BID Patrol Officer Courtney Kanagi (badge #130) in 2011.A search of the newly released 2013 daily activity logs of the BID Patrol reveals 50 mentions of the Hollywood Farmers’ Market. You can read all of these with links to the logs at the bottom of this post. Now, we have written before about how the BID Patrol only arrests and warns homeless people for violating the abhorrent LAMC 41.18(d). Finally we have conclusive proof that this is true on a massive, previously unsuspected scale, and it comes from the BID Patrol’s own logs.
Here is just one example out of many, many, many. On March 11, 2013 at 11:50 AM, BID Patrol Officers Courtney Kanagi (badge #130) and G. Merkens (badge #112) recorded the following activity:
1150 BACK-UP FB3: FARMER’S MARKET (IVAR/SELMA); INFORMATION BOOTH CALLED RE: A MALE TRANSIENT AGGRESSIVELY PANHANDLING; OFFICERS MET UP WITH THE SECURITY AND FB3; OFFICERS ADVISED MALE OF HIS VIOLATION; COMPLIED BY LEAVING THE AREA WITH NO FURTHER INCIDENT. Mass violations by non-homeless people of LAMC 41.18(d) on Cosmo Street on October 12, 2014 (and every other Sunday) go unaddressed by the BID Patrol.In other words, Kanagi and Merkens were in the Farmers’ Market at 11:50 AM and did not arrest, warn, or even mention the gangs of people who appear every single Sunday and sit on the sidewalk on Cosmo Street north of Selma to eat. But during this same watch they warned 37 (thirty-fricking-seven!) “TRANSIENTS” (their word) outside of the Market for violating LAMC 41.18(d). Three of these warnings took place a mere 15 minutes after Kanagi and Merkens logged their presence in the Market:
1205 CONTACT (3): HOLLYWOOD/CAHUENGA; OFFICERS OBSERVED 3 TRANSIENTS SITTING; ADVISED OF THEIR LAMC VIOLATION; COMPLIED BY STANDING UP AND LEAVING THE AREA WITH NO FURTHER INCIDENT.
BID Patrol Officer George Islas (badge number 128) in 2014.Long-time readers of this blog will recall that in 2007 the HPOA, by hook and by crook, put up signs in Selma Park in Hollywood (illegally) declaring it off-limits to adults unaccompanied by children. Subsequently, the Andrews International BID Patrol spent the next eight years falsely arresting people and shooing them out of the park on the basis of these unauthorized signs, until we got them taken down by the City in September 2015. Subsequently, Kerry Morrison told a friend of this blog that “A/I says that after looking into this, it is unlikely that any arrests ever were made by A/I in Selma Park with specific regard to the signs and penal code section you recite (as opposed to public urination, drinking, and other reasons)…” Today, in the form of an actual A/I arrest report from July 2013, we have more evidence that, even though Kerry is almost certainly telling the truth about what she was told by A/I, what she was told by A/I is not the truth. Continue reading A 2013 Arrest for Violating PC 653b at Selma Park Further Confirms Ongoing Pattern of Civil Rights Violations by Andrews International BID Patrol→
Edward Camarillo at the January 26, 2016 meeting of the CCEA at 725 S. Crocker Street.I’m formally initiating coverage of the Central City East Association with some video of yesterday’s meeting of the Board of Directors at CCEA headquarters at 725 S. Crocker Street. You can find Part 1 and also Part 2. Note that the record is not complete because the Board went into closed session and I couldn’t stick around to see them reconvene. Part I consists entirely of CD14 representative Jose Huizar policy director Martin Schlageter talking about homeless issues in the BID’s territory and then, most interesting of all, taking questions from the Board members. The level of micromanagement is astonishing. We hope to write on some of the details later, but check some representative Q&A after the break. Part 2 is mostly taken up by a representative from the Runyon Group seeking CCEA support for entitlements for their ROW DTLA project (this project was formerly known as Alameda Square). Someone here will be writing on this soon in some detail. Continue reading Video of Yesterday’s Central City East Association Meeting Now Available→
As the mohel said when asked why he had watches in the window of his storefront: “Nu, so what do you want I should put here?”I’m pleased to announce the availability of eight years worth of CHC and HPOA Board of Directors minutes as well as seven years worth of Joint Security Committee minutes. These are available through the menu structure in the header, or on this page, or from this directory.
