Open Letters to Nine Los Angeles City Council Members, Mayor Eric Garcetti, and Controller Ron Galperin Asking Them To Recuse From The Venice Beach BID Formation Process And To Return Tainted Donations

There aren't nearly enough pictures of Ron Galperin on this blog.
There aren’t nearly enough pictures of Ron Galperin on this blog.
You may recall that I’ve been writing about potentially illegal campaign contributions made by Venice Beach BID propenents Mark Sokol and Carl Lambert. That’s the supply side. Tonight I’m hitting up the demand side. Here are PDFs of three letters I sent this evening (all cc-ed to Mike Feuer just in case), and you can read the one to the nine sitting members of the City Council who accepted donations from Sokol and Lambert below. I hope to have a complaint in to the City Ethics Commission by the end of the week.

September 17, 2016

Honorable Los Angeles City Councilmembers Krekorian, Bonin, Harris-Dawson, Huizar, Martinez, Ryu, Price, Cedillo, and Koretz:

I am writing to urge you to recuse yourself from the upcoming vote on the Venice Beach BID ordinance of intention and from all future matters concerning Council File 16-0749.
Continue reading Open Letters to Nine Los Angeles City Council Members, Mayor Eric Garcetti, and Controller Ron Galperin Asking Them To Recuse From The Venice Beach BID Formation Process And To Return Tainted Donations

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“We Save Lives Out Here, We Don’t Harass Lives!” The Heavily Armed Self-Proclaimed Mother Teresa of Hollywood, Ms. Kerry Morrison, Flips Out About “Concerning” LA Times Editorial, Proposes to Head Over To First And Spring And Teach That Editorial Board A Lesson!

Brigadier General Kerry Morrison using her brand-new dry-erase map of Hollywood to plot further invasions, conquests, and occupations-by-force-of-arms.
Brigadier General Kerry Morrison using her brand-new dry-erase map of Hollywood to plot further invasions, conquests, and occupations-by-force-of-arms.
Remember this editorial in the L.A. Times about the Venice Beach BID? I posted on it a couple weeks ago because whoever wrote it1 took City Attorney spokesman Rob Wilcox at his unsupported and unsupportable word that BID security somehow wasn’t allowed to arrest people for sitting on the sidewalk in violation of the despicable LAMC 41.18(d). Well, anyway, evidently “Two-gun” Kerry Morrison of the Hollywood Property Owners Alliance read an editorial with the same title but, perhaps because her copy of the paper comes from Bizarro World, radically different content. The one I read said, quite sensibly:

We’re glad that property owners around Venice Beach care about their community and that they’re willing to pay extra to improve the neighborhood. But when it comes to the homeless, they must decide whether they want to be part of the solution or part of the problem. If the ambassadors are going to constitute a de facto private security force, their job should not be to hassle the homeless in an effort to move them pointlessly from corner to corner or to push them out of the neighborhood so that they become another jurisdiction’s problem.

So watch and listen here to HPOA Executive Director Ms. Kerry Morrison’s cri de coeur about how UNFAIR this is to her and her heavily armed BID Patrol buddies!! Or if you prefer, as always, there’s a transcription after the break. And she said:

There was a very concerning editorial in the L.A. Times two weeks ago. … And what’s concerning about it is that it kind of suggests that when BIDs get involved in addressing homeless issues that it’s basically a harassment mindset.
Continue reading “We Save Lives Out Here, We Don’t Harass Lives!” The Heavily Armed Self-Proclaimed Mother Teresa of Hollywood, Ms. Kerry Morrison, Flips Out About “Concerning” LA Times Editorial, Proposes to Head Over To First And Spring And Teach That Editorial Board A Lesson!

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Steve Heumann, Carl Lambert, and Mark Sokol Finally Revealed By Debbie Dyner Harris to Constitute Venice Beach Property Owners Association Board Of Directors; Sokol’s Five Figure Campaign Contributions To Nine Of Fourteen Sitting Council Members Raise Ethical, Criminal Issues

Mike Bonin 2013 Campaign ad showing candidate with high-roller campaign contributors Mark Sokol and Carl Lambert.
Mike Bonin 2013 Campaign ad showing candidate with high-roller campaign contributors Mark Sokol and Carl Lambert.
I reported a couple of weeks ago that as late as two months ago, Mike Bonin aide Debbie Dyner Harris had refused to tell Becky Dennison of Venice Community Housing the names of the three members of the Board of Directors of the Venice Beach Property Owners Association. Dyner Harris even sent an email to shadowy BID consultant Tara Devine asking for permission to share the names, which Devine evidently didn’t give, because Dyner Harris didn’t give up the names. Well, I’ve been asking CD11 for the names as well, and after a long three weeks, for whatever reason, Debbie Dyner Harris emailed me this morning and told me that the Board of Directors presently consists of Steve Heumann, Carl Lambert, and Mark Sokol.

