Museum 'Friends' Say Autry Expansion Violates General Plan

Less than a week before the Los Angeles City Council of the Autry National Center's proposed $6.6 million expansion of their Griffith Park location, Friends of the founder Ann Walnum has weighed in with a lengthy editorial assailing the legality of the plan.

In the editorial, which can be found on Los Angeles City Watch, Walnum writes that the Autry's expansion of its Griffith Park location would constitute a violation of the city's General Plan.

From Ann Walnum's Editorial on Los Angeles City Watch:

... I remain amazed at the Autry Museum’s stubborn effort to violate our General Plan–the City’s fundamental zoning law–in a series of project proposals intended to relocate the Southwest Museum to the Autry’s building in Griffith Park.  

A recent version of this idea was approved by the Recreation and Parks Commission but City Council voted under Charter Section 245 to assume jurisdiction over the issue due to concerns about transparency of the approval process.

The new project and the one withdrawn in 2009 are equally offensive to the City’s General Plan which contains a policy requiring the City to only take actions that “maintain the Southwest Museum on Mount Washington.”

In a with Highland Park-Mount Washington Patch, Daniel Wright, a member of the Friends of the Southwest Museum and the Mount Washington Homeowner's Alliance, made a similar argument.

Further, Wright said that the long-term exhibit proposed in the project, “First Californians,” is an exact replica of the one shown at the Southwest Museum for years.

“That ‘First Californians’ exhibit is the Southwest Museum’s principal exhibit, which brings thousands of third grade students to Mount Washington every year,” he said.

Wright added that, according to the Northeast Community Plan, the city requires that any project that could negatively impact the operation of the Southwest Museum must undergo an environmental review.

“This renovation would render the Southwest Museum’s exhibit redundant, and in approving it, the city is in violation of its own laws,” Wright said. (A copy of the Northeast Community Plan can be downloaded from the box on the right.)

The Autry has not formally responded to Walnum's editorial, but CEO Daniel Finley has said that less than 1 percent of the Southwest Museum's collection would be on display at the Griffith Park museum. The Autry merged with the Southwest Museum and took control of its collection in 2002. 

The Southwest Museum has been closed to the public since 2009 and its collection has been undergoing extensive restoration work since that time, according to Yadhira DeLeon, a spokesperson for the Autry.