Category Archives: Business Improvement Districts

Hollywood Property Owners Alliance, LAPD

52.4% Of All Arrests In The Entire City Of Los Angeles For Public Urination/Defecation From 2009 Through February 2019 Were Made In Just Six LAPD Reporting Districts In The Hollywood Entertainment District BID — Yet More Proof That Business Improvement Districts Oppress Homeless People Through Selective Enforcement — And More Proof That The Hollywood BID Patrol Is Completely Off The Chain — And Has Been Running A Private Police State For Years — With The City’s Full Blessing And Collusion Of Course

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A few weeks ago I learned from some data released by the LAPD that 73% of all arrests for public marijuana use in the entire City of Los Angeles between 2016 and 2018 took place in the Hollywood Entertainment District BID.1 This is obviously a crime much more likely to be committed by homeless people, since they don’t have a private place to smoke marijuana. Here’s what I said then about the BID’s outrageous rate of arresting homeless residents:

The HPOA BID Patrol is famous for its aggressive arrest policies. In 2013 they were responsible for more than 7% of the arrests of homeless people in the entire City of Los Angeles. Their arrest rate has dropped precipitously in the last few years, but it is still unbelievably high. But since 2016 they have refused to provide data on their individual arrests in response to CPRA requests, so it hasn’t been possible to tell who they were arresting and why.2
And it turns out that LAPD will release these spreadsheets pretty quickly, and just recently they released a couple containing all arrests for violating LAMC 41.47.2, which is the public urination law. And a quick analysis reveals a very similar result. That is, there are essentially six LAPD reporting districts in the Hollywood Entertainment District BID. They are 636, 637, 645, 646, 647, and 666. There are 1135 reporting districts in the City, but these six in the BID accounted for 52.4% of all the public urination arrests in the City from 2009 through 2019, a total of 887 arrests out of 1,693.

Contrast this with Skid Row, which is encompassed by 11 reporting districts.3 Between 2009 and 2019 these 11 reporting districts accounted for only 35 arrests for public urination. That is less than 4% of the arrests in the Hollywood Entertainment District. Obviously the difference isn’t due to less public urination in Skid Row, it’s due to extreme differential enforcement. It’s really unlikely that the LAPD on its own would create such a disparity. If the BID patrol isn’t making all these arrests, nevertheless the BID must be the ultimate cause.

It’s worth noting here, by the way, that public urination was not even illegal in Los Angeles until 2003. Even at the time it was opposed by LACAN and others because the intention was obviously to further the criminalization of homelessness. In response, “Council members pledged that people would be prosecuted only in cases when there is a public toilet nearby that they failed to use.” But such pledges aren’t worth the toilet paper that’s smeared with them, and, as everyone who’s paying attention knows, the law has only been used as the anti-homeless weapon it was obviously intended to be.4

And, it turns out, mostly so used by the most toxic BID in the City, the Hollywood Entertainment District BID. Turn the page for some nifty maps showing the relationship of these six reporting districts to the BID boundaries as well as a histogram showing the freakishly uneven distribution. Click the image to enlarge.
Continue reading 52.4% Of All Arrests In The Entire City Of Los Angeles For Public Urination/Defecation From 2009 Through February 2019 Were Made In Just Six LAPD Reporting Districts In The Hollywood Entertainment District BID — Yet More Proof That Business Improvement Districts Oppress Homeless People Through Selective Enforcement — And More Proof That The Hollywood BID Patrol Is Completely Off The Chain — And Has Been Running A Private Police State For Years — With The City’s Full Blessing And Collusion Of Course →

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Business Improvement Districts, Homeless Issues

“They’re Saying It’s A Constitutional Right To Have Stuff” — More Performative Insanity From Batty Little Fusspot Blair Besten — The Finest Legal Mind Of Her Generation — As She Explains The Mitchell Injunction To You — From The Point Of View Of A Whiny Entitled Privileged Stupid Person — A Constituency That Doesn’t Get Nearly Enough Attention In Los Angeles — That’s Sarcasm — They’re In Charge Of The Damn Asylum — And Listen To Her Run Her Poormouth About How Her Putatively Underfunded BID Makes Do With Low Budgets By Being More Efficient Than The Fashion District — Which Spends Proportionately Half Of What Besten Spends On Administration — Lie Or Incompetence? — The Perennial Besten Question

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It’s been a long while since we here at the blog have heard from Blair Besten, the half-pint Norma Desmond of the Historic Core.1 Well, it’s because, like with El Duckworth, she is so convinced that she is above the law that I haven’t gotten any substantial records out of her infernal BID in ever so long, and without records I will not, I can not, mock.

