All posts by Mike

Announcements, Downtown Center BID, Hollywood BID Patrol

Downtown Center BID PR Materials from Macy + Associates, Hollywood BID Patrol 2007 Arrest Reports and Daily Logs

March 4, 2016 Mike Leave a comment

Well, getting records out of the Downtown Center BID is like pulling teeth from a fricking hippopotamus,¹ but after almost four months and one exceedingly detailed complaint to the Los Angeles City Clerk about their general bloody-minded uncooperative stonewalling, they have released a bunch of records relating to their public relations firm, Macy + Associates.² You can find this material here on the Archive. Note that they’re, as usual, mercilessly and certainly illegally redacted. I’m working on this, but I don’t expect any results quickly.

Also, the big prize, obtained yesterday, is 2007 arrest reports and daily activity logs from the Andrews International BID Patrol. These are also on the Archive:

There are almost certainly significantly many arrest reports missing, and some details on this may be found after the break if you’re interested.
Continue reading Downtown Center BID PR Materials from Macy + Associates, Hollywood BID Patrol 2007 Arrest Reports and Daily Logs →

Hollywood BID Patrol, Hollywood Property Owners Alliance

An Open Letter to Mitch O’Farrell Regarding Plans to Fund Andrews International BID Patrol Operations in Hollywood

March 2, 2016 Mike Leave a comment

March 2, 2016

Councilmember Mitch O’Farrell
200 N Spring St #450
Los Angeles CA 90012

Dear Councilmember O’Farrell,

I am writing to you regarding plans that the Hollywood Property Owners Alliance and the Los Angeles Police Department are making to extend the patrol hours of the Andrews International BID Patrol in the Hollywood Entertainment District until 4 a.m. In particular, I heard at the last HPOA board meeting that you were considering funding all or part of this program from your discretionary money. If this report is accurate, I hope that you will ultimately decide not to fund an expansion of BID Patrol hours in Hollywood. Here are a number of reasons why I think your funding this project would be a bad idea:

1. Regardless of the intention, it looks like a way to evade Police Commission oversight of law enforcement in Hollywood: This expansion of the BID Patrol’s operations is apparently being planned at the request of Hollywood Divison’s Commanding Officer Peter Zarcone. If it’s implemented it will therefore create a City-funded group of quasi-police assembled at the City’s request who are not subject to any kind of civilian oversight or control. I understand that in some technical sense the BID Patrol aren’t police, but this plan makes that seem even more like a distinction without a difference than it already does.
Continue reading An Open Letter to Mitch O’Farrell Regarding Plans to Fund Andrews International BID Patrol Operations in Hollywood →

Historical and Theoretical Perspectives, Municipal Ethics

How BIDs and Eric Garcetti Torpedoed A Major Revision of the Los Angeles Municipal Lobbying Ordinance Proposed by the Ethics Commission in 2010 and Didn’t Even Help Themselves That Much

February 27, 2016 Mike Leave a comment

Kerry Morrison and Eric Garcetti looking quite comfortable together in 2007.

In 2008, the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission began discussing proposed changes to the Municipal Lobbying Ordinance (MLO).³ In July of that year the Commission began hearing public comments on what should be included in this proposal⁴ and in September 2009 they sent a 162 page report to the Rules and Elections committee of the Los Angeles City Council, thus initiating Council file 07-3005-S2. This committee was chaired by then Councilmember Eric Garcetti, who essentially killed the whole thing after less than an hour of discussion, perhaps influenced by the trumped-up and only marginally relevant concerns of his personal friend (and, since 2013, Windsor Square neighbor) Hollywood Property Owners Alliance Executive Director Kerry Morrison.
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Announcements, Downtown Center BID, Fashion District BID, Hollywood Property Owners Alliance

New Documents: 2015 Emails to the Mayor’s Office from Kerry Morrison, Carol Schatz; All 2015 Fashion District Safe Team Daily Activity Logs

February 25, 2016 Mike Leave a comment

Carol Schatz in January 2008 at Bringing Back Broadway.

I have a number of interesting documents to announce this morning. There are emails to and from Eric Garcetti’s office in 2015:

Finally, there are the 2015 daily activity logs for the Fashion District Safe Team. These are interesting for a number of reasons, not least of which is that they barely seem to arrest anyone, in stark contrast to the outrageously high number of custodial arrests made by the Andrews International BID Patrol in Hollywood.
Continue reading New Documents: 2015 Emails to the Mayor’s Office from Kerry Morrison, Carol Schatz; All 2015 Fashion District Safe Team Daily Activity Logs →

Lawsuits

Hearing on Plaintiffs’ Application for Contempt and Sanctions Set for March 21, 11 a.m.

February 24, 2016 Mike Leave a comment

Magistrate Judge Andrew J. Wisterich has filed an order setting a hearing on plaintiffs’ application for contempt and sanctions, to be held March 21, 2016 at 11 a.m. in room 690 of the Roybal Courthouse. The City is also ordered to get those discovery materials in soonest. Ominously for the City, Judge Wisterich also ordered the plaintiffs’ to prepare a statement of the fees they’re seeking for dealing with the City’s recalcitrance. The text of the order is after the break.
Continue reading Hearing on Plaintiffs’ Application for Contempt and Sanctions Set for March 21, 11 a.m. →

Lawsuits

Documents Filed Mere Moments Ago in LACW/LACAN v. CCEA/City of LA Case Quite Plausibly Accuse City of Los Angeles of Inaccurate Representations Regarding LAPD Discovery Capabilities

February 23, 2016 Mike Leave a comment

Last week attorneys for Los Angeles Catholic Worker and LA Community Action Network filed an application requesting that the City be held in contempt for its misfeasance in what has turned out to be painful, drawn-out discovery process. This morning, mere minutes ago, plaintiffs’ attorney Shayla Myers filed a supplemental declaration in support (along with an exhibit) in which she states:

I am producing this supplemental declaration to update the Court about facts which Plaintiffs have discovered since the ex parte motion to hold the City in contempt was filed. In particular, Plaintiffs have discovered that certain representations by the City of Los Angeles appear to be inaccurate. While the City of Los Angeles has maintained since July 2015 that it cannot do a global search of emails in the possession of the LAPD, Plaintiffs discovered at a deposition of the Person Most Knowledgeable on behalf of the City on February 22, 2016 that the LAPD employs e-discovery software that allows the LAPD to search all emails sent and received by LAPD officers since March 2013, that the software is designed to facilitate global keyword searches, and that when the LAPD has done such a search in the past, it was completed within a week.

Continue reading Documents Filed Mere Moments Ago in LACW/LACAN v. CCEA/City of LA Case Quite Plausibly Accuse City of Los Angeles of Inaccurate Representations Regarding LAPD Discovery Capabilities →

Public Records Act Pragmatics

Berkeley Police Department Fulfills Experimental CPRA Request in 59 Days

February 23, 2016 Mike Leave a comment

Anymore, the astonishing beauty of the city of Berkeley is only skin deep.

Long-time readers of this blog will recall that, due to the stunning reluctance of the LAPD to comply with the simple mandates of the California Public Records Act, I’m running an experiment in which I requested 100 emails to and from BIDs from each of three California police departments. The SFPD was the clear winner here, supplying me with the goods in a mere 23 days. Late last week the city of Berkeley weighed in with two sets of emails (one and two). Most of the content isn’t especially interesting if you don’t know the dramatis personae; it’s the same old song about the homeless, about behaviors, about activities, about protecting investments, and so on and on and on. I did spot one interesting episode, which I discuss after the break. Also, I will note that the Long Beach PD still has not fulfilled my request (although they are discussing it with me), and of course the LAPD ignores everyone and they’re still being sued because of that. Is it a coincidence that the two cities that follow the law have municipal sunshine ordinances while the two that do not lack such laws? I doubt it very much.
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Announcements, Municipal Ethics

City of Los Angeles Revolving Door Law Contest! Prizes!!

