The Los Angeles Film School is fighting back against claims it wants the Hollywood Farmers Market to get out of the way. Over the weekend, lobbying firm Englander, Knabe & Allen, which represents the school, released a Myth & Facts sheet. (These Myth & Fact sheets seem to be all the rage these days.) Excerpt: "Myth: The Los Angeles Film School wants the Farmers Market to close. Fact: Actually, we want the Hollywood Farmer’s Market to remain open and continue to serve the community that we call home." Additionally, the fact sheet notes that all those budding movie directors really do use the school's facilities on Sundays and need access to the parking lot. Meanwhile, is this a possible solution? The Los Angeles Times reports that Planning Commissioner Mike Woo, who chairs the board of the group that runs the Hollywood market, has an idea that he believes might remedy the situation. Whether or not that's doable is unclear. Woo believes "the film school could obtain additional parking spaces if it knocked down a wall in its own garage. Adam Englander, a spokesman who represents the school, called that idea 'an expensive solution. 'That's asking the film school to give up everything,' he said." (Solution: Farmers Market bake sale to raise money to knock down the wall!) Meanwhile, a Times editorial that ran over the weekend notes that " city bears some responsibility for this fiasco" and calls on leaders to find a solution.
Myth: The Los Angeles Film School wants the Farmers Market to close.
Fact: Actually, we want the Hollywood Farmer’s Market to remain open and continue to serve the community that we call home. We have made a major investment in Hollywood and we want to make sure that our students are accommodated, which can be accomplished while the market continues without any interruption. Our intent has always been to use our campus for our ever-growing students’ needs, which is not mutually exclusive with the needs of the Hollywood Farmers’ Market.
Myth: The Los Angeles Film School is not open on weekends
Fact: The Los Angeles Film School is a fully-functioning school campus that has classes and events seven days a week. In addition, because we're a media school, students are constantly working on their projects on the campus outside of normal class hours, which has resulted in the need to make the campus available for students 7 days a week. In addition to Sunday classes, we also schedule, like every other school, events, seminars and film shoots at our campus over the weekends.
Myth: The need for use of the campus on Sundays came as a surprise to the Farmers Market.
Fact: Over three years ago, as we saw our student population growing and we continued to invest heavily in our Hollywood home, we reached out to the Hollywood Farmers’ Market and informed them that our students would need access to our campus and the parking lots every day, including Sundays. We wanted this transition to be seamless and provided plenty of time for discussion so that there wouldn't be an issue. Our concerns should have come as no surprise to SEE-LA, especially as we initially reached out to them to avoid this situation from occurring. However, we remain committed to working with them on an amicable solution.
· Hollywood farmers market squabble could spill over to other markets [LA Times]
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