I know my readers eagerly await, nay, hunger, crave even, more news about Donald R. Duckworth,1 the Melrose BID‘s hatchet-faced goblin2 of an executive director. But you will recall that El Duckie essentially shut down my CPRA requests recently, to the point where I had to literally sue the literal freaking pants off the guy. And he knew he done wrong, so his BIDdie employers had to pay beaucoup de bucks for the error of his ways.
And because I am basically a naive optimistic believer in the good faith, honesty, and sense of fair play of my fellow human beings, I neglected to pin down this sclerotic old crow3 in the settlement with a CPRA response time-table. Which is why, even after his principals had to pay $13K to settle up his misdeeds, did he start right in again with his CPRA-flouting ways. Thus it was only yesterday, five months after I first made the request,4 that I finally received a significant stack of goodies from the Melrose BID.5 And thus the mockery of Donald R. Duckworth can finally recommence!
Now, back in January of last year, the Melrose BID was beginning its renewal process. And as part of the process, El Duckie was putting together a brochure to convince property owners to sign renewal petitions. And as part of the brochure assembly process Donald Duckworth solicited a letter of support from CD5 repster Paul Koretz and another letter from LAPD Wilshire Division CO Anthony Oddo. But he didn’t just solicit letters from these worthies, he actually wrote the letters for them.6
And, you know, I understand that this isn’t sketchy in and of itself, and it happens even in much more consequential circumstances. E.g. lawyers often submit proposed orders to judges, who have the option of signing them, editing them, or ignoring them. But cast your mind back to the golden days of last summer, when the Melrose BID was in open revolt against all manner of Duckwortharian shenanigans, like paying himself a damn fortune to do pretty much nothing, and spending $10K per month on the BID’s hilariously self-parodying blog, and so on.
And hostile anti-BID letters were flying this way, that way, and yonder way! Anat Escher wrote a letter! And Laura Aflalo wrote a letter! And Richard Jebejian wrote a letter! And this was all while the BIDdies were trying to collect enough petitions to move the renewal process to the next phase! And man, were they ever worried! About the petitions, that is, cause if these rebels had their way, the BID might not even be renewed!
So Duckworth wrote a response letter to the rebels! And then BID board president Deny Weintraub pretended that he wrote the letter that Duckworth wrote. Which is a not-unheard-of phenomenon amongst BID Board presidents! And in the letter that Duckworth wrote that Deny Weintraub pretended that he wrote, Duckworth cited the letter that Duckworth wrote that Paul Koretz pretended he wrote and also the letter that Duckworth wrote that Anthony Oddo pretended that he wrote. And he said to the rebels essentially that the cops loved the BID and Koretz loved the BID so who were they to not love the BID?!
But really he himself wrote all the love letters to the BID. So basically the whole thing was a really vigorous conversation between Donald Duckworth and his stable of sockpuppets! And at the end of it Melrose Avenue had their damn BID renewed for another ten years! Anyway, turn the page for some excerpts from this pernicious sockpuppetry and some metadata showing that El Duckie really did write everything!
Continue reading How BIDological Freakshow Specimen Donald R. Duckworth Wrote A Bunch Of Letters Of Support For The Melrose BID — And Then The Property Owners Revolted When It Was Time To Renew The BID — So El Duckworth Told Them That The Letters Were Written By Paul Koretz And LAPD Captain Anthony Oddo And BID President Deny Weintraub — And Tried To Make Them Feel As If Hating The BID Meant Hating The City — And Hating The Cops — Which Might Be Standard Practice But It Is Still Sketchy As Hell
