In at least one huge deal in L.A., Trump got schooled
The Ambassador Hotel site, more than 23 acres near downtown Los Angeles, was bought by Trump Wilshire Associates in 1989. Now it's an LAUSD campus. (Damon Winter / Los Angeles Times)
one side was the alpha male of New York developers who burst into town with pockets full of money, a legion of lobbyists and lawyers and an audacious plan to build the nation's tallest building.
Opposing was a tag team Donald Trump would have little reason to fear: Jackie Goldberg and Jeff Horton, two rumpled progressives on the Los Angeles Board of Education.
Long before his run for president and his reality TV career as the ruthless boss, Trump fought an ugly decade-long battle over a Los Angeles landmark.
It's not an exploit he's bragging about on the campaign trail.
The prize was the Ambassador Hotel. A legendary Hollywood celebrity hangout and the site of the 1968 assassination of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, it had endured a long downward spiral before closing in 1989.
The 23.5-acre property, much of it open space, became a rare object of desire in a densely built part of the city.
The Board of Education already had its eye on the property for a badly needed high school when a Trump syndicate swooped it up for $64 million in 1989 and announced plans to erect a 125-story office tower.
The school board countered with a 7-0 vote to take the property from Trump via eminent domain.
Usually that would start a process in which the parties and their appraisers, or a court, would settle on a price.
But not when one of the parties was Trump.
His team launched a fierce lobbying campaign to block a $50-million state allocation to help the district buy the property.
Goldberg, then the president of the school board, took on the notoriously tough negotiator.
"They simply have enough money to buy enough lobbyists to go absolutely everywhere and talk to as many people as need to be talked to until they get what they want," she said.
The district mounted its own lobbying effort and got the state allocation restored.
Talks on a possible sale price ensued but then broke down.
Roused by Goldberg, protesters outside the Ambassador chanted "Dump Trump" and carried signs saying, "Public need over private greed."
Barbara Res, executive vice president for Trump Wilshire Associates, accused the board of "fiscal irresponsibility" for choosing to build a school on "some of the world's most expensive property."
The $73 million that the district was offering for 17 acres of the site was far below the In at least one huge deal in L.A., Trump got schooled - LA Times:
