All posts by Mike

Announcing Our New LAMC 49.5.5(A) Project: Peter Zarcone And The HPOA Music Festival Fiasco Provide Raw Material For Our First Experimental Attempt At Seeing What This Law Actually Prohibits

October 12, 2016 Mike Leave a comment

LAMC 49.5.5(A) states, rather succinctly, that:

City officials, agency employees, appointees awaiting confirmation by the City Council, and candidates for elected City office shall not misuse or attempt to misuse their positions or prospective positions to create or attempt to create a private advantage or disadvantage, financial or otherwise, for any person.

Here’s what seems to be required of a City official or employee to violate this law:¹

That they misuse their position, where I’m thinking “misuse” means:
- They do something that requires the powers granted to them by virtue of their position and
- their powers were not granted for the purpose of doing that thing.
The misuse creates a private advantage or disadvantage for someone, where I’m thinking “private” means:
- The advantage or disadvantage created does not further public policy goals. E.g. getting arrested creates a disadvantage for the arrestee, but the disadvantage furthers a public goal. Winning a contract through the City’s bidding process advantages the successful bidder, but the advantage furthers a public goal.

The law is enforced by the City Ethics Commission, although it doesn’t seem to have been used much. There is, e.g., this case from 2010 involving a Fire Inspector who charged money for successful inspections. This is the kind of thing one would expect to fall under this statute. However, there is also one high profile case pending right now which doesn’t seem ordinary at all. It seems quite unexpected. In 2014 LAPD Officer Jim Parker was among those who responded to a sex-in-a-car call involving Daniele Watts and her boyfriend. She accused the police of racism and brutality, and Parker anonymously leaked an audio recording of the incident, which exonerated the police. Subsequently, the Ethics Commission issued a public accusation against Parker for violating LAMC 49.5.5(A) on the theory that leaking the confidential audio recording, which he only had access to by virtue of his position, constituted a misuse which created a private advantage for himself.²

This is very encouraging. It seems that perhaps the Ethics Commission is willing to at least think about a broad application of this seemingly very broad law. And it’s an interesting thing about laws that no one can actually be sure what they mean, what the range of application is, until they’re repeatedly tested in the courts. Well, that’s not exactly right. If a court decides that people of average intelligence can’t be sure at all what the law actually prohibits or requires, they’re likely to toss it out as unconstitutionally vague. But, I guess, if people don’t know exactly what the law prohibits or requires, but average people could have realized that it potentially prohibits what they’re doing or requires what they’re not doing, then it’s not too vague, even if no one actually did realize those things.³ That’s the space I’m interested in exploring with respect to LAMC 49.5.5(A). And because I’m not interested in philosophical explorations any more I’m going to explore this issue by actually turning people in to the CEC to find out what happens, beginning with our old friend, Peter Zarcone. You can read some details after the break, and even get your very own copy of the complaint I sent the Ethics Commission the other day.
Continue reading Announcing Our New LAMC 49.5.5(A) Project: Peter Zarcone And The HPOA Music Festival Fiasco Provide Raw Material For Our First Experimental Attempt At Seeing What This Law Actually Prohibits →

Lawsuits

Defendant City of Los Angeles Files Motion To Dismiss Street Vending Lawsuit, Motion To Strike Putatively Irrelevant Material, Gratuitously Compares Street Vendors To Human Traffickers And Drug Dealers; Hearing Scheduled For November 21 At 1:30 P.M.

October 11, 2016 Mike Leave a comment

An image from a recent journey to the Fashion District, unrelated to anything discussed in this post or, for that matter, on this blog.

Recall that last week we learned that settlement talks in the Street Vendors lawsuit seemed to have fallen through, that the plaintiffs filed an amended complaint, and that the City of LA denies everything.¹ Well, today a couple more items² hit PACER, which are:

Defendant City of L.A.’s Motion to Dismiss
Defendant City of L.A.’s Motion to Strike — Wherein the City of L.A. asks the Court to drop some material from the Complaint because it’s irrelevant.

