VA terminates West LA land lease, leaves land used by Brentwood School athletes in limbo
The US Department of Veterans Affairs has terminated agreements allowing three outside businesses including a prestigious K-12 school to use parts of its campus in West Los Angeles.
The agency posted a notice on its website late Monday saying it has terminated the Brentwood School’s lease and the firm’s parking lot and oil pumping license on the 388-acre property.
The VA said it is taking the building to further President Trump’s executive order from last May to create a National Veterans Center to house 6,000 veterans.
The notification did not say whether the school would lose out on the athletic facilities built on its 22-acre property. These include a football/soccer field, baseball field, basketball court, equipment and a 10-lane swimming pool.
School officials released a brief statement saying the VA had promised to meet with them in Washington.
“We look forward to that meeting in hopes of maintaining our long relationship and the many services Brentwood School provides to so many Veterans.”
On Tuesday, the school continued to operate as normal.
The announcement marked a new twist at the tangled intersection of a federal court order requiring the VA to build more than 2,000 academic housing units and Trump’s executive order.
Although the two programs are aligned to some extent in the goal of building veterans’ housing, the VA signed a petition in the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday that it intends to continue the appeal of the federal court decision. It asked for a review of the December three-judge panel’s decision that upheld the order.
The request shocked attorneys representing veterans in the class action lawsuit who said they thought they were about to build a successful relationship with the VA.
One of those lawyers told The Times in an interview Friday that he had two meaningful conversations with agency officials and found them deliberate and deliberate.
“What I’m trying to convey is confidence and hope,” said Roman Silberfeld of the Robins Kaplan law firm. “Time will tell.”
Silberfeld’s hope came in the wake of the agency’s pushback on plans presented in court in January to include up to 800 tiny homes in the area. Veterans objected to the 8-foot-by-8-foot units as inappropriate. A contractor request submitted by the agency after the court hearing described the project as 120- to 390-square-foot units with bathrooms and kitchens.
After the complaints were filed later Friday, Silberfeld sent the following email, “Bad VA!”
“It’s a day of immeasurable shame for our government,” said Mark Rosenbaum of civil rights law firm Public Counsel in an email. “None of the previous administrations have ended homelessness for veterans, but no one has ever died arguing with the entire appellate bench that the law should be upheld.”
The termination of the lease also presents a conflict between the approaches taken by the VA and US District Judge David O. Carter, who is presiding over the case.
In his ruling, Carter rejected the lease on the grounds that it did not specifically benefit veterans as required by law. He also executed a 10-acre UCLA-owned lease for the baseball field and ordered the VA to immediately build temporary housing on its parking lot.
But Carter has decided to reconcile the Brentwood school, saying he doesn’t want to deprive students of resources. He signed a new lease agreement between the school and veteran plaintiffs that increased access to veterans and set aside one year for the land to be reclaimed if needed to build future housing.
The VA rejected the proposal and appealed Carter’s decision.
In a separate decision, the appeals panel upheld his termination of the leases to Brentwood and Safety Park Corp. but reversed its decision in UCLA, which was based on a different law.
Monday’s notice cited Carter’s findings that the leases violated the law but took a more serious stance, saying the VA found that rental owners were underpaid by $40 million a year.
“These groups have been fleecing taxpayers and Veterans for far too long,” VA Secretary Doug Collins was quoted as saying. “And under President Trump, the VA is taking serious steps to ensure that the West LA VAMC [Medical Center] The campus is used only as intended: to benefit Veterans.”
Rob Reynolds, an Iraq war veteran who often speaks on behalf of veterans nominated in the case, said he was conflicted about the new incidents.
He praised the VA for ending illegal leases and said he was encouraged by its openness to large housing.
He also said that he supports the order of the executive body, but he is afraid that the institution continues to oppose the supervision of the court and does not want to include veterans in its discussions.
“We don’t really know what’s going on,” Reynolds said. “The history of this place has been broken for decades, so it is difficult to trust that this will be done honestly.”
VA spokesman Pete Kasperowicz said in evaluating all options the solicitation will allow the VA to consider larger units.
“However, no final decisions have been taken,” he said.
