Venice Beach BID Hearing Roundup: Bonin Jettisons Deference, Implicatively Slams Hollywood, Downtown BIDs: “There’ve Been Good BIDs And There’ve Been Bad BIDs” And Hollywood? And Downtown? Not Good BIDs. Wesson/Englander Totalitarian Style Almost Causes Third Do-Over

November 8, 2016 Mike Leave a comment

A battle-weary Mike Bonin graciously acknowledges his ultimate victory this afternoon at the Venice Beach BID hearing.

Quick summary: Venice Beach BID hearing in August was messed up due to habitual arrogance of City Council. Heroic civil rights lawyer calls bullshit. City Attorney sees potential liability for City and advises a do-over. A bunch of other shenanigans, too many to name-check at this point, ensue. This morning the do-over hearing was held. You can watch it here on YouTube.

So everyone made their comments, and they weren’t all that different from the first time, although Mike Bonin managed not to lose his shit and compare the BID opposition to Trump supporters.¹ But nevertheless, there were a few surprising moments. Recall that the first hearing was invalidated because third-smartest-guy-in-the-room Herb Wesson cut off public comment too early. So this time, Mitch Englander, who is Council president pro tem,² after all the speaker cards had been called, announced to the world at large:³

Mitch Englander on the dais getting whispered advice from a deputy city attorney. What does it say about our City that almost 15% of our Councilmembers are named Mitch? Nothing good, friends, nothing good.

I wanna be extra careful on this one given the problems with the last public hearing. Is there anybody here who filled out a card or tried to speak or [unintelligible] has not been heard yet?

And then the other one, Wesson or Englander, seeing that sanest of habitual gadflies, Eric Preven, indicating that he would like to speak, announced:

Ah, Mr. Preven, you actually spoke to the Council already for your maximum of three minutes per the Council rules.

And Preven said no. And everyone in the room wondered whether they were really going to take the risk of messing everything up for a second time just to prevent Eric Preven from speaking for one more minute after we’d all been there almost an hour already. Well, the Deputy City Attorney told the two prezzes to CTFO, and they folded, for Christ’s sake, and let Eric Preven speak.

But far more interesting than that was Bonin’s victory speech.⁴ In particular, maybe since he was feeling a little conciliatory, he said:
Continue reading Venice Beach BID Hearing Roundup: Bonin Jettisons Deference, Implicatively Slams Hollywood, Downtown BIDs: “There’ve Been Good BIDs And There’ve Been Bad BIDs” And Hollywood? And Downtown? Not Good BIDs. Wesson/Englander Totalitarian Style Almost Causes Third Do-Over →

Business Improvement Districts, Historical and Theoretical Perspectives

Central Avenue Historic BID May Provide Insight Into The Process By Which BIDs Evolved From Whatever They Were Originally Conceived To Be Into Weaponized Shock Troops Of The Zillionaire Real-Estate Power Elite

November 7, 2016 Mike Leave a comment

Sherri Franklin of the Urban Design Center, consultant to the Central Avenue Historic BID, speaks at the November 2, 2016 meeting of the Board of Directors. I apologize for the crappy image quality. I didn’t plan to film.

After I spent some time looking into the Central Avenue Historic BID in the context of potential political goals for the post-approval Venice Beach BID, I thought it would be interesting to learn more about this newborn BID.⁵ The meetings are held at CD9’s district office at 4301 S. Central,⁶ so on a very pleasant evening last Thursday, I took the 210 out of Hollywood to MLK and Crenshaw, where I boarded the 705 to Central and Vernon from whence a couple blocks North on Central to watch the Board of Directors conduct their business.⁷ The meeting was scheduled to start at 5:30, but that evidently included some preliminaries, because when I got there at about 10 to 6⁸ they hadn’t started yet.

Anyway, take a look at the agenda. You can see that they’re talking about the kind of things that one would expect BIDs to talk about from, e.g., reading the Wikipedia page on BIDs,⁹ like branding and marketing, cleaning the streets, having Halloween events, and so on. And watch this short clip of the meeting.¹⁰ That’s Sherri Franklin of the Urban Design Center, the BID consultant, who also seems to be functioning as executive director, talking about some kind of partnership the BID’s working on with Hollywood Community Housing Corporation involving affordable housing at the corner of Central and Jefferson.¹¹

Allan Muhammad, security director for the Central Avenue Historic District BID.

