Category Archives: Selma Park

Newly Obtained 2016 Emails Show That Senior Assistant City Attorney Valerie Flores And Chief Assistant City Attorney David Michaelson Agreed With This Blog That Banning Adults Without Children From Selma Park Was Illegal — Even As Flores Caustically Blamed Rec And Parks For Removing Signs She Had Tacitly Admitted Should Have Been Removed — No Matter What Kerry Morrison, Eric Garcetti, And Mitch O’Farrell Said About It — Further Evidence Linking O’Farrell’s Universally Mocked 2016 Proposal To Ban Adults From City Parks With Reopening Of Selma Park — Also New Info On The Content Of Mitch O’Farrell’s Feverish Delusions About Drug Dealers Overrunning The Largely Vacant Real Estate In His Head

January 29, 2019 Mike Leave a comment

OK, brief recap¹ on the situation with Selma Park in Hollywood! In September 2015 I discovered that the Hollywood Entertainment District BID had illegally placed signs on the outer fence of the Park stating that adults without children were banned and in October 2015 Rec and Parks removed the illegal signs. Morrison engineered this years-long illegal exclusion of the people of Los Angeles from their public park because, despite her stridently self-proclaimed Christianity, she was angry that people were using the park to share food with one another.

Subsequent investigations showed that dozens of people had been arrested in the park for violating these illegal restrictions, although none were prosecuted and that current school board candidate and former Public Works Commissioner Heather Repenning, at that time a staffer for Eric Garcetti back when he was repping CD13, was deeply involved with Kerry Morrison, the BID’s very own Ilse Koch, in the illegal park closure process.

Documents proved that Morrison’s gestapo wannabes, the Andrews International BID Patrol, had been deeply involved in the ongoing series of civil rights violations engendered by the illegal park closure, not only by chasing people out of the park who had every right to be there, but by making actual custodial arrests as well, contrary to Morrison’s vehement but mendacious denial that this had ever occurred.

Subsequently, in December 2016, Mitch O’Farrell introduced a motion in Council seeking to amend the Los Angeles Municipal Code to allow the City to ban adults without children from playgrounds in LA Parks. He linked this explicitly to the reopening of Selma Park. This crapola motion was supported by Kerry Morrison, whose idea it must have been, but universally mocked and opposed by all sane people in Los Angeles and some not so sane ones as well. Even people who live east of San Bernardino took some notice of O’Farrell’s incipient crackpot fascism. And thus did the proposal die in committee in December 2018.

And just recently I received a massive set of emails between people at RAP and Mitch O’Farrell’s Hollywood field deputy Daniel Halden.² And buried amonst them was this lengthy email conversation from November 2016 between various folks at RAP, Daniel Halden of CD13, and Valerie Flores and David Michaelson of the City Attorney’s office discussing Selma Park, those illegal signs, this blog, and, interestingly enough, me, who, like the bloody-handed henchman she is, Flores calls “a serial CPRA abuser.”³

And interestingly enough, more than a year after the signs came down, Valerie Flores tells RAP to put the signs back up, but only on the playground, not on the park itself. Which is pretty ridiculous, since they never took the signs down from the playground and no one, to my knowledge, ever complained about the signs on the playground. The discussion even escalated to Chief Assistant City Attorney David Michaelson, who also stated definitively that the City could not ban adults from the entire park, but only the playground.

Given that they’re falling over themselves here to admit that I was right all along about the damn signs, you’d think that instead of calling me names these people might have been grateful to me for merely calling attention, rather than leaving them to get sued, to the fact that in the City’s nauseating eagerness to do whatever random crapola Kerry Morrison demanded of them, they’d been violating people’s civil rights for a freaking decade⁴ by arresting them for being in a park they had every right to be in.

Also interesting is the fact that Flores quoted Mitch O’Farrell on the reason for the signs going back up:⁵ “According to the Council Member, after the sign was removed, the Selma Park became overrun with drug dealers and other criminal elements.” If you know the area, you’ll know this is a lie. You’ll also suspect that Mitch O’Farrell has never been near that park in his life and that the lie was almost certainly put into his mouth by Kerry Morrison.

