Tag Archives: Ellen Salome Riotto

South Park BID Homeless Underpass Surveillance Photos Revealed! — Illegally Funded By BID Money! — Now Available For Download And Analysis! — The Evidence Is Beginning To Mount Up! — Soon We’re Gonna Turn These People In To The Authorities! — But The Smart Money Says Nothing Will Happen! — Cause Literally No One In City Government Cares If BIDs Break The Law! — Also Not Much Chance Of Another FBI Raid! — More’s The Damn Pity!

November 21, 2018 Mike Leave a comment

So remember a couple weeks ago I went to yet another damn meeting of the damn board of damn directors of the damn South Park BID and they were all yukking it up over what they apparently see as their exceedingly clever habit of referring to various homeless encampments as different cities in India cause that’s evidently the kind of thing that passes for wit amongst the white zillionaire elite of Los Angeles?

And then Parkie board members self-proclaimed schmuck Paul Keller and Bob “Mr. Clean on Halloween” Buente were all like why don’t we just send our cleaning crew over to “Bombay” and “Calcutta” and clean up the damn streets? Like what would actually happen to us? Would we go to jail with the homelesses?! And Ellen Salome Riotto, zeck dreck of the Parkies, said no, friends, we would get sued cause it’s illegal but never fear we are taking pictures and uploading them to the Dropbox and almost certainly that’s going to fix everything.

Well, whatever, amirite? Cause who has time to waste on interpreting the delusional legally-themed meanderings of a bunch of zillionaires? But when I hear about BIDs putting stuff on Dropbox I know it’s time to fire off yet another request for public records, and that’s just what I did! And, because whatever their flaws, faults, failings, and foibles, the South Park BID under Ellen Salome Riotto is exceedingly ultra-compliant with the CPRA,¹ just a few days later I got a link to the very Dropbox itself.

Here’s the link if you want to poke around for yourself, and in case it goes away at some point I downloaded everything, lightly renamed the files for easy sortability, and popped them onto Archive.Org for your viewing and analytical pleasure. And the pictures reveal a probably predictable truth, which is that despite all her showy public caution about not sending BID cleaning crews outside of the district, Ellen Salome Riotto and/or her photo-snapping minions broke the same law they would have broken had they just gone ahead and cleaned up the trash. Turn the page for a disgustingly detailed analysis, why dontcha?
Continue reading South Park BID Homeless Underpass Surveillance Photos Revealed! — Illegally Funded By BID Money! — Now Available For Download And Analysis! — The Evidence Is Beginning To Mount Up! — Soon We’re Gonna Turn These People In To The Authorities! — But The Smart Money Says Nothing Will Happen! — Cause Literally No One In City Government Cares If BIDs Break The Law! — Also Not Much Chance Of Another FBI Raid! — More’s The Damn Pity! →

Business Improvement Districts

South Park BID Zeck Dreck Warns Her BIDdie Board Members That All Their Emails Are Gonna End Up On This Blog — Nothing To Be Alarmed About Says Ellen Salome Riotto — Just Be Thoughtful About What You Put In Writing — Wait. What? — Why Should They Be Thoughtful If They’re Not A Buncha Damn Criminals? — Oh Yeah — They Are A Buncha Damn Criminals

November 15, 2018 Mike Leave a comment

As you know, I’ve been getting massive luscious piles of emails from the South Park BID lately because Zeck Dreck Ellen Salome Riotto, unlike her bloodstained cynical antisocial prostrating-herself-before-the-stinking-hooves-of-satan predecessor, places some importance on actually following the law.¹ And a lot of the stuff I’m getting is really serious. Implicates matters of the deepest public interest and so on.²

But it’s not all serious, friends. You know what all work and no play does to Jack, right? Just think what it’s gonna do to us. A fate worse than a fate worse than death! And so follow me as we indulge ourselves in a little pure entertainment!³ Tonight’s post is the merest of mere trifles, a bagatelle, a cipher, a nothing, a frothy confection of emptiness, and so on. But it’s funny, so here we are. And it’s one of those funny things that really doesn’t need any explanation. Explanation would just kill the delicate flavor. It’d be gilding the lily, throwing perfume on the violet, adding another hue unto the rainbow, and so freaking on.