And then you can watch here as BID security director Allan Muhammad introduces his employees, and then they proceed to hand out sample Halloween bags to everyone in the room. They didn’t once discuss custodial arrests, handcuffs, social engineering, mass relocations, self-aggrandizing 5150 holds, or any of the other hard-edged tactics of which the City’s older and ever so much more dangerous BIDs are so enamored. And even though I only got 15 minutes on tape of the 90 minutes I was there¹² they didn’t really have anything objectionable to say even during the parts of the meeting I didn’t record. They talked about parking, they talked about their phone bills, they talked about how it was hard for the BID to patronize local businesses because they mostly only accepted cash.¹³

Could this be what a BID looks like as BIDs were intended to look? Well, the very question is based on a false assumption. And there were foreshadowings of bad news to come. And on the way home, and for the last few days, it’s got me thinking about what BIDs were meant to be,¹⁴how BIDs¹⁵ evolve under selective pressure, and how it’s probably inevitable that this BID is going to end up like the worst of the Downtown BIDs, the worst of the Hollywood BIDs. The short version is that BIDs probably started out as helpful tools, but as a wise woman once said, “every tool is a weapon if you hold it right.” So turn the page if you’re still interested…
Continue reading Central Avenue Historic BID May Provide Insight Into The Process By Which BIDs Evolved From Whatever They Were Originally Conceived To Be Into Weaponized Shock Troops Of The Zillionaire Real-Estate Power Elite →

Business Improvement Districts, Los Angeles City Government, Public Records Act Pragmatics

Crucial Breakthrough In Anti-BID CPRA Pragmatics From City Clerk: Miranda Paster Accepts My Argument And Thereby Releases Mailing List For South Los Angeles Industrial Tract BID!

November 7, 2016 Mike Leave a comment

Standard Plating at 826 E 62nd Street in the South Los Angeles Industrial Tract BID.

One of the primary problems faced by anti-BID activists is that it is next to impossible to find out how to get in touch with the property owners involved in the BID. It’s politically necessary to do so because as matters stand now they are the only people who can get rid of a BID, so we have to be able to send them propaganda.¹⁶ This problem was crucial in the (ongoing) struggle against the Venice Beach BID,¹⁷ with both the City and CD11 claiming that the mailing list was not a public record. I chipped away and chipped away at this and finally, a couple months ago, Miranda Paster accepted my arguments and handed over the list.

For technical reasons, though, that victory was not applicable to BIDs in general.¹⁸ You can read the details in the above-linked-to post. So the next step is to find a way to get a mailing list for any BID. This is still ongoing, but today another one of my intermediate, more restricted, strategies was successful. It’s based on this June 15, 2015 report from Miranda Paster to Holly Wolcott.¹⁹ The crucial bit is the statement that:

On June 18, 2015, staff mailed out notice of public hearing and ballot packages for the renewal of the South Los Angeles Industrial Tract and Granada Hills Business Improvement District and notice of public meeting and public hearing for the renewal of the Los Angeles Tourism Marketing District.

Recall that for months, Miranda Paster put me off the mailing list for the Venice Beach BID by claiming that it was the property of shadowy BID consultant Tara Devine and not, therefore, a public record. Thus the success of these requests hinges on the precise definition of what a public record is, and for that and subsequent discussion, you have to turn the page.
Continue reading Crucial Breakthrough In Anti-BID CPRA Pragmatics From City Clerk: Miranda Paster Accepts My Argument And Thereby Releases Mailing List For South Los Angeles Industrial Tract BID! →

Announcements, Hollywood Property Owners Alliance

The Hollywood Property Owners Alliance Domain Has Expired And Is Parked At Godaddy And We Are Gaining Even More Internet Credibilities Over The Poor Sad Little BID Peoples Of The Hollywood Property Owners Alliance!