And, shedding some light on the genesis of the universally mocked CF 16-1456, Flores announces that “Next week we will work with RAP to discuss options for the area of Selma Park that does not include the children’s play area.” Of course, by now it’s clear that there are no such options or they would have banned everyone but the damn cops from that poor beleaguered little park by now. The whole conversation is very, very much worth your time, and if you turn the page you’ll find a transcription, reordered chronologically for ease of reading.
Continue reading Newly Obtained 2016 Emails Show That Senior Assistant City Attorney Valerie Flores And Chief Assistant City Attorney David Michaelson Agreed With This Blog That Banning Adults Without Children From Selma Park Was Illegal — Even As Flores Caustically Blamed Rec And Parks For Removing Signs She Had Tacitly Admitted Should Have Been Removed — No Matter What Kerry Morrison, Eric Garcetti, And Mitch O’Farrell Said About It — Further Evidence Linking O’Farrell’s Universally Mocked 2016 Proposal To Ban Adults From City Parks With Reopening Of Selma Park — Also New Info On The Content Of Mitch O’Farrell’s Feverish Delusions About Drug Dealers Overrunning The Largely Vacant Real Estate In His Head →

Selma Park

Hollywood Studio District Is Latest In Unbroken Chain Of Neighborhood Councils To Explain To Mitch O’Farrell That His Kerry-Morrison-Behested Anti-Creepy-Men-In-Playgrounds Motion Is, To Put It In The Politest Possible Terms, So Full Of Shit Its Eyes Would Be Brown If It Had Eyes

May 20, 2017 Mike Leave a comment

BACKGROUND: Recall, if you will, that this L.A. Times editorial kicked off a somewhat misguided firestorm of opposition to Mitch O’Farrell’s recent Council motion 16-1456 seeking to develop a legal tool for banning adults without children from playgrounds in parks in the City of Los Angeles.

Just the other day, the Hollywood Studio District Neighborhood Council became the fifth in a long line of illustrious NCs to place a statement of opposition to CD13 repster⁶ Mitch O’Farrell’s Kerry-Morrison-behested and universally reviled motion to outlaw grownups in parks⁷ into the Council File. Not one single neighborhood council has supported this malcriado nonsense, and here’s the honor roll of opposition, spread out over the last five months:

I just bet that when Councildude Mitch O’Farrell moved to the City of Angels from somewhere east of San Bernardino he never expected that one day he would try to do a simple favor for what passes for a community thought leader these days in Hollywood, that is to say Ms. Kerry Morrison,⁸ and end up not only not making her happy but being roundly and thoroughly mocked in the national press.

He’s clearly letting this ill-conceived motion die in committee, but it seems that, as long as the file’s still active, neighborhood councils are going to keep blowing it up with opposition statements. There’s a lesson to be learned here for Mr. Mitch and history shows that he’s learned it well. You can learn it too if you’ll only turn the page!
Continue reading Hollywood Studio District Is Latest In Unbroken Chain Of Neighborhood Councils To Explain To Mitch O’Farrell That His Kerry-Morrison-Behested Anti-Creepy-Men-In-Playgrounds Motion Is, To Put It In The Politest Possible Terms, So Full Of Shit Its Eyes Would Be Brown If It Had Eyes →

Selma Park

Kerry Morrison, Selma Park, Joseph Goebbels, The Los Angeles Times, The Big Lie, And Lots Of Little Lies As Well!

February 25, 2017 Mike Leave a comment

Well, I don’t know how I missed it, but in January of this year, notre principale raison d’écrire, the famous Ms. Kerry Morrison, in response to this now also-famous L.A. Times editorial, penned a characteristically mendacious little missive to the local paper in support of anti-creep-crusading Councildude Mitch O’Farrell’s universally reviled initiative to ban adults in playgrounds in the City of Los Angeles.

Amazingly, every sentence in this letter is a lie. Here it is, see if you can spot them all. And after the break, I’ll deconstruct this peculiar little symptom of the acute Morrisonitis now endemic in what Ms. Kerry and her weirdo minions are pleased, for reasons known only to them, to refer to as “our little hamlet.”

To the editor: Constituents have contacted O’Farrell regarding the downward spiral of the only pocket park and playground in the heart of Hollywood. Families who live in our densely populated neighborhood used to enjoy the space. Now this tiny park has become a permanent encampment during the hours it is open.