And of course, as you know, I’m in the process of suing her and her damnable BID to enforce compliance with the Public Records Act. And she’s going to lose, because losing is what she does best. So at some point the records will be rolling in again and the full-time mockery will resume. Until then, though, well, I have always relied on the kindness of strangers, and they are strangely kind to me.

In particular, just recently, unsolicited, was handed to me2 an audio track of an unscheduled appearance made by Ms. Besten at some bullshit meeting conducted at some bullshit Downtown residential bullshit location, having something to do with some bullshit or other. So I made it into a video3 and you can listen here on YouTube and here on Archive.Org, where you can also download it more easily. And of course there’s also a complete transcription after the break!

And best of all, this unexpected bit of Besteniana means that it’s gonna be like the good old days around here what with all the mere mockery unloosed upon the world! Gonna mock around the clock tonight! Turn the page, I’m gonna lay it on you in increments, but before then let’s just spoil the ending and take a look at the single most incomprehensibly lobotomized proclamation proclaimed by Ms. Blair Besten in a long unbroken chain of incomprehensibly lobotomized proclamity!

What, you may ask, does Ms. Blair Besten think that the plaintiffs in the lawsuit Mitchell v. Los Angeles are so freaking wrong about? Why “they’re saying that it’s a constitutional right to have stuff in Skid Row.” If you stop and think about it, Ms. Besten, that’s kind of like, almost, what the Fourteenth Amendment to the constitution is saying with all that jive about “nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”

See the part about property? That’s what grownups call “stuff.” And I don’t see anything about it not being true in Skid Row. In fact, all kinds of people have “stuff” in Skid Row. Like e.g. all those property owners in the Downtown Industrial District BID. Gonna tell them they can’t have stuff there?

And the amendment goes on to say that states may not “deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” They seem to have left out the not in Skid Row bit there too. So on Blair Besten’s testimony it’s hard to see why she’s so upset at the prospect of the City settling Mitchell. But she is very upset. Can see how it might get confusing to folks like Besten. And listen, lest you think I’m being pointlessly mean to Blair Besten, please keep in mind that this is not just some kook spouting her theories to the waves on Venice Beach.

She is the head of a major Downtown Business Improvement District, hand-picked by Jose Huizar over the objections of its board of directors to administer its outrageously high $2.2 million budget. She is widely considered by City officials to be some kind of expert on homelessness, to the point where they appointed her to the damn HHH citizens’ oversight committee over the objections of a lot of sane and accomplished people. She’s not just a kook, although she is a kook. She’s a dangerous kook with a lot of power. So yeah, I’m being mean to Blair Besten, but not pointlessly mean. Anyway, read on, friends!
Continue reading “They’re Saying It’s A Constitutional Right To Have Stuff” — More Performative Insanity From Batty Little Fusspot Blair Besten — The Finest Legal Mind Of Her Generation — As She Explains The Mitchell Injunction To You — From The Point Of View Of A Whiny Entitled Privileged Stupid Person — A Constituency That Doesn’t Get Nearly Enough Attention In Los Angeles — That’s Sarcasm — They’re In Charge Of The Damn Asylum — And Listen To Her Run Her Poormouth About How Her Putatively Underfunded BID Makes Do With Low Budgets By Being More Efficient Than The Fashion District — Which Spends Proportionately Half Of What Besten Spends On Administration — Lie Or Incompetence? — The Perennial Besten Question →

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Business Improvement Districts

Donald “El Duckie” Duckworth — Pirate King Of The Melrose Avenue BID — Takes Himself And His BIDdie Buddies Out To Lunch On The BID’s Dime All The Freaking Time — And Probably Violates The Brown Act While He’s Doing It — Think I’m Exaggerating? — Try $133 For A Committee Meeting At Off Vine — A Restaurant That Is Not In The Melrose BID — So It’s Illegal For The BID To Meet There — And Why The Hell Don’t They Buy Their Own Lunch?!

