Tag Archives: DLANC

Los Angeles City Government

Raquel Beltran Of The Department Of Neighborhood Empowerment Told The Downtown Los Angeles Neighborhood Council That “We” Know Of “A Couple People” Who “Do [Public Records Requests] As A Racket — And Then They Collect The Fines” — Beltran Is A Liar — And She Lies Like A Child — With Nothing To Gain — No Chance Of Not Getting Caught — Stupid Pointless Lies — I Suppose She’s An Improvement Though — So Far She Seems Slightly Less Psychopathic Than Grayce Liu — But So Are 999,999,999 Out Of A Billion People — So We Could Probably Do Better — But I Doubt That We Will

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On January 12, 2021 Raquel Beltran, newish boss of the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment, paid a visit to a meeting of the Board of Directors of the Downtown Los Angeles Neighborhood Council. She spoke for a long, long time, about a wide range of topics, one of which was the California Public Records Act. Beltran doesn’t like this law at all, by the way. It’s overwhelming to her.1

Her rambling slo-mo rant starts here, but I’m much more interested in this little bit over here. Some random DLANC director asks Beltran why DONE can’t do CPRAs for NCs because they’re overwhelmed and ignorant.2 Beltran goes on and on about how she wanted to do this but there’s just no money for it.3 Then we get to the key bit. The director has a followup question!

…in many cases the requester knows more about the process than the neighborhood council does and this could, this could really ensue [sic] a liability issue.

And oh, boy, does Beltran ever bite at this morsel! She’s off and running, folks!
Continue reading Raquel Beltran Of The Department Of Neighborhood Empowerment Told The Downtown Los Angeles Neighborhood Council That “We” Know Of “A Couple People” Who “Do [Public Records Requests] As A Racket — And Then They Collect The Fines” — Beltran Is A Liar — And She Lies Like A Child — With Nothing To Gain — No Chance Of Not Getting Caught — Stupid Pointless Lies — I Suppose She’s An Improvement Though — So Far She Seems Slightly Less Psychopathic Than Grayce Liu — But So Are 999,999,999 Out Of A Billion People — So We Could Probably Do Better — But I Doubt That We Will →

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Los Angeles City Government

Today I Was Forced By The Weirdly Parochial Outlaw Intransigence Of DLANC President For Life Patricia X. Berman To File A Grievance With The Department Of Neighborhood Empowerment — Not Against Berman Even Though She And Only She Is The Violator — Because DONE Doesn’t Accept Grievances Against Individuals — Only Against Entire Neighborhood Councils — Because I Asked DLANC Secretary Claudia Oliveira To Put Me On An Agenda To Talk About Berman’s Absolutely Shameless Flouting Of The Public Records Act — And The Bylaws Require Such Requests From Stakeholders To Be Honored — But Berman Refused — And Said I Would Have To Submit My Proposed Statement For Vetting — She Said She Would “Send It To Legal” — Which Suggests That She’s Either Lost Her Mind — Or Watched Too Damn Many Movies And Forgot That Not All Of Them Were Documentaries — Or Both Of Course — Which Seems More Likely

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This story is in some sense about the absolutely intransigent refusal of Patti Berman, president for life of the Downtown Los Angeles Neighborhood Council,4 to comply with the California Public Records Act. I’ll spare you the details of her violations for now,5 but they’re weird, unnecessary, and secretive. And she leads other board members into violating the law by rephrasing requests so that they can’t actually comply. It’s really bad, and DLANC records are really important,6 not least because they violate the Brown Act all the damn time, often7 via email.

