The LookOut sm confidential |
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Missing Bloom, Food for Thought and a Mall (for) Sale? Missing Bloom So where's Councilman Richard Bloom these days? Not only is the rookie councilman missing from the city - sources say he's with his family on vacation in Malaysia - but his likeness is missing from the portrait wall in city hall. Instead of holding the usual smiling mug of a council member, Bloom's frame is still empty three months after his election. Well it's not actually empty. There's a stick figure tacked in place. Sources say Bloom put it there himself after repeated pleas from city staff for a portrait. It's refreshing to see a councilman who isn't so eager to be noticed. In fact, if colleagues took such a low profile and spoke as sparingly as Bloom does on the dais, maybe council meetings would actually end before midnight. Food for Thought While attention was being paid to the dozen or so protesting performers trapped in an elevator on their way up to a Bayside District Corp. meeting last week, the real story was going on upstairs. Sources tell us there was an interesting sparing match going on between Councilman Michael Feinstein and attorneys for the owner of the International Food Court - which is slated to become home of a Be Be Store soon. Feinstein, along with Councilman Paul Rosenstein, is sponsoring a proposed moratorium on the conversions of restaurants to retail outlets on the Third Street Promenade. It seems skyrocketing rents - which have reached $12 a square foot - have caused the council to put on the brakes and reverse its current policy, which restricts the number of restaurants on the trendy strip and prohibits fast food establishments outside the food courts. The owner of the food court building has retained the legal counsel of prominent land use attorney Chris Harding, who brought in one of his new partners, Thomas R. Larmore, formerly of the clout-heavy firm of Pillsbury Madison & Sutro. The looming war over the future character of the Promenade promises to be an interesting one, with SMRR flexing its new-found super majority muscle. It also could be a somewhat personal one. Seems one of Feinstein's favorite food haunts is a Thai restaurant inside the doomed food court. And speaking of food . Sources say the performers, who were rescued from the elevators by police, finally showed up at the meeting to protest a new emergency ordinance requiring them to rotate their performing spots on the Promenade and the Pier every two hours. While they waited to speak during the public hearing at the end of the meeting, their leader Jerry Rubin had to endure the sight of the commissioners munching down on cookies and nuts. Must have been a tempting sight for Jerry, who's on a hunger strike to protest the new ordinance, and who recently circulated a petition requesting that the council provide food for the public at council meetings. Mall For Sale? Santa Monica Place, the indoor mall built by Frank Gehry at the southern edge of the Promenade, may be changing hands soon. At least that's the rumor, according to an email sent by a Santa Monica Place staff member to an unknown recipient. Copies of the email landed in council members' mail boxes earlier this month fueling widespread rumors of an impending sale. The buyer, according to the rumors is The Mecerich Co., a national firm that owns Villa Marina Marketplace (the big outdoor mall on Maxella Avenue in Marina del Rey) as well as the Westside Pavillion (which the firm bought for $170.5 million last summer). Seems Mecerich is quickly gobbling up all the major malls on the Westside . Stay tuned for updates. |
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