Tag Archives: Central City Association

The Central City Association Held Secret Members-Only Meetings With Mike Feuer And Eric Garcetti In October And November — Attendees Included Tom Gilmore — Patti Berman — Sara Hernandez — And The Usual Gang Of Downtown BIDdies And Zillionaires Complaining About Homelessness — And Defunding The Police — And Regulations And Codes — They Really Really Hate Regulations And Codes — Featuring The Inimitable Blair Besten As Self-Proclaimed Expert On “Street Homelessness” — And Plenty Of Other Aggressive Lunacy

December 24, 2020 Mike 1 Comment

You might want to meet with Eric Garcetti but Eric Garcetti doesn’t want to meet with you. John Motter told that story recently in the essential Knock LA. And it’s not Garcetti’s problem, honestly. It’s all you. There are plenty of folks he will very gladly meet with, like e.g. members of the Central City Association. And in secret no less, as he did on November 16, 2020. Mike Feuer did the same thing on October 8, 2020.

And what were these luminaries talking to CCALA about in these top secret meetings? I’m glad you asked! I recently obtained copies of CCALA supreme commander Jessica Lall’s confidential members-only briefing notes for these two meetings that reveal quite a bit about what went on.¹ Here are links to the original Microsoft Word files and PDF versions². HTML transcriptions and images appear below as well:

嬄 Feuer Meeting briefing notes — DOCX ◈ PDF ◈ JPG ◈ HTML

嬄 Garcetti Meeting briefing notes — DOCX ◈ PDF ◈ JPG ◈ HTML

You should read the originals, also. They have a lot more stuff in them than I discuss here. The notes include brief agendas and a list of goals. For instance, Garcetti:
Continue reading The Central City Association Held Secret Members-Only Meetings With Mike Feuer And Eric Garcetti In October And November — Attendees Included Tom Gilmore — Patti Berman — Sara Hernandez — And The Usual Gang Of Downtown BIDdies And Zillionaires Complaining About Homelessness — And Defunding The Police — And Regulations And Codes — They Really Really Hate Regulations And Codes — Featuring The Inimitable Blair Besten As Self-Proclaimed Expert On “Street Homelessness” — And Plenty Of Other Aggressive Lunacy →

Lawsuits

Coalition Of Local Fascists File Motion Asking Judge Otero To Let Them Intervene And Object To The City’s Settlement With The Mitchell Plaintiffs — Here’s A Copy Of Their Self-Serving And Mendacious Motion — Hearing On Calendar For August 12, 2019 At 10 AM — Courtroom 10C — First Street Federal Courthouse

July 14, 2019 Mike Leave a comment

In March 2019 the Los Angeles City Council voted to settle Mitchell v. City of LA, the monumental federal civil rights case over homeless property rights. The impending settlement has inspired an astounding amount of delusional ranting from zillionaires and their willing minions over the last year or two, including this unparalleled slice of whatever-it-is from the CCALA. And no one listened to them, although the Daily News, which, it’s true, is not exactly Der Sturmer but, it’s also true, is not exactly not Der Sturmer, did publish this pandering slab of nonsense from Councilmember Joe Buscaino, one of two to vote against settling.

And a few weeks ago all these zillionaires got together and filed a motion with the court hearing the case, presided over by James Otero, asking for permission to intervene for the purpose of objecting to the settlement, a story covered by no one, it seems, other than the Daily News. There are transcribed selections below. And I don’t really know enough to be able to comment on the motion, other than to say I have mixed feelings.

That is, the people seeking to intervene are certainly fascists and liars. They mix incredibly disingenuous claims about their love and compassion for all humanity with lies about disease and advocacy for extreme oppression of homeless people. They actually cite the actual freaking Daily Freaking Mail in their brief. They lie about the levels of crime, of violence, they cite Drew Freaking Pinsky as if he were anything more than a lying hack himself. If they’re given a free hand to set policy they’ll deport homeless people, even housed poor people, off to the desert to live in camps, bleating the whole while about how they only want the best for their victims.

