Complaint Filed This Morning With City Ethics Commission About Liner Law’s Failure To Disclose So-Called United DTLA As Client. Also Matthew Nichols Appears To Have Lobbied Before Incorporation Of United DTLA, Possibly Requiring Disclosure Of Actual Human Clients As Well

Last weekend I outlined what seem to be serious violations of the Municipal Lobbying Ordinance by registered lobbying firm Liner Law and its sleazeballs-for-hire Rockard J. Delgadillo and his creepy little sadly-not-imaginary playmate, Mr. Matthew T. Nichols in the course of the zillionaire downtown real estate cabal’s cowardly moronic greedheaded campaign against the Skid Row Neighborhood Council. Well, this morning I finished up an actual complaint on this matter and filed it with the Ethics Commission, and it is available on Archive.Org for your reading pleasure!

If you read my earlier article most of this material will be familiar to you, but there’s at least one major new thing, which only occurred to me yesterday. Recall that according to Delgadillo and Nichols, the client who was paying them to oppose the Skid Row Neighborhood Council was a shady anonymous Delaware-incorporated LLC known as United DTLA. According to Delaware state records, United DTLA was incorporated on March 3, 2017.

Matthew Nichols monitoring a City meeting on SRNC formation on February 15, 2017, almost three weeks before United DTLA was even incorporated. This is potentially huge! Click to enlarge.
This means that if and when Liner, Matthew Nichols, and Rockard Delgadillo file their required client disclosures for lobbying that they carried out after March 3, they’re going to disclose nothing more than United DTLA, that shady anonymous Delaware corporation. However, that shady anonymous Delaware corporation did not exist on February 15, 2017, on which day Matthew T. Nichols attended a Town Hall meeting about the Skid Row Neighborhood Council sponsored by the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment. And according to the definition of “lobbying activity” found in the Municipal Lobbying Ordinance at LAMC §48.02, the following is included:

… attending or monitoring City meetings, hearings or other events.

So if Matthew Nichols was carrying out compensated lobbying activities on February 15 but his putative client wasn’t even conjured into existence until March 3, he’s going to have to disclose someone other than United DTLA. And what’s the chance that this other client will be anonymous? Very low, I’m guessing, since if the zillionaires already had an anonymous entity through which to hire lobbyists, why would they go and invent a new one a few weeks later? I suppose we’ll find out, although don’t hold breath, friends. The Ethics Commission moves slowly, but it certainly does move.

And another newly uncovered bit of information is that both Delgadillo and Nichols not only attended the March 22, 2017 meeting of City Council’s Rules and Elections Committee, but they both spoke. Although Nichols didn’t say much. His entire speech is quoted in the cartoon that decorates the beginning of this post. As a special bonus for reading this far, turn the page for images of the speaker cards filled out by these two dimwits and also actual audio recordings of their comments!

First the speaker cards,1 both showing United DTLA as a client:

And then the audio. First freaking Rocky Delgadillo spinning a web of bullshit. A fine, fine web it may be, but it’s bullshit nonetheless:
And then creepy little Uriah Heep wannabe Matthew T. Nichols, speaking for literally five seconds, which is how long it takes him to say something like “uh, what Rocky said? Ditto.” How much are they paying this guy?
Anyway, that’s the news, friends! More when I have it.


Image of Matt Nichols started as a thing on his Liner Law bio but then I made it my own via the transformative magic of GIMP, and now it is ©2017 MichaelKohlhaas.Org.

  1. Oh, tangentially, note that batty little fusspot Blair Besten of the third weirdest of the minor Downtown BIDs, the Historic Core BID, also filled out a speaker card but for reasons known only to her batty little self, disappeared before she was called to account by Herb Wesson himself. The less Blair Besten says, of course, the more the City and every sane person living in it win. But it would have been nice to have some actual audio of her blathering to mock. Oh well, something will turn up eventually.
Share

2 thoughts on “Complaint Filed This Morning With City Ethics Commission About Liner Law’s Failure To Disclose So-Called United DTLA As Client. Also Matthew Nichols Appears To Have Lobbied Before Incorporation Of United DTLA, Possibly Requiring Disclosure Of Actual Human Clients As Well”

  1. Liner Law has on their “Foundation” page that they support
    “Low income community development”. I think there is a sick joke in here somewhere. Maybe stop taking work that is in opposition to the Skid Row Neighborhood Council? Just a thought.

    http://www.linerlaw.com/foundation

    1. The French Revolution is an essential subject and A Tale of Two Cities an essential text for understanding these people:

      With a wild rattle and clatter, and an inhuman abandonment of consideration not easy to be understood in these days, the carriage dashed through streets and swept round corners, with women screaming before it, and men clutching each other and clutching children out of its way. At last, swooping at a street corner by a fountain, one of its wheels came to a sickening little jolt, and there was a loud cry from a number of voices, and the horses reared and plunged.

      But for the latter inconvenience, the carriage probably would not have stopped; carriages were often known to drive on, and leave their wounded behind, and why not? But the frightened valet had got down in a hurry, and there were twenty hands at the horses’ bridles.

      “What has gone wrong?” said Monsieur, calmly looking out.

      A tall man in a nightcap had caught up a bundle from among the feet of the horses, and had laid it on the basement of the fountain, and was down in the mud and wet, howling over it like a wild animal.

      “Pardon, Monsieur the Marquis!” said a ragged and submissive man, “it is a child.”

      “Why does he make that abominable noise? Is it his child?”

      “Excuse me, Monsieur the Marquis—it is a pity—yes.”

      “Killed!” shrieked the man, in wild desperation, extending both arms at their length above his head, and staring at him. “Dead!”

      The people closed round, and looked at Monsieur the Marquis. There was nothing revealed by the many eyes that looked at him but watchfulness and eagerness; there was no visible menacing or anger. Neither did the people say anything; after the first cry, they had been silent, and they remained so. The voice of the submissive man who had spoken, was flat and tame in its extreme submission. Monsieur the Marquis ran his eyes over them all, as if they had been mere rats come out of their holes.

      He took out his purse.

      “It is extraordinary to me,” said he, “that you people cannot take care of yourselves and your children. One or the other of you is for ever in the way. How do I know what injury you have done my horses. See! Give him that.”

      He threw out a gold coin for the valet to pick up, and all the heads craned forward that all the eyes might look down at it as it fell.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *