Tag Archives: Documents

Announcements, Downtown Center BID, Hollywood BID Patrol

Downtown Center BID PR Materials from Macy + Associates, Hollywood BID Patrol 2007 Arrest Reports and Daily Logs

March 4, 2016 Mike Leave a comment

Well, getting records out of the Downtown Center BID is like pulling teeth from a fricking hippopotamus,¹ but after almost four months and one exceedingly detailed complaint to the Los Angeles City Clerk about their general bloody-minded uncooperative stonewalling, they have released a bunch of records relating to their public relations firm, Macy + Associates.² You can find this material here on the Archive. Note that they’re, as usual, mercilessly and certainly illegally redacted. I’m working on this, but I don’t expect any results quickly.

Also, the big prize, obtained yesterday, is 2007 arrest reports and daily activity logs from the Andrews International BID Patrol. These are also on the Archive:

There are almost certainly significantly many arrest reports missing, and some details on this may be found after the break if you’re interested.
Continue reading Downtown Center BID PR Materials from Macy + Associates, Hollywood BID Patrol 2007 Arrest Reports and Daily Logs →

Announcements, Downtown Center BID, Fashion District BID, Hollywood Property Owners Alliance

New Documents: 2015 Emails to the Mayor’s Office from Kerry Morrison, Carol Schatz; All 2015 Fashion District Safe Team Daily Activity Logs

February 25, 2016 Mike Leave a comment

Carol Schatz in January 2008 at Bringing Back Broadway.

I have a number of interesting documents to announce this morning. There are emails to and from Eric Garcetti’s office in 2015:

Finally, there are the 2015 daily activity logs for the Fashion District Safe Team. These are interesting for a number of reasons, not least of which is that they barely seem to arrest anyone, in stark contrast to the outrageously high number of custodial arrests made by the Andrews International BID Patrol in Hollywood.
Continue reading New Documents: 2015 Emails to the Mayor’s Office from Kerry Morrison, Carol Schatz; All 2015 Fashion District Safe Team Daily Activity Logs →

Lawsuits

Documents Filed Mere Moments Ago in LACW/LACAN v. CCEA/City of LA Case Quite Plausibly Accuse City of Los Angeles of Inaccurate Representations Regarding LAPD Discovery Capabilities

February 23, 2016 Mike Leave a comment

Last week attorneys for Los Angeles Catholic Worker and LA Community Action Network filed an application requesting that the City be held in contempt for its misfeasance in what has turned out to be painful, drawn-out discovery process. This morning, mere minutes ago, plaintiffs’ attorney Shayla Myers filed a supplemental declaration in support (along with an exhibit) in which she states:

I am producing this supplemental declaration to update the Court about facts which Plaintiffs have discovered since the ex parte motion to hold the City in contempt was filed. In particular, Plaintiffs have discovered that certain representations by the City of Los Angeles appear to be inaccurate. While the City of Los Angeles has maintained since July 2015 that it cannot do a global search of emails in the possession of the LAPD, Plaintiffs discovered at a deposition of the Person Most Knowledgeable on behalf of the City on February 22, 2016 that the LAPD employs e-discovery software that allows the LAPD to search all emails sent and received by LAPD officers since March 2013, that the software is designed to facilitate global keyword searches, and that when the LAPD has done such a search in the past, it was completed within a week.

Continue reading Documents Filed Mere Moments Ago in LACW/LACAN v. CCEA/City of LA Case Quite Plausibly Accuse City of Los Angeles of Inaccurate Representations Regarding LAPD Discovery Capabilities →

Public Records Act Pragmatics

Berkeley Police Department Fulfills Experimental CPRA Request in 59 Days

February 23, 2016 Mike Leave a comment

Anymore, the astonishing beauty of the city of Berkeley is only skin deep.