February 21, 2016 Mike Leave a comment

The City of Los Angeles has a revolving door law, which prohibits certain high-level officials from being paid to lobby the city government for various lengths of time after leaving their city jobs. This law was passed by the City Council in its current form at the end of 2013 and it became effective on February 10, 2014. It states that:

For one year after leaving City service, a City official shall not receive compensation to attempt to influence, either personally or through an agent, City action on any matter pending before any agency on behalf of a person other than an agency if, during the 24 months preceding the official’s departure from City service, the official held any of the following positions: elected City officer; Board of Public Works Commissioner; General Manager; Chief Administrative Officer; Mayor’s Chief of Staff; Deputy Mayor; Mayoral Aide VII; Mayoral Aide VIII; Executive Assistant City Attorney; Chief Assistant City Attorney; Senior Assistant City Attorney; City Attorney Exempt Employee; Chief Deputy Controller; Administrative Deputy Controller; Principal Deputy Controller; Council Aide VI; or Council Aide VII.

Now, it turns out that it’s not so easy to find out who falls into those categories.⁵ The problem is that, e.g., a Council Aide VII may have any number of job titles. They might be a chief of staff, a director of planning, and so on. A later section of the law says:

By July 31 of every year, the City Controller shall submit to the Ethics Commission the names of each individual who held a position identified in Subsection C.1. during the preceding 24 months. By July 31 of every year, the City Clerk shall submit to the Ethics Commission the names of each individual who held a City Attorney Exempt position as provided in City Charter Section 1050(d) during the preceding 24 months.

So after we noticed the whole Marie Rumsey situation it occurred to me that a copy of this list would be an interesting document to have. It turned out not to be so incredibly simple to get⁶ but, finally, get it I did. And here it is for you!⁷ Note that checking this list against the Ethics Commission’s list of registered lobbyists for 2015 would have revealed Marie Rumsey’s perfidy. There don’t seem to be any other fruits quite so low-hanging on here, but there’s still juice to be squeezed! And that fact practically begs for a contest, so read on for the rules.
Continue reading City of Los Angeles Revolving Door Law Contest! Prizes!! →

Hollywood BID Patrol, Hollywood Property Owners Alliance

LAPD Asks HPOA to Arrange for Late-Night BID Patrol Hours, HPOA Agrees to Pilot Program; Mitch O’Farrell Said to be Eager to Pay Costs. Also, Plans to Deputize BID Patrol May be in Works

February 20, 2016 Mike Leave a comment

Peter Zarcone at the February 18, 2016 meeting of the Hollywood Property Owners Alliance Board of Directors meeting.

On Thursday, February 18, 2016, the Board of Directors of the Hollywood Property Owners Alliance met. The main topic of conversation was a request from LAPD Captain Peter Zarcone, commanding officer of Hollywood Station, to the BID to arrange for the BID Patrol to work until 4 a.m.⁸ The idea seems to be that this would relieve the LAPD somewhat. The HPOA has been in conversation with Mitch O’Farrell, who is said to be eager to pay for some or all of this project out of his discretionary funds. There was also a brief mention of plans to deputize the BID Patrol so that they would be able to issue citations. I will be writing much more about this, but I wanted to get it up here soonest, since it ended up taking far longer than I expected to transcribe the discussion, which went on for over forty minutes. You can see the first part beginning here, and it’s continued in the second part here. Transcription after the break.
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Lawsuits

Late Night Declaration Filed by Ronald Whitaker Opposing Plaintiffs’ Application for Contempt and Sanctions in LACAN/LACW v. City, CCEA

February 17, 2016 Mike Leave a comment

Earlier today the plaintiffs’ attorneys in the homeless property case, Shayla Myers and Catherine Sweetser, filed a massive application for contempt and sanctions against defendant City of Los Angeles due to their (alleged but totally plausible) recalcitrance in complying with the discovery process. Just now Deputy City Attorney Ronald Whitaker filed a declaration in opposition to this application. There’s nothing that new here, although it’s interesting to see that the City is sticking to its largely discredited claim that

in order to search emails, they need the email addresses of each individual LAPD officer. With the help of our investigator, we have tried to identify each of the individual police officers, of which there are over 400, assigned to the Central Division within the relevant timeframe. The LAPD’s IT department requires us to manually match up each officer name with their serial number, as that is how officers are identified in their email addresses. That process is and has been ongoing.

Continue reading Late Night Declaration Filed by Ronald Whitaker Opposing Plaintiffs’ Application for Contempt and Sanctions in LACAN/LACW v. City, CCEA →