Historical and Theoretical Perspectives, Municipal Ethics

The Paranoid Prophecies of Downtown Russell Brown, July 2010 Edition

March 4, 2016 kohlhaas Leave a comment

Downtown Russell Brown stumping for Jose Huizar.

Our ~~fateful~~ faithful correspondent recently completed a magnanimously opalesque tour de farce of historicalisticism concerning a wildly successful 2010 plot by a bunch of bitchy BIDsies along with then-councildude Eric Garcetti, le petit ami chéri de toutes les dames mignonnes des BIDs, to ruthlessly destroy a perfectly reasonable proposal from the City Ethics Commission to make it easier to figure out who’s supposed to register as a lobbyist. Well, as part of his research he ended up transcribing not just the nonsense spewed by best-BIDdie-buddies Garcetti and Morrison, but a bunch of other tangential nonsense as well. Some of it’s fascinating in its own right, and we’re planning to write about it from time to time, starting this evening with a pluperfect portion of paranoia from Downtown L.A.’s own pallidly prophetic Russ Brown himself!

Historically-minded observers of the Downtown Los Angeles politico-sociologico-ethnomethodologico-cultural scene will remember Mr. Brown as the erstwhile boss-boy of the Historic Downtown BID, ignominiously forced out of his BIDship by the Board for reasons that surely aren’t being stated, and then ignominiously reinstalled two weeks later when Jose Huizar pitched a fit for reasons that surely also aren’t being stated and then… well, you get the idea. These days he’s doing something with neighborhood councils and remains the subject of artful advocacy blog Step Down Russ Brown which, though currently dormant, may any day rise, like Lazarus, from its pallet to scourge yet again the corridors and crannies of Downtown zillionaire-dom. Enough of that, though. Turn the page for the quotes!
Continue reading The Paranoid Prophecies of Downtown Russell Brown, July 2010 Edition →

Hollywood BID Patrol, Hollywood Property Owners Alliance

An Open Letter to Mitch O’Farrell Regarding Plans to Fund Andrews International BID Patrol Operations in Hollywood

March 2, 2016 Mike Leave a comment

March 2, 2016

Councilmember Mitch O’Farrell
200 N Spring St #450
Los Angeles CA 90012

Dear Councilmember O’Farrell,

I am writing to you regarding plans that the Hollywood Property Owners Alliance and the Los Angeles Police Department are making to extend the patrol hours of the Andrews International BID Patrol in the Hollywood Entertainment District until 4 a.m. In particular, I heard at the last HPOA board meeting that you were considering funding all or part of this program from your discretionary money. If this report is accurate, I hope that you will ultimately decide not to fund an expansion of BID Patrol hours in Hollywood. Here are a number of reasons why I think your funding this project would be a bad idea:

1. Regardless of the intention, it looks like a way to evade Police Commission oversight of law enforcement in Hollywood: This expansion of the BID Patrol’s operations is apparently being planned at the request of Hollywood Divison’s Commanding Officer Peter Zarcone. If it’s implemented it will therefore create a City-funded group of quasi-police assembled at the City’s request who are not subject to any kind of civilian oversight or control. I understand that in some technical sense the BID Patrol aren’t police, but this plan makes that seem even more like a distinction without a difference than it already does.
Continue reading An Open Letter to Mitch O’Farrell Regarding Plans to Fund Andrews International BID Patrol Operations in Hollywood →

Hollywood BID Patrol

BID Patrol Wakeup Call at Sunset and Vine Captured on Video this Morning

February 27, 2016 kohlhaas Leave a comment

BID Patrol officer Mike Ayala (badge #107), prompted by a complaint from Starbucks, encourages a homeless woman to leave the corner of Sunset and Vine.

