A Series of Unexpected Events Add Up to Discovery Delays in L.A. Catholic Worker v. City of L.A., Central City East Association Lawsuit Over Homeless Property Confiscations; Trial Now Scheduled for June 21, 2016

January 16, 2016 Mike Leave a comment

Yesterday, Judge Philip Gutierrez issued an order extending the discovery deadline in L.A. Catholic Worker et al. v. City of L.A. et al. until February 19 and moving the trial date to June 21, 2016. This order capped off a week full of filings. First, on Monday, January 11, presumably after the hearing on plaintiffs’ motion to compel discovery, Ronald Whitaker, who supervises the Business and Complex Litigation section of the L.A. City Attorney’s office, filed a notice of appearance in the case. He’s (probably) the boss of Deputy City Attorney Elizabeth Fitzgerald, who has been defending the case for the City.

I didn’t see the significance of this at the time, but it was clarified on Wednesday, when the plaintiffs filed an ex parte (that is, without the on-the-record participation of the defendants) application to amend the scheduling order to continue dates by 30 days. This is an unusual procedure and it seems it must be justified by the existence of exigent circumstances. In this case the first of these is that on Monday the 11^th, after the discovery hearing, Elizabeth Fitzgerald had a medical emergency and will be on leave at least through the end of January. At the very least this requires the rescheduling of a bunch of depositions, and is probably why Ronald Whitaker joined the case. Note also that the plaintiffs asked for and received the City of LA’s support of the application and that the CCEA did not oppose it.

Elizabeth Fitzgerald’s illness is only one of the reasons supporting plaintiffs’ request for an extension. The others all have to do with what’s turned out to be a lengthy, drawn-out, painful, inch-by-inch discovery process. It seems that any optimism over the pace of document production, both by the City and by the CCEA, was unwarranted, and I’m guessing it won’t even be complete by February 19, but we shall see, shan’t we? There are some more specific details after the break if you’re interested.
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Lawsuits

Street Vending Lawsuit Mandatory Settlement Conference Set for February 11, 2016

January 15, 2016 Mike Leave a comment

Mere minutes ago, Judge Beverly Reid O’Connell filed an order in the street-vending lawsuit Aureliano Santiago et al. v. City of L.A. and Fashion District BID setting a mandatory settlement conference for February 11, 2016. The order looks like pure boilerplate and of course settlement conferences are super-top-secret, so there’s nothing to attend and probably will be nothing to report. But I had to get the document to learn that, so I thought I’d toss it up here for you.
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Announcements, Lawsuits

Documents Available as City of L.A., Charlie Beck Sued by Michael Brown Protesters, National Lawyers Guild, over November 2014 Rights Violations

January 15, 2016 Mike Leave a comment

April 2015 Death by Cop march in Westlake. It's not what this lawsuit is about, but it's a good picture. — April 2015 Death by Cop march in Westlake. It’s not what this lawsuit is about, but it’s a good picture.

Yesterday night the Times reported that a suit was filed in federal court on January 14, 2016, on behalf of people, including NLG-LA lawyers there to observe, whose rights were violated by the LAPD in November 2014 during a protest against a Missouri grand jury’s failure to indict Darren Wilson for killing Michael Brown. For whatever reason, newspaper articles like this never link to the court filings, which I, and maybe even you, find fascinating. On the face of it this case has nothing to do with BIDs, although it’s conceivable that a connection will develop,¹ but I’m going to collect filings here anyway since I’m going to read them myself, so I might as well distribute them. I don’t plan to write much on them, but who knows? I set up a page to display them. It’s also reachable through the menu structure above. Right now the initial complaint is there and is well worth your time. There are some selections after the break:
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Public Records Act Pragmatics

San Francisco Police Department Fulfills Experimental CPRA Request in 23 Days (!) and Provides Emails in an Actually Almost Usable Format

January 14, 2016 Mike Leave a comment

It's not just candy, but public records for everyone with the SFPD! — It’s not just candy, but public records for everyone with the SFPD!

As you may remember, in January 2015 I requested some emails from the LAPD under the CPRA. After 11 months of inaction, noodging, and stubbornness, last month they finally produced about 3% of the records I’d requested, with the (so far unfulfilled) promise of more to come. I am not the only one to have had this problem.

Anyway, on December 21, it occurred to me to make experimental requests for innocuous records to various police departments around the state and then, depending on the results, write to the Los Angeles Police Commission about how other cities around California are, somehow, able to abide by the law. I abandoned that aspect of the plan because, as fate would have it, the very next day a bunch of people sued the LAPD over their flouting of the Public Records Act, obviating the need for any letters from me. But the requests were still out there, so I let them ride.

Berkeley and Long Beach still have failed to acknowledge my requests, even though it’s been 24 days since I sent them. This is in spite of the fact that Berkeley has a city-wide guide to CPRA requests and a far-reaching open government ordinance. The difference between Berkeley PD’s nonresponsiveness and the LAPD’s is that Berkeley has an administrative procedure to encourage city departments to follow the law whereas Los Angeles has nothing of the sort. I’m not going to go that route because I don’t have time, but it’s nice to know it’s there. I don’t know exactly what’s up with Long Beach, but have no plans to press them.

