By Mary O’KEEFE

On the agenda of the Glendale City Council meeting on Tuesday night was voting on the final approval of the Armenian Museum Cultural Center and the Council did vote, but it wasn’t a quick vote and it wasn’t approved by the museum board.

The Council added five additional provisions to the original contract, which caused some pause and confusion during the vote taking and with the museum board.

The Council was prepared to vote on all five provisions but then Berdj Karapetian, representing the museum’s board of directors, said he could not approve the additions because he needed to have the museum board’s lawyer look over the paperwork. Then the board would have to vote to approve the Council’s provisions.

Karapetian said he had only received a couple of the additions on Tuesday not long before the meeting.

“There are some of the provisions we are aware of and others we were presented [with] a half an hour ago,” he said. “We are not prepared at this time to accept these provisions without talking to our attorney.”

City Attorney Michael Garcia said he had discussed several of the issues with the representatives of the museum board prior to the meeting but admitted there were two that had just been presented to them.

City Manager Yasmin Beers said she had personally had conversations concerning provisions one through four.

After further discussion, members of the Council concluded that the fifth provision was the one that caused the most concern with Karapetian. This provision was to have a member of the City Council present at the museum board’s meetings. Councilmember Ara Najarian had brought this idea up at the Council’s last meeting. At Tuesday’s meeting he reminded Karapetian and those present that he had first asked for a member of the Council to be a voting member, then amended that request to a Council member to be a non-voting, committee member and then reduced the request further to simply having a Council member attend the board’s meetings. Karapetian once again said he understood the request but due to the language change he still had to wait on advice of counsel and present it to the 10-member board for approval.

He added that, in addition to provision five, his legal counsel would also have to look at provisions one, two and three.

“We did look at provision one and I am not opposed to it personally,” he said, but added again that it is the museum board that must vote to approve.

At this point it became a little confusing as the City Council discussed voting on the provisions and then, if they were not approved by the museum board, have the revised provisions brought back to a later meeting. It appeared, according to the city attorney, this would be possible.

Because provision five still seemed to be the one provision the Council felt would cause the most discussion among the museum’s board, Councilmember Paula Devine moved for the Council to vote on provisions one through four. That appeared to be
seconded, but then Councilmember Vrej Agajanian made a motion for two through five, which was seconded by Najarian and the vote was taken.

Devine, Agajanian and Najarian voted to pass, Mayor Zareh Sinanyan and Councilmember Vartan Gharpetian voted negatively. Then Devine asked to change her vote. This surprised Najarian who asked Devine, “What’s up?”

“I am not here to debate it,” Devine said.

“We are here to debate,” Najarian countered.

Devine said she wanted to change her vote, which she did, and the motion for approving provisions two through five did not pass. Another vote for one through four was then taken and it was reluctantly approved unanimously.

“I vote yes but I am not happy at all with what happened,” Najarian said, at which point he stepped away from Council and the mayor declared a two-minute break.

  Mary Okeefe