On the other hand, I do agree that their interests, as abhorrent as they are, aren’t adequately represented by any of the parties to the case, and I do agree in general that there are such circumstances in which people ought to be able to intervene in court cases when that happens. And I also agree with them that the fact that the City Council deliberated on the settlement in closed session is antithetical to democracy. So I’m going to leave the commentary up to the only person whose thoughts really matter, and that’s Judge Otero. The parties’ reply briefs are due tomorrow and I will publish them here if any are filed, which I imagine they will be.
Continue reading Coalition Of Local Fascists File Motion Asking Judge Otero To Let Them Intervene And Object To The City’s Settlement With The Mitchell Plaintiffs — Here’s A Copy Of Their Self-Serving And Mendacious Motion — Hearing On Calendar For August 12, 2019 At 10 AM — Courtroom 10C — First Street Federal Courthouse →

Business Improvement Districts

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

April 9, 2019 Mike Leave a comment

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

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

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

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

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

LAUSD

Johnathan Williams Of The Accelerated Schools Charter Empire And Marie Rumsey Of Zillionaire Terrorist Front The Central City Association Of Los Angeles — Working Together To Destroy Public Education In Los Angeles — One Of Their Weapons? — Commercial Real Estate Of Course — With Guest Appearances By Nightmare Zillionaire BID-Adjacent Clown Crew — Tom Gilmore — Adele Yellin — Steve Needleman — Wayne Ratkovich — Who Should Mostly Be In Literal Chains Rather Than Email Chains — But Here We Are In 21st Century Los Angeles

April 7, 2019 Mike Leave a comment

As you may recall, I got interested in charter schools in Los Angeles during the recent UTLA strike, and after learning that they are subject to the California Public Records Act I submitted a bunch of requests, and after a little amateurish obstructionism the goodies are starting to trickle in.³ Today’s installment is this small set of emails between Johnathan Williams, founder and head honcho of charter school empire The Accelerated Schools, and various people associated with zillionaire terrorist front group The Central City Association.

And one thing I’ve been learning recently, confirmed by these emails, is that there’s an extensive nexus of relationships among BIDdies and Charterites. BIDdies and their hired guns, like e.g. Jessica Lall and Noel Hyun of the CCALA, serve on many a charter school board. Their companies fund charters, arrange their real estate deals, introduce their executives around in the local zillionaire communities, and so on. Ultimately this shouldn’t have been a surprise to me, although it was.

Both BIDs and charter schools serve the zillionaire privatization agenda. Both are attacks on the public realm, seeking to destroy it so that it can be replaced with private institutions even more firmly under direct zillionaire control. The emails at hand give the tiniest glimpse into this world, just consisting of zillionaires and charterites passing names and email addresses around trying to find a place where the staff of one of Williams’s schools, the Wallis Annenberg High School, can hold a two day retreat.

But don’t be turned off by the triviality of the subject. The real story here is the existence of the network that allows such transactions as these to be negotiated seamlessly, effortlessly, genially, without friction. The shared presupposition of the value of charter schools revealed by the fact that no one questions it. That’s ultimately what we’re learning about, and such knowledge, like all knowledge worth having, comes a speck at a time. Until a vast panorama is revealed, like pointillism. Turn the page for transcriptions and links to the emails!
Continue reading Johnathan Williams Of The Accelerated Schools Charter Empire And Marie Rumsey Of Zillionaire Terrorist Front The Central City Association Of Los Angeles — Working Together To Destroy Public Education In Los Angeles — One Of Their Weapons? — Commercial Real Estate Of Course — With Guest Appearances By Nightmare Zillionaire BID-Adjacent Clown Crew — Tom Gilmore — Adele Yellin — Steve Needleman — Wayne Ratkovich — Who Should Mostly Be In Literal Chains Rather Than Email Chains — But Here We Are In 21st Century Los Angeles →

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

February 24, 2019 Mike Leave a comment

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 why⁴ 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.”⁵ 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 →

