Earlier today the plaintiffs’ attorneys in the homeless property case, Shayla Myers and Catherine Sweetser, filed a massive application for contempt and sanctions against defendant City of Los Angeles due to their (alleged but totally plausible) recalcitrance in complying with the discovery process. Just now Deputy City Attorney Ronald Whitaker filed a declaration in opposition to this application. There’s nothing that new here, although it’s interesting to see that the City is sticking to its largely discredited claim that
in order to search emails, they need the email addresses of each individual LAPD officer. With the help of our investigator, we have tried to identify each of the individual police officers, of which there are over 400, assigned to the Central Division within the relevant timeframe. The LAPD’s IT department requires us to manually match up each officer name with their serial number, as that is how officers are identified in their email addresses. That process is and has been ongoing.
Continue reading Late Night Declaration Filed by Ronald Whitaker Opposing Plaintiffs’ Application for Contempt and Sanctions in LACAN/LACW v. City, CCEA
Monthly Archives: February 2016
Plaintiffs File Application for Order Holding City of Los Angeles in Contempt for Failure to Comply with Discovery Orders! ” a contempt order [is] necessary and proper to impress on these departments … that Court orders cannot be ignored”
Mere moments ago new filings in the LACAN/LACW lawsuit against the City of LA and the Central City East Association hit the RSS feed of the United States District Court for the Central District of California, and what a doozy! It seems that, despite their representations to the contrary in front of Federal Magistrate Judge Andrew Wistrich, the City of Los Angeles is not complying with the Court’s discovery orders. I haven’t had time to read any of this stuff yet, but it looks super hot so I wanted to get it up here as quickly as possible. First we have an ex parte application for an order holding the City of Los Angeles in contempt and seeking sanctions against them. The plaintiffs state:
Good cause exists for such a motion because despite two orders from this Court compelling the production of responsive documents, the City has failed to produce these documents or identify a date certain when all responsive documents will be produced. Without further intervention and sanctions against the City, the City will continue to ignore this Court’s order and the City’s discovery obligations. Plaintiffs will experience prejudice if the City continues to be permitted to ignore its obligations and this Court’s orders.
Well, that ought to put the fear of God into them. The application was supported by two declarations and a proposed order, to which you will find links after the break (along with another long selection from the application).
Continue reading Plaintiffs File Application for Order Holding City of Los Angeles in Contempt for Failure to Comply with Discovery Orders! ” a contempt order [is] necessary and proper to impress on these departments … that Court orders cannot be ignored”
37% Reduction in BID Patrol Arrests from 2014 to 2015 Almost Certainly Due to Our Scrutiny
Following six years of essentially level arrest rates (1184 per year on average) between 2009 and 2014 inclusive, as of November 2015 the Andrews International BID Patrol was on track to make only 665 arrests in Hollywood last year.1 This represents a 36.99% drop, which is exceedingly unlikely to be due to chance.2 Long-time readers of this blog will recall that in December 2014 we discovered that on October 10, 2014, the very day after my first visit to a BID meeting of any kind, Steve Seyler wrote to Kerry Morrison, stating:
Continue reading 37% Reduction in BID Patrol Arrests from 2014 to 2015 Almost Certainly Due to Our Scrutiny
CCEA Job Descriptions, Emails, Images and Emails from Richard Bloom’s September 2015 Visit to the Hollywood Entertainment District
Continue reading CCEA Job Descriptions, Emails, Images and Emails from Richard Bloom’s September 2015 Visit to the Hollywood Entertainment District
Judge O’Connell Orders Extended Time for Defendants Answer in Street Vending Lawsuit
Continue reading Judge O’Connell Orders Extended Time for Defendants Answer in Street Vending Lawsuit
Fascinating Marginalia on CHC Copy of LAFLA Letter to Los Angeles City Council Regarding LAHSA Misrepresentations in 2015 Application for Federal Homeless Money Reveal Unspoken BID Assumptions
On January 25, 2016, the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles sent a scathingly forthright letter to the LA City Council arguing that the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, on whose commission Kerry Morrison serves, falsely stated in its 2015 Continuum of Care application for more than $110 million in federal funding for homeless programs that the City of LA was going to stop criminalizing homelessness by amending its abhorrent, unconstitutional LAMC 56.11 to eliminate criminal penalties for the storage of personal property on sidewalks. This copy was distributed by HPOA Executive Director Kerry Morrison to the Central Hollywood Coalition Board of Directors at their February 9, 2016 meeting. It has annotations inscribed by an unknown hand (probably Kerry Morrison’s). They are fascinating, and we discuss them below.
If you’ve been following the amendments to the ordinance as originally adopted (most importantly here and also here) LAFLA’s allegations will come as no surprise to you. The City of Los Angeles, it seems, is completely unwilling to stop arresting homeless people, even if it puts hundreds of millions of dollars of federal funding at risk.
