That lawsuit against AEG’s proposed downtown Los Angeles NFL stadium didn’t last long, as the Play Fair at Farmers Field coalition has agreed to drop its environmental suit against the project in exchange for $15 million in donations to a low-income housing trust fund.
With legal challenges now extinguished, AEG president Tim Leiweke declared, “We could literally push dirt tomorrow.” Except for the part where the NFL still won’t approve the plan, and AEG is up for sale and no one knows what the new owner will do. Maybe he meant pushing something else.
More evidence (as if we needed it) that greenies are just another group of rent-seekers who use their pretend objective as a vehicle to extort cash. We really, really, really care about the environment and hate this evil project unless we get a whole bunch of money.
AEG has paid its indulgence to expiate sin. Duly noted.
It just seems to me that AEG must be intent on moving forward with this stadium, regardless of them being for sale. If they weren’t interested, instead of paying $15M to proceed, they’d have simply walked away. It doesn’t matter who you are, $15M is still a lot of money.
And don’t get me wrong, I hate it when groups settle lawsuits in this way. That’s not what’s relevant, though. The relevant fact is that AEG appears to want to move forward.
The coalition included “low-income housing advocates”, so it sounds like they actually achieved an objective.
And I love the idea of using “extortion” to describe an anti-stadium group. No irony there.
“And I love the idea of using “extortion” to describe an anti-stadium group. No irony there.”
The Play Fair at Farmers Field Coalition is not an anti-stadium group. They simply want their share of the loot. Now that they’ve got it, their strongly held beliefs are more…flexible.
Another way to look at it, Dave, would be to say that $15m of the “state assets” that will be allotted to the project can now be used for affordable housing instead.
It is disappointing that advocacy groups who oppose certain developments (sometimes on perfectly reasonable grounds) agree to settle for cash. It does suggest that their interests were not necessarily altruistic.
Then again, this is not a unique ‘settlement’. In fact, often when individuals are convicted (or plead guilty) of an offense, the court orders them to make restitution to the victims directly and to make a donation to a charity or charities that deals generally with helping victims etc.
I would be interested in seeing where the shakedown $$$’s goes, bet little will end up in brick and mortar.
Now the NFL will start their “give the franchise what they want or else…” shakedown campaign across the country.
Chargers and Rams move to LA in 2015 to share a stadium.