November 6, 2016 Trina Leave a comment

Screenshots or it did not happen!! Friends, this is what it looks like to be a loser on the Internets! It is bad enough that you even register your domain with Godaddy, but if you let it expire and get parked for all the world to see?! Losers! Losers squared!! Losers to the power of n, friends!!!

Good morning, friends!! It has been almost exactly two months since last I wrote to you with technical-geek-news about the successes and winnerousness of your heroes here at MK.org relative to the failures and loserosity of your zeroes over there at the Hollywood Property Owners Alliance. Well, things are going from bad for them to worse for them and from better for us to really really exceedingly better for us!

First of all, they have let their domain expire! See it parked at Godaddy in the screenshot above. Now, this is probably not a permanent situation. Indeed, their whois record from this morning shows that the domain was renewed yesterday, and I suppose it will once again point at their website as soon as the DNS records propagate. However, things must be all falling to pieces over there for this even to have happened. Kerry Morrison has long been the kind of leader about whom even her detractors will concede that she will keep the metaphorical trains running on time, and keeping a domain name registered is one of the simplest trains of all. Is there not autorenewal at Godaddy? Did someone let their credit card expire? Enquiring minds wanna to know!²⁰ Of course, even without evidence we are happy to take credit for this lapse and any other chaos they may be experiencing over there at their secret headquarters. They are like those little bugs that scurry all about when their subterranean antics are exposed to public view by having their rock lifted up by curious students of slimy undergrounditude!

And as long as I am writing about this domain name expiry drama, I thought I would take another look at their Alexa rankings in relation to our Alexa rankings. You may recall that two months ago they were doing badly and we were doing betterly. In particular, they were at 682,470 in the U.S. and we were at 657,525. Furthermore, we were at 4,630,498 in the world.²¹ Well, now check it out!
Continue reading The Hollywood Property Owners Alliance Domain Has Expired And Is Parked At Godaddy And We Are Gaining Even More Internet Credibilities Over The Poor Sad Little BID Peoples Of The Hollywood Property Owners Alliance! →

Announcements, Venice Beach BID

The Venice Beach BID Hearing Is Scheduled For November 8, 2016 At 10 A.M. And Here Is Some Anti-BID Material That’s Being Circulated

November 5, 2016 Mike Leave a comment

If you’ve been following the story of the Venice Beach BID at all you will know that the first hearing that the City held on this matter was shown to be invalid via some sharp lawyering by superhero public interest attorney Shayla Myers and that subsequently the City had to call a complete do-over of the process. Well, the time for the do-over hearing is rapidly approaching. It will be held at City Hall on Tuesday, November 8, at 10 a.m. If you can fit it in I hope you can show up and voice your opposition.

And your opposition is being heard by the City. For instance, City Clerk Holly Wolcott was recently quoted in the Argonaut to the effect that

… the drama surrounding the Venice Beach BID is unprecedented. “Since I’ve been in office, we’ve never seen the level of turnout we had for the BID nor had a BID ordinance repealed for these reasons,” she said.

Whether or not we’re ultimately successful in preventing this BID²² is less important than to show the City that they can no longer expect that their BID-building shenanigans will unfold unopposed in the quiet of their formerly smoke-filled back rooms. It’s important to show them that what Wolcott thinks is an anomaly may well be the new normal.

Finally, as they have been doing all along, the fine folks at Venice Community Housing are leaders in the anti-BID movement, and they’ve produced and/or distributed some useful information, to which you can find links after the break.
Continue reading The Venice Beach BID Hearing Is Scheduled For November 8, 2016 At 10 A.M. And Here Is Some Anti-BID Material That’s Being Circulated →

Municipal Ethics, Public Records Act Pragmatics

California Government Code Section 1222 Is A New (To Us) Governmental Integrity Law Of Which Chad Molnar’s CPRA Shenanigans Constitute A Violation, Making Him Not Only Unethical But An Actual Criminal And Potentially Even Subject To Citizen’s Arrest!!

November 4, 2016 Mike Leave a comment

Chad Molnar in June 2016, just smiling away because it hasn't yet occurred to him that he is going to jail. — Chad Molnar in June 2016, just smiling away because it hasn’t yet occurred to him that he is going to jail.

