Category Archives: Announcements

MichaelKohlhaas.Org — The Last Post

I started this blog seven years ago intending to expose the wickedness of business improvement districts in Los Angeles using three powerful weapons: mockery, shaming, and the California Public Records Act. After all this time I’ve learned far more than I expected to about how the CPRA works, and far, far more than any sane person ought to know about LA BIDs. But by now I’ve said what I have to say on the topic, not just about the BIDs and the City that creates them but also about the effectiveness of records-based journalism as a strategy for activists. So I’m not going to write this blog any longer. My work here is done.

But I’m not in the least done with records-based activism! I’m planning to work with the Los Angeles Sunshine Coalition on lawsuits, legislation, and, most importantly, teaching other activists about the CPRA in the service of building a happy, healthy, human City which works for all Angelenos. To this end please get in touch if you or your org needs help or advice or sympathy concerning the CPRA. I’m happy to give formal presentations, answer questions, consult, whatever helps.

I’m also planning to write a couple of books over the next twelve months. One on the CPRA and how to use it in Los Angeles, the other on business improvement districts in Los Angeles focusing on why and how to eliminate them. Meanwhile, of course, I’ll leave the blog up as a resource. Let’s see what happens next!

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BIDs Unmasked! — I’m Speaking On BIDs Next Saturday — 3-5 p.m. — UTLA Building — 3303 Wilshire — Graciously Hosted By The Democratic Socialists Of America Los Angeles — And NOlympics Los Angeles

I’m speaking about BIDs on Saturday, February 16, from 3-5 p.m. at the UTLA building at 3303 Wilshire (just west of Vermont), hosted by the Democratic Socialists of America — Los Angeles and NOlympics Los Angeles.

It’s an introduction to BIDs for activists, focusing on how they collude with the City to oppress, to privatize, and to weaponize pretty much every aspect of public life that they can’t destroy.

It seems also that this is also on the Facebook. I hope to see you there!

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Two New Coffee Mugs! — One Featuring Angry Studio City Clown And Board Member Matthew Dunn! — Commemorating His Epic Freakout Slash Walkout! — The Other In Honor Of Councildude Gil Cedillo’s Propensity For Being All Things To All People! — Featuring An All New Never Before Seen Cartoon! Get Both Today!!

After Monday’s epic freakout by Studio City BID board member Matthew Dunn, in which he ended up storming out of his own meeting because he hates America, freedom, mom, apple pie, and the California Constitution, I was so moved that just merely writing this mocking post about the guy wasn’t enough to express my feelings. Hence I designed an entirely new coffee mug, which, as always, you can buy on the MK.Org CafePress store by clicking right here! It’s a perfect gift for commemorating birthdays, bat mitzvahs, retirements, involuntary commitments, every significant family occasion!

And while you’re at the store you should check out this other brand new mug! This one features Gil Cedillo and plays on his propensity for being all things to all people, talking up immigrant rights and radical Latino politics on the one hand while selling off the neighborhoods in his council district to developers who then price the present inhabitants right out of there. The cartoon appears at the head of this post!

And, as always, turn the page for links to the full-sized image files used to generate the mugs so you can see exactly what you’re spending your money on.
Continue reading Two New Coffee Mugs! — One Featuring Angry Studio City Clown And Board Member Matthew Dunn! — Commemorating His Epic Freakout Slash Walkout! — The Other In Honor Of Councildude Gil Cedillo’s Propensity For Being All Things To All People! — Featuring An All New Never Before Seen Cartoon! Get Both Today!!

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In 2016 Mike Bonin Promised To Rezone Properties To Remove Them From The BID — Which He Never Did — Now He’s Rezoning Properties In The Palisades For Nefarious Reasons Of His Own — Venice Beach BID Ballots Available! — Showing Spoiled And Late Ballots As Well! — Five Years Worth Of Weekly Clerk Reports On BIDs!