Thus, friends, just read this email, wherein Ellen Salome Riotto tells her board that all their emails are going to end up on the open internet courtesy of yours truly but that there’s nothing to worry about as long as they are thoughtful about what they write. Or, she failed to say, as long as they just stop engaging in activities that force them to be thoughtful about what they write for fear of it ending up on this blog. And there’s a transcription of the whole damn thing right after the break!
Continue reading South Park BID Zeck Dreck Warns Her BIDdie Board Members That All Their Emails Are Gonna End Up On This Blog — Nothing To Be Alarmed About Says Ellen Salome Riotto — Just Be Thoughtful About What You Put In Writing — Wait. What? — Why Should They Be Thoughtful If They’re Not A Buncha Damn Criminals? — Oh Yeah — They Are A Buncha Damn Criminals →

Business Improvement Districts

This Is To Confirm That The Studio City BID Did In Fact Hire Vicki Nussbaum As New Zeck Dreck — And She’s Leaving Her Job At The Sherman Oaks BID — And Refusing To Complete Tasks Assigned To Her By Board President Leslie Elkans — Cause Why Not She’s Already Gone — Her Excuse Is That She’s Too Busy Reading About The Brown Act — Ironically The Studio City BID Violated The Brown Act When Hiring Her — Wonder If She Got That From Her Reading?

November 14, 2018 Mike Leave a comment

You remember last month we were still trying to figure out if the damn Studio City BID had hired erstwhile Sherman Oaks BIDdie-boss Vicki Freaking Nussbaum to replace outgoing zeck dreck Dr. John Walker Ph.D. and it pretty much looked like they had cause of some cryptic-ish emails between Vicki Nussbaum and SCBID Board dominus Tony Freaking Richman but at the same time it was kinda hard to be sure?

Well, last week, on Monday, November 5,¹ the good old Studio City BID held a damn board meeting,² and right there on the agenda, right there under item 3 was this little gem right here: “President’s Comments and introduction of new Executive Director: Vicki Nussbaum.” So out we rode,³ northwest bound on a dizzying sequence of buses and trains, to watch the meeting. And of course we filmed it for you. And of course you can watch it here on YouTube or else here on Archive.Org.⁴

And here you can watch Tony Richman introducing her, and here you can watch her own introductory remarks. And it’s all pretty tedious, and certainly not worth transcribing. But there’s a context, and the context makes it interesting. You see, first of all, Vicki Nussbaum is not just joining the Studio City BID, she is also leaving the Village at Sherman Oaks BID.

And you know how it is when you’re leaving a job. Your boss can email you and be all hey friend do this little task that you’re being paid to do and you can email back and be all like sorry friend I have my feet up on the desk and I’m on the clock drinking horchata and reading random websites about lemurs and what are you going to do about it, fire me? And it seems that that’s just what’s going on in this case with Vicki Nussbaum and the VSOBID President Leslie Elkans!

You see, on September 21, 2018, Vicki Nussbaum emailed SCBID President Tony Richman to ask did she get the new job and Tony Richman told her yep friend you did get it. Read that exchange here. And by October 3, 2018 she and Tony Richman were negotiating her start date. Read that email here. So by October 14, 2018, when Leslie Elkans sent this little email to Vicki Nussbaum, making a simple request, it really seems that Vicki Nussbaum was not having any of it, in her response being all like no I will not do it, I’m at home reading up on the damn Brown Act thx bye.

