Tag Archives: Carson

Homeless Issues, LAPD, Los Angeles City Council, Los Angeles City Government

Huge Record Releases From Los Angeles Sanitation — Encampment Sweep Scheduling — And So On — CD13 Staffer Hector Vega Scheduled A Full-On Encampment Sweep After The City Had Announced It Was Stopping Them Due To COVID — Possibly Sacrificing Human Lives To Build Up His Favor Bank With LADOT Ticket-Fixer Freddie Nuño — And It Turns Out That LAPD Can Actually Choose Encampments To Target For Sweeps — Which Surprised Me Because Mostly People Talk As If LAPD’s Role Is Backing Up LAHSA And LA San — Not Choosing Sweep Targets — And Finally CD15 Staffers Gabriela Medina And Jacob Haik Gloat Gleefully About The Possibility Of Weaponizing Scheduled Street Resurfacing To Displace RV Dwellers During The Pandemic When It Would Probably Otherwise Be Illegal To Do So — And Whether Or Not It’s Illegal It’s Certainly Reprehensible — And More Than Reprehensible During The Pandemic

July 19, 2020 Mike Leave a comment

Over the last few days I’ve received a few massive releases of records from Los Angeles Sanitation about homeless encampment sweep authorizations. There’s far, far too much information here for one post but I want to get links published because the information is essential. The records illuminate a number of important issues, not least of which has to do with the sweep selection process.¹

For the most part encampments to be swept are chosen by Council District offices, who make selections based on complaints from property owners and probably other reasons too. These records reveal something I hadn’t seen before, though, which is that on its own initiative LAPD can also select encampments to be swept. Here are links to the new material, followed by a story or two gleaned from it.

★ CD15 2020 sweep scheduling emails

★ Various CDs 2020 sweep scheduling emails

★ 2020 Sanitation sweep completion reports
Continue reading Huge Record Releases From Los Angeles Sanitation — Encampment Sweep Scheduling — And So On — CD13 Staffer Hector Vega Scheduled A Full-On Encampment Sweep After The City Had Announced It Was Stopping Them Due To COVID — Possibly Sacrificing Human Lives To Build Up His Favor Bank With LADOT Ticket-Fixer Freddie Nuño — And It Turns Out That LAPD Can Actually Choose Encampments To Target For Sweeps — Which Surprised Me Because Mostly People Talk As If LAPD’s Role Is Backing Up LAHSA And LA San — Not Choosing Sweep Targets — And Finally CD15 Staffers Gabriela Medina And Jacob Haik Gloat Gleefully About The Possibility Of Weaponizing Scheduled Street Resurfacing To Displace RV Dwellers During The Pandemic When It Would Probably Otherwise Be Illegal To Do So — And Whether Or Not It’s Illegal It’s Certainly Reprehensible — And More Than Reprehensible During The Pandemic →

LAUSD

As Early As July 1, 2019 Sakshi Jain Already Knew That GANAS Academy Would Not Open In 2019 — She Was In Touch With Gloria Romero — Former State Senator And Supreme Commander Of Scholarship Prep Charter Schools — About Handing Off Stranded GANAS Students To Scholarship Prep’s Wilmington Campus — I Guess It’s Good That Jain Was Thinking About The Kids’ Future — But She Put Off Announcing Non-Opening For Almost Two Weeks — Surely The Families Could Have Used The Extra Time To Climb Out Of The Lurch In Which She Left Them — Oh Yeah — The Official Story At That Time Was That GANAS Wasn’t Opening Because They Were “taking an additional year to plan” — Which Is An Extraordinarily Dishonest Way To Describe What Actually Happened

August 19, 2019 Mike 2 Comments

This is just the briefest of notes to bring you up to date, or at least as up to date as the information presently in my possession will allow, on the slow-mo bridge collapse that is the story of GANAS Academy and its galaxy-brained founder Sakshi Jain.² Jain’s universally reviled³ plan to colocate her creepy little charter school on the campus of the well-beloved neighborhood public school Catskill Elementary in the City of Carson met with pushback from the community on a massive scale, which was ultimately successful in convincing her to give up on colocation and to postpone opening her school for at least one more year.

This kind of thing, for one reason or another, happens all the time with charter schools. They vanish, leaving enrolled kids in a desperate situation. It doesn’t happen, can’t really happen, with actual public schools. This lack of stability is one of the approximately eleventy zillion reasons why charter schools are pernicious. According to the Daily Breeze, Jain announced on July 12, 2019 that GANAS would not be opening this year. This left enrolled students, for whom, by the way, Jain had paid $850 per each to a super-genius recruiter named Ed, a little more than a month to find a school to attend this fall.