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It’s been a damn month now since last I wrote about BIDological freak show specimen Donald R. Duckworth, the pirate king1 of the Melrose Avenue Business Improvement District. But it’s El Duckie’s own damn fault that he’s not getting the publicity he craves from MK.Org.

For whatever reason, the baleful influence of Carol Humiston, his own mulishly porcine intransigence, something as-yet-unguessed-at, he is chronically unable to comply with the tender mandates of the California Public Records Act. And I can’t very well mock him without public records, the very fuel and the flavor of MK.Org-style mockery.2

But recently I managed to lay hands on an interesting set of goodies, which are all of El Duckie’s requests for reimbursement from Melrose BID coffers for the last few years.3 I originally asked for these because last summer the property owners of Melrose were in open and fiery rebellion against the Duckworthian regime and one of the underlying causes was Duckworth’s irrepressible profligacy.

If you don’t want to or can’t read the PDF, there’s an html conversion at the end of this post.4 And it reveals that Duckworth and his BIDdie buddies, most especially the notorious Weintraub gang, Deny and Sylvia, are indeed basically flinging the property owners’ assessments to the winds like rain.5

Just for instance, on January 19, 2018 the BID bought Duckworth, the Weintraubs, and a couple other BIDdies lunch to the tune of $122.09. Sure, that’s not over the top for lunch for five, but why is the BID buying lunch in the first place? I have to go to work meetings all the damn time and no one buys me lunch. But I, for my part, have to ask an accountant for permission. Donald R. Duckwalk just has to ask Deny Weintraub, and Deny Weintraub is right there at the trough with him.

Or see on November 29, 2017 when The Duckster put in for $75.07 for a “work session” with Kim Sudhalter. Kim Sudhalter is the BID’s social media flunkie, so she already gets paid for the work she does. As does Donald R. Duckandcover. So what was the 75 bucks for? More food for the work session? The usual arrangement, Duckfellow, is to pay for your own food when you’re working.

And there are plenty of these instances, where Duckworth, the Weintraubs, and sometimes an unindicted co-conspirator or two, will go out to lunch at some ritzy place and charge it off to the BID. But the most egregious of these are the ones that are labeled as committee meetings. Because, as we know, the BID is bound by the Brown Act, and the Brown Act has very strict rules about where and how committee meetings can be held. And it’s likely that these violate them.

In particular, on September 1, 2017 Duckworth, the Weintraubs, and Kim Sudhalter spent $133.89 on lunch at a committee meeting at Off Vine, a super-ritz joint near the southeast corner of Vine and Sunset. This is highly problematic, friends, and turn the page to see why!
Continue reading Donald “El Duckie” Duckworth — Pirate King Of The Melrose Avenue BID — Takes Himself And His BIDdie Buddies Out To Lunch On The BID’s Dime All The Freaking Time — And Probably Violates The Brown Act While He’s Doing It — Think I’m Exaggerating? — Try $133 For A Committee Meeting At Off Vine — A Restaurant That Is Not In The Melrose BID — So It’s Illegal For The BID To Meet There — And Why The Hell Don’t They Buy Their Own Lunch?! →

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Business Improvement Districts, Los Angeles City Government, Street Vending

How Ellen Riotto And Wallis Locke Of The South Park BID Conspired With Michael Shilstone Of The Central City Association, Kevin James Of The Board Of Public Works, Lee Zeidman Of Staples Center, And A Bunch Of AEG Worldwide Stooges — Including Shelby Russell — To Encourage People To Call LAPD On Vendors And Hang Up Anti-Vending Signs Around LA Live — With A Generous Special Bonus Helping Of My Steaming Hot Amateur Theories On Why The Damn Signs Are Illegitimate And Will Ultimately Be Mostly Removed If Not Completely

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The other day LA Taco tweeted out this picture of a no-vending sign near Staples Center and a lot of people were angry and confused. This is the story of how and why1 those signs appeared recently. The story begins with Ricardo Lara‘s monumental Sanity in Street Vending Bill, passed by the California Legislature last year over the strident objections of zillionaires and their BIDdie minions all over the state. The law essentially legalized street vending everywhere, while leaving some really minimal regulatory powers to cities.

