Background: You can read my previous stories on the Skid Row Neighborhood Council formation effort and also see Jason McGahan’s article in the Weekly and Gale Holland’s article in the Times for more mainstream perspectives.

Some of you may know Chris Loos, web designer to zillionaires, or at least to their zombie marionette cheerleaders slash anti-homeless hit squad over at the Central City East Association. He and his asshole buddy Steve Sharp¹ run this zillionaire-front post-ethical propaganda outlet known as Urbanize.LA which is mostly famous for having published a Loos-lipped slab of crapola-deluxe about the Skid Row Neighborhood Council. Skid Row Voodoo Queen Estela Lopez was so pleased with Loos’s work that she fired off an email to her co-conspirators on the very day of its publication drawing their attention to it.

And I’m sure Estela Lopez was impressed by the ease with which Loos pulled off the fairly accomplished feat of taking her propaganda talking points and spreading them out over various sources so as to make it appear that she was speaking with four independent voices. Subsequently she rewarded him by letting him join the top secret conspiracy against the SRNC. Oh, what fun the zillionaires have Downtown! How very incestuous are their frolics! Turn the page for the sordid details.

Take a look at these quotes from the article in question:

• “According to a 2015 Central City East Association (CCEA) study, the area is home to 600 businesses and 5,600 jobs.” — Quotes Central City East Association, which is the Property Owners’ Association that runs the Downtown Industrial District BID. Estela Lopez is executive director of the CCEA.
• “Industrial District BID leadership was also sharply critical of the lack of outreach efforts with Executive Director Estela Lopez laying equal blame with the SRNC formation committee and City Hall. “This is the first subdivision election in the city’s history, and the City left outreach efforts entirely to the applicants- who by their own admission have few resources.” — Quotes Estela Lopez but falsely refers to her as the ED of the Industrial District BID. Of course, she is the ED of the CCEA, who he quoted previously. This makes it appear as if these are unrelated organizations. Not only are they not, but in a technical sense² the BID isn’t even an organization.³ Tangentially, it’s a bit rich hearing Estela Lopez talking about how no one knew about the damn SRNC election. She, batty little fusspot Blair Besten of the Historic Core BID, and shadowy downtown zillionaire Michael Delijani famously sought a meeting with Jose Huizar on January 12, 2017, just one day after the SRNC election was certified. She knew about it, therefore, on the first day it was possible to know about it. It’s almost as if Estela Lopez created a situation around which she could portray herself as an aggrieved victim and thereby produce effective propaganda for her clients.
• ““The property owners in our district that would be directly affected by a Skid Row Neighborhood Council were not informed until about 10 days ago.” commented Rena Masten Leddy, Executive Director of the Fashion District BID.” — Quotes Rena Masten Leddy, who, famously, had been meeting with Estela Lopez and Rockard Delgadillo about the SRNC and whose statement here was parroting talking points worked out mere days before by Estela Lopez in cahoots with the Queen of Downtown herself, Carol Schatz. A transcription of this very interesting email is provided below.⁴
• “Indeed, the City’s Department of Neighborhood Empowerment (DONE) made some head-scratching decisions in approving SRNC’s application and outreach plan. Initially, voting was to be constrained to a single in-person polling location in the heart of Skid Row, for a four-hour window during business hours.” — This is Chris Loos himself, editorializing on his blog but somehow also managing to parrot the propaganda of his client and patroness Estela Lopez.

And isn’t that lovely? It’s the sham-journalist equivalent of 1.34 hat tricks. It’s shameful. If he wrote for a real news source, one with ethical guidelines, he would be fired for this trick of making one source’s talking points seem as if they came from four independent voices.

And with what magic charms and conjuring did Estela Lopez reward her valiant knight? Why, she added him to her United DTLA conspiracy mailing list! It’s true. Chris Loos wasn’t on the recipient list of any of the emails sent before April 1, 2017, but was on bunches of them sent that day and later. Just for instance, here’s one of the emails from March 31 which does not have Chris Loos on the list of recipients, whereas here is one from the very next day which does have.

To us mortals, poor souls who earn our bread by the sweat of our brows and so forth, it may not seem like much of a reward to be included into this conspiracy, to cahoot with zillionaires in emaillandia. But oh, it is! Chris Loos and Chris Loos’s ilk are the remoras of the zillionaire real estate ecology. Their diet is made up of the feces of their sharkish hosts,⁵ and without proximity, without access, to the source they will starve. And that, friends, is the story of that disgraceful episode!

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Transcription of March 23, 2017 email from Estela Lopez to Carol Schatz announcing United DTLA talking points:

Hi there. Spent all day on CPRA issues. Sorry that this is so late… and honestly just a start. There are others more gifted than me who can do a better job at this. But here are a few lines that may inspire others to build on the themes. Hope this helps.

Downtown is a mosaic of cultures and backgrounds. We live, work and play together. We are ONE Downtown. Better together. Stronger together.

On April 6, an important decision about the future of Downtown LA is at stake…… And YOU are not informed!

There’s been no notice, no information, no publicity about this important vote affecting the future of Downtown LA.

Whatever your point of view, we are being rushed to make a serious decision without understanding what we are voting for or against.

Should the area between Main and Alameda, Third and Seventh Streets, be its own separate neighborhood council? Is this area going to have a voice as part of the greater Downtown, or only in Skid Row?

If you are involved in Downtown LA anywhere between the Convention Center and Dodger Stadium, you can vote in this election. But did you even know an election was taking place that may affect Downtown LA for years to come?

How could this happen?

It WILL happen. The City has approved it. Now we must take action. Vote in person or online. The solution is not to divide us. Vote NO.

Estela Lopez

And the Schatzian response?

I think these are quite good. Thank you.

Carol E. Schatz

The image of ye olde fedora-bro Chris Loos with which the top of this post is adorned is ©2017 MichaelKohlhaas.Org, mashed up right and proper outta this little slab of internet detritus.

1. Who has a Kindel Gagan email address, by the way, which you can learn from any number of the emails between the Downtown Center BID and various parties recently released. In particular, see this little number from Bob Newman, Mr. DTLA Supervillain of 2017, to the whole conspiracy, including Steve Sharp and his Kindel Gagan email address, about some characteristically nefarious Bob-Newman-esque ethics-free bullshit involving tables, farmers markets, the Historic Core. That is to say, some of the familiar tools of his bloody trade.
2. The Property and Business Improvement District Law of 1994 defines a BID as a geographical area within which commercial property owners are assessed extra money. The law at §36612 requires the money from each BID to be administered by a non-profit corporation known as the Property Owners’ Association. In the instant case, the Downtown Industrial District is the BID; it’s the actual land area in Skid Row, and the CCEA is the property owners’ association. Estela Lopez is the executive director of the CCEA, not of the BID.
3. This is a common tactic among BIDdies who are trying to hide the fact that they’re a bunch of sockpuppets. You may recall that time in 2015 when Hollywood BIDdies spoke at public meetings on street vending and identified themselves four different ways even though they were all from the same BID.
4. It’s barely plausible that Chris Loos didn’t know about this particular connection, but given his cozy relationship with Estela Lopez; she’s a client of his web design business and has been for a long time, it’s not more than barely so.
5. Probably mostly metaphorically, but there aren’t enough facts available to be sure.