But emails I recently obtained from Scholarship Prep Charter Schools show that Jain had already determined as early as July 1, 2019 not to open GANAS for this school year.⁴ On that day Jain was introduced to former state senator Gloria Romero, supreme commander of Scholarship Prep, by Chris Copolillo, California Charter Schools Association überlobbyist, for the express purpose of hooking up the students stranded by Jain’s instability and unwillingness to honor her word with one of Scholarship Prep’s schools in Wilmington.

On the one hand, I guess it’s commendable that Jain was thinking of the future of the students she’s stranded. On the other hand, it’s pretty awful that by July 1 she had already determined not to open her school, and yet didn’t announce it publicly for another 12 days. Surely the families who were relying on her to educate their children could have used the extra time to place their kids elsewhere.

It’s also interesting, as you’ll see if you read on to the transcriptions, that in her conversations with Romero, Jain nowhere explained exactly why it was that her school wasn’t going to open. The nearest anyone came to an explanation was Copolillo’s extraordinarily disingenuous statement that Jain “may be taking an additional year to plan”. Which I suppose is the truth, but it’s certainly not the whole truth.

Another small but essential revelation here is that CCSA isn’t just a lobbying organization, it also micro-facilitates the daily operation of charter schools. Not surprising, I guess, but I just wasn’t aware that this kind of thing was among the services they provide. Anyway, read on for full transcriptions of the emails and experience for yourself the private talk of privatizers.
Continue reading As Early As July 1, 2019 Sakshi Jain Already Knew That GANAS Academy Would Not Open In 2019 — She Was In Touch With Gloria Romero — Former State Senator And Supreme Commander Of Scholarship Prep Charter Schools — About Handing Off Stranded GANAS Students To Scholarship Prep’s Wilmington Campus — I Guess It’s Good That Jain Was Thinking About The Kids’ Future — But She Put Off Announcing Non-Opening For Almost Two Weeks — Surely The Families Could Have Used The Extra Time To Climb Out Of The Lurch In Which She Left Them — Oh Yeah — The Official Story At That Time Was That GANAS Wasn’t Opening Because They Were “taking an additional year to plan” — Which Is An Extraordinarily Dishonest Way To Describe What Actually Happened →

LAUSD, Public Records Act Pragmatics

In January 2019 Sakshi Jain — Founder And Supreme Boss Of Universally-Loathed-By-The-Sane Charter School GANAS Academy — Solicited Her Peeps For What She Was Pleased To Call “Your Meaningful Donation” — So I Hit Her Up For A List Of Donors Along With Amounts Given — And Today I Received A List — With No Last Names — I Hassled The Lawyer — And He Claimed That That Was The List — And That They Claimed No Exemptions — And I Didn’t Believe Him — And Then Jain Emailed Me When She Meant To Email Him — And Admitted That She Had Deleted The Last Names — To Hide Them From Me — So The Lawyer — Lied To By His Client — Handed Over The Complete List — And You Can Read It Here!

July 1, 2019 Mike Leave a comment

Yeah, the headline has the story! Here’s the background! Noted galaxy brain Sakshi Jain is starting a charter school in the City of Carson. It’s called GANAS Academy, and it’s putatively going to co-locate on the campus of the well-beloved neighborhood school Catskill Elementary. But the Catskill folks aren’t taking this quietly. They’re kicking up a damn storm, and rightly so! And I’m investigating right and investigating left and investigating all over the place because who can gaze approvingly upon themselves in the damn mirror in the damn morning if they’re not doing something to thwart these damn privatizers?!

And of course I’m doing my small part by wielding the California Public Records Act like, well, like the California Public Records Act. And in May I got a bunch of emails from the privatizers, and one in particular, this from January 2019, is an important part of the story I’m telling in this post. Therein, you see, amongst other admonitions, did Sakshi Jain admonish her audience thusly: ” If you have not already done so please make your meaningful contribution to the school. The amount of this donation is an amount that is meaningful to you and is not shared with any other board members.”

And a claim like that, that it’s possible for an agency like Jain’s crackpot little charter school that’s subject to the CPRA to keep this kind of crapola secret just because their weirdo sense of what passes for propriety among zillionaires and their willing servants suggests that they ought to do, well, I can’t resist exposing their self-proclaimed but exceedingly putative secrets to the world.