One of the regulatory powers that the law allows is the establishment of no-vending zones. But these can’t be established on a mere whim, or just because people hate vendors. Rather any such restriction must be “directly related to objective health, safety, or welfare concerns.”2 But the City of Los Angeles never met a loophole that it couldn’t stretch into a six lane freeway at the behest of the local zillionaires, and our esteemed Councilmembers jumped all over this one.

They went into an embarrassing frenzy of zillionaire-pleasuring and directed the City Attorney to figure out how to establish no-vending zones everywhere any BID or anyone else with enough influence asked them to. The list ended up including the Hollywood Bowl, the Venice Boardwalk, most of Hollywood Blvd, and, of interest to us today, the area around Staples Center.

Lara’s bill took effect on January 1, 2019, so prior to that, in preparation for what they saw as the impending Vendorgeddon, zillionaires all over the City began preparing for vigorously psychotic enforcement of these last few no-vending zones they’d managed to preserve, at least for now. As I said, today we’re focusing on Staples Center, but I’m sure the same kind of thing is happening in all the putative no-vending zones.

I’ve managed to uncover two distinct phases of the process so far. In early January 2019, Ellen Riotto of the South Park Business Improvement District, in which Staples Center situates, notified businesses in the no-vending zone and encouraged them to call LAPD on vendors. A little later, around January 20, 2019, Lee Zeidman, president of Staples Center and member of the board of directors of the South Park BID, used his considerable political power, focused by his flunky Riotto, to harangue City staff about the need for superexponentially increased anti-vending enforcement along with no-vending signs.

He also threatened to hire private security to enforce anti-vending laws on public streets if the City didn’t start enforcing the law itself. And all this focused power ultimately had its effect with the placement of the signs, as we have seen. I don’t presently know if enforcement was in fact stepped up, but I am continuing to look into the matter. Turn the page for a detailed account along with links to and transcriptions of selections from the relevant emails.
Continue reading How Ellen Riotto And Wallis Locke Of The South Park BID Conspired With Michael Shilstone Of The Central City Association, Kevin James Of The Board Of Public Works, Lee Zeidman Of Staples Center, And A Bunch Of AEG Worldwide Stooges — Including Shelby Russell — To Encourage People To Call LAPD On Vendors And Hang Up Anti-Vending Signs Around LA Live — With A Generous Special Bonus Helping Of My Steaming Hot Amateur Theories On Why The Damn Signs Are Illegitimate And Will Ultimately Be Mostly Removed If Not Completely →

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Hollywood Property Owners Alliance, LAPD

Reefer Madness Is Alive And Well In The Hollywood Entertainment District BID! — Between 2016 and 2018 73% Of All Citations For Public Marijuana Use In the Entire City Of Los Angeles Were In the Hollywood BID — The Venice BID Is A Distant Second Place With 8% — Leaving A Mere 19% — Which Is Only 170 Citations — For The Entire Rest Of The City Of Los Angeles

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Even though marijuana use in California was formally legalized recently, it’s still against the law to use it in public per the California Health and Safety Code at §11362.3. And apparently Lolita Lopez, investigative reporter at NBCLA, is doing a story on how this plays out in Los Angeles, because on February 2, 2019 she filed a CPRA request with the City for a list of citations under this law from 2016 to the present. Her request was successful, and a few days later the LAPD handed over this spreadsheet, organized by reporting district.1

And public marijuana use is one of those laws that’s custom-made for differential enforcement against homeless people. Thus it occurred to me to take a look at this data in conjuction with BIDs, which are one of the main engines of differential enforcement in Los Angeles. And the data revealed something really interesting. There were 887 citations in the two years covered by the data. Of these citations, 645 occurred in only 6 reporting districts, which precisely cover the Hollywood Entertainment District BID. Also 71 occurred in two others, which precisely cover the Venice Beach BID. The other 171 were spread out pretty evenly across the whole rest of the City.

This means that 72.7% of all citations for public marijuana use in the entire City of Los Angeles since 2016 were issued in the Hollywood Entertainment District BID. And 8% were issued in the Venice Beach BID. It doesn’t take any kind of fancy statistical analysis to prove that this is a really significant result, almost certainly linked to Kerry Morrison and her BID’s well-known tactic of arresting every homeless person that they can lay their hands on for the most trivial possible matters, such as drinking in public or urinating in public. Evidently now we can add smoking marijuana in public to this list of homeless-criminalizing tactics employed by the BID.

