Category Archives: Business Improvement Districts

Business Improvement Districts, Lawsuits, Public Records Act Pragmatics

South Central Hollywood Racketeer Club Larchmont Village BID Loses Public Records Act Lawsuit!! — Ordered By Judge Mary Strobel To Stop Fooling Around And Do An Adequate Search For The Damn Records!! — Their Kooky Legal Strategy Dismissed Out Of Hand!! — Apparently Their Kooky Lawyer Thomas Cairns Misrepresented Facts To The Court — Motion For Fees Likely To Follow — A New Request For Records Already Filed!

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Long story short. The weirdos over at the Larchmont Village BID completely ignored my 2017 requests for records, so in March 2018 I had to file a petition against them. They failed to file an answer to the petition and then showed up at the trial setting conference whining about how mean I was and asking for extra time to file an answer. Well, they never filed anything, and in March 2019 my lawyer, the incomparable Abenicio Cisneros, filed a smashing opening brief.

And then on May 16 of this year we all showed up for the trial. And even Thomas Cairns showed up, twitching like a tweaker, half-empty pack of Marlboro Reds in his briefcase, prescription aviator shades perched on his surreally toupeed brow. And the judge, Mary Strobel, called the case. And Cairns began babbling some crazed stream of consciousness in which he seemed to be representing that he didn’t actually appear before the court in 20181 and therefore everything should be tossed on a technicality.

The judge seemed skeptical, like really, really, really skeptical, of Cairns’s claim. But she decided to put off the hearing for a couple weeks while she ordered up a transcript to check Cairns’s assertions. The new hearing was held last Tuesday, June 4, 2019. And it turned out that in 2018 Cairns didn’t say anything like what he claimed he said. It was all a big fat lie.

And when the judge explained this to him he had the nerve to ask for another 30 days to file a response to my brief! Strobel said no way, friend, and ruled against the BID on all of my causes of action. You can read her ruling here and there is a transcription below.

Also, don’t forget that if a requester, that’s me, prevails, as I did, in a CPRA action then the respondent, that’s the BID, has to pay my lawyer’s fees and also all the costs involved in filing the suit. That doesn’t happen automatically, though. There’s a whole new set of proceedings, which will start with filing a motion asking for the money, about which I will let you know when it happens.

And finally, finally, this victory means that I am free to start requesting records from these Larchmontane criminals once again. Sent some askyness off to these gangsters the instant I learned of the ruling! And read it here! Looking forward to receiving, reading, publishing, analyzing, and, of course, mocking the holy hell out of these goodies!
Continue reading South Central Hollywood Racketeer Club Larchmont Village BID Loses Public Records Act Lawsuit!! — Ordered By Judge Mary Strobel To Stop Fooling Around And Do An Adequate Search For The Damn Records!! — Their Kooky Legal Strategy Dismissed Out Of Hand!! — Apparently Their Kooky Lawyer Thomas Cairns Misrepresented Facts To The Court — Motion For Fees Likely To Follow — A New Request For Records Already Filed! →

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Business Improvement Districts, Public Records Act Pragmatics

Opening Brief Filed In Chinatown BID Public Records Act Lawsuit — A Powerful Statement Of The Intense Public Interest In Understanding This Shadowy Criminal Conspiracy — And What It Is Doing With The Public Money That Funds It — Neither George Yu Nor Anyone From The BID Has Responded To Anything — Or Participated In Any Way At All In The Petition Against Them — Trial Is Set For July 24 2019 At 9:30 AM — Stanley Mosk Courthouse Department 86

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Last August Katherine McNenny and I filed a suit against the Chinatown Business Improvement District because not only did they refuse to provide us with the public records we’d asked for repeatedly but they refused to respond at all. Their bossboy, George Yu, was, you may recall, deeply implicated in the 2017 zillionaire conspiracy against the Skid Row Neighborhood Council formation effort, so they clearly had and, we hope, still have, a lot of really essential information.