But DLANC matters to me, and it has since they went to such horrific lengths to scuttle the Skid Row Neighborhood Council formation effort. So it occurred to me that, rather than moving straight to yet another lawsuit against the City of Los Angeles, I might give a presentation to the DLANC Board on Berman’s violations, on how she induced violations from other members, and some suggestions on how to comply with the law while also significantly reducing the work and time involved in responding to requests.8 Continue reading Today I Was Forced By The Weirdly Parochial Outlaw Intransigence Of DLANC President For Life Patricia X. Berman To File A Grievance With The Department Of Neighborhood Empowerment — Not Against Berman Even Though She And Only She Is The Violator — Because DONE Doesn’t Accept Grievances Against Individuals — Only Against Entire Neighborhood Councils — Because I Asked DLANC Secretary Claudia Oliveira To Put Me On An Agenda To Talk About Berman’s Absolutely Shameless Flouting Of The Public Records Act — And The Bylaws Require Such Requests From Stakeholders To Be Honored — But Berman Refused — And Said I Would Have To Submit My Proposed Statement For Vetting — She Said She Would “Send It To Legal” — Which Suggests That She’s Either Lost Her Mind — Or Watched Too Damn Many Movies And Forgot That Not All Of Them Were Documentaries — Or Both Of Course — Which Seems More Likely →

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Fashion District BID, Lawsuits, Public Records Act Pragmatics

Fashion District BID Sued In Order To Enforce Compliance With The Public Records Act — Noted CPRA Attorney Karl Olsen Co-Counsels With Abenicio Cisneros To See That Justice Is Done In This Egregious Attempt To Withhold Information About, Among Other Crucial Matters, The BID’s Role In Torpedoing The Skid Row Neighborhood Council — Novel Legal Issues Raised Regarding The Effect Of The Municipal Lobbying Ordinance On CPRA Exemptions In Los Angeles

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On August 15, 2018, faced with Rena Leddy’s unhinged intransigence and chronic disregard of the law, I was forced to file a petition asking a judge to require the Fashion District BID to comply with the California Public Records Act. Most of the petitions I’ve filed recently have had only to do with BIDs ignoring my requests altogether9 but this one raises interesting and possibly novel issues of how exemptions to the CPRA are to be interpreted in general and in Los Angeles in particular. I’m represented by Abenicio Cisneros and Karl Olson.10

There are four classes of records at issue in this petition. Those are:11

  • Emails between the FDBID and either the South Park BID or DLANC
  • Emails in the possession of BID Board president Mark Chatoff
  • Emails between the BID and Urban Place Consulting
  • Emails in the possession of BID renewal committee chair Linda Becker

Rena Leddy claimed either that such records didn’t exist or that, if they did, the BID could withhold them on the basis of the so-called deliberative process exemption.12 In each of the four cases either there’s independent evidence that responsive records exist or else it defies belief that no records exist. For instance it is not plausible at all that Linda Becker, chair of the BID’s renewal committee, does not possess a single email relevant to the conduct of the BID’s business.13

Thus the petition focuses on debunking the exemption claims as it’s going to be hard for the BID to argue that no records exist. Turn the page for some details and some transcribed excerpts!
Continue reading Fashion District BID Sued In Order To Enforce Compliance With The Public Records Act — Noted CPRA Attorney Karl Olsen Co-Counsels With Abenicio Cisneros To See That Justice Is Done In This Egregious Attempt To Withhold Information About, Among Other Crucial Matters, The BID’s Role In Torpedoing The Skid Row Neighborhood Council — Novel Legal Issues Raised Regarding The Effect Of The Municipal Lobbying Ordinance On CPRA Exemptions In Los Angeles →

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Skid Row Neighborhood Council

On April 3, 2017, Batty Little Fusspot Blair Besten Tried To Use Her Business Card As ID To Register To Vote Online Against The Skid Row Neighborhood Council — When This Was Unsurprisingly Rejected By DONE Patti Berman And Bob Newman Pleaded For An Exception — And Grayce Liu Granted One In The Form Of Extra Time To Upload Acceptable Documents — Which She Did With 16 Minutes To Spare — Were Pro Skid Row Voters Given The Same Opportunity?

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Background: You can read my previous stories on the Skid Row Neighborhood Council formation effort and also see Jason McGahan’s article in the Weekly and Gale Holland’s article in the Times for more mainstream perspectives.

