Monthly Archives: February 2021

Los Angeles City Council, Municipal Ethics

I Filed A Complaint Against Joey Buckets Staffer Amy Gebert In August 2020 — Which Apparently Flipped Her Out So Much That She Started Emailing Me Every Week Or Two Using An Alternate Account Designed — Unsuccessfully — To Conceal Her Identity — About How My Request Would Be Ready In A Week Or Two — And Then Cancelling And Postponing — She Did This Eight Times In Just A Few Weeks — Which Is About Twelve Times As Often As She Did It Before The Complaint — Then Stopped Abruptly In December 2020 — And Still Hasn’t Produced The Damn Records — So I Filed Another Complaint Against Her With The Ethics Commission — This One For Retaliating Against Me For Filing The First Complaint

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Ultimately this post is about this complaint that I filed with the Ethics Commission today regarding CD15 staffer Amy Gebert’s retaliation against me for complaining about her last August. There is also a transcription below.


Flashback to those lazy hazy crazy days of Summer 2020, those days of COVID and ethics complaints against CD15 staffer Amy Gebert!1 Well, after I filed that complaint, Gebert flipped out and, using a fake email address,2 started emailing me every week or two telling me that my request would be ready in a week or two and then, on the last day, emailing me again to tell me that the production date was postponed.

Obviously she was doing this in response to my having filed a complaint against her. She started about a week after I filed it, and proceeded to send me 8 emails over the next few weeks at a rate almost 12 times more frequently than she had in the year prior to the complaint.

As obviously she was doing it to irritate me. What possible legitimate reason could she have for repeatedly lying about when the records, which by the way I still don’t have, would be ready? Sure, she could be withholding them to hide the criminal conspiracy conducted by her boss, Joey “Joe Buscaino” Buckets, but that has nothing to do with this compulsive notification/denotification.

And doing things to irritate people because they file complaints against you with the Ethics Commission is, it turns out, a separate violation of the Municipal Ethics Ordinance at LAMC §49.5.4(B), which tells us that:

City officials and agency employees shall not use or threaten to use any official authority or influence to effect any action as a reprisal against another person who reports a possible violation of law to the Ethics Commission or another governmental entity.

And so today I filed yet another complaint against Gebert with the Ethics Commission. You can read the complete complaint here, and there’s a transcription of the complaint, but without the exhibits, below.3 Continue reading I Filed A Complaint Against Joey Buckets Staffer Amy Gebert In August 2020 — Which Apparently Flipped Her Out So Much That She Started Emailing Me Every Week Or Two Using An Alternate Account Designed — Unsuccessfully — To Conceal Her Identity — About How My Request Would Be Ready In A Week Or Two — And Then Cancelling And Postponing — She Did This Eight Times In Just A Few Weeks — Which Is About Twelve Times As Often As She Did It Before The Complaint — Then Stopped Abruptly In December 2020 — And Still Hasn’t Produced The Damn Records — So I Filed Another Complaint Against Her With The Ethics Commission — This One For Retaliating Against Me For Filing The First Complaint →

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LAPD

Are You Reimagining Public Safety? — Well The Cops Are Too — And They Have Some Very Active Imaginations! — Get Every City Employee A Concealed Carry Permit! — So Strefan Fauble Can Take A Shot At You If You Get Off Topic — Or Joey Buckets Plinking Out Lights In The John Ferraro Council Chambers — Developer Doesn’t Pay Bribes On Time? — Blammo!!! — And Cameras At Every Major Intersection! — And Hire Better Lawyers To Defend Killer Cops Because We Keep Losing! — And Stop Calling Us Killer Cops! — Cause It Hurts Us In The Feelz! — Let’s Stop Protecting The Mayor! — And So On!!

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Ever wonder how LAPD Officers might reimagine public safety? Well, wonder no longer. Behold the absolutely freaking bonkers results of a survey they did this Summer asking that very question! And right at the top it says that a bunch of suggestions they got were illegal, so they omitted them, leading Police Commissioner Dale Bonner asked his staff what those omitted illegal suggestions might have been.