So that very day, the very day I read the email, I popped off this request for records to Jain and her lawyer, the bizarre but weirdly well-dressed little dude known in some circles as H. Wayne Strumpfer, who is of counsel⁵ to the world’s most privatizing law firm, Young, Minney, and Corr, asking for the damn donation records.
Continue reading In January 2019 Sakshi Jain — Founder And Supreme Boss Of Universally-Loathed-By-The-Sane Charter School GANAS Academy — Solicited Her Peeps For What She Was Pleased To Call “Your Meaningful Donation” — So I Hit Her Up For A List Of Donors Along With Amounts Given — And Today I Received A List — With No Last Names — I Hassled The Lawyer — And He Claimed That That Was The List — And That They Claimed No Exemptions — And I Didn’t Believe Him — And Then Jain Emailed Me When She Meant To Email Him — And Admitted That She Had Deleted The Last Names — To Hide Them From Me — So The Lawyer — Lied To By His Client — Handed Over The Complete List — And You Can Read It Here! →

LAUSD

Sakshi Jain — Self-Proclaimed Founder And Head Of School At Universally Loathed Co-Location Horror Show GANAS Academy — Reacting Badly To Catskill Elementary School Folks’ Opposition To Her Plans For World Domination — Another Instance Of Jain Asking LAUSD To Intervene — But They Would Not — And Then There Are Her Obsequious Begging Letters To Various City Of Carson Electeds — And Her Board Member Gaetano Scotti’s Request To Port Of LA Police To Attend Board Meetings — Because The Catskill Parents “Are All Pissed Off” — Which The Cops Refused To Do Unless Someone Actually Committed An Actual Crime — Like The Los Angeles County Sheriff Before Them — Hate To Say It But — These GANAS Folks Could Really Use Some Professional PR — Cause This Amateur Stuff Is Getting Them Nowhere

June 6, 2019 Mike Leave a comment

This is part two of a short series on a rich set of emails I recently obtained from the universally reviled privatizers at GANAS Academy via the California Public Records Act. You can read part one here, a post which also includes some background on the situation. Today I’m just transcribing and commenting on a few more of these emails.

Oh! And no doubt you remember the famous Denny’s episode! Where Sakshi Jain called the Sheriff on some peaceful protesters and the dispatcher was all like ma’am, we don’t arrest people for protesting because IT IS NOT ILLEGAL. Well, today’s first email, this April 2019 conversation between GANAS board member and not-so-nascent fascist Tom Scotti,⁶ Port of Los Angeles police officer Jose Alvarez, and Sakshi Jain, shows that she didn’t learn her lesson at all, not at all. It also shows that Scotti has some really, really weird ideas about what’s going on. E.g.

GANAS wants to open in Wilmington but LAUSD is forcing it to open on one of their campuses (Catskill Elementary) in Carson. Not GANAS’ fault but now the Catskill parents and UTLA (united teachers los angeles) are all pissed off

Anyway, turn the page for a transcription of the whole thing, commentary, and even more emails!
Continue reading Sakshi Jain — Self-Proclaimed Founder And Head Of School At Universally Loathed Co-Location Horror Show GANAS Academy — Reacting Badly To Catskill Elementary School Folks’ Opposition To Her Plans For World Domination — Another Instance Of Jain Asking LAUSD To Intervene — But They Would Not — And Then There Are Her Obsequious Begging Letters To Various City Of Carson Electeds — And Her Board Member Gaetano Scotti’s Request To Port Of LA Police To Attend Board Meetings — Because The Catskill Parents “Are All Pissed Off” — Which The Cops Refused To Do Unless Someone Actually Committed An Actual Crime — Like The Los Angeles County Sheriff Before Them — Hate To Say It But — These GANAS Folks Could Really Use Some Professional PR — Cause This Amateur Stuff Is Getting Them Nowhere →

LAUSD

Video From GANAS Academy Now Available! — See Chanting Catskill Protesters Following Sakshi Jain And Juliana Mercurio Out Of A Carson City Council Meeting In April! — But From Jain And Mercurio’s Point Of View!! — With Their Commentary!!! — See Video Of Mercurio And Jain Driving Away From The Protesters! — Shot From Inside The Getaway Car!! — Mercurio: “We’re About To Be Blocked In … Again …” — Video From The Famous Carson City Council Meeting — California Charter School Association Flackie Gives Public Comment — Very Interesting Stuff Here Friends!

May 22, 2019 Mike Leave a comment

Here’s more on the anti-colocation battle being fought by a brave and devoted band of teachers and parents at Catskill Elementary School in the City of Carson against impending plans to install upstart charter school GANAS Academy on their campus. I have been investigating this story using requests made to GANAS via the California Public Records Act.

