A few years after Millennium’s approval in City Council, the underground network of pay to play starts to show its cracks.
Michael LoGrande has to pay more than $281,000 for illegal lobbying for developers, while receiving consulting fees from the City, according to an article in the LA Times and CurbedLA. One has to wonder how long has he been playing the City.
LoGrande was put in place as head of the Planning Department by the previous Mayor, density proponent Antonio Villaraigosa, to succeed Gail Goldberg. LoGrande had no real training as an urban planner, and according to the LA Weekly “approved 90 percent of applications from people seeking variances or conditional-use permits to build bigger apartment complexes, office towers, houses and other structures than were allowed under zoning protections” when he was a zoning administrator.
During the public hearing at City Council on July 24, 2013, LoGrande could be seen bustling around the City Council members’ ears distracting them during the comment period when citizens were trying to bring their points across to the council.
Mr. LoGrande’s website states that “Michael LoGrande has experience testifying at all levels of the judicial system.” It just may be that LoGrande will be doing more testifying when the FBI probe of City Council real estate bribery hits the court.