This morning at about 8:00 a.m. BID Patrol officer Mike Ayala (badge #107) and his partner, whose name we don’t yet know, told a woman camped out at the Southeast corner of Sunset and Vine that she’d have to move on because the management of the Starbucks there had complained. Our correspondent happened to be walking by and caught the last nine minutes of the incident on video. Naturally, not much happened. Even the BID Patrol is going to think twice about arresting someone on a nonsense LAMC 41.18(d) charge while on camera. There were two interesting things about the episode, though.
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Downtown Center BID

The Central City Association Paid Carol Schatz $2,378,914 in 2012. That’s $2,478 per Hour.

February 27, 2016 kohlhaas Leave a comment

Carol Schatz, how big was your salary in 2012?!

Our recent post on how much the Downtown Center BID paid Carol Schatz in 2012 has been so popular that we thought (we don’t live in Hollywood for nothing!) that we ought to publish a sequel. See the headline for the content. You can read the tax return here or click on the image below. Note that with the money the DCBID paid her in 2012, she grossed more than $3.5 million that year. This works out to more than $100,000 per year for 35 years.

Image of Carol Schatz was produced by the office of Jose Huizar, making it a public record.

Hollywood Property Owners Alliance, Hypocrisy

Kerry Morrison Confessed to a Crime in the Pages of the LA Weekly in 2011 but Remained Unarrested by the BID Patrol

February 27, 2016 kohlhaas Leave a comment

Kerry Morrison in 2010 explaining to a homeless man why she's allowed to sit on the sidewalk but he isn't. — Kerry Morrison in 2010 explaining to a homeless man why she’s allowed to sit on the sidewalk but he isn’t.

In 2011 the Andrews International BID Patrol arrested 103 people in Hollywood for violating the despicable LAMC 41.18(d), which, truly truly, outlaws sitting on the sidewalk in the absence of a parade. We have written oh so many times about how the BID Patrol does not arrest non-homeless violators of this law, and how this selective enforcement is particularly egregious in the case of the Hollywood Farmers’ Market. Well, imagine then, our surprise to read in an L.A. Weekly article from January 2011, our own Kerry Morrison, discussing how, even though she does not live in Hollywood at all and is probably far more at home at the Larchmont Market, held for some reason only zillionaires can grok at the same time as the Hollywood one, she thinks people who do live in Hollywood are a bunch of zombie NIMBYs from Hell cause they didn’t want to move the iconic Hollywood Farmers’ Market to some random parking lot due to the toys-from-pram whinging of the Film School at Sunset and Ivar. The point she seems to be making is that if the Market was moved, there would be more room for everyone and it would be a win-win situation all round, especially if you only ask the zillionaires, which seems to be Kerry’s modus operandi in such matters. Says Kerry, vis-a-vis crowded conditions:

Sometimes I actually have to sit on the curb to eat my pupusa. It seems like there’s so much opportunity for some expansion and breathing room — i don’t personally see how that would affect the urban charm.”

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Historical and Theoretical Perspectives, Municipal Ethics

How BIDs and Eric Garcetti Torpedoed A Major Revision of the Los Angeles Municipal Lobbying Ordinance Proposed by the Ethics Commission in 2010 and Didn’t Even Help Themselves That Much

February 27, 2016 Mike Leave a comment

Kerry Morrison and Eric Garcetti looking quite comfortable together in 2007.

In 2008, the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission began discussing proposed changes to the Municipal Lobbying Ordinance (MLO).¹ In July of that year the Commission began hearing public comments on what should be included in this proposal² and in September 2009 they sent a 162 page report to the Rules and Elections committee of the Los Angeles City Council, thus initiating Council file 07-3005-S2. This committee was chaired by then Councilmember Eric Garcetti, who essentially killed the whole thing after less than an hour of discussion, perhaps influenced by the trumped-up and only marginally relevant concerns of his personal friend (and, since 2013, Windsor Square neighbor) Hollywood Property Owners Alliance Executive Director Kerry Morrison.
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Announcements, Downtown Center BID, Fashion District BID, Hollywood Property Owners Alliance

New Documents: 2015 Emails to the Mayor’s Office from Kerry Morrison, Carol Schatz; All 2015 Fashion District Safe Team Daily Activity Logs

February 25, 2016 Mike Leave a comment

Carol Schatz in January 2008 at Bringing Back Broadway.