Long-time readers of this blog will recall that, due to the stunning reluctance of the LAPD to comply with the simple mandates of the California Public Records Act, I’m running an experiment in which I requested 100 emails to and from BIDs from each of three California police departments. The SFPD was the clear winner here, supplying me with the goods in a mere 23 days. Late last week the city of Berkeley weighed in with two sets of emails (one and two). Most of the content isn’t especially interesting if you don’t know the dramatis personae; it’s the same old song about the homeless, about behaviors, about activities, about protecting investments, and so on and on and on. I did spot one interesting episode, which I discuss after the break. Also, I will note that the Long Beach PD still has not fulfilled my request (although they are discussing it with me), and of course the LAPD ignores everyone and they’re still being sued because of that. Is it a coincidence that the two cities that follow the law have municipal sunshine ordinances while the two that do not lack such laws? I doubt it very much.
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Announcements, Central City East Association, Hollywood Property Owners Alliance

CCEA Job Descriptions, Emails, Images and Emails from Richard Bloom’s September 2015 Visit to the Hollywood Entertainment District

February 16, 2016 Mike Leave a comment

Richard Bloom gets the old song-and-dance about the homeless while Steve Seyler looms in the background.

Tonight I’m just announcing some miscellaneous documents from the Central City East Association and some more detailed information about Assemblyman Richard Bloom’s September 2015 visit to the Hollywood Entertainment District (which my colleagues have previously discussed). On the CCEA side, I have some some emails to and from Fred Faustino, CCEA deputy director of operations. Also I have job descriptions for CCEA Director of Operations and for CCEA Executive Director. This last one is going to come in extremely handy in a major project I’m working on, which I hope to be able to tell you about within the next few months. Turn the page for the HPOA news!
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Hollywood Property Owners Alliance

Greater West Hollywood Food Coalition Planning Move to Hollywood and Gower; HPOA Security on Alert

February 11, 2016 Mike Leave a comment

The Greater West Hollywood Food Coalition Kitchen at 1106 N. Cahuenga Boulevard.

Yesterday, while perusing the agenda of the January HPOA meeting, which I wasn’t able to attend, I noticed the interesting statement that the “Greater West Hollywood Food Coalition [is] seeking new location within Hollywood Entertainment District BID.” This was in the Security Subcommittee report, because the GWHFC in the eyes of the HPOA comprises (to paraphrase Ted Landreth) “enemies of the people.” Well, I hadn’t heard about this, and made a note to look into it. And, as it happens, I was over at the CD4 Hollywood Field Office this morning scanning some emails for a whole different project³ when I came across this email chain between Ted Landreth of the GWHFC, Sarah Dusseault (CM Ryu’s Chief of Staff), Nikki Ezhari (CD4 Hollywood Field Deputy), and others, announcing the Food Coalition’s planned move to a location near Hollywood and Gower! They’re raising funds to buy property (give generously here) and are more than 25% of the way to their goal. Details on their plans for the property and some other comments after the break.
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Hollywood BID Patrol, Hypocrisy

The BID Patrol Walked Through Hollywood Farmers Market 50 Times in 2013 and Neither Warned Nor Arrested Non-Homeless Cosmo Street Sidewalk Sitters

January 28, 2016 kohlhaas Leave a comment

BID Patrol Officer Courtney Kanagi (badge #130) in 2011.

A search of the newly released 2013 daily activity logs of the BID Patrol reveals 50 mentions of the Hollywood Farmers’ Market. You can read all of these with links to the logs at the bottom of this post. Now, we have written before about how the BID Patrol only arrests and warns homeless people for violating the abhorrent LAMC 41.18(d). Finally we have conclusive proof that this is true on a massive, previously unsuspected scale, and it comes from the BID Patrol’s own logs.
Here is just one example out of many, many, many. On March 11, 2013 at 11:50 AM, BID Patrol Officers Courtney Kanagi (badge #130) and G. Merkens (badge #112) recorded the following activity:

1150 BACK-UP FB3: FARMER’S MARKET (IVAR/SELMA); INFORMATION BOOTH CALLED RE: A MALE TRANSIENT AGGRESSIVELY PANHANDLING; OFFICERS MET UP WITH THE SECURITY AND FB3; OFFICERS ADVISED MALE OF HIS VIOLATION; COMPLIED BY LEAVING THE AREA WITH NO FURTHER INCIDENT.

Mass violations by non-homeless people of LAMC 41.18(d) on Cosmo Street on October 12, 2014 go unaddressed by the BID Patrol. — Mass violations by non-homeless people of LAMC 41.18(d) on Cosmo Street on October 12, 2014 (and every other Sunday) go unaddressed by the BID Patrol.