This, in turn, led notorious criminal lawyer Lizabeth Rhodes to write to him a whole-ass memorandum explaining how criminal cops want to reimagine public safety by arming the City Council and other equally bonkers ideas. The most bonkers of a thoroughly bonkers bunch. This form of reimagining public safety is a stone cold bonkers paradigm shift.

Just for instance, your LAPD officers want to reenvision your public safety by Start with allowing City employees to apply for CCW permits. Can you even imagine? Public comment is hard enough in Los Angeles without having to worry about Joey Buckets shooting you because he doesn’t care for your attitude. Other stunners are:
Continue reading Are You Reimagining Public Safety? — Well The Cops Are Too — And They Have Some Very Active Imaginations! — Get Every City Employee A Concealed Carry Permit! — So Strefan Fauble Can Take A Shot At You If You Get Off Topic — Or Joey Buckets Plinking Out Lights In The John Ferraro Council Chambers — Developer Doesn’t Pay Bribes On Time? — Blammo!!! — And Cameras At Every Major Intersection! — And Hire Better Lawyers To Defend Killer Cops Because We Keep Losing! — And Stop Calling Us Killer Cops! — Cause It Hurts Us In The Feelz! — Let’s Stop Protecting The Mayor! — And So On!! →

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Business Improvement Districts

In March 2020 Apparently Carrie Poppy Asked The Historic Core BID For Some Public Records — Leading Batty Little Fusspot Blair Besten To Assume It Was Actually Me — And Therefore To Flip Her Already Fairly Unstable Wig — And Write To Self-Proclaimed Hollywood Superlawyer Jeffrey Charles Briggs — THIS REQUEST SEEMS KOHLHAASESQUE!!!! — Prompting Briggs To Interrogate A Bunch Of Other BIDs While Investigating The Most Pressing Question Of Our Time — Is Carrie Poppy Somehow Associated With Kohlhaas??!?!!?! — His Conclusion? — She Is Not Associated With Me — And Jeffrey Charles Briggs Has Never Known Himself To Be Wrong About Anything — So I Guess We Have To Believe Him! — Not Least Because He Writes In All Caps Like A Serial Killer

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This post is ultimately about an email conversation between Blair Besten and Hollywood Superlawyer Jeffrey Charles Briggs about a public records request that renowned podcaster Carrie Poppy submitted to Besten’s BID in May 2020. It’s a fascinating look behind the scenes as a CPRA request is filled. If you want to skip my nonsense and get straight to the goods, here’s a link to the email itself, and here are a bunch of emails between Poppy and Briggs about her request.

Like I said up there in the title, in March 2020 Carrie Poppy sent a request for public records to Blair Besten, the half-pint Norma Desmond of the Historic Core BID, the third weirdest of the minor Downtown BIDs. Poppy’s request included the following sentence: If any of these records are held by the BID in electronic form I will need to inspect them and potentially receive copies in electronic form.”

And because apparently she’s always thinking of me, Besten immediately fired off a desperate email to self-proclaimed Hollywood Superlawyer Jeffrey Charles Briggs which contained a plaintive cri de coeur: “This sounds like an [Kohlhaas]esque request. ‘Electronic Form’ as they are being held – you know? Maybe?” And Briggs, always voluble, rarely sensible, had something to say about Poppy’s request as well.

Writing in all caps like the serial killer he never had the nerve to become Briggs had this clueless comment: I DON’T UNDERSTAND THIS UNLESS SHE THINKS WE WOULD CHARGE HER FOR A THUMB DRIVE OR WHATEVER; WE CAN JUST SEND PDF’S OR THE EMAILS THEMSELVES IF THERE ARE ANY, BY EMAIL. WE CAN FIGURE OUT HOW TO TRANSMIT WHEN WE KNOW WHAT WE HAVE.”
Continue reading In March 2020 Apparently Carrie Poppy Asked The Historic Core BID For Some Public Records — Leading Batty Little Fusspot Blair Besten To Assume It Was Actually Me — And Therefore To Flip Her Already Fairly Unstable Wig — And Write To Self-Proclaimed Hollywood Superlawyer Jeffrey Charles Briggs — THIS REQUEST SEEMS KOHLHAASESQUE!!!! — Prompting Briggs To Interrogate A Bunch Of Other BIDs While Investigating The Most Pressing Question Of Our Time — Is Carrie Poppy Somehow Associated With Kohlhaas??!?!!?! — His Conclusion? — She Is Not Associated With Me — And Jeffrey Charles Briggs Has Never Known Himself To Be Wrong About Anything — So I Guess We Have To Believe Him! — Not Least Because He Writes In All Caps Like A Serial Killer →

