Tag Archives: Coalition to Save Small Business

Of Course Carol Schatz Is The Queen Of Downtown But She Might Also Be The King Solomon Of Downtown Cause She Sure Knows How To Split A Damn Baby! Or — Assistant Queen Of Downtown Suzanne Holley Wants To Know Who’s Gonna Pay The Damn Lobbyists!

March 31, 2018 Mike Leave a comment

Just what you have all been waiting for, friends! More tales from the massive DCBID document dump of a couple weeks ago. It truly is the gift that keeps on giving!¹ And yeah, from one point of view this is yet another inconsequential bit of floof like our recent story about Lena Mulhall, CCALA office manager, using the office UPS account to ship various personal cosplay-linked merchandise hither and yon. But from another, it’s more than consequential, it’s essential evidence of … but of course, you have no idea what I’m talking about cause you haven’t seen the damn email.

You can read the whole chain here or, as usual, turn the page for a transcription. Anyway, remember Laura Mecoy? She’s the hotcha lobbyist who runs a shady little op out of the South Bay known as Mecoy Communications² who got Kerry Morrison and Carol Schatz a sitdown with the L.A. Times Editorial Board over the street vending issue, giving them an opportunity to spew their poisonous puke all over the table at First and Main.³

And of course, she don’t do that kinda jive for free. After all, she’s a storyteller! A professional storyteller!! And the workman is worthy of her hire, ain’t she? So who’s going to pay her damn bills!? Well, of course, turn the page to find out!
Continue reading Of Course Carol Schatz Is The Queen Of Downtown But She Might Also Be The King Solomon Of Downtown Cause She Sure Knows How To Split A Damn Baby! Or — Assistant Queen Of Downtown Suzanne Holley Wants To Know Who’s Gonna Pay The Damn Lobbyists! →

Los Angeles City Council, Street Vending

Sneaky Shit-Sneakers Sneakily Sneak Sneaky Shit Into Current Version Of Street Vending Legalization Process, Setting The Stage For Continued Persecution of Vendors in Business Improvement Districts

January 31, 2017 Mike Leave a comment

So today the City Council moved forward with CF 13-1493, which, of course, is the famed street vending thing. For a good, objective,⁴ discussion of today’s developments, take a look at this article in today’s Times by the incomparable Emily Alpert Reyes.⁵ This is just a brief post to note the fact that the various anti-human opponents of legalized street vending won a major, seemingly unnoticed by anyone but me, victory via amendment in the current version of the motion.

Today’s motion doesn’t actually legalize street vending. What it does is direct the City Attorney, the Chief Legislative Analyst, and the City Administrative Officer to put together a proposed ordinance. This was to be based on this detailed set of recommendations from the Public Works and Gang Reduction Committee report. This report was amended in Council today before being adopted, and at least two of the amended recommendations are quite sneaky, and, I predict, will undermine the future ordinance in quite underhanded ways that will please business improvement districts and other business interests who have been working tirelessly to keep street vending illegal for years now. See the details and some⁶ predictions after the break.
Continue reading Sneaky Shit-Sneakers Sneakily Sneak Sneaky Shit Into Current Version Of Street Vending Legalization Process, Setting The Stage For Continued Persecution of Vendors in Business Improvement Districts →

Announcements, Fashion District BID

Fashion District BID Executive Director Kent Smith’s Complete July 2015 Emails Now Available. FDBID Managing Director Rena Leddy Wins MK.org Excellence in BID Transparency Award!

March 15, 2016 Mike Leave a comment

Rena Leddy, Managing Director of the Fashion District BID and MK.org CPRA Hero of the Fricking Year!!

Just this morning I received, via Dropbox, every one of Kent Smith’s emails for the month of July 2015. You can see all 1098 of them on the archive. Most of it’s dismal mass-blasted junk, of course, but even a lot of that is interesting. E.g. search in there for CCA (Central City Association) to see bunches of their bulletins, like this one, advertising special guests Jessica Borek and Matt Rodriguez. Unfortunately there’s probably no way to find out what was said there, but at least we know it happened.

Yet another smoking gun, as if it weren't clear enough that Marie Rumsey is a big-time lawbreaker. — Yet another smoking gun, as if it weren’t clear enough that Marie Rumsey is a big-time lawbreaker.

