Monthly Archives: October 2018

Fashion District BID, Public Records Act Pragmatics

Fashion District BID Files Timely Response To My Writ Petition — Denies Everything — World’s Angriest CPRA Lawyer Carol Humiston Handling Matters For Them — Trial Setting Conference On November 16, 2018 At 9:30 AM In Department 86 — Stanley Mosk Courthouse

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So you’ll remember possibly that in August I was forced by their unhinged intransigence to file a writ petition against the Fashion Freaking District BID asking a judge to boss them about until they began to comply with their statutorily mandated duties under the California Public Records Act. Well, it seems they’re not going to go quietly into that good night, so they went out and hired themselves the world’s angriest CPRA lawyer, which is to say Carol Freaking Humiston of Bradley & Freaking Gmelich, and she went and filed a timely response to my petition.

And you can read the damn thing by clicking here if you want to. But I have to say, as much as I enjoy reading legal pleadings of all varieties and subject matters, these replies leave me cold. Take a look and you’ll see. They deny everything, but they don’t even say what they’re denying. It’s all like “As to the allegations in paragraph 17, we deny the first three, state that the fourth and the ninth require no response insofar as they assert legal conclusions, and the fifth through the seventh, even if true, do not allege a violation. Insofar as we fail to deny, thus far do we admit.”
Continue reading Fashion District BID Files Timely Response To My Writ Petition — Denies Everything — World’s Angriest CPRA Lawyer Carol Humiston Handling Matters For Them — Trial Setting Conference On November 16, 2018 At 9:30 AM In Department 86 — Stanley Mosk Courthouse →

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Lawsuits, Los Angeles City Government, Venice

Venice Justice Committee Free Speech Lawsuit — City Of Los Angeles Settles — Agrees To Rewrite Beach Ordinance To Expressly Permit Leafletting, Petitioning, And So Forth On Boardwalk Until Midnight — And To Pay Carol Sobel $80,000 — When Will They Ever Learn?

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Peggy Lee Kennedy and the Venice Justice Committee advocate for the rights of homeless people on the Venice Boardwalk. The LAPD has regularly threatened Kennedy with arrest for illegal vending in violation of the ordinance regulating such activities on the Boardwalk, that is to say, LAMC §42.15. Thus in February 2016 Carol Sobel filed suit in federal court on behalf of the activists. The suit survived a motion to dismiss after an August 2016 hearing in which not only did the City’s oral arguments seem pathetically pro forma but the judge, Dean Pregerson, seemed openly skeptical of the City’s position.

And that’s pretty much where things stood for over two years until yesterday, Wednesday, October 10, 2018, when the City of Los Angeles passed a motion agreeing to settle the case. The terms are excellent for the plaintiffs. The City agrees to rewrite the relevant section of LAMC 42.15 to explicitly state that activities protected by the First Amendment, including the use of a table, are expressly allowed on the Boardwalk until midnight. The City will also pay Carol Sobel’s office $80,000 for her excellent work on this matter. Turn the page for the full text of the motion. You can also read most of the pleadings here on Archive.Org.
Continue reading Venice Justice Committee Free Speech Lawsuit — City Of Los Angeles Settles — Agrees To Rewrite Beach Ordinance To Expressly Permit Leafletting, Petitioning, And So Forth On Boardwalk Until Midnight — And To Pay Carol Sobel $80,000 — When Will They Ever Learn? →

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Business Improvement Districts

Vicki Nussbaum To Replace Dr. John Walker Ph.D. As Zeck Dreck Of The Studio City BID! — This Despite Fact That Sarah Besley Finds Her Weirdo Lonerism “Concerning”! — Guess Sarah Besley Ain’t Running Everything After All! — Oh And The Board Evidently Decided To Hire Vicki Nussbaum At Their Infamous Closed Session On September 17! — You Know, The One Where Dr. John Walker Ph.D. Said There Was Going To Be Nothing To Report Out! — Guess Dr. John Walker’s Credibility Is Completely Shot To Hell Cause Hiring A Damn Staffer Certainly Counts As Action Taken!

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Oh Lord, see, Dr. John Walker, Ph.D., zeck dreck of the infamous Studio City BID, decided at some point that he was going to handle all my CPRA requests his own self instead of having their IT consultant do it like they had done in the past. And the evidence shows strongly that despite having a Ph.D., Dr. John Walker actually can’t carry out a keyword search of his own email. That’s one of the reasons why what was previously a steady flow of interesting material from this creepy little BID has dried to a painfully extracted trickle. But, as I have said, occasionally something interesting gets through!

