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California State Government, Public Records Act Pragmatics

Letters Of Support And Opposition To Senator Bob Wieckowski’s SB518 — Which Would Eliminate 998 Offers In California Public Records Act Cases — Set For Hearing Before Senate Judiciary Committee On April 23 — Which Is This Tuesday! — Predictably The Main Opposition Is From The California Downtown Association — Which Represents Bad BIDdies All Over The State — And From A Bunch Of Other Similarly Situated Groups

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I wrote a couple of months ago about Senator Bob Wieckowski‘s SB 518, which would make a fairly technical albeit quite important improvement to the California Public Records Act. In short this bill would disallow the use of Code of Civil Procedure §998 in CPRA lawsuits. As I said, it’s a fairly technical matter, but it’s well-explained here on Wieckowski’s fact sheet:

The purpose of a §998 offer is to encourage settlement by providing a strong financial
disincentive to a party, whether it be a plaintiff or defendant, who fails to achieve a better result than that party could have achieved by accepting the opponent’s settlement offer. For example, if a defendant makes a §998 offer that is rejected and the
plaintiff fails to obtain a judgment that is more favorable than the offer amount, then the plaintiff is not entitled to post-offer costs and must pay the defendant’s post-offer costs.

But this kind of hardball negotiating tactic can have really negative public policy consequences in CPRA cases. Government agencies sometimes make 998 offers that would require requesters to settle for fewer than all the records they’re entitled to where refusing the offer puts the requester in jeopardy of having to pay significant costs.

As you probably know, though, there are an awful lot of government agencies who just really do not want to comply with the public records act. In my experience these include BIDs, Charter Schools, the City of Los Angeles, and various state agencies. Not all of these have actually made 998 offers to me, but certainly some of them have. And the problem is only going to get worse as the word spreads amongst the agencies.

That’s why it’s not surprising to find that the most significant opposition to Wieckowski’s bill comes from a coalition of lobbying groups representing BIDs, rural jurisdictions, and other small-scale public agencies, surprisingly led by our old friend Andrew Thomas of the Westwood Village BID. Their letter is absolutely full of lies, although I suppose it’s worth reading if you want to see what these people are paying their lobbyists to write.

The main point seems to be that they’re getting sued all the time because the CPRA currently makes it too easy to sue them and SB 518 would only make things worse. Obviously, though, and unmentioned by them in this letter, is the fact that if they would just comply with the law rather than spending many thousands of dollars learning how to evade it, they would never get sued at all. That, though, is clearly not the solution they’re looking for.

There is some significant support for the bill as well. Here’s a letter from the National Lawyers’ Guild Los Angeles, and another letter from Jeffer, Mangels, Butler, & Mitchell. Also worth reading, and there’s a transcription of the NLG-LA one after the break. The bill is coming before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, April 23. I’ll let you know what happens!
Continue reading Letters Of Support And Opposition To Senator Bob Wieckowski’s SB518 — Which Would Eliminate 998 Offers In California Public Records Act Cases — Set For Hearing Before Senate Judiciary Committee On April 23 — Which Is This Tuesday! — Predictably The Main Opposition Is From The California Downtown Association — Which Represents Bad BIDdies All Over The State — And From A Bunch Of Other Similarly Situated Groups →

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Business Improvement Districts

That Time In 2018 When Wallis Locke Told Ellen Riotto How The South Park BID Could Just Ignore The Brown Act By Putting Some Magic Words On The Agenda — Cause The Foothill Municipal Water District Did It — So Anyone Could Do It — Even The South Park BID — But Then Ellen Riotto — Being Uncharacteristically Prudent — Asked Carol Humiston If It Was OK — And Carol Humiston Was All Like No Freaking Way That Is Crazy! — Except She Said It Nicer Cause After All They Are Paying Her A Lot Of Damn Money!