But George Yu and his criminal cronies at the BID, I guess true to the pattern they’d established with respect to the requests themselves, refused to respond in any way to the lawsuit. They didn’t reply to the petition, they ignored the discovery, they didn’t show up for the hearing on the motion to expedite hearing of the motion to compel them to answer the damn discovery,1 and so on. But the case rolls on, and on Friday, May 24, our lawyers filed an absolutely stunning opening brief.2

You can read transcribed selections below and here’s a super-short summary. The Chinatown BID is a major player in municipal politics. This includes George’s Yu’s participation in the conspiracy against the Skid Row Neighborhood Council. Through our CPRA requests we sought to understand the BID’s role in this and their relationship with the City in general.

The BID failed to respond at all to these requests and that violates the California Public Records Act. Therefore the court should require the BID to produce the records. We’re also asking the court to declare that the BID’s actions violated the CPRA3 and to issue an injunction against the BID violating the law in this manner in the future. Finally, we’re asking the court to order the BID to pay our attorneys for their work on our case.
Continue reading Opening Brief Filed In Chinatown BID Public Records Act Lawsuit — A Powerful Statement Of The Intense Public Interest In Understanding This Shadowy Criminal Conspiracy — And What It Is Doing With The Public Money That Funds It — Neither George Yu Nor Anyone From The BID Has Responded To Anything — Or Participated In Any Way At All In The Petition Against Them — Trial Is Set For July 24 2019 At 9:30 AM — Stanley Mosk Courthouse Department 86 →

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Business Improvement Districts, Lawsuits, Public Records Act Pragmatics

George Yu And The Chinatown Business Improvement District Continue To Refuse To Participate In Our CPRA Lawsuit Against Them — Motion To Compel Response To Discovery Filed Yesterday — Along With Ex Parte Motion To Set An Earlier Date For Hearing Motion To Compel — How Did Anyone Decide That This Whiny Little Poobutt Should Be In Charge Of A Multi-Zillion Dollar Publicly Funded Enterprise?!

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I mean, at this point all these posts about our1 lawsuit against the Chinatown Business Improvement District are turning out about the same. We do something and he ignores it and doesn’t show up for court or file papers or do whatever he was supposed to do. And the last such item was the discovery we served on the BID in January. And he just wouldn’t answer!

Well, the trial is coming up on July 24 and our lawyers have to have the opening brief in on May 24. So yesterday we filed a motion to compel the BID to answer the discovery and also to pay $3,160 in costs incurred because of Yu’s intransigence. But there’s an extra problem, which is that there’s no room on the court’s calendar for hearing the motion until July.

This would leave no time to incorporate the discovery information into the opening brief, so we’re doing an ex parte application to hold the hearing on the motion to compel sooner.2 It’ll be heard this Thursday, May 2, at 8:30 am in Department 86 of the Mosk Courthouse. Turn the page for some excerpts from the lawyer’s declaration explaining what a bad, bad boy George Yu has been.
Continue reading George Yu And The Chinatown Business Improvement District Continue To Refuse To Participate In Our CPRA Lawsuit Against Them — Motion To Compel Response To Discovery Filed Yesterday — Along With Ex Parte Motion To Set An Earlier Date For Hearing Motion To Compel — How Did Anyone Decide That This Whiny Little Poobutt Should Be In Charge Of A Multi-Zillion Dollar Publicly Funded Enterprise?! →

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Fashion District BID, Lawsuits, Public Records Act Pragmatics

Exceedingly Strong Trial Brief Filed In My CPRA Suit Against The Fashion District BID — The BID’s Reply Is Due In 30 Days — Trial Set For June 26, 2019 At 9:30 AM — Department 86 — Stanley Mosk Courthouse

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It’s been a while since I wrote about the lawsuit that I was forced to file in August 2018 by the unhinged intransigence of the Fashion District BID, pursued by them in line with the unhinged intransigence of their soon-to-be-disbarred attorney, the world’s angriest CPRA lawyer, Ms. Carol Ann Humiston, in order to enforce my rights to read their damn emails. But time rolls on and the trial, scheduled for June 26, 2019 at 9:30 a.m. in Department 86 of the Stanley Mosk Courthouse, is rapidly approaching.

