Tag Archives: Downtown Berkeley Association

Shadowy BID Consultant Tara Devine Slithers Out From Her Habitual Under-The-Rock Lair And Spews Toxic Lies About Venice Beach BID Before Los Angeles City Council

Shadowy BID Consultant Tara Devine seeping toxic waste from every pore at the August 23, 2016 meeting of the Los Angeles City Council.
Shadowy BID Consultant Tara Devine seeping toxic waste from every pore at the August 23, 2016 meeting of the Los Angeles City Council.
Shadowy BID consultant Tara Devine, of shadowy BID consultantcy Devine Associates, slithered up out of the depths in which she habitually dwells to make a rare public appearance before the Los Angeles City Council on August 23, 2016, pleading for the Councilmembers to give life to the stitched-up-out-of-corpse-parts monster known as the Venice Beach BID which she’s been nurturing in her subterranean lair for many months now.

Even though the victory of her cause was a foregone conclusion, the dramaturgical conventions of the ritual ceremony that’s habitually performed in the John Ferraro Council Chambers in place of genuine democratic debate require that she pretend to be making reasoned arguments. She could as easily have recited the alphabet, assuming she is able to recite the alphabet, without affecting the success of her cause, but instead she chose to make checkable statements, all of which, as it happens, were lies. You can watch her whole little song-and-dance here and, as always, there’s a complete transcription after the break.
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Berkeley Police Department Fulfills Experimental CPRA Request in 59 Days

Anymore, the astonishing beauty of the city of Berkeley is only skin deep.
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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The BID Itself Incites to Violence: the Mendacity of John Tronson, John Caner, and Everyone Else Who Runs a BID

Berkeley BID Patrol officer giving a performative demonstration of Homer’s maxim that “the blade itself incites to violence.”
The Downtown Berkeley Association is the shell corporation that runs the Downtown Berkeley BID, founded in 2011. By now you’ve probably seen the video, filmed by a brave citizen journalist, of a Berkeley BID Patrol officer1 punching a homeless man over and over and over again because he felt “disrespected” by him. The story made the international press.

Now, Berkeley is far, far off our beat, and, deep down, despite the divers desperate, damp dreams of our local Hollywood BIDs about the gentility and grace of our silicon-addled red-headed stepchildren to the north, we generally find ourselves unable to give even the teensiest shit about what shenanigans they get up to north of Pacoima. However, this case requires comment, shedding some light as it does on the ultimate source of the lies with which we who cover the BIDs are habitually showered.

Berkeleyside has a good summary of the background. Two Berkeley BID Patrollies confronted two homeless men and then, after some shouting, one of the BID Patrollies lost his shit and punched one of the homeless men repeatedly. The whole thing was caught on video, although the truth didn’t come out until the homeless men had been arrested, charged with assault and, that fall-back catch-all bullshit charge, criminal threats, and pled out, even though they were transparently, evidently, innocent. This kind of thing happens every day. What’s more interesting is the Berkeley BID’s spin on this hateful miscarriage of justice.
Continue reading The BID Itself Incites to Violence: the Mendacity of John Tronson, John Caner, and Everyone Else Who Runs a BID

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