The area in blue, which contains Brentwood School’s athletic facilities, is VA land.
Brentwood, a private high school in Los Angeles, spent more than $4.5 million in 2001 to build an athletic facility on VA Property. CTN reported the story in March 2023 (“Brentwood School Athletic Facilities Are Build on VA Land”).
Almost three years later on February 9, 2026, the VA announced (“VA Terminates Illegal and Wasteful West Los Angeles VAMC Leases and License”) that “effective today VA has terminated its lease with Brentwood School – an exclusive K-12 private school.”
A district court and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals said the leases and license violated federal law. “VA last year also found that the department has been underpaid by more than $40 million per year based on the fair market value of the properties.”
“These groups have been fleecing taxpayers and veterans for far too long, and under President Trump, the VA is taking decisive action to ensure the West LA VAMC campus is used only as intended: to benefit veterans,” VA Secretary Doug Collins said in a statement. (In addition to Brentwood School, a for-profit parking lot north of the Post Office and an oil-drilling company have also had leases terminated. (UCLA’s Jackie Robinson baseball stadium, which has also operated on VA land since 1981, was not included in the termination order.)
Brentwood School athletic facilities include the Caruso Watt Aquatic Center, the Stadium Field, the Upper Field, the Tennis Courts, the Pavilion, the Weight Room and Fitness Center. Athletic facilities are on about 22.06 acres of VA land, about 13 percent of the 300 acres of the West Los Angeles campus.
When Pacific Palisades American Legion Post 283 learned about the proposal in 2000 to give a private high school land meant for vets, legionnaires opposed it.
“This didn’t have anything to do with vets,” one Legion member remembered. “They didn’t listen to us.”
The arrangement was not only controversial with veterans, but also Brentwood store owners. A January 18, 2001, LA Times story (“Brentwood Shops Protest VA’s Parking Fee Hike”) because they felt the VA was favoring the school over merchants.
The story noted “. . .business leaders are questioning what they describe as a ‘sweetheart deal’ between the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and the exclusive Brentwood School for rental of a much larger government parcel next to the parking lot at a much cheaper rate.”
Then, VA Contract Officer Ralph Tillman and Brentwood School Headmaster Hunter Temple said the “sharing agreement” between the VA and the school meant that veterans would have the use of the sports complex, when students are not using it, during the 20-year life of the contract.
At the time, it appears there was little or no oversight of many of the leases on the West L.A. VA land. Beginning in 2001, the VA granted nearly a dozen leases for non-veteran uses, including contracts for an Enterprise Rent-a-Car, a UCLA baseball stadium, a Marriott hotel laundry facility and a school bus parking lot.
A federal judge ruled in 2013, that the campus should be used for veterans’ healthcare, not for profit, and the VA booted out eight lease holders, including a hotel laundry and a movie studio warehouse.
Tillman, who resigned in 2014, was convicted and imprisoned four years later for taking cash bribes for leases on the campus.
Although almost all of the leases were terminated, UCLA and Brentwood School were allowed to remain – after a lobbying campaign in Washington, D.C.
The schools were told that their use of the land had to be “veteran-centric” — meaning of more benefit to veterans than not.
In November 2016, the lease with Brentwood School was renegotiated for a 10-year term.
Brentwood would now pay $850,000 annually and $918,000 in non-monetary consideration. (In a 2017-2018 audit, $670,000 of the non-monetary consideration was spent on the upkeep, repair and replacement costs of the high school athletic facilities.)
According to a January 21, 2019, LA. Times Story (“UCLA and Brentwood School Accused of Shortchanging Veterans at West L.A. Facility”) VA Inspector General Michael Missal said the Brentwood School misused its lease “because the principal purpose of this lease is to provide the Brentwood School with continued use of the athletic facilities.”
So, Brentwood School changed the name of its athletic complex to Veterans Center for Recreation and Education (VCRE), and announced it would also partner with vets by allowing them to use athletic facilities, whenever students were not using them.
The entrance for veterans to the Brentwood Athletic Complex is through the VA on the road by the Japanese Garden.
For example, a vet could swim in the Caruso Aquatic Center 10-lane pool on Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 5:30 to 7:30 a.m. and on Saturday and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. . . .but, high school water polo and swim teams would have priority.
A vet accessed the Center by driving through the VA north campus, past the Japanese Garden, and parking in the school lot next to the booth. CTN contacted Brentwood School to ask how many vets were using the complex, but never received an answer.
CTN drove to the VCRE Welcome Center and learned there are about 27 vets signed up the first three months of the year, which had to be done on the website.
CTN followed two vets going through the process of trying to access the Brentwood School athletic facilities. It involved several emails, telephone calls and a tour of the campus — stretching over several months. According to the vets, it was not an easy process and neither were accepted.
CTN sent another email to Brentwood and was redirected to the school’s Chief Communication Officer Gail Friedman and asked how many vets were signed up to use the facility.
Friedman said that since the program began about 1,546 vets had signed up and between November 1, 2021 and October 31, 2022, there were 5,783 visits. The facilities are open 359 days of the year, according to the website.
At a January 2023 meeting at the Ronald Reagan American Legion Post 283, Dr. Steven Braverman, the director of the West L. VA, was asked about Brentwood and UCLA leasing space on land meant for veterans.
Braverman said that the money the schools contribute was important to veterans because of a 1958 law, that states the VA is not allowed to build housing unless it is specifically tied to a treatment program.
Braverman said the money from those schools was being used to rebuild utilities and infrastructure on the VA. Circling the News looked for the 1958 law but could not find it and contacted VA public affairs for clarification, several times, but no one responded with the law.
High School students attending Brentwood pay about $55,700 tuition. Up in the air is whether an agreement will be made for Brentwood to keep athletic facilities, again, or whether the high school will have to find new facilities.
The Brentwood High School pool and stadium are located on VA Land.