Tag Archives: CF 10-0154

Business Improvement Districts, Los Angeles City Government

BID Consultant John Lambeth Of Civitas Advisors Is Working On Forming The Echo Park BID For The City Of Los Angeles — And The Route 66 BID For That Matter — No One’s Paying Him For Route 66 And The City Won’t Act Promptly Re Echo Park — What’s A Putatively Ethical Consultant To Do? — Refuse To Sign The Damn Contract Until The City Gets Its Act Together!

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Good God, could the neverending saga of the inchoate Echo Park BID get even weirder? Since you ask, the answer, of course, is obviously yes. You may recall that very recently Councilbaby Mitch O’Farrell moved that the City give BID consultants Civitas Advisors another heaping beaucoup de bigly bucks to let them continue working on the extraordinarily multiyear process of creating the Echo Park BID.

The City memorialized this effort in Council File 10-0154-S1, created on February 27, 2018 to contain the above-mentioned motion. On April 13, 2018 the full council adopted the motion which, for reasons I won’t even think about pretending to understand, doesn’t seem to require Mayoral concurrence to take effect. So they got the money, they got the BID consultant, what’s the damn problem?

Well, this newly obtained April 17, 2018 email from head Civitas Honcho John Lambeth to Los Angeles City Clerk Holly Wolcott about the progress of the also-pending Route 66 BID1 sheds some light on problems with the BID formation process in Echo Park.2 As always, there’s a transcription and commentary after the break.3 Continue reading BID Consultant John Lambeth Of Civitas Advisors Is Working On Forming The Echo Park BID For The City Of Los Angeles — And The Route 66 BID For That Matter — No One’s Paying Him For Route 66 And The City Won’t Act Promptly Re Echo Park — What’s A Putatively Ethical Consultant To Do? — Refuse To Sign The Damn Contract Until The City Gets Its Act Together! →

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Business Improvement Districts, CD13

Echo Park BID Formation Process Rolls On, With Economic Development Committee Just Yesterday, At Behest Of CD13 Rep Mitch O’Freaking Farrell, Recommending Allocation Of God Only Knows How Much Money To Civitas To Complete The Establishment Process

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It’s been almost two years now since our esteemed City Council breathed new life into the inchoate Echo Park BID in May 2016 in response to a letter from the Echo Park Chamber of Commerce, who is apparently the BID proponent group for this mishegas. Well, that infusion of cash into its zombie veins apparently wasn’t enough to send it lurching off into what passes for the civic life of this fair but wounded City of ours.

Thus, evidently, CD13 rep Mitch O’Freaking Farrell found it necessary a few weeks ago to move in Council that the BID formation contract with Civitas Advisors, who’s acting as the BID consultant,4 be extended.5 Yesterday, the Economic Development Committee approved6 Mitchie’s motion and sent a report to the full Council for their sadly inevitable approval.

The original Echo Park BID formation materials are collected in CF 10-0154 and for all this contract extension voodoo they started a supplemental, which is at CF 10-0154-S1. Turn the page for a transcription of O’Farrell’s motion from February 27 as well as of an interesting selection from the Committee’s report which sheds some light on where things stand.

Continue reading Echo Park BID Formation Process Rolls On, With Economic Development Committee Just Yesterday, At Behest Of CD13 Rep Mitch O’Freaking Farrell, Recommending Allocation Of God Only Knows How Much Money To Civitas To Complete The Establishment Process →

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Business Improvement Districts, CD13

Just When You Thought it was Safe to Go Back in the Water: Zombie Echo Park BID Comes Roaring Back to Life After 6 Years of Inanition

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Garcetti's last laugh...the Echo Park BID claws its grimy way out of its once-forgotten grave.
Garcetti’s last laugh…the Echo Park BID claws its grimy way out of its once-forgotten grave.
NOTE: Part Two of this series is now live on the internets.

I mean, sure, we’re being overdramatic, but what is anyone to think when a long-forgotten council file comes roaring back to life after six years of inactivity. We didn’t even know that was legal!

It seems that back in January 2010, big bad BID buddy Eric Garcetti, then of CD13, made a motion to spend $40,000 of public money to facilitate the formation of a BID in Echo Park. And, weirdly, in March of that year, sent his aide Alejandra Marroquin to plump for the BID in front of the Jobs and Business Development Committee.7 Anyway, the forty grand was approved in April 2010 and there it stopped. Until this April, anyway, when more funding was approved and they’re all-systems-go yet again. Evidently Echo Park hit some kind of gentrification tipping point and now they need to hire some armed minions of their own to run the heladeros out of the park. Unless the yuppies think they’re too cute to shackle, that is, and they just might, cause ain’t that just like a yuppie?
Continue reading Just When You Thought it was Safe to Go Back in the Water: Zombie Echo Park BID Comes Roaring Back to Life After 6 Years of Inanition →

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