Going there one day last week, I counted more than 20 people lying around the park. The grassy area was covered with sleeping bags and all the benches were taken. The adjacent playground was empty, despite being separated by a fence. This tiny park can no longer be used by families and organizations that could benefit from open space.

I applaud O’Farrell’s efforts to meet the needs of the neighborhood. This is what leaders do.

Kerry Morrison, Hollywood

Continue reading Kerry Morrison, Selma Park, Joseph Goebbels, The Los Angeles Times, The Big Lie, And Lots Of Little Lies As Well! →

Los Angeles City Council, Selma Park

Cracks Show In LA City Council Unanimity (At Least On Staff Level) As David Ryu’s Director Of Policy, Nicholas Greif, Comes Out Publicly Against Mitch O’Farrell’s Moronic Playground Motion

February 6, 2017 Mike Leave a comment

Nicholas Greif evidently agrees with his fellow Palms NC Board members that Mitch O’Farrell’s anti-playground motion is evil, evil, evil… which may be embarrassing for Nicholas Greif’s boss, David Ryu, who will have to vote for the motion if it ever comes up before Council…which it almost certainly will not at this point.

So just tonight the Palms Neighborhood Council filed yet another Community Impact Statement opposing Mitch O’Farrell’s Kerry-Morrison-behested anti-playground motion. And like the Eagle Rock NC and the Lincoln Heights NC and the Los Feliz NC before them, they’ve made a well-reasoned and articulate argument:

This measure would penalize lawful park users and would result in discriminatory enforcement. Such a ban improperly assumes that adult park users in a children’s playground area are there solely for nefarious purposes and seeks to ban lawful conduct. Simply being present in a park and enjoying the surroundings is not illegal. There are already criminal laws on the books to address any improper conduct in these areas.

Again, as with all of the others with the minor exception of Los Feliz,⁹ this statement was adopted unanimously, leaving Mitch continuing to flounder around in the pool of shit into which he impulsively flung himself just because Kerry Morrison said it would please her to watch him jump. And there is one thing about the Palms Neighborhood Council which makes tonight’s Community Impact Statement marginally more impactful than the others. You see, Mr. Nicholas Greif is not only the chair of the Palms NC Executive Board and therefore part of the unanimous majority that approved the CIS, but he is also David Ryu’s director of Policy and Legislation.
Continue reading Cracks Show In LA City Council Unanimity (At Least On Staff Level) As David Ryu’s Director Of Policy, Nicholas Greif, Comes Out Publicly Against Mitch O’Farrell’s Moronic Playground Motion →

CD13, Selma Park

Mitch O’Farrell’s Universally-Reviled, Kerry-Morrison-Inspired Anti-Playground-Access Motion Is Roundly Opposed But For The First Time Not Unanimously By Los Feliz Neighborhood Council, Which In Context May Be Seen As A Sorely Needed Victory For Mitch, Who Has To Play ‘Em As They Lay In This Debacle

January 27, 2017 Mike Leave a comment

This is a playground in Griffith Park, which if the Los Feliz Neighborhood Council has its way will continue to be open to all Angelenos, whether or not they remembered to bring a child before using the swing set.

The latest development is that the Los Feliz Neighborhood Council registered its opposition to this Kerry-Morrison-of-the-HPOA-inspired trainwreck of a motion with this eloquent statement:

A city ordinance banning adults from accessing a public playground/park area unless “accompanying a child” would unfairly penalize people by virtue of their age and deny them a public benefit afforded to others. The proposal, by its very nature, seems unduly discriminatory, and fraught with enforcement problems.

Instituting an overreaching policy by penalizing a vast majority of law‐abiding citizens in what is generally regarded as “park‐poor” city is counterintuitive. It seems to be motivated out of allaying a fear rather than ensuring a freedom. Nor does it currently contemplate the dozens of gray areas it will create regarding how it will be administered (playground boundaries, proof of age, proof‐of-guardianship, etc.), and the discord it will sow by awkward attempts to enforce it.