The motion to dismiss isn’t that different from the motion to dismiss that the City filed in May but then withdrew a few days later. It doesn’t seem plausible,³ and you can read it for yourself. The motion to strike is more interesting, and you can read about it after the break.
Continue reading Defendant City of Los Angeles Files Motion To Dismiss Street Vending Lawsuit, Motion To Strike Putatively Irrelevant Material, Gratuitously Compares Street Vendors To Human Traffickers And Drug Dealers; Hearing Scheduled For November 21 At 1:30 P.M. →

CD13

CD13 Staffers Marisol Rodriguez and Juan Fregoso Conspire With Bureau of Sanitation Employees Jose Garcia and Renee Shackleford to Subvert City Homeless Encampment Cleanup Policies and Procedures Just So Mitch O’Farrell, Other “VIPs,” Don’t Have To Walk By Homeless People On Their Way To Give A Speech

October 8, 2016 Mike Leave a comment

Low income housing at 215 N Vermont Avenue. Note the distinctive lack of homeless people for VIPs to step over, thanks to the foresight and strongarm tactics of CD13's Marisol Rodriguez and Juan Fregoso. — Low income housing at 215 N Vermont Avenue. Note the distinctive lack of homeless people for VIPs to step over, thanks to the foresight and strongarm tactics of CD13’s Marisol Rodriguez and Juan Fregoso.

Well, it turns out there’s this company called AMCAL Housing, and according to their about-us page they build affordable housing in exchange for tax breaks, or some such thing. They’re building a big project at Vermont and Beverly¹ called the Meridian Apartments, and they broke ground officially on February 11, 2016, with Mitch O’Farrell scheduled to speak at the ceremony.

Thus, on February 1, 2016, Paige Horn of AMCAL Housing emailed Marisol Rodriguez, Dave Cano, Juan Fregoso, all of CD13, and some people from Korean Churches for Community Development, which is working with AMCAL on this project, telling them:

Thank you all for your participation in the Meridian Groundbreaking Event on Thursday, February 11^th at 11am! … There should be ample street parking, however, I have reserved VIP Parking for all speakers at the lower parking lot of Hubbard College of Administration that can be accessed from Juanita Avenue.

Map of the area. (a) is the parking lot, (b) is the encampment. A speculative VIP path to the event is shown in purple. Click to enlarge.

But local knowledge counts for a lot. The very next day, our very own Juan Fregoso emailed Victor Gutierrez (#26802) with a cc to Matthew Ziegler (#34208)² to report:

Hi Vic,
Here is the info for the event on the 11th.

We have CSI³ scheduled for February 9th.

As you can see, VIPs will park on Juanita and will have to walk through the encampment.

Me and Marisol are working to see how to address this but wanted to flag the event.

Thanks again for all your help.

And amazingly enough, I have a copy of the lengthy email chain between Juan Fregoso, Marisol Rodriguez, and a bunch of people from the L.A. Sanitation department showing exactly what those two CD13 stalwarts were doing “to see how to address this.” You can probably guess what’s coming, because if VIPs (?!) have to walk near homeless people, something’s gotta give, and it ain’t gonna be the VIPs,⁴ You’d be right, and you can read the sordid details after the break!
Continue reading CD13 Staffers Marisol Rodriguez and Juan Fregoso Conspire With Bureau of Sanitation Employees Jose Garcia and Renee Shackleford to Subvert City Homeless Encampment Cleanup Policies and Procedures Just So Mitch O’Farrell, Other “VIPs,” Don’t Have To Walk By Homeless People On Their Way To Give A Speech →

Venice

City of Los Angeles Sued Yesterday Over Mike Bonin’s Plan To Convert Westminster Park Senior Center To Homeless Property Storage

October 6, 2016 Mike 1 Comment

Yesterday, an organization called Venice Kids Count filed suit against the City of Los Angeles seeking to prevent Mike Bonin’s plan to use the former Senior Center at Westminster Park in Venice for a homeless property storage facility. Bonin’s motion is Council File 15-1138-S8 if you want to read the history. They are also seeking a temporary restraining order. Here is a copy of their verified petition, and here is a copy of the 1950 condemnation order dedicating the park for recreation use only. Homeless storage is absolutely essential, but following the law is more essential than anything, and Mike Bonin¹ gives the impression that he doesn’t feel himself bound in the least by the law. So that’s the news; more editorializing after the break if you’re interested.
Continue reading →

Lawsuits

Street Vending Lawsuit Settlement Talks Seem To Have Failed, Trial Seems To Be Gonna Happen, Fashion District BID Files Response To Complaint Consisting Of All Syntax, No Semantics

October 5, 2016 Mike Leave a comment

When last I wrote about the street vending lawsuit against the Fashion District BID and the City of Los Angeles, the parties were getting extension after extension based on their mutual representations that settlement talks were proceeding apace. Well, that’s all over with. In fact, at this point I feel like my amateurism has led me down the with-good-intentions-paved garden path like the cat i’ th’ adage and actually no one ever really thought anyone was going to settle, but this is just some ceremony that’s habitually performed for the first year of a federal lawsuit, and now that they have it over with they’re going to get down to tacky brass knuckles. I have no idea, but I do know that recently the following items have been filed on PACER:
Continue reading Street Vending Lawsuit Settlement Talks Seem To Have Failed, Trial Seems To Be Gonna Happen, Fashion District BID Files Response To Complaint Consisting Of All Syntax, No Semantics →

Announcements, Featured, Hollywood BID Patrol, Los Angeles City Government

VICTORY!! All Los Angeles BID Security Patrols To Register With Police Commission Per City Attorney, BID Patrol Excessive Force Complaint Under Investigation By LAPD; Direct Result of MK.Org Reporting!

