Category Archives: Announcements

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.
Continue reading →

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!
Continue reading →

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.
Continue reading →

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!
Continue reading →

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.
Continue reading →

Announcements, Downtown Center BID

A Big DCBID Document Dump

October 5, 2015 Mike Leave a comment

Become a purple shirt and see the world! Or be all that you can be!! Or harass homeless people and participate in really, really high job turnover!!!

I’m pleased, I mean, as pleased as one can be in context, to announce a bunch of new documents from the DCBID, courtesy of the ever-so-very-helpful Suzanne Holley. As my colleagues once mentioned, I’m requesting documents from the DCBID in honor of Fabio Conti’s stunning assertion that the “purple guys” are way-a-lot meaner than the A/I BID Patrol.

Well, I still don’t know if that’s true or not, but you can start to make up your own mind. Look through the DCBID menu under Documents up above, or browse the directory structure directly in our static storage here. Some highlights are: a BID Academy curriculum (I’m still not sure what the BID Academy is, but according to Suzanne, this is all they have left about it). Also a crazy load of emails from July 2015. These include…
Continue reading A Big DCBID Document Dump →

Announcements, Historical and Theoretical Perspectives, Hollywood Property Owners Alliance

Files from the Archives: Former City Councilwoman Jackie Goldberg and the Prehistory of the Hollywood Property Owners Alliance

September 25, 2015 Mike Leave a comment

Jackie Goldberg, CD13 representative from 1994--2000, midwife, enabler, and founding mother of the Hollywood Property Owners Alliance as we know it today. — Jackie Goldberg, CD13 representative from 1994–2000, midwife, enabler, and founding mother of the Hollywood Property Owners Alliance as we know it today.

NOTE (Jan. 3, 2019): The records discussed in this post are now also available on Archive.Org.

I was recently seeking some records of Eric Garcetti’s from his time at CD13 and was dismayed to find that former councilmembers’ records aren’t systematically retained, especially when they, like Garcetti, take another city job subsequent to serving on the council. On the other hand, this search did lead me to the website of the Los Angeles City Archives, which is a miracle of rare device indeed. I’m going to write up the details when I have time for inclusion in our Practical Guide to Using the CPRA in Los Angeles, but the TL;DR is that you look here for the finding aids to the archives, find what you want, email the guy a day before, and head on down to 555 Ramirez Street and sit there looking through boxes at folder upon folder upon folder of actual files from actual Los Angeles City Councilfolk. You can copy whatever you want! It’s so lovely I can’t even describe it. I will tell you what I found there, though!
Continue reading Files from the Archives: Former City Councilwoman Jackie Goldberg and the Prehistory of the Hollywood Property Owners Alliance →

Announcements

Guide to Public Records Act Requests in Los Angeles and New Method for Whistleblowers to Send Documents to Us

September 22, 2015 Mike Leave a comment

Meet me in the beautiful city, hallelujah!

First of all, I’m pleased to announce the publication of A Practical Guide to Using the California Public Records Act in Los Angeles. Just prior to our recent Reddit apocalypse it was brought to my attention that people were interested in how I obtain the records we publish here. Thus this guide. As it says there, feel free to ask questions in the comments on that page if I’ve left something unanswered.
Continue reading →

Michael Kohlhaas dot org

Category Archives: Announcements

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

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!

A Big DCBID Document Dump

Files from the Archives: Former City Councilwoman Jackie Goldberg and the Prehistory of the Hollywood Property Owners Alliance

Guide to Public Records Act Requests in Los Angeles and New Method for Whistleblowers to Send Documents to Us