City of LA Needs More Time to Consider Proposed Settlement in Street Vending Lawsuit, so Parties Request Rescheduling of Conference

California-centralA request to reschedule the settlement conference in the Street Vendors v. City of LA and the Fashion District BID just hit PACER. A settlement conference was scheduled for tomorrow before magistrate judge Charles Eick, but:

The Defendant City of Los Angeles advised Plaintiffs’ counsel earlier today that the City needs additional time to consider the revised settlement proposal by the Plaintiffs.

The request states that the earliest possible time for the rescheduled conference would be July 18, 2016, but that the Fashion District BID’s lawyer hasn’t gotten back to everyone with confirmation that this date will suit. If you’ve been following the story, you may remember that July 18th is also the date that Judge Beverly Reid O’Connell shifted the defendants’ response deadline to, so something’s got to give.

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What Else Are They Hiding? Hollywood Property Owners Alliance Completely Rewrites BID Patrol Contract to Thwart Public Records Act Requests

Selma Park was the scene of the BID Patrol's greatest crimes, or at least the greatest which have come to light.  What else is there that they're trying so very hard to keep secret?
Selma Park was the scene of the BID Patrol’s greatest crimes, or at least the greatest which have come to light. What else is there that they’re trying so very hard to keep secret?
You can watch here as the Hollywood Property Owners Alliance at its June 16, 2016 Board meeting, approves a completely rewritten contract with Andrews International, its security subcontractor, which runs the BID Patrol in Hollywood. I’m not going to bother to transcribe it, but you should take a look. It features John Tronson talking for approximately 90 seconds about changes in the HPOA’s contract with A/I. He mentions logos on cars, logos on uniforms, and if you blinked, you’d miss the ten seconds where he talks about ownership of work product, but that’s the key thing.

The new contract gives A/I ownership of ALL of its BID Patrol work product. The old contract, superseded by this one, gave the HPOA ownership of every record that A/I produced. The point, clearly, is to keep the material away from public scrutiny. If you’ve been following this blog for a while you’ll know that we have used BID Patrol arrest reports, daily logs, and photographs to expose serial civil rights violations, to analyze BID Patrol arrest rates, to mock the moronic Steve Seyler, and for many other things as well. If the whole Selma Park thing is already out, I can’t help but wonder what else they’re trying to hide by trying to make all their future records unavailable.
Continue reading What Else Are They Hiding? Hollywood Property Owners Alliance Completely Rewrites BID Patrol Contract to Thwart Public Records Act Requests

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Council Votes to Repeal Unconstitutional Street Sleeping Ordinance, Which Maybe Has Implications For BID Security Registration with Police Commission

Your civil liberties at work.
Your civil liberties at work.
Today the LA City Council repealed LAMC 85.02, which prohibited sleeping in cars, and which the Ninth Circuit found to be unconstitutional in 2014 (even though the BID Patrol never seems to have gotten the message). The Council File is here, and the most interesting part is the the City Attorney’s report explaining why they ought to repeal the law.

Here’s a possibly wack but superficially plausible theory of why this situation might lend independent support to the idea that BID security actually ought to register with the Police Commission.
Continue reading Council Votes to Repeal Unconstitutional Street Sleeping Ordinance, Which Maybe Has Implications For BID Security Registration with Police Commission

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Newly Obtained Documents Suggest A Tentative Hypothesis on Why BID Patrols Aren’t Registered with the Los Angeles Police Commission and Why They Ought to Be

Joseph Gunn, executive director of the Los Angeles Police Commission in 1999.
Joseph Gunn, executive director of the Los Angeles Police Commission in 1999.
In the City of Los Angeles, private security patrols that operate on the public streets or sidewalks are required by LAMC 52.34 to register with the Police Commission and to satisfy a number of other requirements. I discovered a couple weeks ago that no BID Patrols are registered (and they routinely violate a number of the other requirements). In that same post I traced the issue back to Council File 99-0355. Part of the approved motion that initiated that file was this:

FURTHER MOVE that the City Ccl request the Police Commission to cease their enforcement against the City’s Downtown Center BID and its private patrol service, and any other BIDs until this matter has been reviewed by the City Ccl.