The HPOA BID Patrol is famous for its aggressive arrest policies. In 2013 they were responsible for more than 7% of the arrests of homeless people in the entire City of Los Angeles. Their arrest rate has dropped precipitously in the last few years, but it is still unbelievably high. But since 2016 they have refused to provide data on their individual arrests in response to CPRA requests, so it hasn’t been possible to tell who they were arresting and why.2

However, each arrest that the BID Patrol makes results in some kind of action by the LAPD. And given that the LAPD doesn’t seem to expend much effort in arresting anyone for public marijuana use outside the BID, it’s not unreasonable to assume that these figures are a proxy for the BID’s interest in the differential enforcement of this law. If they’re not making these arrests themselves then the arrests are the result of some BID policy.

The situation in Venice is a little less clear, as the Venice Beach BID only started its security work sometime in 2017, and the Boardwalk is a likely place for the LAPD to practice its own style of selective enforcement without needing a BID to encourage it. But the moral of the story is still very clear. It’s illegal to smoke marijuana in public in Los Angeles, but effectively it’s illegal only if you’re homeless and only if you’re in the Hollywood BID. Turn the page for maps and charts!
Continue reading Reefer Madness Is Alive And Well In The Hollywood Entertainment District BID! — Between 2016 and 2018 73% Of All Citations For Public Marijuana Use In the Entire City Of Los Angeles Were In the Hollywood BID — The Venice BID Is A Distant Second Place With 8% — Leaving A Mere 19% — Which Is Only 170 Citations — For The Entire Rest Of The City Of Los Angeles →

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Business Improvement Districts, Public Records Act Pragmatics

Los Angeles Business Improvement Districts Held A Seminar In July 2018 To Talk About How To Deal With My Requests For Public Records — The World’s Angriest CPRA Lawyer Carol Humiston Was The Main Speaker — Gave A Bunch Of Bogus Feel-Good Advice That Evidently Didn’t Include Just Complying With The Law Since None Of Her Clients Will Do That — BIDs Reveal That They Want The Law Changed In Their Favor — May Hire A Lobbyist To Facilitate This — Miguel Santiago Is Helping Them Out Yet Again

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Around the turn of the century, thanks to brave and successful litigation by property owner Aaron Epstein against the demonic forces of Ms. Kerry Morrison and her Hollywood Entertainment District BID, it is the supreme law of California that business improvement districts are subject to the California Public Records Act. It is this fact that, of course, has made possible the very existence of this blog.

Without actual copies of actual records, what credibility would we have? We would we be but yet another gang of basement-dwelling neckbeards ranting about injustice on the internet?1 And the fact that their BIDs are subject to the CPRA drives the BIDdies absolutely wild with rage.

They just cannot understand how it is that every law on the books has been carefully crafted to allow zillionaires and their minions to curbstomp anyone who interferes with their interests, and yet this law seems to work against zillionairity by e.g. exposing them to public mockery and contempt.2 They just cannot believe that the law says what it says. What, they seem to be muttering, have we been paying all those damn legislators for?

And so they have consistently ganged up to fight any improvement3 to the CPRA and to develop and utilize methods for evading their CPRA-imposed duties. We saw this recently when they hired a lobbyist to thwart, gut, and render meaningless AB-1479, Rob Bonta’s modest 2017 proposal to strengthen the CPRA by making it possible to actually sanction violations, a sinister project in which they were aided by the sleazy backroom machinations of would-be Huizar successor Miguel Santiago.

And newly obtained evidence shows that in July 2018 the BIDdies continued these CPRA-thwarting efforts by holding a seminar on my CPRA requests, convened by Rena Leddy, executive director of the Fashion District BID, currently being sued for egregious CPRA violations, keynoted by Carol Humiston, the world’s angriest CPRA lawyer, and attended by circa 35 BIDdie representatives, many of whom are also being sued for egregious CPRA violations, all there to discuss me and this blog and how not to follow the law!