This is just a short note to announce various random records that have come into my possession over the last few days. First of all, due to the brilliant work of an intrepid CPRA warrior,1 at last we have access to the complete set of ballots used in the Venice Beach BID formation process. You can get a PDF spool of all of these right here on Archive.Org.2 It’s interesting to see that the City didn’t redact these ballots at all, not even the signatures. Compare these with the petitions, which they released in 2016.

Also today I’m announcing NBID reports from 2013 on, obtained by a brave citizen of Los Angeles and subsequently made available to me. We’ve seen some of this material before, but only through 2016. There is a ton of interesting material here, and I’ll be writing on it from time to time in the future. Meanwhile, here’s a sample of what these Clerk BIDdies were up to during the week of May 29, 2018:

Processed Venice Beach refund affidavits; Performed ownership and mailing address updates for the three upcoming PBID renewal mail outs of Melrose, BLQ-Pico and Historic Core; Researched and processed returned mail ballots for the 3 PBID renewals currently out to ballot of Arts District, Fashion District and Hollywood Entertainment District and some for the finalized Tarzana PBID election that were recently returned; Compiled BID Application wish list for the meeting with Systems.

And finally, you will recall that after the November 2016 hearing at which the Venice Beach BID was established Mike Bonin promised the world to BID opponents, or at least this:

As I said when I met with you folks recently, I am happy to help those folks get their properties rezoned as residential properties. And I’m happy to meet with those folks and would even be willing to initiate a zone change from my end to make it a little less expensive and more helpful.

It’s been almost two years now, and Mike Bonin has broken his promise. No one in Venice is getting rezoned. But it’s not because Mike Bonin can’t rezone. Just take a look at this motion introduced today in Council by Mike Bonin. In it he directs City staff to rezone some neighborhood in the Palisades because of some zillionaire hillside house voodoo.

And this motion is explicitly inspired by a bunch of similar rezoning in Laurel Canyon and elsewhere so it’s just a service that councilpets provide to their zillionaire constituents. So, people of Venice, are you wondering why Mike Bonin couldn’t get your properties rezoned like he promised he would? Well, it’s not because he can’t. It’s because he won’t. Turn the page for a transcription of this dire little slab of you-know-what.
Continue reading In 2016 Mike Bonin Promised To Rezone Properties To Remove Them From The BID — Which He Never Did — Now He’s Rezoning Properties In The Palisades For Nefarious Reasons Of His Own — Venice Beach BID Ballots Available! — Showing Spoiled And Late Ballots As Well! — Five Years Worth Of Weekly Clerk Reports On BIDs!

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Full Recording Of Yesterday’s Venice Beach BID Meeting Now Available For Scholarly Analysis And Weekend Hatewatching!

This is just the briefest of notes to announce that, thanks to a faithful friend of this blog, I’m able to make available a complete recording of the April 13, 2018 meeting of the Board of Directors of the Venice Beach Business Improvement District. I will watch this 90 minute monstrosity this weekend and report back on highlights, but I wanted to provide links as soon as possible. It’s available both on YouTube and also on Archive.Org.

Like I said, I haven’t watched it yet, but my first impression after skimming around in the depths of this invaluable item is that President & CEO Tara Devine is even more unhinged than I had originally thought, and that’s saying an awful damn lot.
Continue reading Full Recording Of Yesterday’s Venice Beach BID Meeting Now Available For Scholarly Analysis And Weekend Hatewatching!

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Zillionaires Against Humanity: Various Materials Relating To Today’s Event With General Jeff Are Now Available For Download!

If you’re planning to attend today’s discussion between General Jeff and me about the Skid Row Neighborhood Council you may also want to download these materials:

That’s all, and I hope to see you this afternoon!

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Conversation Between General Jeff And Me About The Skid Row Neighborhood Council — At The Skid Row History Museum & Archive On Saturday, March 24, At 3 p.m.