Here’s the whole story in a nutshell, taken from this fabulous little gem of an email exchange (of course there’s a transcription after the break!) On April 3, 2017 Blair Besten, batty little fusspot director of the Historic Core Business Improvement District, third weirdest of the minor Downtown BIDs, tried to register online to vote against the Skid Row Neighborhood Council in solidarity with her fellow zillionaires and their minions. As I’m sure you’re aware, registering to vote online at that time required one to upload a photo of an ID. Blair Besten uploaded a picture of her business card instead.

Not acceptable, said the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment! So then DLANC president-for-life Patti Berman14 and weirdo-about-town, male-for-rent, and some kinda damn social worker Bob Freaking Newman15 emailed everybody saying please guys! Let Blair Besten register please!! And not only that, but Patti Berman used her dlanc.com email address during the conversation even though DLANC was required by City law to be neutral. Helping Blair Besten register is not neutral.

And then Grayce Liu, the famous führerin of DONE, said OK! Even though people who think their business card counts as ID usually have to show up in person to vote we will make an exception for Blair Besten! If she uploads her real ID in the next 51 minutes we will allow her to vote online!! And she did!! So she got to vote!! Mission accomplished and those are some helpful-ass City Officials, amirite?!
Continue reading On April 3, 2017, Batty Little Fusspot Blair Besten Tried To Use Her Business Card As ID To Register To Vote Online Against The Skid Row Neighborhood Council — When This Was Unsurprisingly Rejected By DONE Patti Berman And Bob Newman Pleaded For An Exception — And Grayce Liu Granted One In The Form Of Extra Time To Upload Acceptable Documents — Which She Did With 16 Minutes To Spare — Were Pro Skid Row Voters Given The Same Opportunity? →

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Los Angeles City Government

“Hello ■■■■■■■■■ and ■■■■■■■■■. My name is Josh Albrektson and I live in Downtown. I thought you guy smight [sic] be interested in what your colleage [sic], ■■■■■■■■■ does in his spare time.”

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Recently I reported on the fact that idiosyncratically facial-haired DLANC douchebag-at-large, Joshua Albrektson, had threatened to expose my deepest darkest secrets to the world if I didn’t stop requesting documents via the California Public Records Act and writing about them on this blog. Well, the other day I obtained a few of the emails he sent in furtherance of this criminal conspiracy to repress me, and I thought I’d publish them here. For once I don’t have any snark to intersperse. The guy’s work is self-mocking. So turn the page for links and transcripts!
Continue reading “Hello ■■■■■■■■■ and ■■■■■■■■■. My name is Josh Albrektson and I live in Downtown. I thought you guy smight [sic] be interested in what your colleage [sic], ■■■■■■■■■ does in his spare time.” →

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Los Angeles City Government

How I Reported DLANC’s Douchebaggiest Development Diva, Lover-Of-Non-White-Women, And DTLA Dustbowl Refugee Josh Albrektson To The Los Angeles County District Attorney For Violating The Brown Act With Evidence Provided By His Own Confession Against Interest Published, For Peak Derp, On Freaking Facebook

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Anyone who follows this blog regularly knows that we’re raking in big bucks from George Soros and similar sources to support our merciless over-coal raking and to-the-duly-constituted-authorities reporting of the propertied classes of Los Angeles and their eager brown-tongued lap-minions like, e.g., the six members of the Board of Directors of the Downtown Los Angeles Neighborhood Council who participated in a sub rosa, barely legal conspiracy to do in the recent Skid Row Neighborhood Council formation effort.

One of the many targets at which we direct this firehose of Sorosbux is the Facebook, where Internet amateurs and malcontents will gather to vent their collective spleens in the comfy company of their moronic six-fingered peers. In particular, we have a dedicated, Soros-funded, intern16 doing absolutely nothing all day but sifting through opposition Facebookery. And mostly it’s predictably dumb and sadly inconsequential, this material. The political equivalent, if you will, of kitten memes. Occasionally, however, a gem pops up in the feed, and when it does, well, we will write about it!