In particular, the records, obtained, ironically, via the CPRA, include a powerpoint presentation given by Humiston and a set of notes taken by one of the attendees.4 The powerpoint thing is tedious nonsense, although it gains some interest from the fact that the South Park BID wouldn’t give me a copy, claiming attorney/client privilege, a stance that’s hard to maintain in the face of the fact that Humiston presented it to 35 people, many of them not her clients. Fortunately not every BID is so moronically mulish.

However, the set of notes is pure gold! It outlines Humiston’s strategies for delaying or obstructing access to records, including suggested bogus fees to impose, when to delete emails to thwart requesters, and so on. Most crucially, though, it reveals that the BIDs have at least discussed changing state law to relieve them from their CPRA duties and hiring a lobbyist to help them do so.

They have also, it states, talked to a legislator, who is obviously that nefarious little twerp Miguel Santiago, who has amplified their wickedness before. This is an essential glimpse into the red, bloody, seething ids of the zillionaire minions who run this City’s BIDs. Turn the page for excerpts, commentary, and finally a transcription of the entire document.
Continue reading Los Angeles Business Improvement Districts Held A Seminar In July 2018 To Talk About How To Deal With My Requests For Public Records — The World’s Angriest CPRA Lawyer Carol Humiston Was The Main Speaker — Gave A Bunch Of Bogus Feel-Good Advice That Evidently Didn’t Include Just Complying With The Law Since None Of Her Clients Will Do That — BIDs Reveal That They Want The Law Changed In Their Favor — May Hire A Lobbyist To Facilitate This — Miguel Santiago Is Helping Them Out Yet Again →

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Business Improvement Districts

How BIDological Freakshow Specimen Donald R. Duckworth Wrote A Bunch Of Letters Of Support For The Melrose BID — And Then The Property Owners Revolted When It Was Time To Renew The BID — So El Duckworth Told Them That The Letters Were Written By Paul Koretz And LAPD Captain Anthony Oddo And BID President Deny Weintraub — And Tried To Make Them Feel As If Hating The BID Meant Hating The City — And Hating The Cops — Which Might Be Standard Practice But It Is Still Sketchy As Hell

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I know my readers eagerly await, nay, hunger, crave even, more news about Donald R. Duckworth,1 the Melrose BID‘s hatchet-faced goblin2 of an executive director. But you will recall that El Duckie essentially shut down my CPRA requests recently, to the point where I had to literally sue the literal freaking pants off the guy. And he knew he done wrong, so his BIDdie employers had to pay beaucoup de bucks for the error of his ways.

And because I am basically a naive optimistic believer in the good faith, honesty, and sense of fair play of my fellow human beings, I neglected to pin down this sclerotic old crow3 in the settlement with a CPRA response time-table. Which is why, even after his principals had to pay $13K to settle up his misdeeds, did he start right in again with his CPRA-flouting ways. Thus it was only yesterday, five months after I first made the request,4 that I finally received a significant stack of goodies from the Melrose BID.5 And thus the mockery of Donald R. Duckworth can finally recommence!

Now, back in January of last year, the Melrose BID was beginning its renewal process. And as part of the process, El Duckie was putting together a brochure to convince property owners to sign renewal petitions. And as part of the brochure assembly process Donald Duckworth solicited a letter of support from CD5 repster Paul Koretz and another letter from LAPD Wilshire Division CO Anthony Oddo. But he didn’t just solicit letters from these worthies, he actually wrote the letters for them.6

And, you know, I understand that this isn’t sketchy in and of itself, and it happens even in much more consequential circumstances. E.g. lawyers often submit proposed orders to judges, who have the option of signing them, editing them, or ignoring them. But cast your mind back to the golden days of last summer, when the Melrose BID was in open revolt against all manner of Duckwortharian shenanigans, like paying himself a damn fortune to do pretty much nothing, and spending $10K per month on the BID’s hilariously self-parodying blog, and so on.

And hostile anti-BID letters were flying this way, that way, and yonder way! Anat Escher wrote a letter! And Laura Aflalo wrote a letter! And Richard Jebejian wrote a letter! And this was all while the BIDdies were trying to collect enough petitions to move the renewal process to the next phase! And man, were they ever worried! About the petitions, that is, cause if these rebels had their way, the BID might not even be renewed!