And turn the page for, as always, transcriptions of the emails, analysis, and some really melodramatic irony!
Continue reading This Is To Confirm That The Studio City BID Did In Fact Hire Vicki Nussbaum As New Zeck Dreck — And She’s Leaving Her Job At The Sherman Oaks BID — And Refusing To Complete Tasks Assigned To Her By Board President Leslie Elkans — Cause Why Not She’s Already Gone — Her Excuse Is That She’s Too Busy Reading About The Brown Act — Ironically The Studio City BID Violated The Brown Act When Hiring Her — Wonder If She Got That From Her Reading? →

Business Improvement Districts

South Park BID Employment Policy Forbids Its Staff From Revealing Their Salaries — These People Are Being Paid With Public Funds — So It’s Not Only Not Desirable To Keep Their Salaries Secret — It’s Actually Not Possible — Therefore We Are Going To Reveal Them All To You In This Post! — Every Last Freaking South Parkie Salary! — With Bonuses! — The Teaser Is That Josh Kreger — Who Is Director Of Quasi-Legal Real Estate Crapola Or Some Such Nonsense — Gets More Than $100,000 Per Year — You’d Think With That Kinda Money He Could Afford A Damn Razor!

November 9, 2018 Mike Leave a comment

Tonight I am presenting a new BIDdological source document for your analytical pleasure. It is the 2018 Employee Manual of the South Park Stakeholders Group which, as you may well know, is the designated property owners’ association for the South Park BID. Anyway, take a look. It’s full of the usual inconsequential nonsense for the most part, but still, this little bit caught my eye:

SALARY CONFIDENTIALITY

It is customary to maintain confidentiality regarding salary and compensation. Because so many different factors have been taken into consideration in determining your salary, it would be difficult to accurately compare your salary with those of fellow employees. Salary discussions and salary review questions should be limited to your supervisor, the Executive Director or President.

But this kind of thing is just silly when it comes to agencies, like the BID, that are subject to the Public Records Act. Obviously paying people creates records and obviously those records are public so obviously the salaries of people employed by agencies subject to the CPRA cannot be kept secret. This is why a website like Transparent California can exist.

Of course, Transparent California sets out to learn the salaries of public employees in California. On the other hand, our goal is to learn everything possible about the City’s BIDs. Sometimes we ask for salary information specifically, but other times it just turns up. You will, of course, remember the monumental release of SPBID Board member Bob Buente’s emails. Well right in there, unasked-for and just waiting to be discovered, was this little gem of an email conversation between Ellen Salome Riotto and the various members of the BID’s executive committee.¹

The subject is Staff bonuses and the purpose is for the executive committee to approve them for December 2017. The BID seems to give each staffie 5% of their annual salary as a bonus and so, in order to have an informed discussion of the bonuses it’s necessary for the committee and Ellen Salome Riotto to discuss their salaries. And that’s how we know what they are, regardless of the SALARY CONFIDENTIALITY clause in the Employee Handbook. You know you wanna know what they are! Just turn the page and all will be revealed!
Continue reading South Park BID Employment Policy Forbids Its Staff From Revealing Their Salaries — These People Are Being Paid With Public Funds — So It’s Not Only Not Desirable To Keep Their Salaries Secret — It’s Actually Not Possible — Therefore We Are Going To Reveal Them All To You In This Post! — Every Last Freaking South Parkie Salary! — With Bonuses! — The Teaser Is That Josh Kreger — Who Is Director Of Quasi-Legal Real Estate Crapola Or Some Such Nonsense — Gets More Than $100,000 Per Year — You’d Think With That Kinda Money He Could Afford A Damn Razor! →

Business Improvement Districts

What Passes For Wit Among Zillionaires — South Park BID Board Members Paul Keller And Bob Buente Mockingly Refer To Downtown Homeless Encampments As “Bombay” And “Calcutta” — Super-Genius Paul Keller Proposes Illegally Using BID Staff Outside BID Borders To Clean Encampments — Has To Be Talked Down Off That Particular Ledge By BID Zeck Dreck Ellen Salome Riotto Who — Despite Her Devotion To Her Satanic DTLA Masters — At Least Has Some Goddamn Sense — Also Riotto Reveals Hitherto Unknown Illegal Downtown BID Anti-Homeless Intelligence Gathering Conspiracy

November 3, 2018 Mike Leave a comment

Last Thursday morning off I went to the concrete canyons of Downtown Los Angeles to sit through yet another interminable gathering of the Board of Directors of the South Park BID and, just for you, dear reader, I have posted video of the whole damn thing both here on YouTube and here on Archive.org. And it was mostly more of the same old bad BIDness, but without a quorum, so no action was taken.