This at least seems to explain a temporary pause in enforcement, although not a policy-based reason never to enforce the registration requirement and the other regulations.

Furthermore, even a trip to the City Archives to copy the whole file left me lacking a definitive answer to the question of why no BID security provider was registered with the Police Commission. Also, I reported last week that no one in the City, either at the Police Commission or elsewhere, seemed to have a firm idea about why this was.

100 W. First Street.  And isn't this a lovely visual metaphor for the City government of Los Angeles?
100 W. First Street. And isn’t this a lovely visual metaphor for the City government of Los Angeles?
Well, last week the incredibly helpful Richard Tefank pulled a bunch of old Police Commission minutes out of storage for me and last Thursday I went over to 100 W. First Street to take a look at them. Most of the material was also in the Council file, but there were a couple new items that, while they don’t explain dispositively what happened, they suggest a likely hypothesis. Also, if this hypothesis is correct, it’s pretty clear that BID Patrols really ought to be registered and, furthermore, that the Police Commission has the right to investigate and regulate them.
Continue reading Newly Obtained Documents Suggest A Tentative Hypothesis on Why BID Patrols Aren’t Registered with the Los Angeles Police Commission and Why They Ought to Be

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Kerry Morrison’s Homeless “Buddy” and Star of her Upcoming “Documentary” Apparently Received Special Treatment at Hands of BID Patrol in 2008

This man, who is not Kerry Morrison's buddy and who's not starring in her documentary and who never took luncheon with her, was arrested 10 times and warned twice by the BID Patrol in 2008.
This man, who is not Kerry Morrison’s buddy and who’s not starring in her documentary and who never took luncheon with her, was arrested 10 times and warned twice by the BID Patrol in 2008.
You may have seen the news elsewhere that Kerry Morrison was granted a Stanton Fellowship by the Los-Angeles-based Durfee Foundation. I’ve refrained from writing about it here because it struck me as more of a private matter. However, in February Kerry Morrison sent an email to Dan Halden of CD13 with her application attached. This put it on the public record and made comments on it of public interest, and it turns out to shed a great deal of light on otherwise mysterious goings-on at the BID Patrol.

So here is a copy of Kerry Morrison’s Stanton Fellowship application. This is an exceedingly rich document, and you’re reading the first of what I expect to be many, many posts about it. It’s well worth the time it’ll take you to read the whole thing, though, because it’s even weirder than you’re thinking it might be.

This man, who is Kerry Morrison’s buddy and who is starring in her documentary and who did take luncheon with her, was arrested 4 times and warned innumerable times by the BID Patrol in 2008.
This man, who is Kerry Morrison’s buddy and who is starring in her documentary and who did take luncheon with her, was arrested 4 times and warned innumerable times by the BID Patrol in 2008.
Anyway, in her application, as part of her plan to fix what she sees as flaws in the mental health care system vis-a-vis homelessness, she plans to:

Tell the story. I have been collecting photos, videos, notes from interviews and observations now dating back to 2008. With the permission of my three friends, and possibly other
[sic], I see the potential to create a documentary that will weave the human story around the policy, systems and community cultural change necessary to embrace the needs of these individuals. Create a documentary to tell their story and show the before and after.