Now, we’re not as sure as LAFLA is that LAHSA actually lied. Here’s what HUD asked (see p.10 of the application for context):
Select the specific strategies implemented by the CoC to ensure that homelessness is not criminalized in the CoC’s geographic area. Select all that apply. For “Other,” you must provide a description…
Here’s how LAHSA responded:
on Nov 17, 2015, the LA City Council amended the ordinance [LAMC 56.11] to remove sanctions and criminal penalties, reducing sanctions further than the initial municipal code.
And here’s what LAFLA said with respect to this:
…the implication was that any amendment would remove all criminal penalties and sanctions. The amendments as proposed by the City Attorney do [no] such thing.
So LAFLA reads an implicit “all” before the word “sanctions,” which would make LAHSA’s statement false on its face. However, it’s also possible to read an implicit “some” before the word “sanctions,” which would make the statement true, but deeply deceptive since “all” is a more natural assumption regarding the tacit quantifier. Either way LAHSA not only looks bad, but is putting the money, not to mention their credibility, at risk. After all, if the feds think you’ve lied to them, they are exceedingly unlikely to be convinced by your slippery, clever, alternate reading of what you said.
Also, isn’t it interesting that putative changes in LAMC 56.11 were the only example LAHSA gave of the City’s steps towards decriminalizing homelessness. They didn’t touch the also abhorrent LAMC 41.18(d), which forbids sitting on the sidewalk in the absence of a parade. They didn’t even mention it, which is also deceptive. This is the BIDs’ favorite anti-homeless law, and it’s enforced in an openly selective manner against homeless people. At some point HUD is going to notice this, and, as we have predicted before and predict again now, this will be the rock that the BIDs’ ship founders on. The City won’t be able to do without the money, the BIDs won’t be able to do without the law, but the City will be able to do without the BIDs in their present form.
Read on for a discussion of the anonymous marginalia found on our copy of this letter.
Continue reading Fascinating Marginalia on CHC Copy of LAFLA Letter to Los Angeles City Council Regarding LAHSA Misrepresentations in 2015 Application for Federal Homeless Money Reveal Unspoken BID Assumptions
The Myth of the Young Violent Crazy Housing-Resistant Hollywood Hobo Strikes Again as Central Hollywood Coalition BID-Boardies Brian Folb and Carol Massie Misunderstand Pretty Much Everything about the City’s New Comprehensive Homeless Strategy
Do breed unnatural troubles; infected minds
To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets.
More needs she the divine than the physician.
God, God, forgive us all!
It never occurred to us—Carol Massie, Lady Macbeth…hmmm…
As anyone who’s awake in this city knows, the City of LA is considering a comprehensive strategy for dealing with homelessness. At Tuesday’s CHC Board of Directors meeting, the incomparably executive directrix Kerry Morrison, in her inimitably Board-by-the-nose-leading manner, told the Board of Directors that what they wanted to do about that right now was precisely nothing, and she’d get back to them next month to let them know if they wanted to do anything later. She also passed around a letter from the Fashion District as an example (although, in keeping with the zillionaire elite’s weirdly commie ethic with respect to the content of their public comments, the whole thing is essentially plagiarized from Carol Schatz’s letter on behalf of the Central City Association; why these people aren’t ashamed to show their faces in public we are never gone understand…) You can read a transcription after the break along with what we humbly hope are some entertaining observations.
Continue reading The Myth of the Young Violent Crazy Housing-Resistant Hollywood Hobo Strikes Again as Central Hollywood Coalition BID-Boardies Brian Folb and Carol Massie Misunderstand Pretty Much Everything about the City’s New Comprehensive Homeless Strategy
Central Hollywood Coalition’s Tax-Exempt Status Under Audit by Franchise Tax Board; Kerry Morrison Stamps Little Foot, Shakes Little Fist, Loudly Exclaims “NO FAIR!!”
Meanwhile, if you have five minutes to spare, watch and listen here for a master-class lesson in white privilege, zillionaire privilege, power-broker privilege, and generalized contempt for the mundane reality that most of us inhabit, all expressed with the liberal use of hand-waving, hair-flipping, eyebrow-waggling, and uvular ejective plosives. If you don’t have time, we understand. There’s a transcript after the break, and we’ll provide commentary on selected juicy bits as well.
Continue reading Central Hollywood Coalition’s Tax-Exempt Status Under Audit by Franchise Tax Board; Kerry Morrison Stamps Little Foot, Shakes Little Fist, Loudly Exclaims “NO FAIR!!”
Street Vending Lawsuit: No Settlement Reached Yesterday
Case called. Counsel make their appearances. The Court hears discussion. Parties retire to chambers to proceed with the settlement conference.
Settlement is not reached.
Continue reading Street Vending Lawsuit: No Settlement Reached Yesterday
The Downtown Center BID Paid Carol Schatz $1,126,156 in 2012. That’s $1,173 per Hour.
Continue reading The Downtown Center BID Paid Carol Schatz $1,126,156 in 2012. That’s $1,173 per Hour.