There were a few interesting episodes though, and I’ll be writing about one or more of them soon enough, but the text for today’s sermon is this little hissy fit, pitched by none other than the finest legal mind of his generation, that is to say self-proclaimed schmuck Paul Keller, accompanied by the narcissistic back-up harmony vocal stylings of the BID’s own Uncle Fester,¹ which is to say Bob Freaking Buente. There is, of course, a transcription of the whole damn thing after the break, and juicy quotes interspersed throughout the article here.

Paul Keller wants to talk about … underpasses. The ones he drives under when he gets off the freeway in the morning. They’re filled with homeless people. Paul Keller doesn’t like this. Bob Buente reminds him that in zillionairese underpasses are referred to as “Bombay” and/or “Calcutta.”² What he really seems to hate about them is that (a) they are offensive to his finely honed zillionaire aesthetics and (b) he can’t ignore them because there’s a traffic signal there: “But unfortunately the light causes you to be in Bombay if it’s red.” The problem evidently is that CalTrans has jurisdiction over underpasses so the usual zillionaire methods of getting shit done, like e.g. giving José Huizar another 700 bucks, aren’t effective.

Turn the page to learn what the other problem is, how Ellen Salome Riotto schooled Paul Keller a little bit but he just won’t listen and wants her to break the law anyway, and the big reveal! All the Downtown BIDs are compiling anti-homeless intelligence which they’re evidently going to pass on to Miguel Santiago, possibly in anticipation of his becoming CD14 repster in 2020 because José Huizar’s rapey incontinence has effectively torpedoed the political ambitions of the other Huizar, his hand-picked successor, that is, of course, Richelle.
Continue reading What Passes For Wit Among Zillionaires — South Park BID Board Members Paul Keller And Bob Buente Mockingly Refer To Downtown Homeless Encampments As “Bombay” And “Calcutta” — Super-Genius Paul Keller Proposes Illegally Using BID Staff Outside BID Borders To Clean Encampments — Has To Be Talked Down Off That Particular Ledge By BID Zeck Dreck Ellen Salome Riotto Who — Despite Her Devotion To Her Satanic DTLA Masters — At Least Has Some Goddamn Sense — Also Riotto Reveals Hitherto Unknown Illegal Downtown BID Anti-Homeless Intelligence Gathering Conspiracy →

Business Improvement Districts

The South Park BID Failed To Even Negotiate Let Alone Execute A Contract With Tara Devine For Handling Their 2017 Renewal — They Didn’t Even Realize There Was No Contract Until My CPRA Request Called Their Attention To It — At Which Point Bob Buente Suggested Fraudulently Executing A Back-Dated Contract — But Worried This Would Haunt The Board If “we’re deposed because Tara does something nefarious” — Ellen Riotto — Who Has More Common Sense Than The Average Zeck Dreck — Advised Against It

October 26, 2018 Mike Leave a comment

So in 2017, back when I was trying to understand Tara Devine’s BID consultancy work for the South Park BID, I sent the Parkies a CPRA request for her contract.¹ At the time, twisted little minion Katie Kiefer, who quit the BID earlier this year and is now working for shockingly rapey CD14 repster José Huizar, kept telling me that the BID didn’t have any records responsive to my request. I found this impossible to believe, that putatively competent zillionaire business types would hire someone to do a job for which they’d be paid in the high five figures and not have a written contract explaining what they were expected to do.