Her “three friends” are homeless men that she and her friends in business-oriented astroturf homeless services front group Hollywood 4WRD helped in various ways.1 A careful analysis of the Andrews International BID Patrol 2008 arrest reports and the 2008 daily activity logs that at least one of these three, whom Kerry Morrison calls “my buddy,” was accorded a free pass by the BID Patrol, being given innumerable warnings for violations for which his peers who weren’t the object of Kerry Morrison’s special interest were routinely arrested.
Continue reading Kerry Morrison’s Homeless “Buddy” and Star of her Upcoming “Documentary” Apparently Received Special Treatment at Hands of BID Patrol in 2008

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HPOA to Oppose O’Farrell/Ryu Motion on Tree-Trimming. Kerry Morrison: This is Overkill. John Tronson: I’m Having a Fundraiser for Mitch; I will Talk to Him. Mark Echevarria: What the Fuck is a Tree Surgeon?! Hurr Hurr Hurr

The Hollywood Property Owners Alliance supports laws that prioritize the view on the right over the view on the left.
The Hollywood Property Owners Alliance supports laws that prioritize the view on the right over the view on the left.
Maybe you remember in January when Outfront Media illegally, immorally, and with reckless disregard, vandalized a bunch of trees in Silver Lake. Well, that’s smack in the heartland of Mitch O’Farrell world, so the CM and his compatriot David Ryu introduced a motion directing the Bureau of Street Services to figure out how to prevent this kind of horror in the future (the full council file CF 15-0467-S4 is here). It’s a little off-topic, but nevertheless interesting, to note that Outfront is a client of megalobbyist Veronica Perez, at whom Silver Lake residents directed a lot of justified rage on Facebook and elsewhere about this issue in March.

Well, in April, BSS came back with a list of proposed amendments to the City tree-trimming ordinance, and they mean to put some teeth into it, and as we know, our old friends the Hollywood Property Owners Alliance just hate to have to follow any laws at all since, they think, laws are what criminals break and we’re not criminals.

HPOA staffies Kerry Morrison and Matthew Severson, who propound the views of their masters with a level of passion that only the paid flunkies of zillionaires seem to be able to muster, frame it as a matter of more misdirected and incompetent government regulation. Real-estate zillionaire, BFF of Kerry Morrison, and revealed plagiarist John Tronson is gonna talk to Mitch about it at the fundraiser next week. Mark Echevarria, boss of Los Angeles spiritual/cultural nexus Musso & Frank, proves that you don’t have to be a genius to run a holy site by chuckling over the fact that he’s never heard of tree surgeons. It’s just yet another display of ignorance, privilege, and conspiracy to bribe public officials; business as usual at the HPOA. You can watch the whole thing here, see a complete transcription after the break, and turn the page for line-by-line commentary.
Continue reading HPOA to Oppose O’Farrell/Ryu Motion on Tree-Trimming. Kerry Morrison: This is Overkill. John Tronson: I’m Having a Fundraiser for Mitch; I will Talk to Him. Mark Echevarria: What the Fuck is a Tree Surgeon?! Hurr Hurr Hurr

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Answer to Chua v. City of L.A. Filed, Court Orders Scheduling Conference for September 12, 2016

California-centralSee this article from the LA Times and our previous post on the subject for the background to this post.

On June 1 the City of Los Angeles filed its response to the the initial complaint. I don’t have much to say about it. They deny everything and put forth a few affirmative defenses which all pretty much amount to “they didn’t actually accuse us of anything so we must not have done it.” Also, in some other routine news, Judge John Kronstadt issued an order just today setting a scheduling conference for September 12 at 1:30 p.m.1 This doesn’t mean much, except I think once this conference is set up the parties are meant to get serious about discovery, which, at least in the last few federal cases I’ve been following, has been an exciting time pleadingswise.
Continue reading Answer to Chua v. City of L.A. Filed, Court Orders Scheduling Conference for September 12, 2016

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City of Los Angeles to Pay Almost a Million Dollars, Half to Carol Sobel, in Lavan Case and also Pete White and Hamid Khan v. City of LA

Carol Sobel (on right) is making a good living forcing the City of Los Angeles to pay for its nasty addiction to tormenting the homeless.  Have they hit bottom yet?  It doesn't look like it.
Carol Sobel (on right) is making a good living forcing the City of Los Angeles to pay for its nasty addiction to tormenting the homeless. Have they hit bottom yet? It doesn’t look like it.
According to an excellent article in yesterday’s Times by the incomparable Emily Alpert Reyes, the City Council agreed to pay out $947,000 in settlements in two cases brought by civil rights lawyer Carol Sobel. The article didn’t have much detail on either the cases or where the money was going, so I thought I’d fill some of it in here.