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It’s basically very easy for public government agencies such as business improvement districts to comply with the Brown Act. All they have to do is not be sneaky and stop trying to hide what they’re doing from the public. But of course, that concept is actually impossible for BIDdies to understand, so they’re perennially surprised by what the law requires of them. The general zillionaire rule of statutory interpretation, which is to assume that laws do in fact say whatever rich white people imagine that they ought to say, is accurate 99.99% of the time, but it fails with the Brown Act for some reason.1

Which is why about this time last year we were spending a lot of blog time educating Ellen Riotto, executive directrix of the South Park BID, about the duties required of her organization by the Brown Act. She’d schedule a closed session but wouldn’t explain what the Board was going to talk about during it and I’d be like no, can’t do that, and she’d be like OK thank you for pointing that out! And then she’d be all like board members are going to phone into the meeting from random unannounced locations around the globe and I’d be like no, can’t do that, and she’d be like OK thank you for pointing that out!

And now, thanks to some emails kindly supplied to me in response to a request for public records by the South Park BIDdies, I can reveal for the first time that there was at least one other instance in early 2018 when Ellen Riotto completely misunderstood the Brown Act and was on the verge of implementing yet another completely illegal policy. Wallis Locke sent an email to Ellen Riotto and was all like I know a guy named Dan and he’s involved with the Foothill Municipal Water District and they have some kind of voodoo on their agendas that basically lets them talk about whatever they want to without having to announce it publicly in advance!

And Ellen Riotto was all like I wanna get me some of that! The voodoo, by the way, has to do with the fact that the Brown Act at §54954.2(b) allows public government agencies like BIDs to make last minute additions to their agendas if there is an actual emergency. However, in this case, maybe because my constant scrutiny made her a little more circumspect, she decided to ask the BID’s attorney Ms. Carol Humiston if her theory was a good one.

And Ms. Humiston, despite the fact that she’s famous for counseling her clients to violate the law at every opportunity in contravention of the enforceable expectations of both God and the California State Bar, was all like WHOA! Emergencies mean like earthquakes, fires, and so on! Not some booshwah that you just made up! You can’t freaking do that and you would be crazy even to try so step back from the ledge! And Ellen Riotto was like darn it! But step back from the ledge she did, leaving nothing but this email conversation, a transcription of which you can find after the break!
Continue reading That Time In 2018 When Wallis Locke Told Ellen Riotto How The South Park BID Could Just Ignore The Brown Act By Putting Some Magic Words On The Agenda — Cause The Foothill Municipal Water District Did It — So Anyone Could Do It — Even The South Park BID — But Then Ellen Riotto — Being Uncharacteristically Prudent — Asked Carol Humiston If It Was OK — And Carol Humiston Was All Like No Freaking Way That Is Crazy! — Except She Said It Nicer Cause After All They Are Paying Her A Lot Of Damn Money! →

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LAUSD

LAUSD Has About 60,000 Employees — Doctor Pamela Magee — Supreme Boss Of The Palisades Charter High School — Makes More Money Than All But Three Of Them — Which Certainly Proves Something — But Not Anything Good — Presenting Salaries Of All Pali High Employees — And Employment Contracts For Senior Staff — And Pleadings From Roya Saghafi’s Civil Rights Lawsuit Against The School — Which Makes Allegations Both Lurid And Extensive — And Entirely Freaking Believable If You Know The Palisades At All

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As you may recall I’ve been working on obtaining public records from charter schools in Los Angeles, with some success.1 And one of my prime targets presently is that spider’s nest of privatizing privilege, the Palisades Charter High School. A few weeks ago, for instance, a small set of PCHS boss-lady Doctor Pam Magee’s emails revealed some interesting and reprehensible shenanigans on the part of the interesting and reprehensible California Charter School Association.

And just yesterday the Palisadesean privatizers released another small batch of goodies, which you can get your hands on here on Archive.Org. This set consists of copies of the employment contracts of PCHS senior administrators as well as a list of all PCHS employees by name, salary, and total compensation. The contracts aren’t that interesting, but there’s some good info in the list of salaries, the utility of which is a little attenuated by the fact that for whatever reason2 PCHS Director of Human Capital Exploitation Amy Nguyen3 didn’t include any of these folks’ job titles.