Steve Heumann was not a surprise, as his name appears as agent for service of process on the POA’s registration with the State.1 But the other two are of great interest indeed. I recently wrote about how Carl Lambert’s campaign contributions to Mike Bonin and Eric Garcetti probably violated City campaign finance laws, but that argument wouldn’t fly if he weren’t on the Board. Since he is, I’ll be reporting him to the City Ethics Commission in the next few days.

But Mark Sokol’s case is even more fascinating. Recall that the POA has been meeting with the City about the BID at least since September 2014. Well, take a look at all of Sokol’s contributions since then. They add up to $10,750. The output of the City’s database lists each contribution separately, but here are the totals:
Continue reading Steve Heumann, Carl Lambert, and Mark Sokol Finally Revealed By Debbie Dyner Harris to Constitute Venice Beach Property Owners Association Board Of Directors; Sokol’s Five Figure Campaign Contributions To Nine Of Fourteen Sitting Council Members Raise Ethical, Criminal Issues

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Revealed: Why The City Always Votes Yes on BID Formation. Also Some Speculation On The Shady Reasons Why The City Prefers Property-Based BIDs Over Merchant-Based BIDs Despite The Fact That They Instantiate Peak White Supremacy

Holly Wolcott explaining why she votes.
Holly Wolcott explaining why she votes.
You may recall that last month I raised the question of where the City Clerk gets the authority to vote all of the City’s property in favor of establishing BIDs. That the Clerk does this is undisputed. It’s so reliable that BID proponents are famous for gerrymandering in as much City property as possible to improve their chances of hitting the 50.1% approval needed to start the BID formation process.

Well, of course, I filed a CPRA request on the matter and Miranda Paster, however conflicted her interests may be when it comes to her darling baby BIDs, is by far one of the most reliable and honest City officials with whom I deal with respect to public records, yesterday pointed me to the now twenty year old Council File 96-1972. This file is too old to have documents online1 but there are some summary notes on what went on. In particular, the ordinance passed includes an instruction2 to:

REQUIRE the City Clerk to sign off on Proposition 2183 ballots and support petitions for property-based BIDs, unless the Council directs otherwise.

So I was right. There had to be a law, and there is a law. It’s pleasant to speculate on the possibility of exploiting this to add some democratic sauce to the BID formation process. For instance, as I’ve suggested before, it would be much more fair to let residents of the BID area vote on BID formation and apportion the City’s ballots proportionally to the wishes of the residents. This wouldn’t be perfect, but it would be far, far more fair that what’s done now. Of course given the degree to which our Council worships BIDs, and given the wildly disproportionate influence that BIDs have on City policy, this is not likely to happen except through the courts. As I said, though, it’s nice to think about.
Continue reading Revealed: Why The City Always Votes Yes on BID Formation. Also Some Speculation On The Shady Reasons Why The City Prefers Property-Based BIDs Over Merchant-Based BIDs Despite The Fact That They Instantiate Peak White Supremacy

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Miranda Paster Finally Gives Up Venice Beach BID Property Owners Mailing List! Five Months Of Nagging Pays Off!! This Has Huge Implications For Future Anti-BID Activism!!!

Set free by the truth to fly high on Venice Beach!!
Set free by the truth to fly high on Venice Beach!!
If you’ve been following the story of the Venice Beach BID here, you’ll recall that no one involved wants to give me a copy of the mailing list used to send out the various legally required notices to the property owners. You can check the background here and another episode in the saga here. Well, amazingly, my last argument was effective, and after what I think1 was months worth of noodging, Miranda Paster finally gave in and sent me an actual mailing list with actual mailing addresses of the property owners.

This is huge, so I’m linking to it again:

Anyway, I hope the list will be useful to Venice activists in their anti-BID campaign. Not that many property owners even voted, so it’s possible that sending letters encouraging anti-BID property owners to vote will be enough to sink the BID’s next iteration. If you’re interested in the technical details of the differences between this ultimately successful request and my earlier unsuccessful requests, turn the page and read on!
Continue reading Miranda Paster Finally Gives Up Venice Beach BID Property Owners Mailing List! Five Months Of Nagging Pays Off!! This Has Huge Implications For Future Anti-BID Activism!!!