The first case is Lavan v. City of Los Angeles. I reported last December that this case seemed to be nearing settlement, and there was more news on this in March. Well, yesterday the Council approved Motion 16-0397, which authorizes the payment of $322,000 to Carol Sobel in legal fees and $500,000 for other purposes which aren’t clear from the motion. Nothing has hit PACER yet, so I don’t know how to get the rest of the story, but you’ll see it here as soon as I get some. You may want to subscribe to the Council file to keep up to date.

The second case is really interesting, and I haven’t written on it before. Evidently, in 2005 the Central City East Association began sponsoring tours of Skid Row for “…public officials, law enforcement, members of the judiciary, students, academics, local business owners, social service providers, and the media” so they can “…see for themselves and learn about the challenges, not through a windshield, but from the experience of walking through [Skid Row] and interacting with social service representatives, police, residents and business owners.”1 (Here is the 9th Circuit opinion on which this summary is based).
Continue reading City of Los Angeles to Pay Almost a Million Dollars, Half to Carol Sobel, in Lavan Case and also Pete White and Hamid Khan v. City of LA

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How to Destroy a Business Improvement District in California: A Theory

This would be an effective, emotionally satisfying, and poetically just way to get rid of business improvement districts, but I'm hoping for something a little more environmentally friendly.
This would be an effective, emotionally satisfying, and poetically just way to get rid of business improvement districts, but I’m hoping for something a little more environmentally friendly.
DISCLAIMER: I’m not a lawyer. But I’m friends with some lawyers. More than zero of them did not laugh out loud at the idea you’re about to read. That’s all I got.

Business improvement districts in California are made possible by the Property & Business Improvement District Law of 1994.1 It’s worth reading, or at least skimming through, because there’s gold in them thar hills! For instance, consider Section 36670(a)(1), which states:

36670.(a) Any district established or extended pursuant to the provisions of this part … may be disestablished by resolution by the city council in either of the following circumstances:

(1) If the city council finds there has been misappropriation of funds, malfeasance, or a violation of law in connection with the management of the district, it shall notice a hearing on disestablishment.

Do you see the potential in that statement? The fact that it’s a tool for laying waste the BIDs of Los Angeles like so many Philistines? It’s a little hard to understand statutes, but here’s a clue: when they say “shall” they mean “must,” not “can.” Now turn the page to find out why this little statute, if not more powerful than Doug Henning and his sparkly rainbow suspenders as pictured above, is possibly as effective a BID repellent but much, much more emotionally satisfying than mere poofsly-woofsly magical annihilation.
Continue reading How to Destroy a Business Improvement District in California: A Theory

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Update on the Question of Why BID Security Patrols Aren’t Registered with the Los Angeles Police Commission

Richard Tefank, Executive Director of the LA Police Commission.
Richard Tefank, Executive Director of the LA Police Commission.
I have some new information about, although not an answer to, the question, which I wrote about last week, of why BID security patrols aren’t registered with the Los Angeles Police Commission even though LAMC 52.34 would seem to require registration. If this is the first time you’re hearing about this, you should read that post first for background.

First of all, I exchanged a number of emails with William Jones, a senior management analyst with the LAPD permit processing section. He directed me to Officer Vicencio in the Police Commission’s Enforcement section. Vicencio was on vacation last week, but I finally got a chance to speak to him on the phone. He told me that BID Patrols were exempt from the LAMC 52.34 requirement because state law exempted them. He did not know what section of state law exempted them. He also told me that “about fifteen years ago” the City Attorney issued an opinion stating that BID Patrols were not subject to the registration requirement. He said that any private security firm that was under contract to the City or had an MOU with the City was not required to register.
Continue reading Update on the Question of Why BID Security Patrols Aren’t Registered with the Los Angeles Police Commission

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