In an editorial in this morning’s Times about the Venice Beach BID it is stated:
Even during the day, when the municipal code against sitting, lying or sleeping on a sidewalk or street is enforceable, the BID ambassadors would be required to call the police or city employees to enforce it, according to the city attorney’s office.
Of course, in the ordinary meaning of the word “enforce” this is demonstrably not true. In Hollywood, the BID Patrol, operated by Andrews International Security on behalf of the Hollywood Property Owners Alliance which manages two local BIDs, arrests people for violating the despicable LAMC 41.18(d) on an exceedingly regular basis. They handcuff them and either forcibly transport them in a private vehicle to the police station or else wait on-scene for LAPD to arrive to complete the arrest process.
This might charitably be interpreted as waiting for the police to enforce the law in the sense that the LAPD has to issue citations. But the difference to the arrested person, who is handcuffed, forced into a private car or made to sit or lie shackled on the sidewalk until the cops show up to cite them out, is nonexistent. If that’s what Mike Feuer’s office meant by what they apparently said to the Times Editorial Board then shame on them for being so disingenuous. If they meant something else, it wasn’t true. And shame too on the Editorial Board for not investigating that easily refuted claim.
UPDATE: I just received this email, sent yesterday by Rob Wilcox at the City Attorney’s office to Carla Hall at the L.A. Times, stating explicitly that:
Only peace officers or authorized city employees could enforce that section of the ordinance [LAMC 41.18(d)]. BID employees would not be able to enforce.
He doesn’t give a reason, but his statement is demonstrably untrue. I wonder what he meant by it? State law requires police to accept custody of anyone who’s arrested by a private person, and allows private persons to make arrests for any violation of the criminal law.
We then transported him to the Hollywood and Highland substation, per 847 PC. When then met with LAPD Officers Lawrence and Gonzalez (6FB1) for a citation release.
Continue reading Somebody’s Lying To Somebody About Something: Mike Feuer? LA Times Editorial Board? All of the Above? BID Security Absolutely Does Not Have to Wait for the LAPD to Arrest Homeless People For Sitting On The Sidewalk
See this article from the LA Times and our previous posts on the subject for the background to this post. All of the filings can be found here.
Tonight two new filings in this case hit PACER. First and most interesting there is this Joint Discovery Plan. It has statements of the case from both the plaintiffs and the defendant:
PLAINTIFFS:
This case involves the detention and arrests of individuals in November, 2014 during several days of protests related to the events in Ferguson, Missouri and the death of Michael Brown. The case is filed as a class action based on two incidents: one occurring at Beverly and Alvarado in which the sub-class was subject to detention, warrantless search and interrogation before being released by Defendants. The second incident involves a mass arrest at 6th and Hope in which Plaintiffs contend that they were not given adequate dispersal notice before being surrounded by the LAPD and arrested. The group at 6 th & Hope also contend that they were held in jail for approximately a day when they should have been cited and released pursuant to California Penal Code § 853.6. Both groups also allege that their privacy rights were violated by the collection of personal information and the storage and dissemination of that information by the LAPD and to other law enforcement entities.
Continue reading Discovery Plan Filed in Chua v. Los Angeles, Lawsuit Arising From LAPD Misconduct During 2014 Michael Brown Protests
Edited to add: The list that Miranda Paster sent me isn’t even the list I asked for, as discussed in the story below. It’s an edited version of the publicly available ballot tabulation sheet. It is unbelievable that these people are so unwilling to release what are obviously public records and that their unwillingness is so clearly in the service of their political agenda. On the other hand, the fact that they so vigorously defend their secrecy makes it seem even more likely that they’re concealing serious and exploitable weaknesses.
Three weeks ago I wrote about how neither the City Clerk nor CD11 was willing to hand over a list of the property owners in the proposed Venice Beach BID with contract information. CD11 told me to ask the Clerk and the Clerk told me to ask Tara Devine and Tara Devine ignored me (and continues to ignore me). The Clerk’s rationale was that they didn’t have anything to do with mailing out the petitions, so that the Public Records Act didn’t apply to the mailing list.
Now, if you’re not familiar with the act, you may not be aware that (at section 6252(e)) public records are defined fairly expansively to be any “writing containing information relating to the conduct of the public’s business prepared, owned, used, or retained by any state or local agency.” So I made the argument to the Clerk’s office that since they were orchestrating the process, the mailing list was being used by them even if they didn’t own it or retain it themselves. No dice on that, though.
So imagine my pleasure and surprise to discover on August 14 that, upon perusing Government Code section 53753 for the zillionth time (this is the same law used to such marvelous effect ten days later by the incomparable Shayla Myers of LAFLA to derail the whole BID process) that the freaking City Clerk’s office is required to notice the property owners by mail:
Continue reading Why Is Getting A Mailing List For The Property Owners In The Venice Beach BID Out Of The City So Absolutely Maddeningly Impossible? We Do, However, Now Have A List Of Property Owners Without Contact Information A Fraud Perpetrated On The Public By The City Clerk
According to a Facebook post by Abbott Kinney,
BREAKING NEWS Re: the proposed Venice BID – Because the City shut off public comment, they gotta START THE WHOLE PROCESS OVER. Via City Clerk Holly Wolcott:
“The Ordinance of Establishment was adopted in Council last week. However, in light of concerns relative to the public hearing and to ensure all speakers are heard, we plan to repeal this ordinance and start the process over. This will mean a new Ordinance of Intention and a public hearing approximately 45 days from when the new ballots and packages are mailed. I do not have an actual date at this time.”1
This report is consistent with LAFLA’s objections to the process, and if true, is a major victory for anti-BID forces. Although I don’t know for sure I would bet it’s unprecedented in the history of BIDs in Los Angeles. The moral is decidedly NOT that the City made a sporadic mistake in this particular BID formation process. The moral is in fact that the City makes mistakes, breaks the law, cuts corners, all the freaking time, but generally no one is watching so their errors have no consequences. The moral is that if people watch closely they will find fatal errors in all of the City’s shenanigans.