The most amazing thing about this document dump is the formatting. They’re PDFs, which often is a bad sign for emails, although these are text-based⁷ so they can be searched reasonably effectively. Too many agencies think somehow that a scanned PDF of a printed email satisfies CPRA’s requirement that electronic documents be produced in native formats. These PDFs are on a level I’ve never seen before, though. First of all, the links are live, including the links to remote images. Also the links to attachments are live and the attachments are embedded in the PDFs. For instance, look at this email about anti-street-vending strategies from Marie Rumsey to various people. It has an actual schedule of actual meetings with Councilmembers that CCA set up for street vending opponents attached, and you can click on it and read it! Or here it is if you’re lazy. This is the real deal! Look at the properties in that last item and see that Marie Rumsey spent 2015 breaking the revolving door ordinance to an even greater extent than anyone here imagined. Also take a look at this email from Jessica Borek to the gang which comes with a copy of a Power Point thing by Jessica Borek about the Coalition to Save Small Business strategy as well as a marked-up copy of ELACC’s proposed framework. This is the real deal, friends! It’s what CPRA was actually meant to yield.
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Hollywood Property Owners Alliance, Street Vending

Inside the Anti-Street-Vending Campaign: Newly Revealed Emails Between Kerry Morrison, Carol Schatz, and PR Flack Laura Mecoy Shine Unwonted Light Into Power-Elite Media Manipulation Process

December 5, 2015 kohlhaas Leave a comment

Long-time readers of this blog will recall that, in March 2015, we broke the story that outlaw downtown ringleader Carol Schatz’s ongoing criminal conspiracy, popularly known as the Central City Association, had hired shadowy PR flacks Rodriguez Strategies to shill for this city’s white-power-elite-zillionaire-industrial complex in order to defeat Councilmen José Huizar’s and Curren Price’s surprisingly-for-LA-politicos sane proposals regarding street vending. Rodriguez Strategies deputed its minion, evil PR-thuggette Jessica Borek, to set up a bullshit astroturf group known as “The Coalition to Save Small Business,” and off they went to lie about everything at every public hearing possible on the subject.

Well, evidently Rodriguez Strategies wasn’t doing enough damage for the CCA’s taste, because at some point the opponents of legalized street vending in Los Angeles hired yet another PR firm, Mecoy Communications, run by former reporter Laura Mecoy, pictured above. Yesterday, we obtained a bunch of emails from Laura Mecoy to Kerry Morrison, Carol Schatz, and two business owners who oppose legalized street vending about a meeting Laura’s arranged with the LA Times editorial board. And Laura is worth whatever they’re paying her. Although the Times showed some independent thought in the resulting editorial, Laura got them to take Kerry Morrison’s and Carol Schatz’s delusory and insincere arguments as if they were something more than self-interested expediencies. They’re not. This is a fascinating but all-too-rare glimpse into the interplay between money, power, and media in Los Angeles.
Continue reading Inside the Anti-Street-Vending Campaign: Newly Revealed Emails Between Kerry Morrison, Carol Schatz, and PR Flack Laura Mecoy Shine Unwonted Light Into Power-Elite Media Manipulation Process →

BID-Free Los Angeles

Music, Freedom, Sharing, Love, Humanity: All Flourish Unhindered by Creepy Zillionaire Social Engineers in Not-So-Rare BID-Free Zone in the Valley; Contradictions Regarding Street Vending Heightened Beyond Sane Believability

September 20, 2015 kohlhaas Leave a comment

A sign showing the way to an underground, illegal concert in a home in the Valley that's not in any BID. We can only imagine the hissing, spitting, convulsive fit that BIDs would throw if this kind of thing were discovered on their territory. — A sign showing the way to an underground, surely illegal concert in a home in the Valley that’s not in any BID. We can only imagine the hissing, spitting, convulsive fit that BIDs would throw if this kind of thing were discovered to exist, let alone to be flourishing, on their territory.

Last night a few of us MK.org staffies were blessed to attend something called a house concert at someone’s home in Van Nuys. This is, as you might guess, a concert in someone’s house. The audience donates money to get in and the money all goes to the musicians. There was food at the break for free, but with donations accepted. We found out about this by chance, and soon discovered that it’s not a one-off thing or even just some local eccentricity, but part of a full-blown fricking nationwide movement! Also, these people in Van Nuys have been doing this about once a week for, we believe, more than twenty years. We’re going to be vague about the details because the whole thing is certainly illegal and we don’t want to be the ones to tip off the heat, but nevertheless it’s all operating suprisingly openly.