Anyway, you’ll recall that Dr. John Walker Ph.D. is leaving the BID’s employ, and the two main candidates to replace him are the reprehensible Taylor Bazley and the equally reprehensible Vicki Nussbaum. Originally I thought Vicki Nussbaum didn’t get the job cause she started interviewing in June and they still didn’t seem to have hired her. But just today I received this email from La Nussbaum to BID Pressy Tony Richman making it clear that in fact she has been hired as Dr. John Ph.D.’s replacement:1
From: Vicki Nussbaum <vicki.carr.nussbaum@gmail.com>
Subject: Checking in
Date: September 21, 2018 at 7:40 AM
To: Tony RICHMAN <latonyr@gmail.com>

Tony,

Checking to see how the Board meeting went Monday and if we are official.

Take care,
Vicki

Continue reading Vicki Nussbaum To Replace Dr. John Walker Ph.D. As Zeck Dreck Of The Studio City BID! — This Despite Fact That Sarah Besley Finds Her Weirdo Lonerism “Concerning”! — Guess Sarah Besley Ain’t Running Everything After All! — Oh And The Board Evidently Decided To Hire Vicki Nussbaum At Their Infamous Closed Session On September 17! — You Know, The One Where Dr. John Walker Ph.D. Said There Was Going To Be Nothing To Report Out! — Guess Dr. John Walker’s Credibility Is Completely Shot To Hell Cause Hiring A Damn Staffer Certainly Counts As Action Taken! →

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Los Angeles City Council

Herb Wesson Bows To Irresistible Force And Moves To Rescind Council Office Approval Requirement For Homeless Housing — Something Had To Be Done Cause This Was Recently Outlawed By The State Of California — It’s Obvious He’s A Whiny Little Baby, Though, Cause He Obviously Can’t Resist Having The Last Word — It Means Absolutely Nothing And Everyone Can See That, Herb, So You’re Just Exposing Your Whiny Baby-tude To The Whole Damn World!

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UPDATE: This motion has now been assigned Council File number CF 18-0955

So in March 2018 the incomparable Emily Alpert Reyes wrote a blockbuster article exposing yet another cynically corrupt practice well-beloved of our cynically corrupt City Council members. As she put it:

Before a proposed [homeless housing] building can get funding from the housing department through Proposition HHH, the $1.2-billion bond passed by voters, it must have a “letter of acknowledgment” from the local council member. And if a council member simply withholds that letter, a project can be stopped in its tracks.

As you can imagine, various City Council members defended this grant of absolute veto power outside of any democratic process by claiming it was the only way they could have any input into what gets built in their districts. Like it’s obvious somehow that they even should have input into what gets built? Anyway, no one outside of 200 N Spring Street was buying this loco jive, and especially assemblymember David Chiu. Alpert Reyes’s article moved Chiu to introduce AB 829, which flat-out forbade any projects subject to such a requirement from receiving state funding. This passed easily in September and was quickly signed into law by Jerry Brown on September 27.

Obviously the City can’t afford to give up all that state money, so it became incumbent on them to rescind the requirement as soon as possible. Thus did Council president Herb Wesson introduce this morning in Council a motion recommending said rescission. But Herb Wesson, famously a whiny baby even in the gang of world class whiny babies among whom he works, couldn’t just leave it at that. He ended his motion with a whiny baby last word move which, as far as I can see, has no great effect other than to expose his whiny baby attitude even more to the world than it already has been exposed:

I FURTHER MOVE that the Housing Department be directed to report with recommendations on ways that a Council office and neighborhood council of the area can provide meaningful input on proposed City financing of a housing development in the Council district, and in a manner consistent with the new state law.

