"In May, President Trump issued an executive order calling for the VA to provide housing for 6,000 people on the campus, a dramatic escalation of the district court's order. In a cover letter to the appeals court, Department of Justice attorney Daniel Winik did not suggest the VA was dropping the appeal, but described the report as an update, "informed by the executive order.""
"Trump's order, though asserting that the VA was leasing property "to a private school, private companies, and the baseball team of the University of California, Los Angeles, sometimes at significantly below-market prices," did not specifically address whether the leases violated the West Los Angeles Leasing Act of 2016 that governs the use of the VA land."
"The report, which was also submitted to the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs on Friday morning, said, that the VA's comprehensive review and reassessment has "disclosed that the leases invalidated by the U.S. District Court ... may well fail to comply with the WLA Act by failing to principally benefit Veterans and their families, or, in UCLA's case, by failing to provide services to veterans as the predominant focus of UCLA's overall activities on Campus during the lease.""
UCLA, the private Brentwood School and a parking company pay about $2.3 million annually to lease land valued at more than $48 million on the Department of Veterans Affairs West Los Angeles campus. A federal judge nullified those leases and ordered roughly 2,500 temporary and permanent housing units to be built on the 388-acre site. The VA appealed and the 9th Circuit has not yet issued a ruling after an April hearing. A VA report submitted to the appeals court and the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs says the leases may fail to comply with the West Los Angeles Leasing Act by not principally benefiting veterans. President Trump's executive order called for housing for 6,000 people on the campus and the DOJ described the VA report as updated and informed by that order.
Read at Los Angeles Times
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