All good points.¹⁰ The big difference in tonight’s case is that one person actually voted against the motion to oppose,¹¹ which means, I guess, that besides Kerry Morrison, at least one other resident of the City of Los Angeles stands with Mitch on this issue. Perhaps this will teach Mitch that it’s not always safe to do what she asks… but probably not.
Continue reading Mitch O’Farrell’s Universally-Reviled, Kerry-Morrison-Inspired Anti-Playground-Access Motion Is Roundly Opposed But For The First Time Not Unanimously By Los Feliz Neighborhood Council, Which In Context May Be Seen As A Sorely Needed Victory For Mitch, Who Has To Play ‘Em As They Lay In This Debacle →

CD13, Selma Park

Mitch O’Farrell’s Malcriado Anti-Playground Motion, Propounded At The Behest Of Ms. Kerry Morrison, Is Now Batting 0 for 2 As Lincoln Heights Neighborhood Council Weighs In With Unanimous Eighteen To Zero Opposition

January 25, 2017 Mike Leave a comment

If the Lincoln Heights Neighborhood Council has its way, and really, why should they not, this park will remain free and open to the public at large.

You may recall that this L.A. Times editorial kicked off a somewhat misguided firestorm of opposition to Mitch O’Farrell’s recent Council motion 16-1456 seeking to develop a legal tool for banning adults without children from playgrounds in parks in the City of Los Angeles. The Eagle Rock Neighborhood Council weighed in a couple weeks ago with a unanimous statement of opposition, and that trend continued last night as the Lincoln Heights Neighborhood Council filed its own unanimous statement of opposition.

Lincoln Heights has a unique take on the issues involved in banning people without kids from a playground:

Limiting teenager and young adult access to swings and limited park space in areas where there is already limited access to green open space is unfair to our young adult population. If a 17 year old wants to swing on a swing or study in the grass under a tree, they should not be prevented from doing so. In Lincoln Heights, there is already limited activities for teenagers and denying them the use of park space is discriminatory There is no differentiation between playgrounds and the grass that surrounds it.

This is a completely reasonable point, and one that as far as I can see has not yet been made on the public record. And the fear that such bans will be enforced against teenagers is not imaginary.
Continue reading Mitch O’Farrell’s Malcriado Anti-Playground Motion, Propounded At The Behest Of Ms. Kerry Morrison, Is Now Batting 0 for 2 As Lincoln Heights Neighborhood Council Weighs In With Unanimous Eighteen To Zero Opposition →

CD13, Selma Park

Kerry Morrison/Mitch O’Farrell Vampirical Folie À Deux Begins To Shrivel And Die On Exposure To Light As First Item In The Impending Flood Of Anti-Mitch’s-Playground-Initiative Sentiment Hits Council File In The Form Of Eagle Rock NC’s Unanimous Opposition

January 12, 2017 Mike Leave a comment

If the Eagle Rock Neighborhood Council has its way, this park and its playgrounds will remain free and open to adults with or without children in tow.

If you’re following the story you will recall that this L.A. Times editorial kicked off a somewhat misguided firestorm of opposition to Mitch O’Farrell’s recent Council motion 16-1456 seeking to develop a legal tool for banning adults without children from playgrounds in parks in the City of Los Angeles. Of course, this motion turned out to be yet another salvo in the ongoing struggle between Kerry Morrison and all sane Angelenos for access to Selma Park, which she convinced her close personal friend and neighbor Eric Garcetti to illegally curtail because of her irrational fear that people might pass out sandwiches to homeless people in the Park once a week.

This is an old story, and a sad one. Here’s how it goes: Kerry Morrison whispers sweet nothings in the receptive ear of CD13 field deputy Dan Halden at one of their monthly breakfast meetings. Dan, who for some reason thinks Kerry and her minions are Mitch’s constituents, passes the whisper on to “his boss.”¹² Mitch O’Farrell, no doubt contemplating the oodles and scads of money trickling down to him from the heavy-laden coffers of Ms. and Mr. Kerry Morrison, mutters to himself something like “That sounds good! No need to run that by anyone sane! Kerry Morrison and her money would never lead me astray!!”