Business Improvement Districts, California State Government

Remember Those Underpass Homeless Encampments Outside The South Park BID Boundaries? — The BID Is Not Only Paying Staff To Photograph Them — Also They Are Paying Staff To Lobby Miguel Santiago’s Office To Get CalTrans And CHP To Clear Them Out — Why Is A Member Of The California State Assembly Ignoring The BID’s Lawless Behavior? — Probably For Money, Doncha Think? — Or Because — With The Recent Fall Of The House Of Huizar — Santiago Feels His Path To CD14 Is Wide Freaking Open

December 20, 2018 Mike Leave a comment

OK, remember how there are these underpasses with a bunch of homeless encampments in them that are not in the South Park BID but the BIDdies wanted to clean them up anyway except Ellen Riotto said they couldn’t cause it was against the law but then she sent her staffies out to gather photographic evidence of the encampments which is clearly also against the law? OK, this is another episode in that story!

And it’s worth taking a moment to review just why the BID can’t spend money on stuff going on outside its boundaries, never forgetting for a moment that dedicating staff time to a matter is spending money on it, which is to say the money paid the staff member. It’s all due to the Property and Business Improvement District Act at §36625(a)(6), which states unequivocally that:

The revenue from the levy of assessments within a district shall not be used to provide improvements, maintenance, or activities outside the district or for any purpose other than the purposes specified in the resolution of intention

Oh, also, keep in mind that the problem, from the BID’s point of view, with these underpasses is that the City of LA seems not to be allowed to evict homeless people from under them, evidently because it’s state property under there. Thus Caltrans and the Highway Patrol somehow have to do it, and the BID just doesn’t have the influence with them that they do with the City, I guess, which apparently makes it a separate and ongoing problem for the BID.

So the other day I received a big pile of emails from the Parkies comprising correspondence between them and any email address at ca.gov or its subdomains. You can gaze lovingly upon the whole steaming heap of them here on Archive.Org. And amongst these are email after email after email between South Park BID staff and staffers in the office of Assemblymember Miguel Santiago, in whose district the BID situates, having to do with those damn underpasses.

That is to say there is plenty of evidence in there of repeated violations of §36625(a)(6). But who does one complain to about it? We’ve already seen that the Los Angeles City Clerk, which putatively oversees our BIDs, will take complaints about insufficient brutality towards the homeless, but not, it seems, about violations of the law by the BIDs themselves. And it’s disconcerting to say the least to see an actual Assemblymember conspiring to violate the laws which he and his colleagues have sworn to defend.⁶

Although I suppose it’s not surprising that Miguel Santiago would be involved in such a scheme, given his demonstrated proclivity for selling the best interests of the people of California down the river just cause some BIDs asked him to. As I’ve said many times, I wasn’t cynical at all before I started learning about BIDs, but the BIDdies have made me so. Turn the page, if you will, for as much of the chronology as I have, links to the emails, and a few select transcriptions.
Continue reading Remember Those Underpass Homeless Encampments Outside The South Park BID Boundaries? — The BID Is Not Only Paying Staff To Photograph Them — Also They Are Paying Staff To Lobby Miguel Santiago’s Office To Get CalTrans And CHP To Clear Them Out — Why Is A Member Of The California State Assembly Ignoring The BID’s Lawless Behavior? — Probably For Money, Doncha Think? — Or Because — With The Recent Fall Of The House Of Huizar — Santiago Feels His Path To CD14 Is Wide Freaking Open →

Street Vending

SB 946, Ricardo Lara’s Safe Street Vending Bill, Signed Into Law By Governor Jerry Brown Yesterday! — This Is A Huge Victory For Human Beings In California Over The Dark Forces Of Money, Racism, And Weirdo Puritanical White Privilege — Also A Huge Slap-Down For The BIDs Of Los Angeles, Who Evidently Don’t Control Everything

September 18, 2018 Mike Leave a comment

It has been a long and exciting eight months since Ricardo Lara introduced SB 946 in order to limit the ways in which cities in California are allowed to regulate street vending. Yesterday, thank goodness, it was signed into law by Jerry Brown. The preamble⁷ is a powerful statement of the value that street vendors bring to our City and to other cities around the state:

SECTION 1. (a) The Legislature finds and declares all of the following:

(1) Sidewalk vending provides important entrepreneurship and economic development opportunities to low-income and immigrant communities.