October 5, 2016 Mike 2 Comments

Earlier this afternoon I spoke with Ernesto Vicencio, who is an LAPD investigator assigned to the Police Commission. He told me that the City Attorney either has sent or will soon send a letter to all Los Angeles Business Improvement Districts informing them that their security patrols are required to register with the Los Angeles Police Commission per LAMC 52.34.

This incredibly welcome development is a direct result of my discovery in the Summer of 2016 that it was likely that BID security registration had inadvertently ceased in 2000 due to an oversight. I don’t believe I mentioned it at the time, but in addition to writing a number of posts on the subject, I also sent a petition to the Police Commission asking them to look into the matter and to conclude that BID security ought in fact to register with them.

According to Officer Vicencio the City Attorney has decided to implement this request.¹ This development is hugely important, not least because LAMC 52.34 requires private patrol services to have a procedure for investigating citizen complaints. It also grants the Police Commission a great deal of regulatory power over the activities of security patrols who are required to register.

Which brings us to the second stunning and absolutely unexpected thing that Officer Vicencio told me. You may recall that I recently reported on what seemed like a clear use of excessive force by members of the Andrews International Hollywood BID Patrol. Well, about three weeks ago I submitted a report on this matter to Kerry Morrison of the HPOA and also to the Police Commission, as instructed by the Commission’s executive director, Richard Tefank.

Today Vicencio told me that he is handling this matter. He has tried, without success so far, to locate the victim, and he is going to investigate further. Obviously there’s no guarantee that any of these officers will suffer any consequences,² but again, the larger implications of the fact that they’re being investigated by the City are huge. This means that the Police Commission agrees that they have jurisdiction over citizen complaints against BID security. This changes everything.
Continue reading VICTORY!! All Los Angeles BID Security Patrols To Register With Police Commission Per City Attorney, BID Patrol Excessive Force Complaint Under Investigation By LAPD; Direct Result of MK.Org Reporting! →

Los Angeles City Government

Do You Have What It Takes To Be A BID Consultant For The City Of Los Angeles? Honesty? Integrity? Freaking LIKEABILITY?!??!

October 5, 2016 Mike 2 Comments

Shadowy BID consultant Teresa "Tara" Devine has what it takes! She is evidently 15% likeable, honest, and infested with what passes for integrity in BID consultancy circles. — Shadowy BID consultant Teresa “Tara” Devine has what it takes! She is evidently 15% likeable, honest, and infested with what passes for integrity in BID consultancy circles.

If you follow BIDs in Los Angeles you will know that the process for creating a new one is so fraught with weirdo technicalities that when a Councilmember wants to form one in their district, not only do they have to get together a bullshit astroturf front group made up of major campaign contributors, but they also have to hire a consultant to guide the BAFG through the labyrinth. Of course, this is anything but an adversarial process, and success is pre-ordained. However, if the requirements imposed by the State of California are not adhered to somewhat scrupulously, the new BID will be vulnerable to challenges by non-mainstream anti-BID malcontents.¹ Thus the City has an interest in making sure that these consultants are competent.²

It turns out that they take this interest seriously enough that the City Clerk maintains a list of qualified BID consultants. I recently obtained a copy from 2010. There are some old friends on there, e.g. Donald Duckworth, who you might recognize from 2014 as the initial consultant on Mike Bonin’s Venice Beach BID project, since replaced by the shadowy ringlet-tossing Tara Devine. The famed Susan Levi is also on that list. But all things must pass away, and the list will eventually need to be renewed. Thus it seems that in August 2015 the Clerk put out a request for qualifications seeking new qualified consultants to put on the list.³ So now it is possible to tell exactly what skills you need to develop if you want to be a shadowy BID consultant too!
Continue reading Do You Have What It Takes To Be A BID Consultant For The City Of Los Angeles? Honesty? Integrity? Freaking LIKEABILITY?!??! →

Announcements, CD13, Homeless Issues, Public Records Act Pragmatics

Newly Available Emails From CD13 May Shed Some Light On City’s Procedures For Breaking Up Homeless Encampments. Also Glossary Updates And Some Fragmentary Information On The City’s Encampment Cleanup Authorization System

October 2, 2016 Mike Leave a comment

This (decontextualized) image from an email to CD13 staff suggests that despite the City's rhetoric on the matter, their policy towards people living in encampments is not all sunshine and outreach. — This (decontextualized) image from an email to CD13 staff suggests that despite the City’s rhetoric on the matter, their policy towards people living in encampments is not all sunshine and outreach.