Recently, for instance, I obtained a copy of a call to 911 made by GANAS’s shockingly unsocialized founder, Sakshi Jain, in March 2019 during which she pleaded persistently with an unsympathetic dispatcher at the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department to come arrest a bunch of protesters whose presence she found dismaying despite the dispatcher’s repeated admonition that protesting wasn’t illegal.

And, as these defenders of Catskill Elementary School’s resources and autonomy are a feisty bunch of folks, that March protest is not the only direct action they’ve taken to further their goals. For instance, on April 10, 2019 they attended a meeting of the GANAS Academy directors and gave vigorous and extended public comment, which was not gracefully received by the privatizers on the board.

The board ultimately tried to shut down the meeting and it ended with the Catskill folks following them out to the parking lot chanting. The Catskill defenders posted an uplifting video of this event and the chaos starts here at 1:10:20, with board chair Juliana Mercurio’s angry pronouncement that if the protesters don’t sit down she is going to close the meeting. A few days later the Carson City Council considered and ultimately passed an anti-GANAS resolution.

Which brings the story up to yesterday, when I received almost an entire gigabyte of public records from GANAS via their lawyers at Young, Minney, & Corr, a law firm specializing in the affairs of California charter schools.⁷ Included in this release, most of which I’m still prepping for publication, were a number of videos shot by GANAS Academy people in the performance of their duties. You can browse the collection and download copies here on Archive.Org and also here on my YouTube channel.

There are links to the individual videos with brief descriptions below, but before we go there, you must, must watch two of these clips. These were filmed by GANAS board member Juliana Mercurio after the Carson City Council meeting on April 16. They capture the protesters following Mercurio and Jain to Jain’s car and the subsequent vehicular escape. The first one features the protesters as seen over Mercurio’s shoulder and includes Mercurio’s commentary, e.g. she describes the protesters as “an irate mob of people.” The second is shot from inside their getaway car. As they’re driving away Mercurio wearily predicts that they’re “about to be blocked in … again …”
Continue reading Video From GANAS Academy Now Available! — See Chanting Catskill Protesters Following Sakshi Jain And Juliana Mercurio Out Of A Carson City Council Meeting In April! — But From Jain And Mercurio’s Point Of View!! — With Their Commentary!!! — See Video Of Mercurio And Jain Driving Away From The Protesters! — Shot From Inside The Getaway Car!! — Mercurio: “We’re About To Be Blocked In … Again …” — Video From The Famous Carson City Council Meeting — California Charter School Association Flackie Gives Public Comment — Very Interesting Stuff Here Friends! →

LAUSD

March 27, 2019 — Sakshi Jain — Privatizer And Founder Of Charter School Ganas Academy — Famously Seeking To Co-Locate At Catskill Elementary School In Carson — Was Trying To Hold A Meeting At A Denny’s — But Protesters Were There Too — And Not Only Does Sakshi Jain Hate Public Schools — She Also Hates Democracy — So She Called 911 To Complain That They Were Being Really Really Really Mean To Her — And The Dispatcher Was All Like — Ma’am — It Is Not Illegal For People To Be Mean To You — And Sakshi Jain Was All But This Is A Private Event — At A Private Denny’s!

May 11, 2019 Mike Leave a comment

I don’t know if you’ve been following the thrilling tale of privateering charter school Ganas Academy, its astoundingly unsympathetic founder Sakshi Jain, its misbegotten plans to co-locate at the well-loved Catskill Elementary School in Carson, and the refreshingly vigorous battle being waged by a brave and devoted band of parents and teachers pushing back against the privatizers. But if so, well, today I have an interesting bit of information on one episode in the struggle.

It seems that on March 27, 2019, Sakshi Jain and her co-locationist co-conspirators were holding a meeting of some kind at a Denny’s in Carson. And the Catskill supporters showed up to protest. And because she hates the public realm Sakshi Jain didn’t appreciate this. She didn’t like it one bit. And so, in the grand tradition of life-denying totalitarians everywhere, she called 911 on the protesters.

And today I am pleased to present to you a copy of that 911 call! You can listen to it here on YouTube, and download it here on Archive.Org in whatever format suits your needs.⁸ And it’s really heartening, actually. Jain tells the dispatcher that there are protesters at this Denny’s and the dispatcher keeps telling her that protesting isn’t illegal and they won’t be able to do anything.

Jain can hardly believe her ears. She keeps saying that it’s a private event! In a private Denny’s!⁹ That she paid for! None of this is surprising coming from a woman who hates the public realm so much that she wants to make a living by privatizing public schools, but it’s a little shocking to hear it said out loud.