(2) Sidewalk vending increases access to desired goods, such as culturally significant food and merchandise.

(3) Sidewalk vending contributes to a safe and dynamic public space.

(4) The safety and welfare of the general public is promoted by encouraging local authorities to support and properly regulate sidewalk vending.

(5) The safety and welfare of the general public is promoted by prohibiting criminal penalties for violations of sidewalk vending ordinances and regulations.
…
(b) It is the intent of the Legislature to promote entrepreneurship and support immigrant and low-income communities.

The law reads as if it were written explicitly in response to the weirdo racist antics of the business improvement districts of Los Angeles, displayed during their years-long struggle to keep street vending illegal here. Also, this law completely moots the ridiculous regulatory framework that the City of Los Angeles has been struggling with for years on end, riddled as it’s become with hyperspecific carve-outs meant to appease this or that BID.⁸

It’s really informative to compare this law with this set of proposals made earlier this year by the Central City Association, which speaks exclusively for the BIDs and zillionaires of Los Angeles. For instance, the CCA and the BIDs want to limit vendors to two per block face. But the law says:⁹
A local authority shall not restrict the overall number of sidewalk vendors permitted to operate within the jurisdiction of the local authority, unless the restriction is directly related to objective health, safety, or welfare concerns.¹⁰
The CCA and the BIDs want to require vendors to obtain property and/or business owner consent. As we’ve seen, this kind of restriction is really easily exploitable to function as a de facto ban. The law says:¹¹
A local authority shall not require a sidewalk vendor to first obtain the consent or approval of any nongovernmental entity or individual before he or she can sell food or merchandise.

And turn the page for more comparisons as well as the full text of the law.
Continue reading SB 946, Ricardo Lara’s Safe Street Vending Bill, Signed Into Law By Governor Jerry Brown Yesterday! — This Is A Huge Victory For Human Beings In California Over The Dark Forces Of Money, Racism, And Weirdo Puritanical White Privilege — Also A Huge Slap-Down For The BIDs Of Los Angeles, Who Evidently Don’t Control Everything →

Business Improvement Districts, Los Angeles City Government, Street Vending

Once Again The City Of Los Angeles Was Pushed To The Very Brink Of The Precipice Of Batshit Insanity By Business Improvement Districts And Their Unhinged Obsession With Controlling Every Aspect Of Public Life In Los Angeles — And Unexpectedly Stepped Back And Just Said “No” — Is Holly Wolcott Going To Lose Her Job Over This?

September 12, 2018 Mike Leave a comment

As you’re no doubt aware, the City of Los Angeles has been trying for years to put together a proposed ordinance legalizing street vending.¹² The problem, of course, is that business improvement districts and other zillionaire-associated pressure groups hate street vending with a passion that is so incomprehensible, so devoid of rationality, that no one can appease them. No matter what concessions the City gives them they want more. The absolutely unhinged nature of their psychotic demands are exemplified, e.g., in this tragic tale from the Westchester Town Center BID.

In March of this year the Central City Association distilled all these lunatic demands into a concise three page document. They include, among many other things, the ability to exclude street vendors from any part of the City for no reason, the ability to confiscate their carts if they look at the BID patrol crosseyed, the ability for property owners to veto their presence for no reason, and the requirement that street vendors pay extra money to business improvement districts for the privilege of operating within their boundaries.

Now, the City Council, usually willing to do whatever BIDdies ask them to do, has had to be somewhat more circumspect when it comes to street vending because of the intense public scrutiny. The state-level Democratic Party, e.g., has taken up general legalization as a social and economic justice issue, leading to the overwhelming passage of Ricardo Lara’s SB-946 a couple weeks ago.¹³ But more circumspect or not, they still have to give the BIDdies some respect or they’ll cut off their access to that rich source of campaign contributions.