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LAPD

LAPD Announces Resumption Of Racist Random Car Stop/Searches In South Central Los Angeles — Touts Effectiveness As Measured By 50 Arrests And 38 Gun Confiscations In One Week — Meanwhile I Have A Copy Of A Confidential LAPD Major Crimes Briefing Report On Archie Duenas — Now-Arrested Former Manager Of The LAPD Revolver And Shooting Club In Elysian Park — Who Stole More Than 40 Pistols And Illegally Sold Them To Various Cops — None Of Whom Were Even Arrested At All — And The Report Shows That ATF And The LA County DA Agreed With LAPD About Not Arresting The Buyers — So Why Is The Number Of People They Arrest In South Central Relevant? — Does Arresting Illegal Gun Possessors Enhance Safety Or Not?

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This post is ultimately about this confidential Major Case Briefing report from LAPD detectives about LAPD Revolver and Athletic Club manager Archie Duenas stealing 40 guns and illegally selling them to various cops. If you don’t feel like reading my nonsense, just take a look at the damn report! It’s confidential! And has some info that’s not in the newspapers! And the fact that LAPD doesn’t want you to see it is enough of a reason to read it! Now!

In 2019 the Los Angeles Police Department severely curtailed its putatively proactive policing practice of stopping and searching random cars driven by black people in South Central Los Angeles after the Los Angeles Times published a story revealing, to no one’s surprise, that the whole program was deeply, irredeemably racist. And even the cops understand that the practice didn’t stop crime:

LAPD Chief Michel Moore told The Times that Metro’s vehicle stops have not proven effective, netting about one arrest for every 100 cars stopped, while coming at a tremendous cost to innocent drivers who felt they were being racially profiled.

Obviously Moore’s implication, that the effectiveness of the program is measured by the number of arrests, is a deliberate lie. Terrorism rather than arrests was and is the point, and by that measure the program was, is, and will continue to be extremely effective.4 And despite Moore’s statement at the time, well, just yesterday he reversed course and ordered the famously crime-doing5 Metro Division to resume random vehicle stops in South Central. And this time Moore seems to be pushing gun confiscation rates as an effectiveness metric:
Continue reading LAPD Announces Resumption Of Racist Random Car Stop/Searches In South Central Los Angeles — Touts Effectiveness As Measured By 50 Arrests And 38 Gun Confiscations In One Week — Meanwhile I Have A Copy Of A Confidential LAPD Major Crimes Briefing Report On Archie Duenas — Now-Arrested Former Manager Of The LAPD Revolver And Shooting Club In Elysian Park — Who Stole More Than 40 Pistols And Illegally Sold Them To Various Cops — None Of Whom Were Even Arrested At All — And The Report Shows That ATF And The LA County DA Agreed With LAPD About Not Arresting The Buyers — So Why Is The Number Of People They Arrest In South Central Relevant? — Does Arresting Illegal Gun Possessors Enhance Safety Or Not? →

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Los Angeles City Government

Raquel Beltran Of The Department Of Neighborhood Empowerment Told The Downtown Los Angeles Neighborhood Council That “We” Know Of “A Couple People” Who “Do [Public Records Requests] As A Racket — And Then They Collect The Fines” — Beltran Is A Liar — And She Lies Like A Child — With Nothing To Gain — No Chance Of Not Getting Caught — Stupid Pointless Lies — I Suppose She’s An Improvement Though — So Far She Seems Slightly Less Psychopathic Than Grayce Liu — But So Are 999,999,999 Out Of A Billion People — So We Could Probably Do Better — But I Doubt That We Will