Perhaps you’ve been following along with our LAMC 49.5.5(A) project, in which we turn various City officials and employees in to the LA City Ethics Commission for violating that most lovely government accountability ordinance, LAMC 49.5.5(A) by misusing their positions in various ways. Well, just recently, via the fine folks at the Coalition to Preserve L.A., I learned of a possibly even more funner law, which may allow City employees not only to get fined by the CEC for violating CPRA, but actually locked up for it! Ladies and gentlemen, loyal MK.Org readers, may I present to you the stunning law known to the world as California Government Code Section 1222, which states in full:

Every wilful omission to perform any duty enjoined by law upon any public officer, or person holding any public trust or employment, where no special provision is made for the punishment of such delinquency, is punishable as a misdemeanor.

The potential here is astounding. You see, there is “no special provision…made for the punishment of” a failure to comply with CPRA. This is in contrast to, e.g., the Brown Act, which does contain a clause making certain kinds of violations misdemeanors.²³ However, the duty to comply with CPRA is “enjoined by law upon” public officers. For instance, the California Constitution at Article I, section 3(b) states pretty unequivocally that:

In order to ensure public access to the meetings of public bodies and the writings of public officials and agencies, as specified in paragraph (1), each local agency is hereby required to comply with the California Public Records Act …

Now, this law requires²⁴ that the failure to act be wilful. But, of course, that’s where we have Chad Molnar dead to rights. If you didn’t read the whole story, you can at least read the smoking gun, in which Chad Molnar actually states explicitly that he’s not going to comply with CPRA and that he doesn’t think he has to comply. And note that this is not just him not complying with some vague part of the law, proof of violation of which would require a fact-finder, but him not complying with objectively clear, explicitly mandated, response deadlines. He just flat-out says he’s not going to respond as required. It’s hard to imagine a more wilful violation than that.

So anyway, as soon as possible, I hope this weekend, I’m going to write up a complaint and figure out what to do with it. Perhaps I’ll try the neighborhood prosecutor in Venice. They do handle misdemeanors, after all. This probably won’t work so well, and then I’ll send it to Jackie Lacey’s Public Integrity Division. I’ll keep you up-to-date. And if you’re still interested, turn the page for even more wildly uninformed speculation.²⁵ Continue reading California Government Code Section 1222 Is A New (To Us) Governmental Integrity Law Of Which Chad Molnar’s CPRA Shenanigans Constitute A Violation, Making Him Not Only Unethical But An Actual Criminal And Potentially Even Subject To Citizen’s Arrest!! →

Business Improvement Districts, Public Records Act Pragmatics

David Ryu’s Staff Evidently Considered and Rejected Lisa Schechter’s and Media District BID’s (Illegal, Unethical) Plea For A Council Motion Regarding Oversize Vehicle Parking In February 2016

November 3, 2016 Mike Leave a comment

Lisa Schechter in February 2016, right around the time that David Ryu's staff was quite sensibly deciding to ignore her illegal and unethical lobbying to ban RV's in the Media District. — Lisa Schechter in February 2016, right around the time that David Ryu’s staff was quite sensibly deciding to ignore her illegal and unethical lobbying to attack homeless people by banning RVs in the Media District.

Recall that in August 2016, Mitch O’Farrell and Mike Bonin introduced a motion in Council to attack the homeless by prohibiting RVs from parking overnight in the Media District BID. This was as a result of lobbying by Lisa Schechter, now executive directrix of the Hollywood Media District BID, but formerly Tom LaBonge’s high muckety-muck for something or another. The full story is here. At the time I wondered why David Ryu hadn’t seconded the motion, given that (a) Schechter had lobbied him heavily to do so, and (b) a significant part of the Media District BID is in CD4:

[His non-involvement] suggests the possibility that Ryu isn’t as invested in pleasing these BIDdies as O’Farrell is. Or maybe he’s sitting it out because his staff has made him aware that Schechter’s up to something sneaky.

Well, I recently obtained emails from CD4 that bear on the matter. These are heavily redacted, but interestingly, as is sometimes the case, the redactions themselves tell part of the story.
Continue reading →

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Monthly Archives: November 2016