It didn’t seem plausible² so I assumed Katie Kiefer was playing word games with me, which was exactly the kind of crapola she was pulling at the time, all under the baleful influence of Carol Humiston, the world’s angriest CPRA lawyer, along with the rest of her 2017 Parkie buddies. You can read the whole correspondence here on Archive.Org if you’re interested.³ But now, thanks to the recent release of Bob Buente’s emails, a hyper-Aladdinesque trove of wonders provided to me by the ever-helpful Ellen Salome Riotto, current zeck dreck of the Parkers, the truth has come out and can now be explained!

I made my original request for Tara Devine’s contract on July 12, 2017. On July 13, 2017 the Parkies, hiding as usual behind their sinister masks, told me that there was no contract. And here’s where things get interesting! The next day, on July 14, 2017, Ellen Riotto emailed her executive committee and asked them if there even was a contract:

From: Ellen Riotto <ellen@southpark.la>
To: Robin Bieker <robin@biekerco.com>, “Sjordan@legends.net” <Sjordan@legends.net>, “daniel@jadeent.com” <daniel@jadeent.com>, “bbuente@1010dev.org” <bbuente@1010dev.org>, “JLall@ccala.org” <JLall@ccala.org>
Subject: Devine Strategies Contract approval

All,

Per the CA Public Records Act, we’ve been asked to disclose our contract with Tara. The only record we have on file is her proposal, attached. We do not have a final signed contract. We looked through meeting mins to see if we could track down a board vote to approve the proposal, but were unsuccessful. Do you recall if this decision was made by the executive committee?

Thanks

Ellen

The attached proposal she mentions in the email is available here. Also note that if she were following the law she would have asked these BIDdies if they had the records before she told me that they did not, but there’s not much to be done about that. And with that simple request, things really went off the rails!
Continue reading The South Park BID Failed To Even Negotiate Let Alone Execute A Contract With Tara Devine For Handling Their 2017 Renewal — They Didn’t Even Realize There Was No Contract Until My CPRA Request Called Their Attention To It — At Which Point Bob Buente Suggested Fraudulently Executing A Back-Dated Contract — But Worried This Would Haunt The Board If “we’re deposed because Tara does something nefarious” — Ellen Riotto — Who Has More Common Sense Than The Average Zeck Dreck — Advised Against It →

Business Improvement Districts

South Park BID Executive Directrix Ellen Riotto On Shadowy BID Consultant Tara Devine — “It Was Painful Working With Her But Frankly I Don’t Have Time” To Find Someone Else

October 22, 2018 Mike Leave a comment

Recently I obtained a big stack of emails from South Park BID treasurer Bob “Balder Than You’ll Ever Be” Buente and posted the whole steaming heap on Archive.Org for your reading pleasure. And one thing I’m finding in the set of records is a lot of anger towards shadowy BID consultant Tara Devine, who helped the Parkers get their BID renewed last year. For instance, as we’ve already seen, Bob Buente openly declared that he was “not a Tara fan.”

And this evening, just for tricks and snuggles, I have for your sophisticated perusal yet another fine example of the South Park we-hate-TD genre.¹ It seems that in May 2018 Ellen Salome Riotto, Zeck Dreck of the South Park BID, realized almost at the last moment that if the BID was going to increase assessments for 2019 they had better get on the damn case because the relevant spreadsheet was due to the City by June 1.

And, unlike the Venice Beach BID, which just went ahead and raised the damn assessments, Ellen Riotto evidently felt a need for caution, so she asked the Executive Committee of the South Park BID² about hiring none other than Ms. Tara Devine, seemingly on an ad hoc basis, to advise on the proper procedure for jacking up everyone’s property taxes.

Just take a look at this email of May 1, 2018 where she tells her bosses all about her plan. She mentions that she has “a call into Tara” and then, perhaps remembering that no one actually likes Tara, feels the need to affirm her bosses’ feelings: “yes, I know it was painful working with her.” So why is she calling on Tara, you might well ask. It is because she, Ellen Salome Riotto, put things off for too long and now it’s too late to get someone competent: “frankly I don’t have time to find a new consultant, bring them up to speed on our BID and make decisions.”