So Duckworth wrote a response letter to the rebels! And then BID board president Deny Weintraub pretended that he wrote the letter that Duckworth wrote. Which is a not-unheard-of phenomenon amongst BID Board presidents! And in the letter that Duckworth wrote that Deny Weintraub pretended that he wrote, Duckworth cited the letter that Duckworth wrote that Paul Koretz pretended he wrote and also the letter that Duckworth wrote that Anthony Oddo pretended that he wrote. And he said to the rebels essentially that the cops loved the BID and Koretz loved the BID so who were they to not love the BID?!

But really he himself wrote all the love letters to the BID. So basically the whole thing was a really vigorous conversation between Donald Duckworth and his stable of sockpuppets! And at the end of it Melrose Avenue had their damn BID renewed for another ten years! Anyway, turn the page for some excerpts from this pernicious sockpuppetry and some metadata showing that El Duckie really did write everything!
Continue reading How BIDological Freakshow Specimen Donald R. Duckworth Wrote A Bunch Of Letters Of Support For The Melrose BID — And Then The Property Owners Revolted When It Was Time To Renew The BID — So El Duckworth Told Them That The Letters Were Written By Paul Koretz And LAPD Captain Anthony Oddo And BID President Deny Weintraub — And Tried To Make Them Feel As If Hating The BID Meant Hating The City — And Hating The Cops — Which Might Be Standard Practice But It Is Still Sketchy As Hell →

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Los Angeles City Government, 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

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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 →

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Business Improvement Districts, Los Angeles City Council

Not Only Did CD1 Senior Planning Deputy Gerald Gubatan Organize Little Tokyo Business Interests To Attend Council Meetings And Give Public Comment In Favor Of Parker Center Demolition But He Also Told Them They Ought To Place An Op-Ed In The Times As Part Of The Campaign — Of Course As A Member Of Gil Cedillo’s Senior Staff He Could Write An Op-Ed Himself — Or For That Matter Cedillo Could Write One — He’s Done It Before — But That Wouldn’t Contribute To The Illusion Of Community Buy-In — Hints Of The Connection Between Gubatan And Little Tokyo — A Preschool Couldn’t Pass Fire Inspection — Gubatan Helped Fix It

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I recently wrote about the process whereby in 2017 José Huizar’s staff arranged for an ersatz show of community buy-in with respect to the demolition of Parker Center in what the putative buyers-in at least saw as a quid pro quo deal. And for reasons that remain unclear Gerald Gubatan, who is Gil Cedillo’s senior planning deputy, also participated in the ginning-up-of-support process, advising the astroturfers in embarrassingly painstaking detail on the ways and means of astroturfing.

Some newly obtained emails between Gubatan and various people in the Little Tokyo business community show that his advice extended further than previously known, to the point where he was suggesting that they write an op-ed for the L.A. Times pushing Cedillo’s view of Parker Center demolition and that they coordinate its appearance with Council hearings on the matter.

Certainly Gubatan or even Cedillo could write their own op-eds for the L.A. Times. A search in Proquest’s LA Times database shows that Cedillo’s published nine over the years.1 But of course, that wouldn’t have had the desired effect, not least because it would require Cedillo to reveal that he’d already made up his mind before the vote. It certainly wouldn’t have created and maintained the illusion of community buy-in on the creation of which CD1 was working so hard. Thus, if op-eds were to be written, it was imperative to find authors apparently independent of Cedillo’s office.

As this February 2017 email conversation shows, Gubatan chose his friends in Little Tokyo, Dean Matsubayashi of the Little Tokyo Service Center and Joanne Kumamoto of the Little Tokyo Business Improvement District to hit up for an op-ed. And Gubatan didn’t just tell them to write an op-ed, he told them that “ideally [it should] be timed with the City Council vote.”

Here’s that entire email. After the break find transcriptions of the rest of the conversation, along with more emails about an interesting 2016 episode involving the Little Tokyo Service Center a preschool that couldn’t get a fire permit and how Gerald Gubatan interceded with the Fire Department on behalf of the LTSC.

Gerald Gubatan <gerald.gubatan@lacity.org> Wed, Feb 8, 2017 at 3:47 PM

To: Dean Matsubayashi <DMatsubayashi@ltsc.org>, Joanne Kumamoto <jkumamoto@aol.com>

Dean, Joanne,

When one Googles “Parker Center,” the narratives which appear are mainly by the LA Times, JD Waldie, the LA Conservancy.