Thus did my attorneys, Abenicio Cisneros and Karl Olson, file the trial brief with the court on Friday. The arguments are overwhelmingly powerful, and you can read substantial excerpts after the break. If I were the Fashion District after reading this I’d be ready to settle up and settle up quick. But they’re clearly on some kind of a mission with an axe to grind and a point to prove and I certainly don’t expect them to start acting sensible at this point. After all, it’s not their own money they’re squandering on Ms. Humiston’s exorbitant fees.1

As I said, you can read the specifics in the excerpts below, but there are two main general issues at stake. First is the fact that the BID relies heavily on the so-called catch-all exemption to the CPRA, found at section 6255(a), which allows agencies to withhold records when they can show “that on the facts of the particular case the public interest served by not disclosing the record clearly outweighs the public interest served by disclosure of the record.” The key thing here is that they have to make a showing of public interest in withholding the record.

This is hard enough to do in general, and the BID hasn’t even made an attempt, but our argument is that in the City of Los Angeles such a showing is even more difficult to pull off because (a) the BID is deeply involved in attempts to influence municipal legislation and (b) the Municipal Lobbying Ordinance at LAMC §48.01 establishes an extraordinarily high public interest in disclosure of information about attempts to influence:

The citizens of the City of Los Angeles have a right to know the identity of interests which attempt to influence decisions of City government, as well as the means employed by those interests.
…
Complete public disclosure of the full range of activities by and financing of lobbyists and those who employ their services is essential to the maintenance of citizen confidence in the integrity of local government.

The argument is essentially that the BID can’t even show that there’s any significant public interest in withholding the records they withheld, but given that the subject of these records concerns the means they employ to attempt to influence municipal decisions, they really especially can’t meet this extra-high local bar.

The other main argument is against some nonsense that the BID just made up in their reply to my petition. Many of the emails they refused to turn over are in the possession of their board members Linda Becker and Mark Chatoff. They wouldn’t even search for these because it’s Carol Humiston’s opinion that board members aren’t subject to the CPRA.

You can read the technical details below, but basically our argument is that the law that makes BIDs subject to the CPRA, which is Streets and Highways Code §36612, explicitly makes the owners’ associations subject. It makes no sense as a matter of law and as of a matter of common sense that a corporation could be subject to the CPRA while its board members were not subject. A corporation only does anything through the actions of the people who run it. And that’s the quick and dirty summary. As I keep saying, read on for the excerpts!
Continue reading Exceedingly Strong Trial Brief Filed In My CPRA Suit Against The Fashion District BID — The BID’s Reply Is Due In 30 Days — Trial Set For June 26, 2019 At 9:30 AM — Department 86 — Stanley Mosk Courthouse →

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California State Government, Downtown Center BID

Business Improvement Districts And A Bunch Of Backwater Small Towns Oppose Assemblymember Todd Gloria’s AB1184 — Which Will Require Local Agencies To Retain Emails For Two Years — Read Their Letters Of Opposition And See What Shameless Liars They Are — Especially Suzanne Holley Of The Downtown Center BID — Who Argues With A Straight Face That Allowing Them To Delete Emails Will Increase Public Access To Information Because They Will Only Save The Important Stuff — By The Way Though I Have Proof That Holley’s BID Has Intentionally Deleted Very Important Emails In The Past — Icky Sticky BIDdie Boy Andrew Thomas Of Westwood Village BID Also Opposes — And He’s Also An Email Deleting Liar

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Assemblymember Todd Gloria introduced AB 1184, which would clarify an ambiguity in state law by requiring public agencies to retain emails for a minimum of two years. You can read my earlier article on it here. Well, on Wednesday the bill was amended1 and passed out of the Senate Judiciary Committee with a 10 to 1 tally in favor.2 It’s really worth reading the Judiciary Committee Counsel’s analysis of the bill, by the way.