This is probably why the Economic Development Committee asked the City Clerk to report back on how to make street vendors who operate within BIDs pay extra fees that would go to the BIDs as, I don’t know, like protection money or something. These report-backs typically reflect the deep psychosis of this City’s zillionaires, who really seem to think that their thoughts and feelings are objectively important rather than being only contextually important, with the context, of course, being campaign contributions.¹⁴

So what a surprise it was to learn that Holly Wolcott has filed a gem of a report, which calmly and decisively explains to the City Council that actually any such fee scheme would be illegal. What?! Wolcott explicitly suggests that if street vendors in BIDs create extra costs for the BIDs the BIDs can budget money to pay for them but they cannot legally force the vendors to pay.

Holly Wolcott, pretty famously, recently flipped out over the fact that the Venice Beach BID collected far more than a million dollars for 2017 and then didn’t actually do anything at all. She schemed successfully to force the BID to refund the unspent money, and, in the midst of a great deal of personal tension between the BIDdies and the Clerk’s office, the money was in fact refunded. Perhaps this uncharacteristically non-BID-agreeing-with report-back is more of the same? I’m not sure, but it sure is welcome. Turn the page for a transcription of Holly Wolcott’s peculiarly sensible report!
Continue reading Once Again The City Of Los Angeles Was Pushed To The Very Brink Of The Precipice Of Batshit Insanity By Business Improvement Districts And Their Unhinged Obsession With Controlling Every Aspect Of Public Life In Los Angeles — And Unexpectedly Stepped Back And Just Said “No” — Is Holly Wolcott Going To Lose Her Job Over This? →

Business Improvement Districts, Street Vending

If Street Vendors Are Required To Get Consent From Business Owners Commercial Landlords Will Coerce Businesses Into Withholding Both Permission And Bathroom Access — Maybe Even By Rewriting Leases — Actual Conspiracy In The Westchester BID Shows How This Will Work — Did I Mention That Zeck Dreck Donald Duckworth Is A Horrible Person Who Forced A Local Barber To Write A Quasi-Maoist Self-Denunciation For Helping Out A Food Truck Operator??

August 17, 2018 Mike Leave a comment

One of the most hotly contested components of the evolving street vending framework in Los Angeles over the last few years has been a clause requiring vendors to get permission from businesses that they operate near. BIDs and other organized gangs of zillionaire-identified minions have pushed, and pushed hard, for such a requirement.¹⁵ And, as usual, their public-facing reasons are exceedingly altruistic. They’re looking out for the small business owners or whatever.

This requirement, greatly desired by BIDdies of all stripes, was heavily promoted by their spokescreepers at the Central City Association. Their position on this issue was described in a set of talking points propagated by the CCALA in March 2018, where the BIDdies talk about how such consent is necessary for the success of the program, but don’t worry cause e.g. “Property or business owner consent should not be an unreasonable hurdle for vendors it is a much more straightforward process than a public notification process.”

And maybe it should not be unreasonable, but don’t forget that these businesses are situated in commercial buildings, and BIDs are made up of commercial property owners. That is, the very people who are pushing one anti-vendor initiative or another are, on the surface, trying to give their tenants, the business owners, power over the vendors, and it’s presented as being for the good of the vendors. But some emails, newly obtained from Karen Dial’s embarrassingly Freudian monument to Daddy AKA the Westchester Town Center BID, reveal how commercial property owners are likely to abuse such a requirement.¹⁶

The discussion, between BIDdological freak show specimen Donald Duckworth, zeck dreck of the WTCBID, and Karen Dial’s consensual Svengali AKA Miki Payne, vice-president for gratuitously creepy zillionairitude at H.B. Drollinger Inc., took place in January 2017, right at the height of gratuitously creepy BID anti-vendor hysteria.

