Save Our Historic Buildings, a community group, sued the city and developer. With the valuable help of Bill Delvac, an expert in historic preservation law, I was able, as a young attorney, to get an injunction for about three years preventing its further destruction by the city. Unfortunately, although many citizens rallied and the entire city council eventually changed to a pro-historic preservation mentality, it was not in time to save the theatre. If we had had that council in place then today we could be enjoying a Spaghetti Factory in our own city with our theatre intact. Instead we must travel to Duarte and on the theatre site we have yet another drug store. However the fight we fought resulted in a paradigm shift so that we now have citizens who are watchdogs and a city administration which values and protects our remaining historic buildings and quality of life. I was honored to play a part in this succesful battle. —David Dickerson
Save Our Historic Buildings, a community group, sued the city and developer. With the valuable help of Bill Delvac, an expert in historic preservation law, I was able, as a young attorney, to get an injunction for about three years preventing its further destruction by the city. Unfortunately, although many citizens rallied and the entire city council eventually changed to a pro-historic preservation mentality, it was not in time to save the theatre. If we had had that council in place then today we could be enjoying a Spaghetti Factory in our own city with our theatre intact. Instead we must travel to Duarte and on the theatre site we have yet another drug store. However the fight we fought resulted in a paradigm shift so that we now have citizens who are watchdogs and a city administration which values and protects our remaining historic buildings and quality of life. I was honored to play a part in this succesful battle. —David Dickerson