The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has terminated agreements allowing three outside entities including a prestigious K-12 academy to use portions of its West Los Angeles campus.
The agency posted a notice on its website late Monday saying it had ended leases to Brentwood School and a parking lot firm and the license for an oil pumping operation on the 388-acre property.
The VA said it was taking the property in furtherance of President Trump’s executive order of last May calling for creation of a National Center for Warrior Independence with housing for 6,000 veterans.
The notice did not say whether the school would lose access to extensive athletic facilities it built on its 22-acre leasehold. Those include a football/soccer stadium, a baseball field, basketball pavilion, exercise equipment and a 10-lane swimming pool.
School officials issued a brief statement saying the VA had offered to meet with them in Washington.
“We look forward to that meeting with hopes of preserving our longstanding relationship and the extensive services Brentwood School provides that so many Veterans value.”
On Tuesday, the school’s use of the facilities continued as normal.
The announcement threw a new twist into the tangled intersection of a federal court order requiring the VA to build more than 2,000 housing units on the campus and Trump’s executive order.
Although the two initiatives are nominally aligned in the goal to create more veteran housing, the VA signaled in a petition to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday that it intends to pursue an appeal of the federal court ruling. It asked for an en banc review of a three-judge panel’s December ruling that affirmed the order.
That petition shocked attorneys representing veterans in the class-action lawsuit who said they thought they were on the verge of forming a productive relationship with the VA.
One of those attorneys told The Times in an interview Friday that he had two productive conversations with agency officials and found them thoughtful and deliberate.
“What I’m attempting to convey is positivity and optimism,” said Roman Silberfeld of law firm Robins Kaplan. “Time will tell.”
Silberfeld’s optimism arose from the agency’s apparent backtracking from plans unveiled in a January court hearing to install up to 800 tiny homes on the property. Veterans objected to the 8-foot-by-8-foot units as unsuitable. A solicitation to contractors posted by the agency after the court hearing described a project of modular units of 120 to 390 square feet with bathrooms and kitchenettes.
After the petition was filed later on Friday, Silberfeld emailed a follow-up, “Bad VA!”
“A day of incalculable shame on our government,” co-counsel Mark Rosenbaum of the civil rights law firm Public Counsel wrote in an email. “No prior Administration ended veteran homelessness, but none before has sunk so low by arguing to an entire appellate bench that the law must preserve it.”
The lease terminations also introduce tension between the approaches taken by the VA and U.S. District Judge David O. Carter, who is overseeing the case.
In his judgment, Carter nullified the leases on the grounds that they do not principally benefit veterans as required by law. He also invalidated the 10-acre lease held by UCLA for its baseball stadium and ordered the VA to immediately build temporary housing on its parking lot.
But Carter took a conciliatory stance toward the Brentwood school, saying he did not want to deprive students of the facilities. He signed off on a new lease agreed to by the school and the veteran plaintiffs that increased veteran access and was limited to one year so the land could be taken back if needed for future housing.
The VA rejected the proposal and appealed Carter’s ruling.
In a split decision, the appeals panel upheld his nullification of leases to Brentwood and Safety Park Corp. but reversed his ruling on UCLA, which was based on a different law.
Monday’s notice cited Carter’s finding that the leases violated the law but took a drastically harsher stance, saying the VA had found the leaseholders were underpaying by $40 million annually.
“These groups have been fleecing taxpayers and Veterans for far too long,” VA Secretary Doug Collins was quoted. “And under President Trump, VA is taking decisive action to ensure the West LA VAMC [Medical Center] campus is used only as intended: to benefit Veterans.”
Rob Reynolds, an Iraq war veteran who often speaks on behalf of the named veterans in the case, said he was conflicted over the new developments.
He praised the VA for terminating the illegal leases and said he was encouraged by its apparent openness to larger housing units.
He also said he supports the executive order but is alarmed by the agency’s continuing resistance to oversight by the court and its reluctance to include veterans in its deliberations.
“We really don’t know what’s going on,” Reynolds said. “The history of this property for decades has been broken promises, so it’s really hard to trust that this will be done in good faith.”
VA spokesperson Pete Kasperowicz said that in exploring all options the solicitation will allow the VA to consider larger units.
“However, no final decisions have been made,” he said.