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Save Valley Village Files Suit In Superior Court Against City of Los Angeles Alleging Corruption Via Vote Trading At City Council

Valley Village speaks truth to power.
Valley Village speaks truth to power.
Last Thursday, September 8, a group called Save Valley Village filed a petition with the LA County Superior Court (hat tip to Scott Zwartz at Zwartz Talk for breaking the story) alleging that the members of the Los Angeles City Council are violating not only their oaths of office, but a State law, when they pay one another “deference” by never voting against anything that any of them propose within their districts.

The whole thing is worth reading and will be totally convincing to anyone who has ever watched our Council in action. The fact that there is some covert agreement among the Councilmembers is transparently clear. Here’s how SVV’s complaint describes it:

The Councilmembers of the Los Angeles City Council operate according to an agreement, i.e. The Vote Trading Pact, not to Vote No on any Council Project in another council district and said agreement by its very terms requires reciprocality, also called mutuality, whereby the agreement not to Vote No by one Councilmember is given in exchange for the other Councilmember’s not to vote No on a Council Project in his/her council district. Some have described the Vote Trading Pact as an agreement to Vote Yes for all Council Projects, and it has been described as taking the format of, “If you scratch my back on my Council Projects, I will scratch your back on your Council Projects.” Others refer to the agreement as one of deferring or respecting the decision of the Councilmember in whose district the Council Project is located. All the phrases describe the same Vote Trading Pact.

Councilmember David Ryu has described the Vote Trading Pact as one of “respect” for other Councilmember’s Council Projects and in return he expects the same “respect” for his Council Projects.

“For someone to come in at the tail end and to disagree with my recommendation after meetings with the community on dozens of occasions and with other city departments and after I have involved stakeholders,” doesn’t make sense, he said. “I might make a decision…and my colleagues respect it. Even if they might disagree with my decision, they abide by it because they were not there during those community meetings.” Los Feliz Ledger September 1, 2016

Continue reading Save Valley Village Files Suit In Superior Court Against City of Los Angeles Alleging Corruption Via Vote Trading At City Council

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Lots of New Documents: CD5 Food Coalition Emails, CD13 HPOA Emails, Carol Schatz and Mike Feuer Material, 2016 Quarterly Reports From A Bunch Of BIDs

The subterranean archives at MK.org are filling up fast!
The subterranean archives at MK.org are filling up fast!
Just a quick post this fine Saturday morning before heading off to Canter’s for breakfast. I’ve been quietly uploading stuff to Archive.Org over the last few weeks, and there’s gotten to be quite a bit of unannounced material over there:

And turn the page for material to do with Carol Schatz, Mike Feuer, and a bunch of highly assorted quarterly BID reports from the first half of 2016.
Continue reading Lots of New Documents: CD5 Food Coalition Emails, CD13 HPOA Emails, Carol Schatz and Mike Feuer Material, 2016 Quarterly Reports From A Bunch Of BIDs

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Venice Justice Committee v. City of Los Angeles: Pregerson Denies Essential Part of Defendant’s Motion to Dismiss, Case Will Proceed

Not every clown on the Boardwalk is benign.
Not every clown on the Boardwalk is benign.
Last month Judge Dean Pregerson heard oral arguments on the City’s motion to dismiss this suit, filed by the Venice Justice Committee against the City of Los Angeles in opposition to its ham-fisted attempts to regulate speech on the Venice Boardwalk. Today he filed his order denying the motion to dismiss in part and granting it in part as well. Pregerson’s a lively writer, and the order makes interesting reading. There are three main issues addressed in the order.

First up, the City regulates vending on the Boardwalk in various ways, but contains an exception for soliciting donations and other activities protected by the First Amendment. Plaintiff Peggy Lee Kennedy was evidently told on a couple of occasions by LAPD officers that asking for donations was vending and that she had to stop or face arrest. Everyone agrees that these cops were in the wrong, but the question before the Court seems to have been whether the law “as applied” was unconstitutional. Pregerson found that it was not, and accordingly dismissed the parts of the complaint that had to do with that claim.

Second,1 the Plaintiffs made claims under the Bane Act, which allows people to sue if their constitutional rights were violated maliciously. Pregerson found that even assuming that the Plaintiffs’ constitutional rights were violated, they weren’t violated maliciously. I’m skipping some details, but that’s essentially why he also dismissed this cause of action.