Instruments on the floor of the garage/performance space in the back yard of a house in Van Nuys before the music began. Look, it's someone's freaking garage! — Instruments on the floor of the garage/performance space in the back yard of a house in Van Nuys before the music began. Look, it’s someone’s freaking garage!

Here’s the deal. Some people we met at a show in Silver Lake¹ the other day told us that this thing was happening and where to find contact info on the web. We looked it up, emailed the contact, phoned the contact, were told the address, took the Red Line to North Hollywood and the Orange Line to Van Nuys and then walked over to an actual normal house on a normal street in the Valley. You can see from the images what we found there, and the music was fabulous, and we met a bunch of very interesting people. I mean, we’re as opposed in theory to vicious criminal conspiracies as the next folks, but this one had really positive results! We’re as in favor in theory of governments of laws rather than of men as the next folks, but damn it, this whole thing was just too wonderful to seriously be illegal. And what does this have to do with the BIDs? Why, we’re glad you asked! Turn the page to find out.
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Historical and Theoretical Perspectives, The Race Card

HPOA Precursor Organization and Former Employer of Kerry Morrison California Real Estate Association Sought to Warp, Pervert, and Destroy U.S. Constitution in 1948 to Prevent “The Threat of Occupancy by Negroes”

August 29, 2015 kohlhaas Leave a comment

Kerry Morrison, late of the California Association of REALTORS®, formerly known as the California Real Estate Association, with friend. — Kerry Morrison, late of the California Association of REALTORS®, formerly known as the California Real Estate Association, an immensely influential Twentieth Century California white supremacist group, sitting extraordinarily close to some guy whose name we don’t know.

While poking around in the bowels and hidden bits of the HPOA’s website recently, we happened to notice, in friend Kerry Morrison’s bio, the following intriguing statement: “Prior to coming to Hollywood, she spent 14 years in public policy and senior management roles at the California Association of REALTORS in Los Angeles.” Maybe it was the ALL-CAPS that caught our eye, so weirdly dystypographical and yet so clearly intentional,¹ or maybe something else. In any case, we resolved to discover just for whom it was that Kerry had spent 14 years working for prior to the BID and why it seemed so important to her to include this in her biosnippet. Note, by the way, that the California Association of REALTORS^® was formerly known as the California Real Estate Association.²

California real estate agents have done far, far more to shape this state for evil and for good than is commonly acknowledged. — California real estate agents have done far, far more to shape this state for evil and for good than is commonly acknowledged in popular discourse.

Kerry, as the first and sole director of the HPOA since 1996, has clearly formed and molded that organization in her own image. Thus, we thought, it might be illuminating to understand the professional crucible in which that image was forged. So we sent our faithful correspondent out onto the wild uncharted moors of scholarlandia through the portals of Google scholar, JSTOR, and UCLA. Our minds were well and truly blown by what he discovered, and perhaps yours will be too. There’s far too much material to cover in one post, so we’re going to lay it on you in increments, starting today with some background and a shocking episode from the long hot summer of 1948.
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Hypocrisy, Joint Security Committee, Street Vending

Kerry Morrison Accuses Street Vending Proponents Collectively of “Almost Resembl[ing] a Circus,” Being “Completely Dysfunctional [and] Disrespectful,” and “Being Bused in,” Elides True Nature of Putative Coalition

July 15, 2015 kohlhaas Leave a comment

Kerry Morrison at the July 9, 2015 meeting of the Joint Security Committee being the opposite of dysfunctional, disrespectful, and circus-like. — Kerry Morrison at the July 9, 2015 meeting of the Joint Security Committee looking mighty fed up with something while at the same time, of course, being nondysfunctional, nondisrespectful, and in no way resembling a circus.