I have a new request in for that essential information, but irrespective of that, we do learn the fairly stunning fact that Dr.4 Pamela A. Magee is paid $218,855 per year for her labors.5 Now, everything I know about salaries at charter schools I learned from this fine article by the incomparable Red Queen in LA. And the folks she talks about there make an awful lot of money. Cosmic money. More money than Doctor P.A.M.

But they’re not actually running individual charter schools like Doctor Magee.6 So I thought I’d check out how much LAUSD pays its principals, you know, for the sake of comparison. A little Googlism7 revealed this LAUSD administrative salary schedule and this organizational chart. And what these documents reveal is pretty surprising. It turns out that there are only three LAUSD employees out of more than 60,0008 that earn more annually than Dr. Pamela A. Magee. Those are:

☆ Chief Academic Officer Frances Gipson — $255,000
☆ Deputy Superintendent Vivian Ekchian — $262,500
☆ Superindendent Austin Beutner — $350,000

So what does this mean? Well, I don’t know. The familiar things about how charter schools suck public money out of public use and use it to enrich the already-rich, I guess. About how zillionaires, intent on destroying the public realm, pay their minions well. Whatever it means, though, it’s a pretty nice illustration of one of the central paradoxes of value with LAUSD employees playing the role of water and Dr. Magee that of diamonds.

And here’s my candidate for the non-sequiturish-segue-of-the-moment, which is that whatever it is that Dr. Pam Magee is doing out there in Northwest Zillionaireville9 to earn10 her bread in the sweat of her brow, she doesn’t seem to have been able to put an end to a years-long series of despicable racist shenanigans directed against former PCHS teacher and current civil rights litigant Roya Saghafi by various PCHS employees and students and described in this complaint, filed in Superior Court in June 2018.11

And you know how we love lawsuits around these parts! I’m collecting pleadings from this one over here on the Archive. And not only that, but the trial is scheduled for July 29, 2019 at 10 a.m. in Department 72 at the Stanley Mosk Courthouse. I expect to attend, and maybe I’ll see you there! Meanwhile, turn the page for some transcribed selections from the complaint.
Continue reading LAUSD Has About 60,000 Employees — Doctor Pamela Magee — Supreme Boss Of The Palisades Charter High School — Makes More Money Than All But Three Of Them — Which Certainly Proves Something — But Not Anything Good — Presenting Salaries Of All Pali High Employees — And Employment Contracts For Senior Staff — And Pleadings From Roya Saghafi’s Civil Rights Lawsuit Against The School — Which Makes Allegations Both Lurid And Extensive — And Entirely Freaking Believable If You Know The Palisades At All →

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LAPD

Have You Been #BlockedBySteve?! — We Have The List Of Every Twitter User Blocked And/Or Muted By Los Angeles Police Commission President Steve Soboroff — If You’re Not On It Start Asking Yourself What You’re Doing Wrong!

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I’ve been working on finding out precisely who the esteemed leaders of this City have blocked on Twitter. The other day I wrote about about 11 of our 15 Council Districts1 and revealed the perhaps unexpected but still somehow not that surprising fact that soon-to-be-incarcerated CD14 Councilbro Jose Huizar by far leads his council colleagues in smackblocking, with 21 users silenced by this thin-skinned fellow.

But he does not compare, not at all, not even close, to Steve Soboroff, president of the Los Angeles Police Commission. Soboroff tweets under the colorful sobriquet @SteveSoboroff and it turns out that he is blocking an astonishing one hundred and fifty six users. He’s also muting six users. There is a list, of course, of live links after the break. Are you on it? If not, why not?!