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On January 12, 2021 Raquel Beltran, newish boss of the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment, paid a visit to a meeting of the Board of Directors of the Downtown Los Angeles Neighborhood Council. She spoke for a long, long time, about a wide range of topics, one of which was the California Public Records Act. Beltran doesn’t like this law at all, by the way. It’s overwhelming to her.6

Her rambling slo-mo rant starts here, but I’m much more interested in this little bit over here. Some random DLANC director asks Beltran why DONE can’t do CPRAs for NCs because they’re overwhelmed and ignorant.7 Beltran goes on and on about how she wanted to do this but there’s just no money for it.8 Then we get to the key bit. The director has a followup question!

…in many cases the requester knows more about the process than the neighborhood council does and this could, this could really ensue [sic] a liability issue.

And oh, boy, does Beltran ever bite at this morsel! She’s off and running, folks!
Continue reading Raquel Beltran Of The Department Of Neighborhood Empowerment Told The Downtown Los Angeles Neighborhood Council That “We” Know Of “A Couple People” Who “Do [Public Records Requests] As A Racket — And Then They Collect The Fines” — Beltran Is A Liar — And She Lies Like A Child — With Nothing To Gain — No Chance Of Not Getting Caught — Stupid Pointless Lies — I Suppose She’s An Improvement Though — So Far She Seems Slightly Less Psychopathic Than Grayce Liu — But So Are 999,999,999 Out Of A Billion People — So We Could Probably Do Better — But I Doubt That We Will →

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Los Angeles City Government

Some Raw Data Behind The LA Times Story About Amy Wakeland Vengefully Stalling Payments To Jackie Goldberg As Payback For Goldberg’s 2019 Criticisms Of Wakeland’s Ties To The Charter School Industry — Copies Of The City’s Contracts With Goldberg — Copies Of Goldberg’s Invoices To The City Of LA — Which Include Various Signatures Approving Payments — I Can’t See A Smoking Gun Here But I Can’t See The Absence Of One Either — But I’m Bad At This — And Maybe You’re Better?!

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A perspicacious reader analyzed the data presented here and summarized it in this chart, which shows quite clearly that there was a significant delay in paying Goldberg in early 2019, which is precisely the time we’d expect if Amy Wakeland did withhold money from Goldberg in revenge.

The other day the LA Times ran a huge story on Mayoral Consort Amy Wakeland and her various putatively charming quirks and Borgialities.9 And there, among the parade of horribles,10 was this story about Wakeland, Heather Repenning, and Jackie Goldberg:

One L.A. politician learned there could be a cost, quite literally, to getting on Wakeland’s bad side.

The conflict grew out of the 2019 school board race in which Garcetti and Wakeland backed his longtime aide, Heather Repenning, against Jackie Goldberg. A Los Angeles political mainstay, Goldberg told one campaign forum that she believed Wakeland, and therefore Repenning, had ties to charter schools, which she blamed for siphoning money from traditional public campuses.

Not long after Goldberg offered that critique, her pay — as the head of a Garcetti-backed program to hire more disadvantaged residents into city jobs — stopped for several weeks.

Goldberg was told by a member of the mayor’s staff that if she wanted to receive a $10,000 payment due to her, she should apologize to Wakeland for her campaign comments, according to a source familiar with the situation. Goldberg made the apology to Wakeland and, not long afterward, the city issued Goldberg her $10,000, said the source, who declined to be named out of fear of angering Wakeland and Garcetti.

Goldberg confirmed the source’s account but declined to provide additional details.