We’ve written before about the HPOA’s crazed-and-at-the-mouth-foaming opposition to Councilmembers Huizar’s and Price’s proposed ordinance legalizing street vending in the city of Los Angeles. We’ve written about the HPOA’s scheme to send its agents to public meetings in the ill-concealed guise of concerned citizens opposing the ordinance. Today we report on Kerry Morrison’s recent discussion of her experience orchestrating that whole fiasco. We’ll analyze it line by line, and you can watch the whole thing here and/or read a transcription after the break.

there were a series of four hearings that the chief administrative office staff held on the… the sidewalk vending ordinance. … It’s just this kind of amorphous set of hearings, which were completely dysfunctional, disrespectful, and almost, um, resembled a circus.

This painting by Georges Seurat almost resembles a circus also, but, and this is a subtle point but sound, Cela ne veut pas un cirque. — This painting by Georges Seurat almost resembles a circus also, but, and this is a subtle point but sound, cela ne veut pas un cirque.

Kerry’s been on before about this issue, people not treating her agents provocateurs to what she delusorily imagines to be the duly appropriate level of forelock-tugging, although she hits a new high note¹ here. We mean, we weren’t at the hearings, but it’s hard to imagine that they were dysfunctional. It’s easier to imagine that perhaps Kerry’s mistaken the purpose. It’s hard to see how a public hearing can be disrespectful without being told towards what or whom it’s disrespectful. Does she mean the hearing was disrespectful towards her minions? What is it that they’ve done to earn anyone’s respect? Perhaps she means something else. And as for the hearings “almost…resembl[ing] a circus,” well, we imagine that’s nothing more than the reaction of someone who has done her illegal best to make sure that the public doesn’t feel welcome at the meetings she’s the boss of to finding out that she’s not the boss of every meeting in Los Angeles and, just possibly, maybe not so welcome at all of them her own self.
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Hollywood Property Owners Alliance, Hypocrisy, Street Vending

Marie Rumsey and Thuggish Rodriguez Strategies Flack Jessica Borek Plot with the HPOA Board to Keep Arresting Bacon-Dog Sellers and Heladeros

March 26, 2015 kohlhaas Leave a comment

Heladero chained to a bench in 2007 courtesy of the BID Patrol. José Huizar's proposed ordinance would end this kind of sadism in Los Angeles, but the BIDs, with the connivance of CCA and Rodriguez Strategies won't give up so easily. "It is our God-given right to handcuff the heladero!" — Heladero chained to a bench in 2007 courtesy of the BID Patrol. José Huizar’s proposed ordinance would end this kind of sadism in Los Angeles, but the BIDs, with the connivance of CCA and Rodriguez Strategies won’t give up so easily. “It is our God-given right to handcuff the heladero!”

Watch, listen, and learn¹ as Marie Rumsey of the Central City Association and PR flackette Jessica Borek of thuggish PR RICO Rodriguez Strategies fill in the HPOA board on their strategic schemes to allow the BID Patrol to continue to arrest, shackle, and humiliate the ice-cream man. These people are so power-mad they want to ban bacon dogs, the national food of Los Angeles!(Transcription, as always, after the break).

Even after all this time, it’s hard to understand why these people are so dead-set against legalizing and regulating something that’s not only happening now, but is going to be happening in the future because it’s an integral part of the culture of Los Angeles. We have some ideas, but whatever their reasoning is, we don’t think it would be too much to ask that they tell the truth while they’re opposing it.

Marie Rumsey of the Central City Association at the March 19, 2015 meeting of the HPOA Board, lying through her teeth about pretty much everything.

First of all, Marie Rumsey wants you to know that there are only nine health inspectors for all of LA county and there are 50,000 street vendors. The point is that it’s unlikely that food vendors would be inspected sufficiently. Let’s forget, just for a second, that currently none of the vendors are inspected, so inspecting ANY of them would improve public health. According to Bloomberg, there are 10,000 illegal food vendors in Los Angeles (granted, out of 50,000 vendors total, but health inspectors don’t worry about balloon-sellers, do they?) That’s lie number one, Marie. Next, we can’t find hard data for the number of health inspectors in LA County at the moment, but a moment’s googling told us that in 1989 there were 47 of them, and in 1997 there were 161. That the number has dropped to 9 in 2015 seems beyond implausible. That’s lie number two, Marie.

And this brings us to Rodriguez Strategies flackette Jessica Borek.
Continue reading Marie Rumsey and Thuggish Rodriguez Strategies Flack Jessica Borek Plot with the HPOA Board to Keep Arresting Bacon-Dog Sellers and Heladeros →