And I also have copies of support and opposition letters. Powerful support comes from the California News Publishers Association and the First Amendment Coalition. Here are their letters:

☆ California News Publishers Association support for AB1184
☆ First Amendment Coalition support for AB1184

The opposition letters are predictably stupid, self-serving, and dishonest. They mostly take the position that it will cost too damn much to store two years worth of emails. Obviously, though, none of them provide any evidence because it’s just not true.3 Here are the links:

☆ City of San Carlos opposition to AB1184
☆ City of West Hollywood opposition to AB1184
☆ Various BIDdie Associations opposition to AB1184
☆ Downtown Center BID opposition to AB1184

And, probably unsurprisingly, this last one, penned by Downtown Center BID executive director Suzanne Holley, already known to be one of the most mendacious of an exceedingly mendacious crew of Los Angeles BIDdies, is perhaps the most twisted, the most dishonest, and the most ineffective, it turns out, out of all of them. There is a transcription after the break, but behold a few highlights with commentary and counterpoint.

Suzanne, why is your BID opposed to this? “Agencies would be forced to maintain an onerous amount of data.” And why is this not in the public interest, Suzanne? “the public would need to sort through thousands of emails to find the relevant needle in the haystack.” Suzanne! See that little box in your email client with a magnifying glass in it? If you put words in there and click on something the computer will sort through the emails for you! I use mine all the time!

Explain again, Suzanne! “Requiring the retention of tens of thousands of emails will bury relevant information…” And what is your answer to this imaginary problem, Suzanne? ” we believe the bill can be amended to ensure that the retention only apply to information relevant to the public business.” Of course, Suzanne, the problem is that on your scheme, YOU would be the one who decides what the public business is when obviously it’s the public that needs to decide.

And what kind of stuff would Suzanne delete if allowed? Here’s what she says doesn’t need to be retained: “Every email, regardless of how irrelevant would need to be retained. … Even an email asking a colleague out to lunch would fall under the purview of this bill.” See? Suzanne is asking the public to trust her to determine which emails it’s in the public interest to retain. She seems to be saying she’s just going to delete a lot of emails about lunch dates.

Leaving aside serious arguments that such emails may be very important indeed, let me tell you a little story about what kinds of emails Suzanne Holley actually does in fact delete. Remember all those emails I got in 2017 about BID involvement in the destruction of the Skid Row Neighborhood Council? That Jason McGahan, then of the LA Weekly, used in his blockbuster article? That are now evidence in the lawsuit against the City for illegally tampering with the subdivision election? Well, I got the first batch of those emails from Suzanne Holley at the Downtown Center BID.
Continue reading Business Improvement Districts And A Bunch Of Backwater Small Towns Oppose Assemblymember Todd Gloria’s AB1184 — Which Will Require Local Agencies To Retain Emails For Two Years — Read Their Letters Of Opposition And See What Shameless Liars They Are — Especially Suzanne Holley Of The Downtown Center BID — Who Argues With A Straight Face That Allowing Them To Delete Emails Will Increase Public Access To Information Because They Will Only Save The Important Stuff — By The Way Though I Have Proof That Holley’s BID Has Intentionally Deleted Very Important Emails In The Past — Icky Sticky BIDdie Boy Andrew Thomas Of Westwood Village BID Also Opposes — And He’s Also An Email Deleting Liar →

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Business Improvement Districts

That Time In 2018 When Wallis Locke Told Ellen Riotto How The South Park BID Could Just Ignore The Brown Act By Putting Some Magic Words On The Agenda — Cause The Foothill Municipal Water District Did It — So Anyone Could Do It — Even The South Park BID — But Then Ellen Riotto — Being Uncharacteristically Prudent — Asked Carol Humiston If It Was OK — And Carol Humiston Was All Like No Freaking Way That Is Crazy! — Except She Said It Nicer Cause After All They Are Paying Her A Lot Of Damn Money!