In other words, Kanagi and Merkens were in the Farmers’ Market at 11:50 AM and did not arrest, warn, or even mention the gangs of people who appear every single Sunday and sit on the sidewalk on Cosmo Street north of Selma to eat. But during this same watch they warned 37 (thirty-fricking-seven!) “TRANSIENTS” (their word) outside of the Market for violating LAMC 41.18(d). Three of these warnings took place a mere 15 minutes after Kanagi and Merkens logged their presence in the Market:

1205 CONTACT (3): HOLLYWOOD/CAHUENGA; OFFICERS OBSERVED 3 TRANSIENTS SITTING; ADVISED OF THEIR LAMC VIOLATION; COMPLIED BY STANDING UP AND LEAVING THE AREA WITH NO FURTHER INCIDENT.

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Announcements

Andrews International BID Patrol All 2013 Arrest Reports and Daily Activity Logs Now Available

January 27, 2016 Mike Leave a comment

Screenshot of a random daily activity log from 2013. Click to enlarge.

I am pleased to present a stunning dump comprising all BID Patrol arrest reports and all daily activity logs.⁴ Kerry Morrison was conscientious enough to supply these in their original .doc format, allowing for effective and reliable batch searching. We’ll be writing on the results⁵ later tonight, but for now I just wanted to get links to these up here. Note that the files are as I received them, except that I had to change the file names a little bit to (a) get them to sort properly and (b) to be acceptable to the Archive, which has strict rules on filenames.
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Selma Park

A 2013 Arrest for Violating PC 653b at Selma Park Further Confirms Ongoing Pattern of Civil Rights Violations by Andrews International BID Patrol

January 27, 2016 kohlhaas Leave a comment

BID Patrol Officer Islas in 2014. — BID Patrol Officer George Islas (badge number 128) in 2014.

Long-time readers of this blog will recall that in 2007 the HPOA, by hook and by crook, put up signs in Selma Park in Hollywood (illegally) declaring it off-limits to adults unaccompanied by children. Subsequently, the Andrews International BID Patrol spent the next eight years falsely arresting people and shooing them out of the park on the basis of these unauthorized signs, until we got them taken down by the City in September 2015. Subsequently, Kerry Morrison told a friend of this blog that “A/I says that after looking into this, it is unlikely that any arrests ever were made by A/I in Selma Park with specific regard to the signs and penal code section you recite (as opposed to public urination, drinking, and other reasons)…” Today, in the form of an actual A/I arrest report from July 2013, we have more evidence that, even though Kerry is almost certainly telling the truth about what she was told by A/I, what she was told by A/I is not the truth.
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Hypocrisy, Municipal Ethics, Street Vending

Law-and-Order-Touting Anti-Street-Vending Central City Association Flack Marie Rumsey is a Hypocritical Defier of the Revolving Door Ordinance of the City of Los Angeles

January 21, 2016 kohlhaas Leave a comment

Marie Rumsey in happier days back at CD13.

When last we wrote of Marie Rumsey, late of CD13 but now moved on to greener pastures with the revoltingly Schatzian nightmare horror-show the Central City Association, she was introducing thuggish opposite-of-Alinsky Jessica Borek of the not-so-very-law-abiding-their-own-selves Rodriguez Strategies to the Board of Directors of the racketeer influenced criminal conspiracy known as the Hollywood Property Owners Alliance.

Since that time we’ve learned a little bit about the government ethics laws of the City of Los Angeles, such as they are, and, amazingly, it turns out that Marie Rumsey is, was, and, for all we know, shall be violating them big-time. This, you will remember, is the woman who, in March 2015, went on and on and on and on about how there would be no way to enforce health codes and laws if street vending were to be legalized and how desperately bad that would be for everyone. Well, let us now enlighten you about the law Marie Rumsey was breaking even as she spoke those fateful words.
Continue reading Law-and-Order-Touting Anti-Street-Vending Central City Association Flack Marie Rumsey is a Hypocritical Defier of the Revolving Door Ordinance of the City of Los Angeles →