I have a number of interesting documents to announce this morning. There are emails to and from Eric Garcetti’s office in 2015:

Finally, there are the 2015 daily activity logs for the Fashion District Safe Team. These are interesting for a number of reasons, not least of which is that they barely seem to arrest anyone, in stark contrast to the outrageously high number of custodial arrests made by the Andrews International BID Patrol in Hollywood.
Continue reading New Documents: 2015 Emails to the Mayor’s Office from Kerry Morrison, Carol Schatz; All 2015 Fashion District Safe Team Daily Activity Logs →

Lawsuits

Hearing on Plaintiffs’ Application for Contempt and Sanctions Set for March 21, 11 a.m.

February 24, 2016 Mike Leave a comment

Magistrate Judge Andrew J. Wisterich has filed an order setting a hearing on plaintiffs’ application for contempt and sanctions, to be held March 21, 2016 at 11 a.m. in room 690 of the Roybal Courthouse. The City is also ordered to get those discovery materials in soonest. Ominously for the City, Judge Wisterich also ordered the plaintiffs’ to prepare a statement of the fees they’re seeking for dealing with the City’s recalcitrance. The text of the order is after the break.
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Lawsuits

Documents Filed Mere Moments Ago in LACW/LACAN v. CCEA/City of LA Case Quite Plausibly Accuse City of Los Angeles of Inaccurate Representations Regarding LAPD Discovery Capabilities

February 23, 2016 Mike Leave a comment

Last week attorneys for Los Angeles Catholic Worker and LA Community Action Network filed an application requesting that the City be held in contempt for its misfeasance in what has turned out to be painful, drawn-out discovery process. This morning, mere minutes ago, plaintiffs’ attorney Shayla Myers filed a supplemental declaration in support (along with an exhibit) in which she states:

I am producing this supplemental declaration to update the Court about facts which Plaintiffs have discovered since the ex parte motion to hold the City in contempt was filed. In particular, Plaintiffs have discovered that certain representations by the City of Los Angeles appear to be inaccurate. While the City of Los Angeles has maintained since July 2015 that it cannot do a global search of emails in the possession of the LAPD, Plaintiffs discovered at a deposition of the Person Most Knowledgeable on behalf of the City on February 22, 2016 that the LAPD employs e-discovery software that allows the LAPD to search all emails sent and received by LAPD officers since March 2013, that the software is designed to facilitate global keyword searches, and that when the LAPD has done such a search in the past, it was completed within a week.

Continue reading Documents Filed Mere Moments Ago in LACW/LACAN v. CCEA/City of LA Case Quite Plausibly Accuse City of Los Angeles of Inaccurate Representations Regarding LAPD Discovery Capabilities →

Public Records Act Pragmatics

Berkeley Police Department Fulfills Experimental CPRA Request in 59 Days

February 23, 2016 Mike Leave a comment

Anymore, the astonishing beauty of the city of Berkeley is only skin deep.

Long-time readers of this blog will recall that, due to the stunning reluctance of the LAPD to comply with the simple mandates of the California Public Records Act, I’m running an experiment in which I requested 100 emails to and from BIDs from each of three California police departments. The SFPD was the clear winner here, supplying me with the goods in a mere 23 days. Late last week the city of Berkeley weighed in with two sets of emails (one and two). Most of the content isn’t especially interesting if you don’t know the dramatis personae; it’s the same old song about the homeless, about behaviors, about activities, about protecting investments, and so on and on and on. I did spot one interesting episode, which I discuss after the break. Also, I will note that the Long Beach PD still has not fulfilled my request (although they are discussing it with me), and of course the LAPD ignores everyone and they’re still being sued because of that. Is it a coincidence that the two cities that follow the law have municipal sunshine ordinances while the two that do not lack such laws? I doubt it very much.
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