Boo freaking hoo hoo hoo, Herb Wesson! Anyway, turn the page for the entire text of the motion, if you dare!
Continue reading Herb Wesson Bows To Irresistible Force And Moves To Rescind Council Office Approval Requirement For Homeless Housing — Something Had To Be Done Cause This Was Recently Outlawed By The State Of California — It’s Obvious He’s A Whiny Little Baby, Though, Cause He Obviously Can’t Resist Having The Last Word — It Means Absolutely Nothing And Everyone Can See That, Herb, So You’re Just Exposing Your Whiny Baby-tude To The Whole Damn World! →

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Business Improvement Districts

Vicki Nussbaum Applied In June 2018 For John Walker’s Job At The Studio City BID — The BID Asked Kerry Morrison’s Opinion On Vicki Nussbaum Cause Why Not? — Kerry Morrison Doesn’t Know Vicki Nussbaum — Ben Besley Found This Fact “Telling” — Sarah Besley Told Hubbie Ben Besley That Vicki Nussbaum Didn’t “Participate In The BID Community” — Sarah Besley Found This “Concerning” — Ben Besley Is On The Hiring Committee — Vicki Nussbaum Interviewed In June — But Seems Like She Didn’t Get The Job Cause They Interviewed Taylor Bazley In September — Seems Like Sarah Besley Did A Hatchet Job On Vicki Nussbaum — Sad If True — But There Are No Innocents In BIDlandia

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The short version of the backstory is that the Studio City BID is hiring a replacement for its executive director, Dr. John Walker Ph.D. You can read the details and see a copy of the job announcement here in yesterday’s post. Yesterday we talked about applicant Taylor Bazley. Today’s topic is Ms. Vicki Nussbaum. Here’s what I know about Vicki Nussbaum. She was the director of the Village at Sherman Oaks BID at least since January 2016 and likely earlier than that.1 More recently she was appointed executive director of the Century City BID.2 So she’s been around BIDlandia for at least three years if not more.

Oh, and I also know that she applied for Dr. John Walker’s job and not only that but just a few days after the job announcement was published Dr. Walker Ph.D. offered her an in-person interview!3 The interview was set for July 11, 2018, and I have no reason to suspect that it didn’t come off exactly as planned. Of course we know they didn’t hire her right then because in early September they interviewed Taylor Bazley.

And BID Board member Ben Besley is on the hiring committee. And he claims to be married to Sarah McPherson Besley, well-known for the fact that she used to work for Kerry Morrison in Hollywood where she was famous for hating Peruvians and hating overpasses. Don’t know which she hates worse. Anyway, for reasons that aren’t yet clear, Sarah Besley went and asked Kerry Morrison about Vicki Nussbaum and Kerry Morrison didn’t know her. And Sarah Besley didn’t know her either. And … oh, heck, why not let Ben Besley tell it. In this stunning little email chain he says:

I also got some interesting feedback, or telling lack of feedback, on Vicki from my wife Sarah, who used to Chair the Los Angeles BID Consortium. Sarah doesn’t know Vicki and neither does her former manager Kerry Morrison. This is telling of someone who is now managing multiple BIDs. Sarah thought it was concerning that she hasn’t been participating in the “BID community” over her the course of her career.

How’s that for hard core, friends? If you don’t know Kerry Morrison and Sarah Besley you don’t get the job! It wasn’t listed as a necessary attribute,4 but man, it sure freaking turned out to be. Pretty tragic for Vicki Nussbaum, I think, cause obviously she had no idea this was a job requirement. At least the publication of this vital information makes it clear for all future applicants! You gotta kiss up to Kerry Morrison and Sarah Besley if you wanna be a BID zeck dreck! Anyway, turn the page for transcriptions of all the emails arranging for Vicki Nussbaum’s seemingly fruitless visit to the damn Studio City BID!
Continue reading Vicki Nussbaum Applied In June 2018 For John Walker’s Job At The Studio City BID — The BID Asked Kerry Morrison’s Opinion On Vicki Nussbaum Cause Why Not? — Kerry Morrison Doesn’t Know Vicki Nussbaum — Ben Besley Found This Fact “Telling” — Sarah Besley Told Hubbie Ben Besley That Vicki Nussbaum Didn’t “Participate In The BID Community” — Sarah Besley Found This “Concerning” — Ben Besley Is On The Hiring Committee — Vicki Nussbaum Interviewed In June — But Seems Like She Didn’t Get The Job Cause They Interviewed Taylor Bazley In September — Seems Like Sarah Besley Did A Hatchet Job On Vicki Nussbaum — Sad If True — But There Are No Innocents In BIDlandia →

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Business Improvement Districts

Emmy Winning Studio City BID Zeck Dreck Dr. John Walker Ph.D. Is Quitting — Mike Bonin Field Deputy Taylor Bazley Applied For His Job — Listed Shadowy Venice Beach BID Boss Tara Devine As A Reference — John Walker Told Hiring Committee What A Loser Tara Devine Is And Maybe Her Recommendation Wasn’t Valuable — And She Wasn’t Returning Their Calls Anyway — Plus Kerry Morrison Was All Like Taylor Who?!?! —It Seems That The Position Is Still Unfilled — Except That These BIDdies Violate The Brown Act Constantly So They May Well Have Filled It In Secret