However, the City and County of San Francisco, which also has a sunshine ordinance (the League of Women Voters thinks it was the first such municipal statute), followed the law scrupulously (with one minor lapse). I asked for the last 100 emails between the SFPD and the Union Square BID. And here is what they sent. They didn’t supply them in the native format I requested, which they’re required to do by law, but even here they did better than the LAPD. I’ll describe the interesting formatting compromise they (unilaterally) made after the break. Again, LAPD and the rest of the City of Los Angeles have a lesson they could learn from this.
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Lawsuits

Discovery Hangups Seem to Have Been Settled in Today’s Hearing in LA Catholic Worker, LA CAN, v. City of L.A., Central City East Association

January 11, 2016 Mike Leave a comment

Round and around and around she goes... — Round and around and around she goes…

There was a hearing this morning in the lawsuit against the City of Los Angeles and the Central City East Association, which is fairly historic since, for the first time in Los Angeles, if not anywhere, an attempt is being made to call a Business Improvement District to account for conspiring with the City to violate people’s rights and to prove, once and for all, that BIDs really are agents of the City, no matter what everyone involved says about it. Unfortunately various circumstances conspired to prevent me from attending this hearing (of plaintiffs’ motion to compel discovery) in front of Magistrate Judge Andrew J. Wisterich. But the minutes (not the transcript) were posted on PACER this afternoon. After a conference in the courtroom, it seems that all the difficulties have been settled, and the City of L.A. will produce all the discovery material within 10 days. Read the whole thing after the break.
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Announcements, Hollywood Property Owners Alliance, Joint Security Committee

Hundreds of Newly Obtained Documents: CHC and HPOA Board Minutes 2007-2015 and Joint Security Committee Minutes 2008-2015

January 7, 2016 Mike Leave a comment

As the mohel said when asked why he had watches in the window of his storefront: "Nu, so what do you want I should put here?" — As the mohel said when asked why he had watches in the window of his storefront: “Nu, so what do you want I should put here?”

I’m pleased to announce the availability of eight years worth of CHC and HPOA Board of Directors minutes as well as seven years worth of Joint Security Committee minutes. These are available through the menu structure in the header, or on this page, or from this directory.

The careful reader will note that the HPOA continues to violate the plain language of the California Public Records Act by converting the original MS Word documents into PDFs before handing them over. In fact, the metadata suggests that it was Joe Mariani who was personally responsible for this outlawry, or at least it was probably done on his computer. Joe, you don’t have to follow orders that require you to break the law, you know. You can just refuse. In fact, the HPOA’s own whistleblower policy encourages you “to report any action or suspected action taken within the Corporation that is illegal, fraudulent or in violation of any adopted policy of the Corporation.” Come on, Joe! Be a mensch, drop a dime!
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Announcements

New Documents, Mostly Routine, although Assistant LAPD Chief Jorge Villegas Explicitly Acknowledges Limitations of Arrests as a Tool for Addressing Homelessness

January 3, 2016 Mike Leave a comment

Assistant Chief Jorge Villegas, LAPD: "As you know [homelessness] is an extremely complex issue to address. It is not as simple as simply making an arrest. As you know, we cannot arrest [our] way out of this complex social issue." — Assistant Chief Jorge Villegas, LAPD: “As you know [homelessness] is an extremely complex issue to address. It is not as simple as simply making an arrest. As you know, we cannot arrest [our] way out of this complex social issue.”

Today I uploaded documents from the DCBID, the Fashion District, and some emails from Raquel Beard to the Mayor’s office. The DCBID’s Operations Committee agendas are here, and according to Suzanne Holley this is all of them for which there are electronic copies. They don’t meet very often, it seems. Next up we have 2015 minutes and agendas for the Fashion District BID Board of Directors. There’s some interesting stuff here, although I haven’t had time to read them carefully. For instance, on February 26, 2015, the Board heard about the Central City Association’s plot to hire Rodriguez Strategies to fight the legalization of street vending in LA. The new information here is that Carol Schatz evidently pegged the cost at $60,000 and Kent Smith of the FDBID asked and received from the Board approval to donate $10,000. I think that, given how the original initiative expanded, including the hiring of subordinate publicists, that original estimate must have ended up to be quite low. In March Kent asked for and received from the board $5,000 to oppose Carol Liu’s Right to Rest Act. I really do wonder if this kind of political activism is a legal use of BID money, since it’s supposed to be used to provide services in the district above and beyond what the City provides. How, I wonder, is taking positions on state laws consistent with this charge? A question for another day, I guess. And finally, after the break, we have some emails from Raquel Beard of the CCEA to Eric Garcetti’s office.
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Michael Kohlhaas dot org

Monthly Archives: January 2016