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It’s basically very easy for public government agencies such as business improvement districts to comply with the Brown Act. All they have to do is not be sneaky and stop trying to hide what they’re doing from the public. But of course, that concept is actually impossible for BIDdies to understand, so they’re perennially surprised by what the law requires of them. The general zillionaire rule of statutory interpretation, which is to assume that laws do in fact say whatever rich white people imagine that they ought to say, is accurate 99.99% of the time, but it fails with the Brown Act for some reason.1

Which is why about this time last year we were spending a lot of blog time educating Ellen Riotto, executive directrix of the South Park BID, about the duties required of her organization by the Brown Act. She’d schedule a closed session but wouldn’t explain what the Board was going to talk about during it and I’d be like no, can’t do that, and she’d be like OK thank you for pointing that out! And then she’d be all like board members are going to phone into the meeting from random unannounced locations around the globe and I’d be like no, can’t do that, and she’d be like OK thank you for pointing that out!

And now, thanks to some emails kindly supplied to me in response to a request for public records by the South Park BIDdies, I can reveal for the first time that there was at least one other instance in early 2018 when Ellen Riotto completely misunderstood the Brown Act and was on the verge of implementing yet another completely illegal policy. Wallis Locke sent an email to Ellen Riotto and was all like I know a guy named Dan and he’s involved with the Foothill Municipal Water District and they have some kind of voodoo on their agendas that basically lets them talk about whatever they want to without having to announce it publicly in advance!

And Ellen Riotto was all like I wanna get me some of that! The voodoo, by the way, has to do with the fact that the Brown Act at §54954.2(b) allows public government agencies like BIDs to make last minute additions to their agendas if there is an actual emergency. However, in this case, maybe because my constant scrutiny made her a little more circumspect, she decided to ask the BID’s attorney Ms. Carol Humiston if her theory was a good one.

And Ms. Humiston, despite the fact that she’s famous for counseling her clients to violate the law at every opportunity in contravention of the enforceable expectations of both God and the California State Bar, was all like WHOA! Emergencies mean like earthquakes, fires, and so on! Not some booshwah that you just made up! You can’t freaking do that and you would be crazy even to try so step back from the ledge! And Ellen Riotto was like darn it! But step back from the ledge she did, leaving nothing but this email conversation, a transcription of which you can find after the break!
Continue reading That Time In 2018 When Wallis Locke Told Ellen Riotto How The South Park BID Could Just Ignore The Brown Act By Putting Some Magic Words On The Agenda — Cause The Foothill Municipal Water District Did It — So Anyone Could Do It — Even The South Park BID — But Then Ellen Riotto — Being Uncharacteristically Prudent — Asked Carol Humiston If It Was OK — And Carol Humiston Was All Like No Freaking Way That Is Crazy! — Except She Said It Nicer Cause After All They Are Paying Her A Lot Of Damn Money! →

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Business Improvement Districts

South Park BID Communications Director Wallis Locke Was About To Be Fired For Poor Job Performance At The End Of 2017 — Then BID Exec Direc Ellen Riotto Had A Talk With Her — “Improve Or It Is Over!” Spake Ellen Riotto — By April 2018 — Much To Riotto’s Surprise — Locke Had “Stepped Up Her Game” — By December 2018 Riotto Thought Locke’s Work Was As Valuable — If Not More Valuable — Than Planning Director Josh Kreger’s — So She Reduced Kreger’s 2018 Bonus By $750 And Gave It To Locke Instead! — But Kreger Still Makes 43% More Than Locke Annually — How Is That Fair, Ellen Riotto?!