The careful reader will note that the HPOA continues to violate the plain language of the California Public Records Act by converting the original MS Word documents into PDFs before handing them over. In fact, the metadata suggests that it was Joe Mariani who was personally responsible for this outlawry, or at least it was probably done on his computer. Joe, you don’t have to follow orders that require you to break the law, you know. You can just refuse. In fact, the HPOA’s own whistleblower policy encourages you “to report any action or suspected action taken within the Corporation that is illegal, fraudulent or in violation of any adopted policy of the Corporation.” Come on, Joe! Be a mensch, drop a dime! Continue reading Hundreds of Newly Obtained Documents: CHC and HPOA Board Minutes 2007-2015 and Joint Security Committee Minutes 2008-2015→
Richard Bloom, former mayor of Santa Monica, prepares to ask the questions he’s been asked to ask.According to an email chain recently obtained by our correspondent, on September 24, 2015, Assemblyman Richard Bloom toured the Hollywood Entertainment District BID, accompanied by Kerry Morrison, Carol Massie, some other businessfolks, and Councildude Mitch O’Farrell. The BID Patrol usually goes around the place waking up sidewalk sleepers at 6 a.m., which is the earliest it’s legal1 to do so under the settlement in Jones v. City of Los Angeles. However, on the day of Richard’s tour Kerry directed the BID Patrol to delay the wake-up call, seemingly so that Richard could see people sleeping on the sidewalk and thereby draw the conclusions that Kerry wanted drawn. Here’s how it unfolded in the emails. On September 17 at 4:30 pm, Bloom aide Tim Harter wrote to Kerry (CC to Dan Halden of CD13):
Kerry,
I wanted to chat with you about morning of Sept. 24th, I believe we will be getting a tour with Captain Zarcone and the Homelessness taskforce on Thursday morning from LAPD from 8am-9am you are welcome to join if you would like nothing has been confirmed, I have been playing phone tag with Captain Zarcone. We will be at the Hollywood BID at 9am, I wanted to see if you have an idea of who will be at the meeting with us?
Julie Nony and Andrews International security boss Steve Seyler during happier times.Those are actual quotes in the headline. They come from this email chain between bunches of people in the Media District BID, LAPD Hollywood Division Senior Lead Officer Julie Nony, and Dan Halden of CD13. Here’s more of the context, but you’ll have to read the whole thing to believe it. Chie Kobayashi, of yet another incomprehensible new media post-production outfit on Lillian Way between Santa Monica Blvd. and Melrose, wrote to Julie to complain in detail about homeless people. Julie wrote back:
We really need to get every business on the same page so this doesn’t continue to happen. It might seem strange and ugly at first but if you are new to the area and don’t know how things operate, this can get really out of hand. I will be out for the rest of the week, so I can not personally be there. Please call our front desk number if you should need to have a police unit come out (213-972-2971/2972/2973).
And of course call the B.I.D. first to see if they can handle it. The homeless are a lot like kids in a way. If we warn them and there is no follow through (like we did with the encampment) then they will test us and do what they can get away with. I would like to have a meeting with you, Vince Clothing, Red Studios, Milk, School PD, B.I.D., Vine Street Elementary and your neighbors just north of you. And whoever else you can think of. Lets [sic] all get together and share in the responsibility of keeping this area clean. Thank you!
Julie
We’re not sure where to start with this. We might note that it’s probably true that if kids get warned and there’s no follow through then they’ll test limits. But it’s not true because they’re kids, it’s true because they’re human. The instinct for testing limits is responsible for all human progress and is necessary for human survival.1 We might note that if your methods seem “strange and ugly at first…if you are new to the area” then there’s a reasonable chance that they are in fact strange and ugly. And their methods are very strange and very ugly. We’re not even new to the area and we think they’re strange and ugly. Some of us have grandparents who moved to Hollywood in 1908. Some of us have spent more than half a century in and around Hollywood. And yet we think the methods Julie’s talking about are strange and ugly.
Politically astute LAPD deputy chief Terry Hara in 2006.In October 2014, a judge revoked real estate developer CIM Group’s permits for their controversial Sunset/Gordon apartment building because they had willfully ignored a number of legal requirements. Within days of that decision, HPOA Executive director Kerry Morrison was emailing Hollywood LAPD Honcho Peter Zarcone with some kind of ask about the situation. Zarcone conferred with now-retired Deputy Chief Terry Hara and told Kerry that, while he wasn’t (yet) saying “no” to whatever Kerry was asking, he and Hara needed more information because they were concerned that saying “yes” would “create a perception of [LAPD] being in the pocket of a private developer.” He was right to have worried. The Sunset/Gordon project would go on to be the locus of a great deal of outlawry, and CIM Group is essentially an ongoing criminal conspiracy. I certainly hope the LAPD had the sense to stay out of it.