So you can well imagine our glee over here at MK.Org secret headquarters when this little slab of puckey was brought to our attention.17 The author is DLANC board member and erstwhile DTLA resident18 Joshua Albrektson, writing about his actions after receiving the grievance against DLANC board member Dan Curnow that I filed a few weeks ago:

This is his latest article. He sent a grievance to DLANC that was literally about 40 pages about Dan Curnow being on a e-mail chain of people opposing the Skid Row NC. In order to file a grievance, you have to be a stakeholder of the place. He attached a page stating he is a stakeholder because he investigates the BIDS. I told everybody that he lives in Hollywood and works in Whittier and doesn’t own property here. I don’t think anybody even read his grievance.

So what would you do if you read something like this? Well, what I did is to turn the guy in to the Public Integrity Division of the Los Angeles County District Attorney for violating the Brown Act. Turn the page for details!
Continue reading How I Reported DLANC’s Douchebaggiest Development Diva, Lover-Of-Non-White-Women, And DTLA Dustbowl Refugee Josh Albrektson To The Los Angeles County District Attorney For Violating The Brown Act With Evidence Provided By His Own Confession Against Interest Published, For Peak Derp, On Freaking Facebook →

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Los Angeles City Government, Skid Row Neighborhood Council

Yesterday’s Grievance Against Dandy Dan Curnow Invalidated By Some Random Ordinance Passed In 2015 Which, Although Unincorporated In DLANC Bylaws, Nevertheless Seems To Override Them, Proving Yet Again That The Sheer Overwhelming Incompetence And Habitual, Almost Mannered, Inaction Of DLANC President For Life Patricia X. Berman In The Face Of Any Matter That’s Not A Real Estate Development Approval Is More Than Mere Fecklessness, It’s Actually Some Kind Of Highly Evolved Defensive Tactic

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Well, good lord friends! It seems like just yesterday that I filed a grievance against Dandy Dan Curnow, DLANC secretary and law-flouting bow-tie wearing flower-arranging dude about Skid Row for his egregious violations of the Brown Act in concert with piratical POS Jacob Douglas Van Horn. And, mostly, that’s because it was just yesterday.

So imagine my shocked surprise to receive, this very afternoon, less than 24 hours after I filed the durned thing, an email from DLANC President for Life Patti Berman informing me that, despite the fact that I had followed the procedures given in DLANC’s infernal bylaws to the very letter, nevertheless that procedure was in fact invalidated by some random law I’d never heard of and which has remained unincorporated in the Bylaws since it was passed by the City Council in May 2015. Unfortunately it turns out that she didn’t just make the whole thing up, and you can turn the page for a few details. Fortunately for the sane and the righteous, though, this complaint to the DA against Dandy Dan is still active.
Continue reading Yesterday’s Grievance Against Dandy Dan Curnow Invalidated By Some Random Ordinance Passed In 2015 Which, Although Unincorporated In DLANC Bylaws, Nevertheless Seems To Override Them, Proving Yet Again That The Sheer Overwhelming Incompetence And Habitual, Almost Mannered, Inaction Of DLANC President For Life Patricia X. Berman In The Face Of Any Matter That’s Not A Real Estate Development Approval Is More Than Mere Fecklessness, It’s Actually Some Kind Of Highly Evolved Defensive Tactic →

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Los Angeles City Government, Skid Row Neighborhood Council

How I Reported DLANC Board Member Dan Curnow To The LA County DA For Violating The Brown Act And Also Filed A Grievance Against Him For Violating DLANC Bylaws

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Background: You can read my previous stories on the Skid Row Neighborhood Council formation effort and also see Jason McGahan’s article in the Weekly and Gale Holland’s article in the Times for more mainstream perspectives.

