Tag Archives: Dakota Smith

The Story Of A Request For Emails From LAPD — And All The Ridiculous Reasons They Propounded For Not Producing — And How They Then Produced!

On January 13, 2019 I asked the Los Angeles Police Department for emails between CD13 staffer Dan Halden and any LAPD employee from January 1, 2016 through December 31, 2018. Yesterday, eight months later, they produced emails from October and November 2018 with the promise of more to come. How we got to this point is the subject of today’s post.1 Here’s what the request said exactly:

Per my rights under the California Public Records Act, please provide all correspondence between anyone who works in the Los Angeles Police Department AND daniel.halden@lacity.org, for the time period of January 1, 2016 to December 31, 2018. Correspondence is defined as all emails, texts or other communications.

To be honest, when I made this request in January 2019 I was expecting LAPD to refuse to produce the records on technical grounds,2 And on January 18, 2019 they did exactly that. They gave two separate and mutually contradictory reasons for refusing to produce.

First they told me that “[y[our request does not describe the records sought clearly enough to permit my staff to determine whether any responsive documents exist.” This claim is based on the CPRA at §6253(b), which requires of requests that they “reasonably [describe] an identifiable record or records”. LAPD’s second reason for refusing to produce was that it would be too much work:

A search of email communications and correspondence for “anyone who works in the Department” would be unduly burdensome for the Department as interpreted in the “public interest” provision of section 6255 of the Act, and would require a separate search of each individual email account of approximately 14,400 Department email accounts.

Continue reading The Story Of A Request For Emails From LAPD — And All The Ridiculous Reasons They Propounded For Not Producing — And How They Then Produced!

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O’Farrell Withdraws Support From Joe Bray-Ali Over Creepy Racist Internet Comments Just Like We Predicted Last Night That He Would!!


UPDATE: ON APRIL 27 AT 3:10 PM THE LOS ANGELES TIMES RESCINDED ITS ENDORSEMENT OF JOE BRAY-ALI.

Yesterday I reported on a story, broken by Laist.com, about CD1 candidate Joe Bray-Ali’s nasty comment history on racist Reddit clone Voat.Com. Of course, CD13 councilboy Mitch O’Farrell famously endorsed Joe Bray-Ali over O’Farrell’s incumbent Gil Cedillo. As of last night, according to the L.A. Times article on the matter, councilboy Mitch … well, let’s let the incomparable Dakota Smith tell it:

Councilman Mitch O’Farrell endorsed Bray-Ali earlier this month. A spokesman for O’Farrell said the councilman stands by his endorsement, noting that Bray-Ali has apologized for the online comments.

So, this morning at 10:47 a.m., just 22 minutes before I am writing these words, in another of the complete and utter about-faces for which he is known, Mitch O’Farrell sent out an email to his campaign mailing list withdrawing his support of Bray-Ali. This confirms a prediction the staff of this blog made yesterday.

And as much as it pains me to say so, this is the right thing for Mitch O’Farrell to have done. Furthermore, it sure is nice to see Mr. Mitch dancing to the tune we’re calling. And we didn’t even have to pay the damned piper….yet!

Turn the page for a complete transcription of Mitch’s dear Joe letter.
Continue reading O’Farrell Withdraws Support From Joe Bray-Ali Over Creepy Racist Internet Comments Just Like We Predicted Last Night That He Would!!

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Mitch O’Farrell’s Misbegotten Playground Motion Was About Selma Park After All, Making It Even More Likely That He Was Trying To Please Kerry Morrison, Perhaps Because of the $2,600 In Campaign Contributions Given To Him By Her And Mr. Kerry Morrison

The future of Selma Park as seen in the fevered delusions of Kerry Morrison and Mitch O’Farrell
When I reported a few days ago on the tsunami of bad press surrounding Mitch O’Farrell’s recent Council motion seeking a municipal law to ban adults from children’s playgrounds in parks it was not yet provable, no matter how probable it seemed, that the proposal was related to the ongoing battle for Selma Park. Well, yesterday the Times published an excellent if somewhat shallow article by reporter Dakota Smith which settled the matter once and for all: “[O’Farrell spokesman Tony] Arranaga said O’Farrell proposed the law after locals complained about drug dealing at Selma Park playground in Hollywood.”

It’s still not proven that Kerry Morrison had a hand in O’Farrell’s proposal, but at this point it’s clear that she must have done. First of all, as anyone who actually lives in the area knows, there are no drug dealers in the playground at Selma Park. There may be drug dealers in the adult part, I don’t know, although I haven’t seen any actual drug dealing in there. Thus when Tony Arranaga speaks of putative locals putatively complaining about putative drug dealing in Selma Park, Occam’s Razor leads me to assume he’s talking about Kerry Morrison, who is still fuming more than 15 months after my colleagues and I undid her illegal off-limitsing of the Park for adults unaccompanied by children.

Lunada Bay in Palos Verdes, former home of HPOA bullymeister Kerry Morrison and present home, much like Hollywood under the HPOA, of a particularly virulent form of the restriction of public space through bullying and government-sanctioned privately-applied violence.
And such a move would be more than consistent with what we know about Kerry Morrison’s history. My colleagues recently reported that she and her husband, Mr. Kerry Morrison, had intentionally moved to Los Angeles in order to impose their puritanical visions on our City. Further research has revealed from whence these Morrisons came to our fair City:

Kerry Morrison, executive director of Hollywood’s business improvement district … moved from the more elegant confines of Rancho Palos Verdes. She now lives with her husband and children in Hancock Park, a neighborhood that was chosen precisely because it sits in the middle of old Los Angeles.

Continue reading Mitch O’Farrell’s Misbegotten Playground Motion Was About Selma Park After All, Making It Even More Likely That He Was Trying To Please Kerry Morrison, Perhaps Because of the $2,600 In Campaign Contributions Given To Him By Her And Mr. Kerry Morrison

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