But once in a while sane people are paying attention, and then all those reasons that seemed so compelling in the back room suddenly start to look a little — and then a whole freaking lot — crazy. This happens all the time.¹³ And it’s beginning to happen again with this whole playground thing. If you subscribe to the Council file , you will have been notified last night that the Eagle Rock Neighborhood Council voted unanimously to oppose Mitch and Kerry’s motion (full text after the break if you’re PDF-averse).

This is doubtless the first droplet in what we here at MK.Org predict will be a flood of opposition. Sadly, but also hilariously, the opposers don’t actually seem to understand the letter of the proposed law, although they clearly understand the spirit all too well indeed. So let’s settle back and watch the already-at-a-fever-pitch frustration of Mitch and his spokesdude Tony Arranaga grow and grow and grow, as they issue ever-more-tightly-wound explanations until they finally and quietly decide to cut their losses and let the motion die in committee. Stay tuned!
Continue reading Kerry Morrison/Mitch O’Farrell Vampirical Folie À Deux Begins To Shrivel And Die On Exposure To Light As First Item In The Impending Flood Of Anti-Mitch’s-Playground-Initiative Sentiment Hits Council File In The Form Of Eagle Rock NC’s Unanimous Opposition →

Selma Park

The Hitherto Unrevealed Origin Story of the Illegal Selma Park “Kids-Only” Restrictions: How Kerry Morrison’s Irrational Hatred Of Homeless Feeding Programs Led Her To Lie About Everything And Then Lock The Public Out Of Selma Park

January 4, 2017 Mike Leave a comment

Kerry Morrison freaking hates well-fed homeless people, which is why she orders her BID Patrol bullies to spy on feeding programs like this one and why she will use lies and subterfuge to destroy public access to a park for everyone just so homeless people can’t eat there.

My colleagues and I have spilled a great deal of metaphorical ink explaining exactly how Kerry Morrison hung up fake kids-only signs in Selma Park in 2007, thereby stealing 8 years of access from the people of Los Angeles, and the issue has taken on some renewed currency by virtue of her newly revealed conspiracy with Mitch O’Farrell regarding restrictions on playground use in City parks. But until fairly recently we didn’t really know why she’d done it.¹⁴ Well, it turns out that the explanation was lurking in her BID’s 2006 First Quarter report to the Clerk’s office, wherein we read:

HED staff and the security team continue to monitor the situation in Selma Park, where a Saturday feeding program for homeless individuals has overtaken a park intended for neighborhood children. Attempts will be made to organize the families to prevail upon the council office to declare the entire park a “children’s only” playground.

Now, where in the world, I wonder, did Kerry Morrison get the idea that Selma Park was “intended for neighborhood children”?
Continue reading →

CD13, Selma Park

Mitch O’Farrell’s Misbegotten Playground Motion Was About Selma Park After All, Making It Even More Likely That He Was Trying To Please Kerry Morrison, Perhaps Because of the $2,600 In Campaign Contributions Given To Him By Her And Mr. Kerry Morrison

January 1, 2017 Mike Leave a comment

The future of Selma Park as seen in the fevered delusions of Kerry Morrison and Mitch O’Farrell

When I reported a few days ago on the tsunami of bad press surrounding Mitch O’Farrell’s recent Council motion seeking a municipal law to ban adults from children’s playgrounds in parks it was not yet provable, no matter how probable it seemed, that the proposal was related to the ongoing battle for Selma Park. Well, yesterday the Times published an excellent if somewhat shallow article by reporter Dakota Smith which settled the matter once and for all: “[O’Farrell spokesman Tony] Arranaga said O’Farrell proposed the law after locals complained about drug dealing at Selma Park playground in Hollywood.”

It’s still not proven that Kerry Morrison had a hand in O’Farrell’s proposal, but at this point it’s clear that she must have done. First of all, as anyone who actually lives in the area knows, there are no drug dealers in the playground at Selma Park. There may be drug dealers in the adult part, I don’t know, although I haven’t seen any actual drug dealing in there. Thus when Tony Arranaga speaks of putative locals putatively complaining about putative drug dealing in Selma Park, Occam’s Razor leads me to assume he’s talking about Kerry Morrison, who is still fuming more than 15 months after my colleagues and I undid her illegal off-limitsing of the Park for adults unaccompanied by children.