The same is true for BIDs. They can barely open their mouths without saying something racist, they can barely run a meeting or email a Council member without breaking the law.2 They’re not used to scrutiny, and even their reactions to scrutiny just end up sinking them deeper into their morass. So the real moral is: SCRUTINIZE!
And, if you didn’t spot it, if this quote is accurate, then Holly Wolcott actually admitted that something illegal is going on over at City Hall. Turn the page for details.
Continue reading Unconfirmed But Highly Plausible Report that Venice Beach BID is Repealed and Process Must Start From Scratch!!
The Media District BID is particularly attractive to people living in RVs because it’s industrialized, so no night-time neighbors to annoy, and it’s close to the center of Hollywood. Especially on Lillian Way and its cross streets, Romaine, Willoughby, and Waring, there has been a thriving but quiet community of RV-dwellers for years on end. But the Media District BID hates it. They just can’t deal with it. For instance, see this email chain from March 2015 where Hollywood cop Julie Nony discusses how to get rid of them with erstwhile Media District BID director Steven Whiddon and a bunch of overprivileged proprietors who don’t understand the concept of public space. But, probably not surprisingly, Steven Whiddon was unable to orchestrate any lasting action.
Continue reading Crime Does Pay At City Hall: Anti-RV Resolution Introduced In Council This Morning At Behest of Media District BID Director Lisa Schechter, Acting in Apparent Violation of Her Post-Employment Lobbying Ban
Carl Lambert is presently famous for two main reasons. First that Mike Feuer is suing the shit out of him because he’s a sneaky lying illegal hotel proprietor and second that he’s a vocal proponent of the Venice Beach Business Improvement District, which was approved in Council last week during a chaotic and emotional process, itself of dubious legality. Newly discovered evidence1 shows that Lambert has tried to ease his strait and narrow path through some of these thorny matters by…wait for it…giving money to politicians.
First of all, see the City Ethics Commission’s donation records for Lambert. Note that on June 24, 2015 he donated $1,400 to Eric Garcetti’s reelection campaign, which is the maximum donation allowed. Does the date sound familiar? It ought to. It was exactly one week before, on June 17, 2015, that Mike Feuer filed a complaint against Lambert for running an illegal hotel. It goes to show that good old F. Scott was on to something when he wrote about zillionaires that “They are different from you and me.” I don’t think that most non-zillionaires, on finding out that the City Attorney has just filed a damning complaint against them, would turn around and give $1,400 to the Mayor.
And it’s not just like Lambert did this all the time and the timing was coincidental. First of all, he also gave Garcetti money in 2013, when he was actually running, but he only gave him $200. Secondly, Lambert has only ever given $3,500 total to Los Angeles politicians in his life.2 This one-time, week-after-the-complaint-got-filed donation of $1,400 represents 40% of Lambert’s life-time donation total. Also note that Garcetti isn’t running for election again until 2017, so it’s not like he was actively fundraising in June of 2015.
And as if that wasn’t enough, on December 8, 2015, he turned around and gave $700 to Mike Bonin, also the legal maximum. That’s 20% of Lambert’s lifetime total right there, and Bonin also isn’t running until 2017. And as I’ve demonstrated recently, this was right in the midst of a flurry of VBBID activity, when having inspired $700 worth of warm fuzzies in Bonin’s heart couldn’t have hurt anything:
Continue reading Carl Lambert Donated The Legal Maximum of $1400 To Eric Garcetti Just One Week After Feuer Filed Complaint Against Him For Running An Illegal Hotel and Legal Max of $700 to Mike Bonin in the Midst of a Flurry of Pro-BID Activity By City Staff
I’m pleased to announce the availability of 30 months of weekly reports from Miranda Paster in her capacity as head of the Neighborhood & Business Improvement District Section of the Los Angeles City Clerk to City Clerk Holly Wolcott. These are available through this page in the menu structure or directly from here. Finally, they are available at Archive.Org. They are full of fascinating information.
In particular, they show that as early as the week of September 30, 2014 the Clerk’s staff was meeting with Venice Beach BID Proponents. The Clerk’s staff also met with VBBID proponents on August 17, 2015 If you look at the weeks surrounding that date you’ll see that they were meeting with Tara Devine on a weekly basis even that early, not to mention the fact that they met with CD11 staff on January 13, 2015 about the BID and Mike Bonin himself in February of 2015. I’ve requested records relating to that meeting from everyone in sight, but don’t have super high hopes anything more will turn up. This rounds out the story of this set of handwritten notes by someone at CD11 of that very meeting. And there is a lot more stuff in these reports, some of it quite shocking.
Continue reading Now Available: Miranda Paster’s Weekly Reports to Holly Wolcott on the Activities of the Neighborhood And Business Improvement District Section of the City Clerk’s Office