This is totally believable, of course. But very light on those details that Goldberg declined to provide. So I set out to find some! First of all, here’s the contract that Goldberg was paid under, along with some amendments:
Continue reading Some Raw Data Behind The LA Times Story About Amy Wakeland Vengefully Stalling Payments To Jackie Goldberg As Payback For Goldberg’s 2019 Criticisms Of Wakeland’s Ties To The Charter School Industry — Copies Of The City’s Contracts With Goldberg — Copies Of Goldberg’s Invoices To The City Of LA — Which Include Various Signatures Approving Payments — I Can’t See A Smoking Gun Here But I Can’t See The Absence Of One Either — But I’m Bad At This — And Maybe You’re Better?! →

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LAPD, Public Records Act Pragmatics

November 2020 — LAPD Constitutional Policing Boss Lizabeth Rhodes Wrote A Top Secret Memo To Police Commission Boss Richard Tefank About Public Records Requests From Stop LAPD Spying — I Have A Copy Of The Top Secret Memo For You! — And Also It’s So Full Of Bullshit And Lies That It Amounts To A Violation Of LAMC 49.5.5 — Which Is Why This Morning I Reported Rhodes And Her Co-Conspirators Marla Ciuffetelli And Bryan Lium To The Ethics Commission — And Here Is A Copy Of The 118 Page Report For You Also!

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This post is about a confidential memorandum from LAPD Constitutional Policing director Lizabeth Rhodes to Police Commission ED Richard Tefank about a request made by Hamid Khan of Stop LAPD Spying under the California Public Records Act. It’s also about a series of violations of LAMC 49.5.5 by Rhodes and LAPD officers Marla Ciuffetelli and Bryan Lium based on their biased handling of various requests for records and a complaint against all three of them that I filed this morning with the Los Angeles Ethics Commission. If you don’t want to read the whole thing here are the two main documents involved:

🙨 Lizabeth Rhodes’s confidential memorandum

🙨 Complaint against Rhodes, Ciuffetelli, and Lium

The Los Angeles Police Department has something called the Office of Constitutional Policing and Policy. It sounds like pernicious crapola and pernicious crapola is precisely what it is. Forced upon LAPD by the 2000 consent decree, over the years the cops have used their cop superpowers to thoroughly weaponize OCPP against the people of Los Angeles. Just for instance, let’s talk about about Hamid Khan of Stop LAPD Spying, about the California Public Records Act, about a letter Khan sent to the Police Commission in August 2020 about LAPD’s refusal to comply with the law, and about Lizabeth Rhodes, the hard-nosed criminal lawyer in charge of OCPP.11

In September 2019 Khan filed a CPRA request with LAPD. LAPD, of course, will not comply with the CPRA12 at all, and they especially won’t comply for the likes of Khan. Khan wrote to the Police Commission about it on August 31, 2020 and then complained in person during public comment on October 6, 2020. Khan’s remarks apparently prompted Commissioner Dale Bonner to wonder if maybe, just maybe, there might be some substance to his complaint. Consequently criminal lawyer Rhodes wrote a top-secret highly confidential memorandum, which I just happen to have an actual copy of, to Commission Executive Director Richard Tefank.

This remarkable document is packed with lies and bullshit to a degree hitherto unseen even from the LAPD, an organization which has been growing fat on lies and bullshit for well over a century. It is worth discussing in great detail. Before I do that, though, don’t forget about LAPD officer Marla Ciuffetelli, who runs the CPRA unit, and who violates LAMC 49.5.5 by prioritizing CPRA requests from some reporters and absolutely obstructing requests from other reporters. Also don’t forget about Bryan Lium, Ciuffetelli’s boss, who violates LAMC 49.5.5 in exactly the same way.

Rhodes’s memorandum also violates LAMC 49.5.5, so this morning I filed a complaint against all three of these thuggish scofflaws with the City Ethics Commission, and if anything comes of it I will certainly let you know! Meanwhile, read on for a detailed discussion of Rhodes’s dishonest nonsense! Presented as a dramatic dialogue no less!!
Continue reading November 2020 — LAPD Constitutional Policing Boss Lizabeth Rhodes Wrote A Top Secret Memo To Police Commission Boss Richard Tefank About Public Records Requests From Stop LAPD Spying — I Have A Copy Of The Top Secret Memo For You! — And Also It’s So Full Of Bullshit And Lies That It Amounts To A Violation Of LAMC 49.5.5 — Which Is Why This Morning I Reported Rhodes And Her Co-Conspirators Marla Ciuffetelli And Bryan Lium To The Ethics Commission — And Here Is A Copy Of The 118 Page Report For You Also! →

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