Lunada Bay in Palos Verdes, former home of HPOA bullymeister Kerry Morrison and present home, much like Hollywood under the HPOA, of a particularly virulent form of the restriction of public space through bullying and government-sanctioned privately-applied violence.

And such a move would be more than consistent with what we know about Kerry Morrison’s history. My colleagues recently reported that she and her husband, Mr. Kerry Morrison, had intentionally moved to Los Angeles in order to impose their puritanical visions on our City. Further research has revealed from whence these Morrisons came to our fair City:

Kerry Morrison, executive director of Hollywood’s business improvement district … moved from the more elegant confines of Rancho Palos Verdes. She now lives with her husband and children in Hancock Park, a neighborhood that was chosen precisely because it sits in the middle of old Los Angeles.

Continue reading →

CD13, Selma Park

Mitch O’Farrell Deserves Any Amount Of Bad Press For Sucking Up To Kerry Morrison About Kids And Adults In Playgrounds But The Recent L.A. Times Editorial And Subsequent Internet Freakout Criticizing Him Are Kind Of Off Base

December 29, 2016 Mike Leave a comment

Mitch O’Farrell in a strip-mall somewhere yelling about something.

Our work on Selma Park has been getting a lot of action over the last couple days since the L.A. Times published this editorial criticizing a recent motion of O’Farrell’s. The Times puts it thus:

City Councilman Mitch O’Farrell has proposed barring adults unaccompanied by children from entering playgrounds. It’s an effort, he said, to keep city parks “free of creepy activity.” Who wouldn’t want to ban creepy activity or creepy people from playgrounds?

This editorial prompted a massive ongoing freakout on Reddit, followed by O’Farrell’s feckless denial on Twitter and moving from there to a blog post by the incomparable Lenore Skenazy, then on to Slate, and then everywhere. And the way the Times describes the issue is certainly frightening:

But what O’Farrell is proposing goes far beyond targeting worrisome activities that, in most cases, are already outlawed. It would bar any adult from sitting on a bench, exercising or otherwise enjoying public space near [a] playground unless he or she brought a child along. Is this really necessary?

One of the legitimate, Recreation and Parks Commission approved, signs at Selma Park stating that use of the playground is restricted to children and caregivers. The sign cites LAMC 83.44 and Penal Code section 653g, neither of which actually exists.

According to the Times, Mitch O’Farrell proposed this motion because Hollywood residents complained about drug dealers in some park. But Mitch O’Farrell is famous for confusing Kerry Morrison and her dimwit BID buddies with residents of Hollywood. He thinks they’re his constituents even though none of them live in Hollywood. He’s made this error with respect to tour bus regulation, and also street characters, and also Hollywood nightclubs. In each of these cases, “Hollywood residents” has turned out to be code for “Kerry Morrison.”

So even though I don’t yet have documentary evidence to back it up, my best guess is that this story about Hollywood residents complaining about a park is O’Farrell-speak for something like the following chain of events: Kerry Morrison and her armed flunky Steve Seyler bitched and moaned about the HPOA’s illegal signs being removed from Selma Park.¹⁵ O’Farrell then probably asked the City Attorney how to ban grownups from the park again. Probably the City Attorney told him at that point that it wasn’t possible, because it’s not, and probably it also came up at this point that the City’s official signs banning adults without kids from actual demarcated playgrounds were really outdated, given that neither LAMC 83.44 nor Penal Code section 653g actually exist.

Of course, not only is it certainly illegal to cite people for violating repealed laws, but it’s almost certainly illegal for the City to post signs threatening to cite people for violating them in order to keep them out of places that they legally have the right to be. So Kerry Morrison and Mitch O’Farrell, faced with the possibility of the removal of even the official signs,¹⁶ settled, I’m thinking, on the very motion that is currently undergoing two minutes hate from the Internet.

And the motion the Internet is hating on is a scary thing indeed. But it’s not the motion O’Farrell actually made. In its entirety the real motion says:¹⁷ Continue reading Mitch O’Farrell Deserves Any Amount Of Bad Press For Sucking Up To Kerry Morrison About Kids And Adults In Playgrounds But The Recent L.A. Times Editorial And Subsequent Internet Freakout Criticizing Him Are Kind Of Off Base →