All posts by Mike

The Hollywood Chamber of Commerce is to a Thousand Philistines as the East Hollywood BID Contractor Responsibility Ordinance Agreement is to the Jawbone of an Ass

November 10, 2015 Mike Leave a comment

Even very strong people sometimes need the right tool with which to smite their enemies. And sometimes they just reach out their hand and there it is. Sometimes it happens like that.

I’m just announcing a few new documents today. When I requested them it was almost an afterthought. I didn’t expect much of them. But one has turned out to be really interesting and potentially really important.

These are just routine Contractor Responsibility Ordinance pledges of compliance. Today I have three:

Now, one of these things is really not like the others.
Continue reading The Hollywood Chamber of Commerce is to a Thousand Philistines as the East Hollywood BID Contractor Responsibility Ordinance Agreement is to the Jawbone of an Ass →

Announcements, Downtown Center BID

Multi-Megabyte Treasure Trove of DCBID Documents: UPS Use of Force Manual, Beaucoup Board Minutes, Finance Committee.

November 6, 2015 Mike 2 Comments

If you're the kind of person to whom diagrams such as this have meaning, this one certainly has meaning to you. — If you’re the kind of person to whom diagrams such as this have meaning, this one certainly has meaning to you. Click to see full size.

I just got a ton of stuff from the ever-helpful (and, relatively speaking, surprisingly sane) Suzanne Holley of the DCBID. The most amazing item, and one which no one here has yet had time to read carefully enough to appreciate, is the 64 page PDF of the Universal Protection Service Use of Force Manual. This is an amazing piece of evidence. What it is evidence of, as always, remains to be seen. If you notice anything important in it, please drop me a line. No doubt my colleagues and I will be mining this for a long time. It is the source of the cryptic yet creepy diagram which adorns this post. There are also a bunch of slightly more pedestrian-on-their-face documents, described after the break.
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Announcements, Central City East Association

Downtown Industrial District BID / Central City East Association Documents Now Available

October 30, 2015 Mike Leave a comment

White skin and red blood on Skid Row.

I recently started requesting documents from the Central City East Association (CCEA), which runs the Downtown Industrial District BID. I’m not sure why, it was just a whim, but the executive directrix, a lady named Raquel Beard (who long-time readers may remember for her stunningly weird remarks about sidewalk vending), turned out to be so delightfully trollable that I’m just going to keep it up for a while. I can already see a couple of ways it might develop into a long game, but I’m keeping schtum about that for now. Meanwhile, take a look at what I got today. You can begin with CCEA in the Documents menu above. Also, here is a page for the new subdirectory. After the break I describe things in more detail, if you’re interested.
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Announcements

Lots of New Documents: Tax Returns from the DCBID, the CHC, and the HPOA, Whistleblower Policies (?!) and More

October 29, 2015 Mike Leave a comment

Death and taxes at the Internal Revenue Service

I have 2012 and 2013 tax returns for the DCBID, which now have their very own subdirectory. Also I have 2014 tax returns for both HPOA administered BIDs (it’s too much alphabet soup to list these all out, it doesn’t matter anyway). They can all be found in the Finances subdirectory of the HPOA directory. Finally, we have what may be the very weirdest items we’ve obtained to date. Find out what they are after the break!
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Hollywood BID Patrol, Lawsuits

Acting on Behalf of Street Vendors National Lawyers Guild LA Sues City, Fashion District BID Over Illegal Confiscations, Color-of-Law Abuses. PDF of Initial Complaint Available

October 29, 2015 Mike Leave a comment

Another street vendor arrested, shackled, jailed, and abused by the Hollywood BID Patrol

Yesterday, the National Lawyers Guild Los Angeles filed suit in Federal Court against the City of Los Angeles and the Fashion District BID on behalf of the Union Popular de Vendedores Ambulantes. First of all, I set up a page to collect filings. I managed to track down a copy of the initial complaint (OK, I mean I bought it from PACER for $1.70, you’re welcome!), and you can read about it in the LA Times here if you want.

The title of this file claims that it's abandoned property and that it was donated to Blessed Sacrament. It's obvious from the context, though, that it's really stuff that was confiscated from a street vendor by the BID Patrol or else abandoned when the vendor ran away because the BID Patrol was threatening to arrest him. In any case, it did not belong to them and they stole it when they took it to give to the church. — The title of this file claims that it’s abandoned property and that it was donated to Blessed Sacrament. It’s obvious from the context, though, that it’s really stuff that was confiscated from a street vendor by the BID Patrol or else abandoned when the vendor ran away because the BID Patrol was threatening to arrest him. In any case, it did not belong to them and they stole it when they took it to give to the church.

There’s an excerpt from the complaint after the break, but it’s really worth reading the whole thing.

One of the main points is that the LAPD and the BID conspire to not only cite and/or arrest the vendors, but to destroy their stuff. We’ve written before about how the Hollywood BID Patrol does the same thing. They not only arrest the vendors, but without any kind of due process, they ruin all their stuff, or even worse, appropriate it and steal it. You can see an example of this in the photo somewhere near this sentence. I would imagine that, now that the Fashion District BID is being sued, the HPOA is getting a little nervous. Turn the page to hear why!