Finally, and most interestingly, we come to the Plaintiffs’ claim that the City’s so-called Sunset Provisions are unconstitutional. This claim has to do with LAMC 42.15, which regulates vending and other activities at Venice Beach. In particular it states that “[n]o person shall set up or set down items in, take down items from or block, or attempt to reserve a Designated Space2 between Sunset and 9:00 am.”
Continue reading Venice Justice Committee v. City of Los Angeles: Pregerson Denies Essential Part of Defendant’s Motion to Dismiss, Case Will Proceed

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Miranda Paster, Subverter Of Arts District BID Alternatives: Some Of What $3000 Bought The BIDs of Los Angeles Over The Years And How She Got Temporarily “Bumped” Due To Allegations Of Conflict Of Interest

I can't find any usable pictures of Miranda Paster, so here's another picture of Holly Wolcott!
I can’t find any usable pictures of Miranda Paster, so here’s another picture of Holly Wolcott!
Miranda Paster is the director of the LA City Clerk’s Neighborhood and Business Improvement Division (NABID), which administers the City’s BID program. Her job description (updated in February 2014) includes among her duties presenting at the conferences of the International Downtown Association:1 …deliver formal presentations, including analyses and recommendations, to the City Council and its Committees and International Downtown Association Conferences…

The story begins in 2011,2 when BIDs gave Miranda Paster $3000 to attend the IDA’s 2011 annual conference in Charlotte, North Carolina. Take a look at this collection of emails and records of payments from 2011. These show that less than two weeks before the conference started, Paster was scrambling to get the money together to attend, but that she already had a commitment from the BIDs to pay $3000 (a log of the actual payments is included there). It seems that in 2011, Paster’s attendance at this conference was a new thing for her, as the financing was arranged in such a hurry. I’m guessing that at this point presenting at this conference was not yet part of Paster’s official duties. It’s a rare bureaucracy indeed which will not pay its employees’ expenses to carry out their duties. So the BIDs paid, buying at least a sense of obligation.

Unfortunately, IDA records of the 2011 conference don’t seem to show what Paster did there, but by the 2012 conference, held in Minneapolis, she was a panelist. This is interesting in itself. The panel, moderated by Rena Leddy, now of the Fashion District BID but then of Progressive Urban Management Associates, or PUMA,3 was entitled How Cities Encourage BIDs: Trends and Challenges.4 Here is a copy of a Power Point summary of the session, which is astonishing in its own right.5

Now, you may not be familiar with the story of the destruction and resurrection of the Arts District BID. It began in 2011 when Yuval Bar-Zemer of Linear City development initiated a campaign against the BID based on the theory that BID assessments used for marketing campaigns didn’t benefit assessed property owners in any way allowed under state law.6 A court case ensued, and in May 2013 Superior Court judge Robert O’Brien ordered the BID to dissolve.
Continue reading Miranda Paster, Subverter Of Arts District BID Alternatives: Some Of What $3000 Bought The BIDs of Los Angeles Over The Years And How She Got Temporarily “Bumped” Due To Allegations Of Conflict Of Interest

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Ordinance to Repeal Venice Beach BID Ordinance Hits Council File Tonight Along With City Attorney Report Confirming That Threat of LAFLA Lawsuit Caused City’s Retreat and Impending Do-Over

Don't let the sun set on joy in Venice.
Don’t let the sun set on joy in Venice.
Although it was widely reported last week that the scathing letter sent by LAFLA to the City of Los Angeles, which pointed out that the chaotic August 23 hearing held to solemnize the impending Venice Beach BID was fatally flawed, had played its appointed role as BID-destroyer, official confirmation was pretty much lacking. That is if you don’t, and I don’t, count Mike Bonin’s mealy-mouthed statement to that slithy den of lickspittle Ryaveckian six-fingered putanginamo morons known to the world as Yo! Venice. At least Venice, of all neighborhoods of Los Angeles, isn’t walking the BID-plank like a sheep.1 Anyway, tonight two documents hit the Venice Beach BID Council File which together confirm the whole thing officially for the first time.

There is a report from the City Attorney on the matter along with a draft ordinance repealing the original ordinance of intention and serving as a new ordinance of intention. The first document is by far the most interesting of the two, confirming as it does the role of the LAFLA letter. It also makes it clear that it wasn’t just the fact that LAFLA was right that convinced the City to retreat, but the fact that LAFLA was going to sue them. Thus the stick is mightier than the carrot, or whatever. You can read a selection after the break if you prefer that to clicking on the PDF:
Continue reading Ordinance to Repeal Venice Beach BID Ordinance Hits Council File Tonight Along With City Attorney Report Confirming That Threat of LAFLA Lawsuit Caused City’s Retreat and Impending Do-Over

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