I reported a few weeks ago on how Downtown Los Angeles Neighborhood Council Board member Dan Curnow violated the Brown Act in April 2017 along with his late, unlamented colleague, moral dumpster fire, and wannabe vigilante, Jacob Douglas Van Horn. Jacob Douglas VH, of course, famously resigned from DLANC under a cloud some time ago and, by doing so, perhaps placed himself beyond the suffering of consequences for his evil ways.19 Dan Curnow, as far as anyone around here knows, though, has not (yet) resigned from DLANC and so is eligible to be complained about in every possible venue.

First of all, then, I sent this complaint about him to the Public Integrity Division of the Los Angeles County District Attorney, which is charged with enforcing Brown Act compliance in L.A. There’s not a whole lot of information in there which wasn’t in my original story, but maybe you’ll find it worth reading. The bigger news, though, is that I also filed a grievance with DLANC against Dan Curnow for violating the Brown Act. This is a new direction for me, and there’s a detailed discussion of the issues after the break.
Continue reading How I Reported DLANC Board Member Dan Curnow To The LA County DA For Violating The Brown Act And Also Filed A Grievance Against Him For Violating DLANC Bylaws →

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Announcements, Hollywood Property Owners Alliance

MK.Org Power Activate!! Our Alexa Rank Is Zooming Like A Rocket Across The Lovely Skies Of Los Angeles Leaving Those Adversarious Evil Twinsies From HPOA And DLANC In The Darned Old Dust!

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Good evening, Los Angeles!! When last I wrote to you about all things Alexaic, the evil twins at the Hollywood Property Owners Conspiracy were Alexically more than 400,000 behind your heroes here at the MK.Org secret headquarters. Well, I have come out of my closet this evening to announce unto you that as of right now we are pretty much seven eighths of a million higher than those snively lil losers! That is right, check it!

Continue reading MK.Org Power Activate!! Our Alexa Rank Is Zooming Like A Rocket Across The Lovely Skies Of Los Angeles Leaving Those Adversarious Evil Twinsies From HPOA And DLANC In The Darned Old Dust! →

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Hypocrisy, Municipal Ethics, Skid Row Neighborhood Council

United DTLA Conspiracy: How DLANC Board Members Dan Curnow And Jacob Douglas Van Horn Violated The Brown Act In March 2017

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Background: You can read my previous stories on the Skid Row Neighborhood Council formation effort and also see Jason McGahan’s article in the Weekly and Gale Holland’s article in the Times for more mainstream perspectives.

A few days ago I published a story on how the massive release of emails from the Downtown Center BID revealed massive, egregious Brown Act violations by the Central City East Association Board of Directors. The issue is that the Brown Act explicitly20 forbids a majority of a Board from using “…a series of communications of any kind, directly or through intermediaries, to discuss, deliberate, or take action on any item of business that is within the subject matter jurisdiction of the legislative body.”

There were also six members of the DLANC Board in on the conspiracy:

According to an extremely useful guide prepared by then-City-Attorney Rockard Delgadillo, in the context of the Brown Act a majority means a majority of a quorum. That is, the minimum number of members that can actually act on a motion. The DLANC has a 24 member board, and a quorum is 13. Hence these six members using email “…to discuss, deliberate, or take action on any item of business that is within the subject matter jurisdiction of…” DLANC is not a violation; a violation would require seven members to have been in on the discussion.

However, the Brown Act also applies to standing committees of bodies which are subject to its requirements. In particular, consider DLANC’s Livability Committee. That this is a standing committee is stated explicitly in DLANC’s bylaws21 Also, in March 2017 the members of the Livability Committee were none other than Dan Curnow, Jacob Douglas Van Horn, and Jacki Breger. For instance, take a look at the minutes from March 16, 2017.
Continue reading United DTLA Conspiracy: How DLANC Board Members Dan Curnow And Jacob Douglas Van Horn Violated The Brown Act In March 2017 →

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