre site. According to the 1990 Arroyo Seco Ordinance -- adopted in response to an effort to put a science museum in Brookside Park -- the city broke its own law by leasing park land to Kidspace for th $15 million project without voter approval, foundation lawyers said. Arroyo Seco Foundation attorney Douglas Carstens alleged the city has technically been in violation of its charter every day since it approved the project and that the "continuing violation restarts the statute of limitations every day." Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Dzintra Janavs denied the city's motion to dismiss the complaint. But she did not rule on the statute of limitations issue, which Carstens expects to be a point of contention in future hearings. Mark Frankel, an Arroyo Seco Foundation member and close neighbor of the proposed new museum, was in court Tuesday and said he was very pleased by the judge's decision. "I feel the merits of the case need to be heard, not thrown out over a technicality," Frankel said. "The open space issue is so important, and Kidspace just doesn't get it." The city set aside the land in 1964 to preserve and maintain the Arroyo Seco as a natural park, according to the foundation. In a written statement, Kidspace president Edward Garlock said museum officials "feel strongly that the city of Pasadena and Kidspace will prevail on the merits of this case. The Board of Directors of Kidspace, along with the thousands of Pasadena residents who support this project, look forward to a new Kidspace Museum in Brookside Park." Assistant City Attorney frank Rhemrev did not return a call asking for comment followingk Tuesday's ruling. Only about 14 percent of the city is public land, and Kidspace's project in the Arroyo Seco would "eat up another 2 percent," according to Carstens. "If the museum was put in some other location that didn't require public park land being taken away frm the public's use, the foundation would be supportive of it," he said. "The issue is taking away public park land and taking it away from the public domain." Rhemrev said earlier that the foundation should have contested the approval right away if it felt the city had violated its charter. "...Obviously, if you're going to challenge a city's action, you're going to challenge it within that time frame," he said. --Staff writer Janette Williams contributed to this story. |