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I’ve written before about the South Park BID’s weirdo insistence that its staff members keep their salaries secret even though it’s essentially impossible to do this for publicly funded government agencies like business improvement districts. This information is just all a matter of public record, so we know, e.g., that South Park BID real estate director Josh Kreger makes $100,000 per year, communications director Wallace Locke makes $70,000, operations director Lulu Woldemariam makes $65,000 per year, and executive director Ellen Salome Riotto makes $131,250.

And they also get bonuses! I don’t know what kind of job you have, but I’ve never had a job where they just gave bonuses to everyone. It’s some kind of white collar elite psychodrama that would probably ruin everyone’s time at the Christmas party if they knew what their colleagues were getting. But it turns out that bonuses are all public record too! I am, therefore, pleased to be able to reveal what all these South Park BIDdies got all bonused up with for 2018!

But first there is a crucial backstory! Having to do with BID communications boss Wallis Locke! Who started with the BID in November 2016. And couldn’t be bothered to even show up for work on time! Or respond to emails on time! Or make her freaking green carpet deadlines, whatever the freaking heck those are! You can read all about it right here!

But then her kindly but stern boss lady Ellen Salome Riotto had a little talk with her in December 2017! And she told her to listen up! And fly right! And other cliches like that! Or there wasn’t gonna be a next time! She “made it clear that this would be the very last of this type of conversation, and if her work ethic and attitude is not consistently improved, it’s over.” And it seems that by April 2018 Riotto’s shock treatment had worked! Ellen Riotto told the Board in an email that “she stepped up her game in ways that I frankly didn’t think she was capable of.”

Which brings us up to December 2018, when Ellen Riotto sent an email to BIDdie Warbucks Bob Buente discussing year-end bonuses for the staff. Which evidently, not that I would know, are supposed to be 5% of salary. So that, based on the numbers above, Kreger should have gotten $5,000 and Locke $3,500. But, says Riotto to Buente:

WL’s salary is still lower than where I’d like her to be, based on the competitive landscape in the industry and her specific contributions to the BID. Her bonus should be calculated on her current salary, not on gross annual earnings. That would put her at $3,500. However, Wallis’ contributions are equal in value (if not more valuable) than Josh’s, so my recommendation is to sum their 5%s ($3,500 for WL, $5,000 for Josh = $8,500) and split ($4,250).

And that’s what they did. Oh, ouch! That’s gotta hurt Josh Kreger, wouldn’t you think? His bonus is reduced by 15% and that money passed to Locke, who earns 30% less than him, but his boss thinks her contributions are “equal in value (if not more valuable) than” his. Ouch, ouch, ouch!

If he has any self-respect he’ll quit the damn job after reading about what his boss thinks of him. Stay tuned! And turn the page for a complete transcription of every last detail of Ellen Salome Riotto’s December 2017 email about what a crappy job Wallis Locke had been doing!
Continue reading South Park BID Communications Director Wallis Locke Was About To Be Fired For Poor Job Performance At The End Of 2017 — Then BID Exec Direc Ellen Riotto Had A Talk With Her — “Improve Or It Is Over!” Spake Ellen Riotto — By April 2018 — Much To Riotto’s Surprise — Locke Had “Stepped Up Her Game” — By December 2018 Riotto Thought Locke’s Work Was As Valuable — If Not More Valuable — Than Planning Director Josh Kreger’s — So She Reduced Kreger’s 2018 Bonus By $750 And Gave It To Locke Instead! — But Kreger Still Makes 43% More Than Locke Annually — How Is That Fair, Ellen Riotto?! →

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Business Improvement Districts

South Park BID Board Member Terry Rubenroit Used Central City Association Chief Jessica Lall’s Name In Vain — While Importuning Deputy City Attorney Gita O’Neill Not To Settle Mitchell V. City Of LA — So Jessica Lall Had To Fire A Thunderbolt Down From Her Heavenly Perch And Smite The Holy Crap Out Of Terry Rubenroit — Who Says She Learned Her Lesson Because She Knows What All These Downtown Zillionaires Know — That It May Be Safe To Ignore Jesus But It’s Not Safe To Ignore Jessica Lall

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Of course you’re aware that the City of Los Angeles agreed on March 6, 2019 to settle the monumental civil rights case Mitchell v. Los Angeles brought against it on behalf of homeless people whose property has been seized and destroyed by the police and other agents of the City. Settling was the only prudent course for the City to take because the City, clearly and provably guilty of all they were accused of, was going to lose and lose big if it went to trial.