At the same time I got this essential info I also got a list of the users blocked by @lapdcommission, the official Commission account. There are eight of these, all well-known corporate accounts for whatever reason. It’s possible that all this has some actual importance as far as the First Amendment goes given a recent ruling by a federal district court that it’s unconstitutional for Donald Trump to block users.

I don’t know much about that, but I do know that this information is of great interest here in Los Angeles, where in order to maximize our chances for changing things we must know our enemies. You can look here at the actual records received in response to my CPRA request, and marvel at the crapola quality of the screenshots coming off Steve Soboroff’s phone. And turn the page for a carefully collated, checked, alphabetized, and htmlified list of the users!
Continue reading Have You Been #BlockedBySteve?! — We Have The List Of Every Twitter User Blocked And/Or Muted By Los Angeles Police Commission President Steve Soboroff — If You’re Not On It Start Asking Yourself What You’re Doing Wrong! →

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Los Angeles City Council

Jose Huizar Wants To Stay Proceedings In The Pauline Medina Suit Against Him — And He Wants To File His Motion To Stay Under Seal Just Like With The Alvarez Case — So Last Week He Asked The Judge To Hear The Motion To File The Motion To Seal Before The Motion To Stay Was Due — Just Like With Alvarez — But This Judge Said No Way, Jose! — Denied His Request For An Early Hearing — Presumably This Means He Will Have To File Motion To Stay Publicly — So We Get To Read It!

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Yesterday I reported that Jose Huizar wanted to put Mayra Alvarez’s lawsuit against him on hold until after his pending criminal problems are done. The reason is that he can’t defend himself without revealing secret info about his criminal case. But he claims that he can’t even support his motion to stay the proceedings without revealing secrets, so he asked the Alvarez judge to grant him an expedited hearing to ask to be allowed to file the motion to stay under seal. That judge granted his request and the hearing will be held on May 16.

But obviously he has the exact same problem with Pauline Medina’s case against him. And not surprisingly he’s trying to set up the exact same solution. His motion to stay the proceedings is due on May 24 but he can’t get a hearing on his application to seal the motion until June, leaving him no choice but to file the motion to stay in public, which, he says, will reveal his secrets to the world, not to mention the FBI.

So he asked the (different) judge to grant him an expedited hearing to consider his application to file the motion to stay under seal. He used the exact same reasoning. But this judge said “No way, Jose!” So presumably he will have to file his motion to stay the proceedings on May 24 in public and we’ll all get to read it. Stay tuned! And turn the page for some links and excerpts.
Continue reading Jose Huizar Wants To Stay Proceedings In The Pauline Medina Suit Against Him — And He Wants To File His Motion To Stay Under Seal Just Like With The Alvarez Case — So Last Week He Asked The Judge To Hear The Motion To File The Motion To Seal Before The Motion To Stay Was Due — Just Like With Alvarez — But This Judge Said No Way, Jose! — Denied His Request For An Early Hearing — Presumably This Means He Will Have To File Motion To Stay Publicly — So We Get To Read It! →

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Los Angeles City Council

Jose Huizar Wants To Put Mayra Alvarez’s Case Against Him On Hold Because In Order To Defend Himself He Will Have To Reveal Dark Secrets About His Criminal Behavior — So He’s Going To File A Motion To Stay The Proceedings — But The Motion To Stay Will Also Contain Dark Secrets About His Criminal Case — So He’s Filing A Motion To Allow Him To File The Motion To Stay Under Seal — And That Motion Will Be Heard On May 16 At 8:30 AM

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Last week soon-to-be-incarcerated Los Angeles City Councilmember Jose Huizar filed a motion with the court that is hearing his former employee Mayra Alvarez’s lawsuit against him for creating a hostile work environment and engaging in a remarkable number of really creepy behaviors. He says that he will be filing a motion to stay the proceedings because he can’t defend himself without revealing secret stuff about his criminal case.