Continue reading Acting on Behalf of Street Vendors National Lawyers Guild LA Sues City, Fashion District BID Over Illegal Confiscations, Color-of-Law Abuses. PDF of Initial Complaint Available →

Announcements, Selma Park

New Documents About Selma Park From the HPOA, New Document Storage System

October 24, 2015 Mike Leave a comment

An official BID Patrol photo of the Selma Park playground on April 27, 2011, entitled SELMA PARK VANDALISM. Because everyone knows that drawing on a playground with freaking chalk is vandalism. Fucking savages.

First of all, I reorganized our documents. I think the new system will make it easier for you to find things. I know it’ll make it easier for me to add new material, and I have a lot of stuff coming in soon. The “Document” menu in the header now leads to a link and an iframe pointing at this page, which is just a raw files and directory set-up. For now I’m only allowing http access, but I might set up ftp access in the future. In any case, have at it! The only problem left unsolved is how to host the 15+ gigs of photos I have on hand. I’m working on a solution involving dropbox, since archive.org has turned out to be pretty slow for that many images and Flickr seems complicated for bulk uploads and metadata editing. I could be wrong about this, though. More news soon. Second, there’s a bunch of new stuff about Selma Park. Read on for details.
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Announcements, Business Improvement Districts

Media District BID Tax Returns for 2011 Through 2013 Now Available

October 22, 2015 Mike Leave a comment

As the mohel said about the knick-knacks displayed in the window of his storefront: "So, what do you want me to put there?" — As the mohel said about the knick-knacks displayed in the window of his storefront: “So, what do you want me to put there?”

This is just a brief announcement that I have the Media District BID’s tax returns for tax years 2011 and 2012 and 2013. Nonprofits have to put quite a bit more information down than do private parties, so these are not only intrinsically interesting, but they are a little bit like menus for public-records-act-requesting banquets.

In any case, you can get them from the links above, from this page in the header menu structure, or direct from our static storage.

Image is released under the CC BY 2.0 by its creator Tim Pierce and is available via Flickr.

Announcements

Contractor Responsibility Questionnaires from the City Clerk’s Office for HPOA, Central Hollywood Coalition, and the Media District BID

October 20, 2015 Mike Leave a comment

I wanted to put something here and this is the best thing I could think of.

Today I received three interesting documents from the office of the L.A. City Clerk who, as you may know, oversees BIDs. One of the things that BIDs are contractually obligated to do is to fill out questionnaires related to the Contractor Responsibility Ordinance. On these they’re questioned about lawsuits against them and stuff like that. So I’m pleased to present these documents for the HPOA, and the Central Hollywood Coalition, and, finally, the Media District BID. I requested these as part of a long-term project which I can’t say too much about yet, although, of course, you’ll be the first to know when the fruit is ripe!
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Announcements, Business Improvement Districts

New Seyler Reports to the HPOA Joint Security Committee Now Available, Final Fate of Vine Street Tree Vandal Revealed!

October 16, 2015 Mike Leave a comment

I suppose I’m pleased to announce that we have a bunch more of big BID boss bully-boy Steve Seyler’s reports to the Joint Security Committee of the two best little BIDsies in Hollywood. I had previously obtained copies of a number of these, but only on paper, making the scans posted here in the past less than useful. Today’s dump brings our collection up to June 2015. These files are PDFs, but they’re more searchable than the previous scans-to-image were. However, and I’m working on this problem, they’re not nearly as searchable as the original .doc files will be when I get them. I’ll let you know. You can look for them here by date or, for your convenience, I made a zip archive of just the new files. Be careful, though, it’s north of 8MB. Some details after the break.
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Michael Kohlhaas dot org

All posts by Mike

The Hollywood Chamber of Commerce is to a Thousand Philistines as the East Hollywood BID Contractor Responsibility Ordinance Agreement is to the Jawbone of an Ass

Multi-Megabyte Treasure Trove of DCBID Documents: UPS Use of Force Manual, Beaucoup Board Minutes, Finance Committee.

Downtown Industrial District BID / Central City East Association Documents Now Available

Lots of New Documents: Tax Returns from the DCBID, the CHC, and the HPOA, Whistleblower Policies (?!) and More

Acting on Behalf of Street Vendors National Lawyers Guild LA Sues City, Fashion District BID Over Illegal Confiscations, Color-of-Law Abuses. PDF of Initial Complaint Available

New Documents About Selma Park From the HPOA, New Document Storage System

Media District BID Tax Returns for 2011 Through 2013 Now Available

Contractor Responsibility Questionnaires from the City Clerk’s Office for HPOA, Central Hollywood Coalition, and the Media District BID

More Media District BID Documents Now Available

New Seyler Reports to the HPOA Joint Security Committee Now Available, Final Fate of Vine Street Tree Vandal Revealed!