And the idea is as simple as it is deadly to street vendors, who are, don’t ever forget, part of the heart and soul of our City. It is to convince commercial landlords to write clauses into their leases forbidding their tenants, the business owners, from granting permission to vendors both to use adjacent sidewalks and to use their bathrooms.

Turn the page for more ranting, along with links to and transcriptions of the emails, and also a special bonus item revealing an incident in 2011 when a businessman in Westchester allowed a food truck operator access to his restroom and was forced to publicly recant his permission and confess his sins after pressure from the BIDdies.
Continue reading If Street Vendors Are Required To Get Consent From Business Owners Commercial Landlords Will Coerce Businesses Into Withholding Both Permission And Bathroom Access — Maybe Even By Rewriting Leases — Actual Conspiracy In The Westchester BID Shows How This Will Work — Did I Mention That Zeck Dreck Donald Duckworth Is A Horrible Person Who Forced A Local Barber To Write A Quasi-Maoist Self-Denunciation For Helping Out A Food Truck Operator?? →

Fashion District BID, Street Vending

Central City Association Announces That Hearings On Sidewalk Vending Will Begin Again Soon — Habitual Criminal Marie Rumsey Pens CCALA-Approved Talking Points For Zillionaire Flunkies — Mean-As-A-Damn-Snake BID-Mistress Rena Leddy Distributes These To The BID Consortium — This All Happened On March 29, 2018 And Already I Have The Goods For You!

April 3, 2018 Mike Leave a comment

This is just a quick note to publish a quite important item that I obtained this afternoon. Here’s the background: for three years now, the Central City Association, in conspiracy with most of the BIDs in the City, has been fighting against sane sidewalk vending regulations in Los Angeles.

When Donald Trump was elected in 2016 and his hysterical delusionary rants about deporting everyone he could get his bloody hands on became suddenly a lot less delusionary, our usually stupidly inactive City Council rose momentarily to the occasion and voted to decriminalize street vending immediately because no one¹⁷ gets deported for administrative violations.

Soon after that, zillionaires and their BID flunkies pretty much gutted the whole thing by prevailing on their Councilpets to grant themselves the power to opt any given neighborhood out of the whole legal vending system, whatever it might turn out to be.

The resulting proposal, for it’s not anywhere near becoming a law quite yet, is so embarrassingly ad hoc and transparently zillionaire-serving that State Senator Ricardo Lara boldly took it upon himself to cut the knot by proposing a sweeping law, SB 946, that would severely limit Cities’ regulatory power over sidewalk vending. Predictably, this has driven the BIDdies and the CCALA into a frenzy of potentially thwarted white privilege, hating as they do any public policy that might give poor people, especially nonwhite poor people, any measure of self-determination, self-expression, and human dignity.

The breaking news is that, according to the CCALA, City Council is going to resume discussions of this issue very soon. Here is a March 29, 2018 email from Fashion District BID Executive Directrix Rena Leddy to the BID Consortium announcing this development and also distributing as an attachment an item entitled Sidewalk Vending Speaking Points March 2018, penned by noted scofflaw Marie Rumsey.

The CCALA’s proposals are brutal, as expected. They call for vendors to have their goods confiscated if they’re operating without a permit, to obtain permission from the property or business owners adjacent to them,¹⁸ and to not only have to pay fees to the City but also to BIDs themselves, which is ultra-weird.

It’s an all-too-rare occasion for us to get hold of this kind of stuff in such a timely manner, however, so that alone makes it exciting. There are transcriptions of everything after the break. Start thinking of counterarguments, because if CCALA is correct¹⁹ and the hearings start up again, every sane truth-telling voice will be needed.
Continue reading Central City Association Announces That Hearings On Sidewalk Vending Will Begin Again Soon — Habitual Criminal Marie Rumsey Pens CCALA-Approved Talking Points For Zillionaire Flunkies — Mean-As-A-Damn-Snake BID-Mistress Rena Leddy Distributes These To The BID Consortium — This All Happened On March 29, 2018 And Already I Have The Goods For You! →