The same, he says, will be true about the motion to stay itself, so he wants permission to file THAT motion under seal. Last week he asked for and obtained permission from the court to have a hearing on the motion to file the motion to stay under seal. That hearing will take place at the Stanley Mosk Courthouse on Thursday, May 16, 2019 at 8:30 a.m. in Department 17. Here are links to the records, and turn the page for transcribed selections.

☆ Declaration of Carmen Aguado in support of motion

☆ Huizar Application for order to set hearing on motion to file under seal

☆ Order to set hearing

☆ Notice of order
Continue reading Jose Huizar Wants To Put Mayra Alvarez’s Case Against Him On Hold Because In Order To Defend Himself He Will Have To Reveal Dark Secrets About His Criminal Behavior — So He’s Going To File A Motion To Stay The Proceedings — But The Motion To Stay Will Also Contain Dark Secrets About His Criminal Case — So He’s Filing A Motion To Allow Him To File The Motion To Stay Under Seal — And That Motion Will Be Heard On May 16 At 8:30 AM →

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Los Angeles City Government, The Race Card

The USC Department Of Public Safety Is Well-Known For Its Racist Policing Practices — Wanna Know How Well-Known? — So Well-Known That Los Angeles City Councilmember Marqueece Harris-Dawson Admits That They Racially Profile People — Wanna Know How Marqueece Harris-Dawson Knows The USC DPS Racially Profiles People? — Because They Freaking Racially Profile Him! — Regularly! — He Says So On Freaking Video! — Why Is This Not Enough To Get The City To Fix This Damn Problem?

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The University of Southern California calls its security guards the Department of Public Safety. It seems to be not so widely known that, with the explicit consent of the City of Los Angeles, USC security operates on public streets in a huge area surrounding the campus. And as you might expect from a troublesome and troubled institution such as USC their policing is both troublesome and troubled. It’s demonstrably racist and demonstrably outside the bounds of what the law allows them to do as security guards. The problem has been covered for years now by the incomparable Sahra Sulaiman of Streetsblog Los Angeles. See e.g.:

☆ A Tale of Two Communities: New Security Measures at USC Intensify Profiling of Lower-Income Youth of Color

☆ Handcuffing of Cyclist by USC Public Safety Raises Questions about Tactics, Oversight, Accountability

And if you still don’t believe that USC DPS is out of control, watch this video of Los Angeles City Councilmember Marqueece Harris-Dawson responding to a constituent concerned about their racist policing by revealing his own personal experiences with their racial profiling. There is, of course, a transcription after the break.1

And this revelation raises a really serious question. If even Marqueece Harris-Dawson gets treated like an “undesirable” by USC DPS, why hasn’t the City of Los Angeles done something to stop them? Why hasn’t Marqueece Harris-Dawson done something to stop them? The logistics wouldn’t be hard. What’s hard is finding political support for a solution.

The City of Los Angeles is deeply invested in the racist policies of its own police force, so how are they going to expend political capital shutting down the racist policies of their little partners at USC? USC DPS is furthering the goals of the City of Los Angeles as implemented by LAPD.

And whether out of deference to his colleague at CD9, Curren Price, in whose district USC situates, or out of respect for the wants and needs of the zillionaires who eventually come to control every council office, Harris-Dawson has made his choice to do nothing. It may not be possible to explain, but it’s so commonplace a situation in LA politics that it doesn’t really need explanation.
Continue reading The USC Department Of Public Safety Is Well-Known For Its Racist Policing Practices — Wanna Know How Well-Known? — So Well-Known That Los Angeles City Councilmember Marqueece Harris-Dawson Admits That They Racially Profile People — Wanna Know How Marqueece Harris-Dawson Knows The USC DPS Racially Profiles People? — Because They Freaking Racially Profile Him! — Regularly! — He Says So On Freaking Video! — Why Is This Not Enough To Get The City To Fix This Damn Problem? →

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Los Angeles City Government

Ever Wonder If You Are Blocked By Your Councilmember On The Twitter?! — We Have The Answer! — Also City Attorney! — Also The Mayor! — But Nury Martinez — And Herb Wesson — And Mike Bonin — And Mitch O’Farrell — They Won’t Even Answer The Damn Requests — Oh, Almost Forgot To Say! — Deputy City Attorney And Insufferable Rich Boy Strefan Fauble Wants To Be Sure You Know — Mike Feuer Isn’t Muting Any Twitter Users But If He Were — The List Would Be Exempt From Release Under The CPRA! — Yeah Right, Strefan Fauble! — Stick To Art Collecting And Leave The CPRA Lawyering To Others!