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Right now there is no BID more interesting to me in the entire City of Los Angeles than the Studio City BID. I mean, I dropped by one of their furtive little meetings last month and one of their directors, famously angry clown Matthew Dunn, was so rattled by my presence that he stormed out of his own meeting.1 And then they committed such an astonishing series of so very flagrant violations of the Brown Act that I was forced to send them a demand letter asking them to pinky swear that they’d never do it again.

And man, when it comes to his CPRAiatic duties, SCBID zeck dreck Dr. John Walker Ph.D.2 is a freaking pain in that thing that writers often resort to mentioning pains in for metaphorical purposes, but once in a while a few items trickle through the border wall as they did yesterday when he, or at least his pocky little minion Damian Gatto, sent over a few righteous goodies! And amongst these was this announcement from June 2018 in which the Studio City BID gave notice to the BID Consortium that it was hiring a replacement for Emmy-winning Zeck Dreck Dr. John Walker!! There is a transcription of this remarkable document after the break.

And then the applications started rolling in! The first applicant I have information about was evidently Ms. Vicki Nussbaum, who used to be the executive director of the Sherman Oaks BID and may still be for all I know, but is at least also the executive director of the Century City BID.3 You’ll hear more about this lady’s application quite soon, but not today.4

And the next applicant that I know anything about is our old friend Taylor Freaking Bazley! That’s right, Mike Bonin’s creepy little field deputy for Venice, deeply implicated in the horror show that is the Venice Beach BID, is out looking for another job! Do his friends at CD11 know about this?! Probably not, because he obviously isn’t using them as references! You can read everything I know in this September 12, 2018 email from SCBID Board member Ben Besley5 to John Walker, Board president Tony Richman, and fellow hiring committee members Barry Wise and Dean Cutler.

Here’s the story in brief, and you will find detailed discussion and transcriptions of all relevant emails after the break! About a month ago Taylor Bazley interviewed for the job. After his interview he sent a sycophantic thanks-friend! email to Board president Tony Richman about how the committee’s shit smelled like roses and so on.6 Also, he seems to have given shadowy BID president Tara Devine’s name as a reference. The hiring committee evidently found it difficult to get in touch with Tara Devine. Finally, Ben Besley got an email from admin@venicebeachbid.com, a well-known pseudonym of Ms. Tara Devine, splaining that Tara Devine was too busy to talk to him right now but maybe later!

Then John Walker weighed in with a story about how TD was being investigated for not spending BID money properly and also how the SCBID didn’t hire her to be their renewal consultant because she charged too damn much. He closed this defamational little missive with the defamer’s favorite excuse: “This is not meant to sway your investigation but I think you should be aware of some history.” So yeah, just another example of how the Los Angeles BID world is like one big seething daisy chain but without the sex.7 Turn the page for transcriptions of all relevant material!
Continue reading Emmy Winning Studio City BID Zeck Dreck Dr. John Walker Ph.D. Is Quitting — Mike Bonin Field Deputy Taylor Bazley Applied For His Job — Listed Shadowy Venice Beach BID Boss Tara Devine As A Reference — John Walker Told Hiring Committee What A Loser Tara Devine Is And Maybe Her Recommendation Wasn’t Valuable — And She Wasn’t Returning Their Calls Anyway — Plus Kerry Morrison Was All Like Taylor Who?!?! —It Seems That The Position Is Still Unfilled — Except That These BIDdies Violate The Brown Act Constantly So They May Well Have Filled It In Secret →

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Downtown Center BID

The Downtown Center BID Is The Latest In A Long Line Of BIDs To Change Up A Brown-Act-Deficient Agenda In Response To My Freely Offered Amateur Criticism — Someday, Lord, And It Won’t Be Long, All These Damn BIDs In Los Angeles Are Just Gonna Follow The Damn Law Right From The Start — In My Dreams, Anyway

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It’s quite a common occurrence around here for some random BID to send out yet another completely freaking illegal agenda or violate some other major requirement of the Brown Act and then, because I can’t send demand letters to all of them, I just drop them a friendly note and they, because you can’t argue with the truth, just go ahead and fix the damn agenda.