That this is so has been clear enough to all sane observers at least since 2016 when the federal court issued a preliminary injunction preventing the City from seizing the property of its homeless victims. But of course, in the City of Los Angeles not all the observers are sane, and thus at least since the Summer of 2018 the certified domestic terrorist organization known as the Central City Association of Los Angeles led a concerted lobbying effort to convince the City to take the case to trial rather than settling.

And one of the effects of this campaign and its fairly crazed propaganda was the sorry spectacle of zillionaires and their minions swarming by the tens and dozens to every possible public forum where they could bitch, moan, and piss about how settling Mitchell would cause typhus epidemics, leprosy, locust plagues, an oversupply of crack-smoking prostitutes, and wanton smiting of presumptive unsmitables. The commentary spanned the entire gamut of zillionaire affective styles, all the way from slavering insanity to third generation liberal-inflected psychopathy.

And one of the favored means by which these kings and queens of our City make their displeasure known is by writing to their pet officials and demanding meetings. Just for instance, behold this pallid little number by South Park BID Board member Terry Rubenroit to Deputy City Attorney for the Placation of Rich People WRT Homelessophobia Gita O’Neill. Also be sure to behold the fact that Rubenroit CCed Jessica Lall, who is Eternal Queen of Downtown but not in a good way Carol Schatz’s handpicked successor to the CCALA throne.

And that, friends, was Rubenroit’s first mistake! And her last! Jessica Lall flipped out on her and told her to never ever ever do that again because it messed with the incomprehensible-to-minions-such-as-Rubenroit eleven dimensional chess being played by Lall and her elite peers on the eleventy-first floors of the skyscraping towers of Downtown Los Angeles. And then Rubenroit rolled over and bared her throat in a quantum-level appeasement display! And then Lall accepted her submission! Read on for transcriptions of all of it!
Continue reading South Park BID Board Member Terry Rubenroit Used Central City Association Chief Jessica Lall’s Name In Vain — While Importuning Deputy City Attorney Gita O’Neill Not To Settle Mitchell V. City Of LA — So Jessica Lall Had To Fire A Thunderbolt Down From Her Heavenly Perch And Smite The Holy Crap Out Of Terry Rubenroit — Who Says She Learned Her Lesson Because She Knows What All These Downtown Zillionaires Know — That It May Be Safe To Ignore Jesus But It’s Not Safe To Ignore Jessica Lall →

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Business Improvement Districts, Los Angeles City Council

The FBI Searched José Huizar’s Personal Email Account — And I Asked The South Park BID Board Of Directors For Their Emails To/From That Very Account — And BID Directrix Ellen Salome Riotto Told The Board Members To Talk To Their Lawyers Before Handing Over Responsive Records — Because That’s Exactly How Innocent People Behave

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Back in January of this year PACER wizard Seamus Hughes, in a stunning application of the inscrutable sorcery which he alone has mastered, discovered that in February 2017 the FBI had searched one of José Huizar’s personal email accounts, josehuizar@sbcglobal.net, and seized more than 1,400 records. And I immediately thought of my dear friends at the South Park BID, where they’re building all those really really really tall buildings of the very sort that basically require a criminal conspiracy to get built at all.