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For about two months now I’ve been looking into the practice of Twitter users being blocked or muted by official City of Los Angeles accounts. I’m still gathering evidence, but yesterday it came out that Police Commission president Steve Soboroff blocks a bunch of users who’ve never even interacted with him, so I thought it’d be timely to write up the information I have so far. This issue is of special interest in these latter days given that in 2018 a federal judge ruled that it is unconstitutional for Donald Trump to block users on Twitter.

What I can offer you today, friends, is Twitter block/mute information for eleven of the fifteen council districts, the City Attorney, the Mayor, and a small selection of official LAPD accounts.1 There’s also an interesting line of hypothetical bullshit from deputy city attorney Strefan Fauble2 about some pretty technical claims about CPRA exemptionism,3 but that, being übernerdlich, is way at the end of the post.

Most of the accounts blocked are porn or spam, but Jose Huizar and David Ryu are notable exceptions. Both reps block accounts that are obviously controlled by actual individual people. Huizar’s list is by far the most extensive, and includes wildly inappropriate blocks like @oscartaracena and @BHJesse.

My research on this question is ongoing, mostly hindered by the City of LA’s familiar foot-dragging CPRA methodology. Turn the page for a tabular summary of the results I have so far along with a brief discussion of how Strefan Fauble is still on his CPRA bullshit.
Continue reading Ever Wonder If You Are Blocked By Your Councilmember On The Twitter?! — We Have The Answer! — Also City Attorney! — Also The Mayor! — But Nury Martinez — And Herb Wesson — And Mike Bonin — And Mitch O’Farrell — They Won’t Even Answer The Damn Requests — Oh, Almost Forgot To Say! — Deputy City Attorney And Insufferable Rich Boy Strefan Fauble Wants To Be Sure You Know — Mike Feuer Isn’t Muting Any Twitter Users But If He Were — The List Would Be Exempt From Release Under The CPRA! — Yeah Right, Strefan Fauble! — Stick To Art Collecting And Leave The CPRA Lawyering To Others! →

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Business Improvement Districts

South Park BID Communications Director Wallis Locke Was About To Be Fired For Poor Job Performance At The End Of 2017 — Then BID Exec Direc Ellen Riotto Had A Talk With Her — “Improve Or It Is Over!” Spake Ellen Riotto — By April 2018 — Much To Riotto’s Surprise — Locke Had “Stepped Up Her Game” — By December 2018 Riotto Thought Locke’s Work Was As Valuable — If Not More Valuable — Than Planning Director Josh Kreger’s — So She Reduced Kreger’s 2018 Bonus By $750 And Gave It To Locke Instead! — But Kreger Still Makes 43% More Than Locke Annually — How Is That Fair, Ellen Riotto?!

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I’ve written before about the South Park BID’s weirdo insistence that its staff members keep their salaries secret even though it’s essentially impossible to do this for publicly funded government agencies like business improvement districts. This information is just all a matter of public record, so we know, e.g., that South Park BID real estate director Josh Kreger makes $100,000 per year, communications director Wallace Locke makes $70,000, operations director Lulu Woldemariam makes $65,000 per year, and executive director Ellen Salome Riotto makes $131,250.