This is a useful pastime for all concerned. The BIDs get a free and easy lesson in how to follow the damn law,1 I get to write a blog post on the episode,2 and you, the faithful reader, get to hear about yet another technical violation of the Brown Act, which is really edumacational and why else is anyone even reading this damn blog if not to be edumacated? So like for instance the South Park BID does this on a regular basis, and the Venice BID has had an episode as well.

Oh, and I know I said above that you can’t argue with the truth, but actually the baddest BIDdies of them all of the moment, that unhinged flashmob of sick chuckleheads3 known to all students of BIDology as the Studio City BID, famous for having board members whose consciences are so guilty that they will not allow themselve to appear on camera, can in fact argue with the truth.4 This is why, after they refused to consider my friendly admonition that they were really blowing it with respect to the Brown Act, I had to send them a demand letter.5

But those Studio City-zens are the exception rather than the rule. Which brings us to today’s episode.6 It seems that on Monday, October 1, 2017, I received this agenda for a meeting of the Downtown Center BID’s executive committee, scheduled for yesterday morning. Thereon appeared this item:

IV. CLOSED SESSION
a. Personnel Matters, California Government Code §54957(b)(1) (ACTION) WOLK

And, you know, this is better than some attempts at describing closed sessions I’ve seen. At least they cited an actual code section as justification for closing it, which is more than many BIDdies will do. But it’s still not good enough, not nearly. These BIDdies gotta learn that a basic principal of the Brown Act is that what they say in a closed session might get to be a secret but what they’re doing in there rarely does. Read on for the gory details and what happened next!
Continue reading The Downtown Center BID Is The Latest In A Long Line Of BIDs To Change Up A Brown-Act-Deficient Agenda In Response To My Freely Offered Amateur Criticism — Someday, Lord, And It Won’t Be Long, All These Damn BIDs In Los Angeles Are Just Gonna Follow The Damn Law Right From The Start — In My Dreams, Anyway →

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Business Improvement Districts

Crusading Palisades Journalist Sue Pascoe To Palisades BID In 2016: You’re Violating The Damn Brown Act By Posting Your Agendas Where Disabled People Can’t Freaking See Them — Zeck Dreck Laurie Sale To Rick Scott: “I Feel Like [Following The Law] Is Just Silly” And Plus This Lady Is Really Mean! — Rick Scott To Laurie Sale: We’re Not Your Damn Lawyers So Figure Out Your Own Damn Problems

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Someone recently obtained a bunch of emails from 2016 between Laurie Sale of the Pacific Freaking Palisades BID and Rick Scott of the City Clerk’s office who is, it seems, the BID’s analyst.1 The goodies were passed to me and I uploaded the whole batch of them to Archive dot Org for your edification and titillation, and click here to browse through ’em!

And as you know, the Palisades BID, besides being generally creepy and rather floridly delusional, has proved itself unable to comply even minimally with California’s twin government transparency ordinances, the California Public Records Act and the Brown Act. I’ve written a little about their struggles with CPRA compliance2 and a little more about their struggles with Brown Act compliance, like see this episode and this especially nutty and horrific episode.

So with all of that in mind it was pleasant but not really a surprise to find this little gem of an email exchange in today’s yield. It all began when Sue Pascoe, editor of the famously floofball advertiser known as the Palisades News, emailed Laurie Sale, now retired zeck dreck of the BID, telling her that it was a violation of the Brown Act’s agenda posting requirements to post the agenda in a place that was not handicapped accessible.

Rather than asking a lawyer as anyone with any sense and some assets to protect might do, Laurie Sale emailed Rick Scott of the City Clerk’s office asking him for advice and basically saying that Sue Pascoe was a big meanie and why should the BID have to follow the damn law anyway? Then Rick Scott wrote back and told Laurie Sale that he wasn’t a lawyer and couldn’t give advice. What else did she expect? Turn the page, as always, for transcriptions of everything!
Continue reading Crusading Palisades Journalist Sue Pascoe To Palisades BID In 2016: You’re Violating The Damn Brown Act By Posting Your Agendas Where Disabled People Can’t Freaking See Them — Zeck Dreck Laurie Sale To Rick Scott: “I Feel Like [Following The Law] Is Just Silly” And Plus This Lady Is Really Mean! — Rick Scott To Laurie Sale: We’re Not Your Damn Lawyers So Figure Out Your Own Damn Problems →

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