And so I fired off a little CPRA request to the BIDdies asking them for, amongst other things, their communications with that email account of Huizar’s. And it turned out that none of them would admit to having any, which, of course, is not surprising given the fact that the BID’s lawyer, Carol Ann Humiston, basically advised the Boardies that there would be no consequence to them for lying. But nevertheless the request was not without results, just not direct results.

For, you see, in response to a whole different request, the BID sent over a little slap in the face, which is to say this email from BID Executive Director Ellen Salome Riotto advising the BID Boardies on responding to the earlier request. Basically she told them that because the FBI is investigating their buddy Huizar they should talk to their damn lawyers before sending over any records, which to this legal amateur looks a whole freaking heck of a damn lot like consciousness of guilt. But she can speak for herself better than I could speak for her:
Continue reading The FBI Searched José Huizar’s Personal Email Account — And I Asked The South Park BID Board Of Directors For Their Emails To/From That Very Account — And BID Directrix Ellen Salome Riotto Told The Board Members To Talk To Their Lawyers Before Handing Over Responsive Records — Because That’s Exactly How Innocent People Behave →

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Business Improvement Districts, Public Records Act Pragmatics

Carol Humiston — The World’s Angriest CPRA Lawyer — Counseled The South Park BID To Thwart My CPRA Requests By Violating The Law — And It Is Against The Rules Of The California State Bar For An Attorney To Counsel A Client To Violate The Law — Which Is Why I Filed A Complaint Against Her Yesterday — And Maybe She’ll Get Disbarred — Which Would Be Pretty Appropriate In The Circumstances — Ironically I Only Have Evidence Of This Because The SPBID Was Honest Enough To Release It To Me In Response To A CPRA Request — But As Honest As That Might Be — Doesn’t Make Up For The Fact That SPBID Executive Directrix Ellen Riotto Enthusiastically Adopted Humiston’s Illegal Advice!

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Carol Humiston, the world’s angriest CPRA lawyer, advises a bunch of L.A. business improvement districts on how to thwart my CPRA requests. She even held a seminar about me last summer for random BIDs that weren’t even her client to teach them her angry CPRA-thwarting methods. And, you know, I don’t like her methods, and I don’t like her clients, and I don’t like her. But I do like the fact that all people, even Satan-worshipping BIDdies who see violence against homeless people as a sacrament and guns as a masturbation aid, have a right to advice from counsel on how to further their goals within the bounds imposed by the law.

That last clause is essential, though. We do not want lawyers running around telling people that they ought to break the law and then using their special lawyerly powers to show them how to break it more effectively. In return for the powers granted to lawyers by society, they’re required to follow some minimal set of rules. And one of those rules is Rule 1.2.1, which states unequivocally that:

A lawyer shall not counsel a client to engage, or assist a client in conduct that the lawyer knows is criminal, fraudulent, or a violation of any law, rule, or ruling of a tribunal.

But some emails, ironically obtained from the South Park BID in response to a CPRA request, prove that that’s precisely what Carol Humiston has done. She explicitly counseled the South Park BIDdies to engage in conduct that she knew was a violation of the CPRA. And that, friends, is why, just yesterday afternoon, I filed this complaint against her with the California State Bar. You can read the painful details after the break, both of her advice and the sections of the CPRA she advised the South Park BID to violate, including copies of the actual emails in which she gave the advice.
Continue reading Carol Humiston — The World’s Angriest CPRA Lawyer — Counseled The South Park BID To Thwart My CPRA Requests By Violating The Law — And It Is Against The Rules Of The California State Bar For An Attorney To Counsel A Client To Violate The Law — Which Is Why I Filed A Complaint Against Her Yesterday — And Maybe She’ll Get Disbarred — Which Would Be Pretty Appropriate In The Circumstances — Ironically I Only Have Evidence Of This Because The SPBID Was Honest Enough To Release It To Me In Response To A CPRA Request — But As Honest As That Might Be — Doesn’t Make Up For The Fact That SPBID Executive Directrix Ellen Riotto Enthusiastically Adopted Humiston’s Illegal Advice! →

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