And they also get bonuses! I don’t know what kind of job you have, but I’ve never had a job where they just gave bonuses to everyone. It’s some kind of white collar elite psychodrama that would probably ruin everyone’s time at the Christmas party if they knew what their colleagues were getting. But it turns out that bonuses are all public record too! I am, therefore, pleased to be able to reveal what all these South Park BIDdies got all bonused up with for 2018!

But first there is a crucial backstory! Having to do with BID communications boss Wallis Locke! Who started with the BID in November 2016. And couldn’t be bothered to even show up for work on time! Or respond to emails on time! Or make her freaking green carpet deadlines, whatever the freaking heck those are! You can read all about it right here!

But then her kindly but stern boss lady Ellen Salome Riotto had a little talk with her in December 2017! And she told her to listen up! And fly right! And other cliches like that! Or there wasn’t gonna be a next time! She “made it clear that this would be the very last of this type of conversation, and if her work ethic and attitude is not consistently improved, it’s over.” And it seems that by April 2018 Riotto’s shock treatment had worked! Ellen Riotto told the Board in an email that “she stepped up her game in ways that I frankly didn’t think she was capable of.”

Which brings us up to December 2018, when Ellen Riotto sent an email to BIDdie Warbucks Bob Buente discussing year-end bonuses for the staff. Which evidently, not that I would know, are supposed to be 5% of salary. So that, based on the numbers above, Kreger should have gotten $5,000 and Locke $3,500. But, says Riotto to Buente:

WL’s salary is still lower than where I’d like her to be, based on the competitive landscape in the industry and her specific contributions to the BID. Her bonus should be calculated on her current salary, not on gross annual earnings. That would put her at $3,500. However, Wallis’ contributions are equal in value (if not more valuable) than Josh’s, so my recommendation is to sum their 5%s ($3,500 for WL, $5,000 for Josh = $8,500) and split ($4,250).

And that’s what they did. Oh, ouch! That’s gotta hurt Josh Kreger, wouldn’t you think? His bonus is reduced by 15% and that money passed to Locke, who earns 30% less than him, but his boss thinks her contributions are “equal in value (if not more valuable) than” his. Ouch, ouch, ouch!

If he has any self-respect he’ll quit the damn job after reading about what his boss thinks of him. Stay tuned! And turn the page for a complete transcription of every last detail of Ellen Salome Riotto’s December 2017 email about what a crappy job Wallis Locke had been doing!
Continue reading South Park BID Communications Director Wallis Locke Was About To Be Fired For Poor Job Performance At The End Of 2017 — Then BID Exec Direc Ellen Riotto Had A Talk With Her — “Improve Or It Is Over!” Spake Ellen Riotto — By April 2018 — Much To Riotto’s Surprise — Locke Had “Stepped Up Her Game” — By December 2018 Riotto Thought Locke’s Work Was As Valuable — If Not More Valuable — Than Planning Director Josh Kreger’s — So She Reduced Kreger’s 2018 Bonus By $750 And Gave It To Locke Instead! — But Kreger Still Makes 43% More Than Locke Annually — How Is That Fair, Ellen Riotto?! →

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Homeless Issues, LAPD

In 2018 LAPD Hollywood Division Senior Lead Officer Paul Jordan Threatened A Homeless Man — Intimidated Him Into Moving To Another Neighborhood — To Please A Mob Of Angry Delusional Homeowners — Who Along With The LAPD Characteristically Think That A Bunch Of Crap They Just Made Up Is More Important Than People’s Actual Lives — And Dan Halden — Mitch O’Farrell’s Hollywood Field Flunky — And David Ryu Flunkies Catherine Landers And Rachel Fox — And Deputy City Attorney Steve Houchin — And Hollywood Division Chief Boss Cory Palka — All Of Them Read Jordan’s Account Of This Threat — And Were Silent

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I just received a reasonably large set of emails from the LAPD involving Hollywood zillionaire, racist police-caller, and Hollywood Media District BIDdie Ferris Wehbe1 and LAPD Hollywood Division Senior Lead Officer Paul Jordan. I was looking for material involving the Hollywood Forever Cemetery fiasco but ended up with a bunch more evidence about what the LAPD motto means with respect to our homeless brothers and sisters when the cops think no one is watching but the hateful homedwellers to the whims of whom they’re paid to pander.