My recent success in using CPRA to get advance notice of an encampment clean-up from the City reminded me that I had a number of emails to/from Council District 13 organizing such operations between January and April 2016 that I still hadn’t prepared for publication.¹ So I spent this morning getting them into shape and putting them up on the Internet. This material sheds new light on the City’s still-mysterious encampment-breaking system. Also, some of the attachments to these emails reveal crucial information about the computer database(s) used by the City to coordinate the process. I discuss this matter, along with some other issues, after the break. Meanwhile, here are the locations of these emails:

On the Internet Archive — As usual, this has the advantage that you can get the whole batch via BitTorrent if that’s useful. By later today, also, there should be OCRed PDFs there, and text versions.
From our local server

Also, I added a few new terms to our glossary to help you read the emails, which are decidedly acronym heavy.² These are CES, CSI, HE, PATH, and M&O. You can see the new definitions after the break (as well, of course, as via the menu structure or on the page itself). After the break I also discuss some fragmentary information about the City’s so-called Encampment Cleanup Authorization System.³ Continue reading Newly Available Emails From CD13 May Shed Some Light On City’s Procedures For Breaking Up Homeless Encampments. Also Glossary Updates And Some Fragmentary Information On The City’s Encampment Cleanup Authorization System →

Municipal Ethics, Venice Beach BID

Complaint Against Mark Sokol And Carl Lambert For Illegal Campaign Contributions Filed With Los Angeles City Ethics Commission; Get Your Copy Here

October 1, 2016 Mike 1 Comment

Heather Holt, long-suffering executive director of the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission.

A couple weeks ago I published an open letter to various City politicians asking them to return shady contributions to their campaigns by shady Venice Beach Business Improvement District proponents Carl Lambert and Mark Sokol. There’s been no discernable response so far, but it’s important to remember that at least as far as I can tell the politicians didn’t actually break the law by accepting the contributions. In fact it was Sokol and Lambert who broke it by making the contributions.

The relevant laws are Section 470(c)(12)(A)(i) of the City Charter,¹ which says:

The following persons shall not make a campaign contribution to any elected City official, candidate for elected City office, or City committee controlled by an elected City official or candidate: A person who bids on or submits a proposal or other response to a contract solicitation that has an anticipated value of at least $100,000 and requires approval by the City Council.

Continue reading Complaint Against Mark Sokol And Carl Lambert For Illegal Campaign Contributions Filed With Los Angeles City Ethics Commission; Get Your Copy Here →

CD13

Mitch O’Farrell’s Consigliere Marisol Rodriguez: It Is Good For The CM To Meet With Residents/Stakeholders From Time To Time So That They Know That The CM Is Fighting For Them. But They Must Ask With Respect. They Must Think To Call Him Godfather

September 30, 2016 Mike Leave a comment

I understand. ... The police protected you and there were courts of law. You didn't need a friend like me. But, now you come to me, and you say: "Councilman O'Farrell, give me justice." But you don't ask with respect. You don't offer friendship. You don't even think to call me Godfather. — I understand. … The police protected you and there were courts of law. You didn’t need a friend like me. But, now you come to me, and you say: “Councilman O’Farrell, give me justice.” But you don’t ask with respect. You don’t offer friendship. You don’t even think to call me Godfather.

This is just a brief episode from the saga of the cat-kicking K-Town slumlord Bryan Kim and his unholy compact with Mitch O’Farrell’s office to trade lunch money for homeless encampment clean-ups. It seems that on March 11, 2016, while Bryan Kim was still negotiating the terms of his on-demand encampment clean-up with CD13 staff, he asked CD13 scheduler David Cano for a meet with the CM himself, Mitch O’Farrell, in the first of this series of emails:

As discussed, I’d would [sic] like to request to meet with Councilmember O’Farrell re:The Homeless Encampment issue near LA City College to see how we can collectively work together on short term and sustainable permanent solution.

Well, if there’s one thing I’ve learned about these City Government types, it’s that they never do anything on their own. Always, it’s consultations, consultations, consultations.¹ So eight minutes later David Cano wrote to Aram Taslagyan and strongarm O’Farrell consigliere Marisol Rodriguez:

Thoughts? D.O. time?

Continue reading →