General Jeff and I will hold a public conversation on Saturday, March 24, at 3 p.m. about various aspects of the Skid Row Neighborhood Council formation effort. It will take place at the L.A. Poverty Department‘s Skid Row History Museum and Archive at 250 S. Broadway 90012. The event is part of the LAPD’s Public Safety for Real project.

I hope you will join us! And turn the page for essentially the same description of the event that you can find linked to above.
Continue reading Conversation Between General Jeff And Me About The Skid Row Neighborhood Council — At The Skid Row History Museum & Archive On Saturday, March 24, At 3 p.m.

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Downtown Center BID Sunday Afternoon Document Dump! Thousands Of Pages Of Emails To/From The Central City Association! Zillionaire Secrets, Such As They Are, Laid Bare For All To See!

This is just a short note to announce that I recently received a ton of records from Suzanne Holley of the Downtown Center BID. These are ostensibly all non-exempt emails between the Central City Association of Los Angeles and DCBID staffers from July 1, 2016 through January 31, 2018. You can get most of them here on Archive.Org. That set includes a bunch of PDFs I exported as well as an MBOX file that will give you access to the attachments.1

Suzanne also saw fit to redact 134 of these emails. She supplies them as MSG files, which I guess are binaries of some sort and not easily edited, so she prints them to PDF and redacts with some kind of PDF editor.2 You can find these 134 additional emails here on Archive.Org. There are a bunch of really important items here that I’ll be writing about over the next week3 but I just want to leave you with one hilarious item about music streaming. Turn the page for a transcription.
Continue reading Downtown Center BID Sunday Afternoon Document Dump! Thousands Of Pages Of Emails To/From The Central City Association! Zillionaire Secrets, Such As They Are, Laid Bare For All To See!

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Zillionaires Against Humanity At The Los Angeles Poverty Department Opening On Friday, March 9, At 6 p.m. — Exhibit Of Cartoons From This Blog, The Skid Row Neighborhood Council Formation Committee’s Timeline Of Events, And Video By Linus Shentu

Opening on Friday, March 9 at 6 p.m. at the Los Angeles Poverty Department‘s Skid Row History Museum & Archive see an exhibit of cartoons from this blog, a timeline and documents by General Jeff from the Skid Row Neighborhood Council Formation Committee, and videos by Linus Shentu. The exhibit will run through June 30. Here is the press release, and turn the page for a transcription.
Continue reading Zillionaires Against Humanity At The Los Angeles Poverty Department Opening On Friday, March 9, At 6 p.m. — Exhibit Of Cartoons From This Blog, The Skid Row Neighborhood Council Formation Committee’s Timeline Of Events, And Video By Linus Shentu

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MK.Org U.S. Alexa Rank Almost Twice As Good As U.S. Alexa Rank Of Sorry HPOA Losers! This Is What Happens When You Farm Out Your SEO To Russian Commie Zombie Fake Followers! “Sad!” As HPOA Patron Saint Likes To Say On The Twitterz!

Is this HPOA’s SEO Flag of Convenience these days? I mean, it would make sense, right?

Zip, zap, POWIE, friends! As of today, here’s what’s going on in HPOA-loserville, otherwise known as Alexa.com! What it is is:

That is, we are almost twice as better than they are. We are exactly twice as better if you ignore all those pesky meaningless digits after the first ones, which of course we will do!

You might notice that their world-wide rank is higher than ours is. Obviously there is no good reason for a bunch of foreigners to read their pathetic amateurish loseriffic website, so we are going with the theory that the HPOA hired invisible armies of Russian commie zombie SEO troll minions, which, true or not, explains everything. EVERYTHING! And if they did it, they did it because they are embarrassed that if they didn’t cheat we would beat them all the time instead of just this time.
Continue reading MK.Org U.S. Alexa Rank Almost Twice As Good As U.S. Alexa Rank Of Sorry HPOA Losers! This Is What Happens When You Farm Out Your SEO To Russian Commie Zombie Fake Followers! “Sad!” As HPOA Patron Saint Likes To Say On The Twitterz!

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