You’ll find a lot of interesting stuff in there, but the text for today’s sermon is this conversation from February and March 2018. The participants are the usual rageball gang of housedwellers, possessed with the usual heaping dose of what passes for righteous wrath among the propertied classes, Hollywood cop Jordan, and various City staffers, including Mitch O’Farrell flunky Dan Halden, a couple of jokers from CD4, deputy city attorney and, at that time, Hollywood neighborhood prosecutor Steve Houchin, and Hollywood Division Commander Cory Palka.

There’s really nothing atypical about the story. It begins, as so many of these episodes do, with an imaginary claim that things are getting worse, that the median melanin level in a previously placid caucasian paradise is rising, crime is exploding, turpitude is raining down like the mighty waters, and so on. The florid semiliteracy of this initial cri de coeur, though, is kind of unique and so is presented here with the weirdo capitalization, made-up words, and idiosyncratic spelling all intact, is not standard:

Seems Like there’s this sergeancy of Brazen Homeless youth and some older that are wondering around the De Longpre Park neighborhood looking for Crimes of Opportunity!

The fear and anger and hate escalate through familiar delusional stages albeit with uniquely weird particular details. Homeless people are shitting in the bushes! They’re naked in the driveway and showering with the hose! They’re having sex on the lawn! At eleven in the morning! The church attracts them by handing out free food! The 7-11 attracts them by selling hot food!

They’re drinking beer! They’re making people nervous! They’re setting up tents in permit parking neighborhoods, which everyone knows is not allowed!2 They don’t pay property taxes! And bills! Like normal people! We need to form armed vigilante gangs! Like we had in the good old days! Let’s have a neighborhood meeting!3

And eventually they focus their rage on one particular tent, although it’s certainly not clear that the person living there has had anything to do with the enumerated atrocities.4 And in one of the most explicitly articulate statements of official City policy towards the homeless we’re likely to see, Hollywood Division Senior Lead Officer Paul Jordan explains what happened next:

On Feb 21, 2018, at 3:46 PM, Paul P Jordan <32285@lapd.online> wrote:

Hi Judy,

I had a nice conversation with the young man inside the tent today. Needless to say, his tent is gone and he will not be returning to that location. I also went to the LGBT Center and spoke with Andrew, who is now aware of this individual, and will be spoken to by the LGBT staff. Please keep me posted if he decides to return.

PJ

And then? Well, Officer Jordan gets the immediate gush of goopy approval that such thuggie boys live for5 and the very next day David Ryu flunky Catherine Landers is back to discussing the terms of the upcoming neighborhood meeting. There’s no outrage from these City staffers, no note to Paul Jordan telling him that it’s against the law for police to go around threatening homeless people to get them to move, no nothing.

And no surprise from me, either, because I’ve just read too many emails exactly like these ones to be surprised anymore. But I’m still mad that this is the level our City government is at, that not only do they break the law and oppress the poor to placate the rich but they don’t even try to hide it. Turn the page for a transcription of the conversation.
Continue reading In 2018 LAPD Hollywood Division Senior Lead Officer Paul Jordan Threatened A Homeless Man — Intimidated Him Into Moving To Another Neighborhood — To Please A Mob Of Angry Delusional Homeowners — Who Along With The LAPD Characteristically Think That A Bunch Of Crap They Just Made Up Is More Important Than People’s Actual Lives — And Dan Halden — Mitch O’Farrell’s Hollywood Field Flunky — And David Ryu Flunkies Catherine Landers And Rachel Fox — And Deputy City Attorney Steve Houchin — And Hollywood Division Chief Boss Cory Palka — All Of Them Read Jordan’s Account Of This Threat — And Were Silent →

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