One does not find the perspectives articulated at the recent PLUM Committee hearing.

If there is a good, knowledgeable and articulate writer who has the time and energy to author such a perspective and forward the LA Times for publication, ideally to be timed with the City Council vote, I believe the narrative could fill an informational gap in the larger civic engagement.

Just a thought,

Gerald

Gerald G. Gubatan
Senior Planning Deputy
Office of Council Member Gilbert Cedillo
Council District 1
City Hall, Room 460
Los Angeles, CA 90012
Tel: 213.473.7001
gerald.gubatan@lacity.org
http://cd1.lacity.org/

Continue reading Not Only Did CD1 Senior Planning Deputy Gerald Gubatan Organize Little Tokyo Business Interests To Attend Council Meetings And Give Public Comment In Favor Of Parker Center Demolition But He Also Told Them They Ought To Place An Op-Ed In The Times As Part Of The Campaign — Of Course As A Member Of Gil Cedillo’s Senior Staff He Could Write An Op-Ed Himself — Or For That Matter Cedillo Could Write One — He’s Done It Before — But That Wouldn’t Contribute To The Illusion Of Community Buy-In — Hints Of The Connection Between Gubatan And Little Tokyo — A Preschool Couldn’t Pass Fire Inspection — Gubatan Helped Fix It →

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Downtown Center BID, Lawsuits

In 2017 Nonprofit Housing Provider — Retirement Housing Foundation — Sued The Downtown Center BID And The City Of LA Seeking To Invalidate The BID And Lost — RHF Sued In 2012 Also And A Confidential City Attorney Report Reveals That The City Felt Sure RHF Would Win That Case — Victory Would Endanger All Other BIDs In LA — And So Sought To Settle — Ended Up Refunding $500,000 In Assessments To The Nonprofit — When DCBID Renewed In 2017 The City Declined To Renew The Settlement — Hence The Second Lawsuit — Get Copies Of All Pleadings Filed — Including Notice Of Appeal Filed On Wednesday

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The Retirement Housing Foundation owns and operates a variety of low-income housing facilities around the country, including two, Angelus Plaza and Angelus Plaza North, which are located within the Downtown Center Business Improvement District. In 2012 RHF sued the DCBID and the City of Los Angeles, arguing that because they were a nonprofit provider of low-income housing none or few of the BID’s activities benefited them and that therefore under requirements of the California Constitution they could not be required to pay BID assessments.1

A confidential 2013 report to the City Council by Deputy City Attorney Daniel Whitley, a copy of which I recently obtained, states that the City Attorney’s office considered the City’s case extremely weak.2 However, the report continues:

Because of the many Business Improvement Districts that would potentially be affected by either litigation or settlement, initially we were instructed to defend the City in this litigation but also to attempt to settle the matter so as to protect other Business Improvement Districts.

In accordance with this instruction, the City Attorney negotiated a settlement with RHF in which the City would refund all assessments paid to RHF, to the tune of a little more than $100K per year over the five year life of the BID. Whitley recommended to Council that they approve it. His reasoning was stark:

Given that the City will almost certainly lose this litigation (as we discussed earlier), should the City wish for the DCBID to continue in operation, we recommend approval of the settlement.

This settlement was approved by City Council on February 13, 2013. And the City did pay the money. But then the DCBID expired and was renewed starting in 2018.3 And RHF asked the City to renew the settlement, and the City refused. So RHF filed suit again in 2017. Turn the page for the sordid details.
Continue reading In 2017 Nonprofit Housing Provider — Retirement Housing Foundation — Sued The Downtown Center BID And The City Of LA Seeking To Invalidate The BID And Lost — RHF Sued In 2012 Also And A Confidential City Attorney Report Reveals That The City Felt Sure RHF Would Win That Case — Victory Would Endanger All Other BIDs In LA — And So Sought To Settle — Ended Up Refunding $500,000 In Assessments To The Nonprofit — When DCBID Renewed In 2017 The City Declined To Renew The Settlement — Hence The Second Lawsuit — Get Copies Of All Pleadings Filed — Including Notice Of Appeal Filed On Wednesday →

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