Today I have one ordinary announcement and one extraordinary announcement. First there are some new documents from the Media District BID. In particular, there are a bunch of policies, whistleblower, document retention, conflict of interest, and so forth. These seem to be essentially city boilerplate but I haven’t looked at them that closely. You can find them here or directly from storage here or from the menus above. The really big news is after the break!

I’m starting a wiki to organize everything I’ve learned about BIDs in Los Angeles over the last fourteen months or so. You can also get to it via http://wiki.michaelkohlhaas.org . We all get a lot of complaints here at the blog that everything’s too technical and hard to understand, and that seems true to me. Also, by now every mention of BIDs that I see in the media contains errors and/or misunderstandings. As I say over on the front page of the wiki, it strikes me that by this point I know about as much about BIDs and how they work in LA as anyone does, so I might as well try to explain it. It’s also hard for me to keep everything I’ve learned organized, and the chronolinear structure of a blog doesn’t make that easier, but a wiki will, I think.

The tone I’ll be taking over there will be much more factual than the polemical cesspool antics in which we all so happily engage here at the blog. Everything will be supported by documentation, either primary or secondary. Anyway, come on over and check it out, although there’s nothing there now but the main page and a to-do list. You can’t write articles there as this is essentially a personal project of mine, but if you register an account you can edit talk pages for commentary or discussion.

Image of BID Patrollie walking putatively blind man across street is in the public domain.