And I also have a copy of what the responding deputies sent to dispatch when they closed out the call, which was that they didn’t do anything because the protesters weren’t breaking the law. If you don’t feel like playing the audio there’s a transcription right after the break!

Dispatcher: Hi, this is Sheriff’s [unintelligible], how can I help you?

Sakshi Jain: Hi, I’m at a Denny’s in Carson and we’re having a private event that is being bombarded by protesters who are harassing us and making videos.

Dispatcher: OK, I’ll send deputies out there but you know protesting is not illegal. But I will…

Sakshi Jain: [interrupting] We understand but we’re at a private event so they’re trying to crash it.

Dispatcher: I’ll send someone out there but like I said I don’t think we’ll be able to make them leave but I’ll send someone out there to talk to you guys, OK?

Sakshi Jain: OK. They’re inside too, so that’s why… They’re inside a private Denny’s and like our guests can’t come in now.

Dispatcher: OK. And do you own Denny’s? Are you working there? Or are you just there having the event?

Sakshi Jain: No, no, no. I’m paying for an event.

Dispatcher: OK. What’s the address there?

Sakshi Jain: Alright, excuse me? The address? Yeah, hold on one second.

Dispatcher: And what’s your name while you’re getting it?

Sakshi Jain: My name is ■■■■■■■■■ ■■■■■■■■■ and one second. It’s in the Carson Plaza Drive.

Dispatcher: And what’s your phone number?

Sakshi Jain: ■■■■■■■■■

Dispatcher: OK, I’ll send someone out there to talk to you guys.

Sakshi Jain: Thank you.

Business Improvement Districts, The Race Card

First The San Pedro BID Hated The Car Show. Then The San Pedro BID Loved The Car Show. Then The San Pedro BID Lobbied The City On The Car Show’s Behalf. But To Keep The BID’s Love The Car Show Had To Agree To Typically Coded Typically Racist Cultural Conditions: No Hip Hop. No Rap Music.

June 22, 2017 Mike Leave a comment

Once upon a time in 2016 an organization called Hot Import Nights was going to host a car show in Downtown San Pedro. This would seem to be a natural fit, since San Pedro is nestled between such motorhead meccas as Torrance and Gardena and Carson and Long Beach, famed hot spots of both formal and informal Southern California car culture due not in small part to the feverish and innovative automotive, aerospace, and marine manufacturing activities centered in the subregion for more than a century at this point.

But if there’s a BID in the woodpile they’re going to have an opinion, either puritanical, stupid, or both, on any proposed activities within their jurisdiction, whether it’s any of their concern or not. And it’s well-known to those who know it well that Downtown San Pedro is cursed by being chronically subject to the tender mercies of the San Pedro Historic Waterfront BID. And thus it is no surprise that the BID weighed in on the car show. And it’s no surprise that they hated it. It’s exactly the kind of thing that knee-jerk puritanical real estate minions will hate.

But what is a surprise is that they changed their little minds and came to love it. They loved it so darn much that they signed an MOU with it and agreed to lobby the City on its behalf. But there’s no such thing as a free lunch and white supremacy will exact payment for any favors it bestows. In exchange for the BID’s aid and comfort, the car show had to agree not to play any rap music or hip hop at their event, and a bunch of other, as weird but possibly less racist, conditions as well.

This unreasoned, or at least publicly unreasoned, hatred for all things insufficiently caucasian, is for whatever reason, a signature element of BIDolatry in the City of Los Angeles. Over the years we’ve uncovered, e.g., the fact that the Hollywood Property Owners Alliance really, really hates Chicano-associated art genres as well as music that attracts dark-skinned patrons. The freaking HPOA even hates Peruvians if they seem like they’re getting too comfy in Hollywood.

These weird, crypto-racist attitudes are not just the province of our frenemies at the HPOA. They are evidently shared by BIDs all over the City. Thus it’s really no surprise to find that the San Pedro BIDdies are a bunch of cultural crypto-racists as well. But, as always, it’s still surprising, still disconcerting, to see the details figured plain as though upon a lighted screen. Turn the page for the story in detail with extensive documentation!
Continue reading First The San Pedro BID Hated The Car Show. Then The San Pedro BID Loved The Car Show. Then The San Pedro BID Lobbied The City On The Car Show’s Behalf. But To Keep The BID’s Love The Car Show Had To Agree To Typically Coded Typically Racist Cultural Conditions: No Hip Hop. No Rap Music. →