I only have this little snippet of the email chain, so I don’t yet know the favor Kerry was asking nor the outcome of the ask. I have requests out for the rest, though, and I’ll provide new information as it comes in. I will say that I’d prefer that the LAPD would be concerned more with the reality of not being in the pocket of a private developer than the perception of it, but maybe that’s idealistic. And I’d say that the fact that Kerry Morrison even felt free to ask him for anything on behalf of CIM shows that probably the LAPD essentially is already “…in the pocket of a private developer.” Why did she think that asking him would yield results if similar requests in the past hadn’t already worked? My collection of BID/LAPD emails is presently too fragmentary to allow the drawing of many solid conclusions, but the amount of it that has to do with real estate is surprising. Darrell Davis (right) with Bea Girmala and LaMont Jerrett in the parking lot of the Hollywood Police Station on Wilcox
For instance, here’s another email, this one from HPOA Assistant Boss Joseph Mariani to Hollywood cop Darrell Davis asking for info on Hollywood crime stats that a broker needs immediately to convince a client to buy in Hollywood. Again, I don’t yet know the full story, but I’m working on getting it. However, the level of familiarity that Joe displays suggests convincingly that LAPD assistance with Hollywood real estate transactions is the norm. Says Joe to Darrell: “Ideally he said he would need this today. Let me know if that’s possible. If not I’ll try and buy some time.”
The Andrews International BID Patrol and the Hollywood Property Owners Alliance surveilled this guy for at least 33 months, in part because of his videotaping of BID Patrol operations. According to Kerry Morrison, BID Patrol boss Steve Seyler kept a “history” of him for years. The HPOA involved the LAPD in their surveillance program to some extent. What a mess.In October 2015 we wrote about a number of cases where the Andrews International Hollywood BID Patrol collected intelligence information on its perceived enemies, mostly residents of Hollywood who opposed them in some manner. Among these instances of BID Patrol spying there was a mysterious case involving a man named Eric, pictured to the right. Our faithful correspondent has recently obtained a number of emails from the LAPD, which he’s preparing for publication and plans to make available quite soon. We jumped the queue on this email,1 though, because it explains a number of lacunae in our previous post.
It’s from Kerry Morrison to LAPD officer Mark Dibell about Eric, written in September 2014, 33 months after the January 2012 surveillance photographs of the man were taken by the BID Patrol. The subject line is “A matter for Vice.” TL;DR is that Eric “…had a routine of harassing and filming the BID patrol…” and so Kerry Morrison and A/I tracked his movements, photographed him, and almost three years later, wrote to the LAPD on behalf of his new landlord, Kelly Vickers of Eastown Apartments, reporting past, evidently unsupported, allegations of “sexual misconduct…and drug use” among other things. The subject line suggests that Kerry is trying to get this guy in trouble with the Vice squad as a service to one of the property owners in the BID.
How does anyone think this is OK? How does the BID carry on a three year vendetta against this guy for filming their security guards? Sure, Kerry claims it’s because of “sexual misconduct…and drug use,” but really, if the guy was provably up to those things why all the emails and subterfuge? Why not just call the actual cops and make an actual police report like actual non-creepy-zillionaires have to do in such circumstances? It’s pretty unlikely anyway that one can move into a fancy douchebag-serving apartment paradise like Eastown without a criminal background check, so the “allegations” remain only allegations. And even if he was or is guilty of “sexual misconduct…and drug use,” how is investigating that the business of the BID Patrol? They’re freaking security guards, not spies, not detectives.
The scene of the crime.Today I have a minor piece of documention, which is the initial complaint and a bunch of miscellaneous paperwork, available here, in a lawsuit known as Horlings v. City of Los Angeles. I won’t summarize the alleged facts of the case, because I find it impossible to do so without seeming to mock the plaintiffs or to condemn some of the defendants, which I really don’t want to do. The suit is based on a horrific experience, and no one deserves to be mocked for their roles in it. In very general terms the Horlings family was the victim of a crime in Santee Alley and they sued, among other parties, the Fashion District BID based on the BID’s representation that their role and mission was to keep their district safe and clean. They also sued the City of LA, Universal Protection Service, and the LAPD. Continue reading Some Documents from Horlings Lawsuit against Fashion District BID Available, Illuminating Contradictions of Existence of BID Security→
Photograph attached to one of the emails I received recently from the CCEA.Yesterday I got about a hundred pages of emails from CCEA Executive Director Raquel K. Beard. These are from September 1, 2015 through September 8, 2015 and supposedly comprise all nonexempt emails sent or received by anyone at the CCEA during that period. I haven’t read them carefully yet, so there may be undiscovered gems. One interesting thing is that there are a number of emails between Raquel and Estela Lopez. Estela was formerly Executive Director of the CCEA and Raquel was the Managing Director. Raquel left in 2012 to run Downtown Long Beach Associates, which, among other things, seems to manage a BID there. Continue reading New Emails from CCEA: Raquel K. Beard, Ed Camarillo, Estela Lopez (!), Etc.→