Of course, in order to explain the fact that she’s hiring Tara even though everyone at the BID hates Tara, she has had to own up to the fact that she, Ellen Salome Riotto, is to blame for being a poisonous procrastinator. But that’s OK! You know every single one of those damn management books they sell at every airport in this country?³

They all quote that pernicious nonsense about crisis and opportunity and Chinese writing and so forth⁴ and then they universally go on from there to tell people to own their damn mistakes and the bosses will be super-impressed! They might even tell people to make mistakes on purpose just so they can reap the benefits of owning them. And Ellen Salome Riotto didn’t get where she is today by not reading those books!⁵ And that is, no doubt, why she seems so pleased with herself for closing the email with some high-powered mistake-owning: “I want to apologize for the fire-drill here. I should have entered the reminder in my calendar on April 1st, not May 1st. Lesson learned.”

As usual, it’s another tale full of sound and fury⁶ but it’s interesting to those who are interested, among whom we proudly count ourselves! And we’ll be back with more soonest! And turn the page for a transcription of the complete email!
Continue reading South Park BID Executive Directrix Ellen Riotto On Shadowy BID Consultant Tara Devine — “It Was Painful Working With Her But Frankly I Don’t Have Time” To Find Someone Else →

Business Improvement Districts

Remember In 2017 When Tara Devine Was The South Park BID’s Renewal Consultant? — For A While It Seemed That The Petition Drive Was Lagging And That The BID Would Have To Go To Manual Billing For Year One — BID Treasurer Bob Buente Blamed Tara Devine For This — Publicly Proclaimed Himself To Be “Not A Tara Fan” — And Also Congratulated Himself Cause He Didn’t Yell At Her On The Phone! — And When Tara Failed Ellen Salome Riotto Stepped In! — Saved The Damn Day! — And Was Rewarded Just Like A Real Life Fairy Tale!

October 19, 2018 Mike Leave a comment

Remember when Jessica Lall left the South Park BID after Carol Schatz’s hand popped up out of out of that lake and handed Jessica Lall control over that weaponized slice of zillionaire mob-rule known as the Central City Association? And Ellen Salome Riotto came up out of nowhere like Dick Whittington and his damn cat to assume the holy mantle of interim South Park BID Zeck Dreck?¹

And around that time, for whatever reason, twisted little Parkie minion Katie Kiefer was the boss of South Park BID’s CPRA efforts. And the power went to her head, or she had not yet realized that Carol Freaking Humiston was working through her own weirdo anger issues rather than giving prudent advice to her clients, or something. And in those dark days the South Parkies were a very model for CPRA-obstructionist BIDdies.

But, you know, I keep trying, because they have important information out there in the Park. And I am pleased to announce that those dark days are past! Now, under the enlightened regime of Ellen Salome Riotto, now promoted to most expressly non-interim Zeck Dreck, the records are pouring in! And there are no nonsensical copypasta exemption claims of the aggressively psychotic sort Katie Kiefer was so very damn fond of! And the first batch is prepped and available! It’s about 800 emails from the hidden vaults of BID Board treasurer Bob Buente! And you can see all of them right here on Archive.Org!

And friend, there are a million good stories in there. Some of them are monumentally important, but those will have to wait till later. In this episode I want to share with you an objectively trivial but subjectively delicious little slice of gossip about shadowy BID consultant Tara Devine and her ultimately dissatisfied BID renewal clients over at South Park² and how her failure led to Ellen Salome Riotto’s promotion.

And now I yammered on for so long that you’ll have to turn the page just to find out what is the subject of the damn post. One of the pitfalls, one of the pleasures, of writing without an editor to boss me about!
Continue reading Remember In 2017 When Tara Devine Was The South Park BID’s Renewal Consultant? — For A While It Seemed That The Petition Drive Was Lagging And That The BID Would Have To Go To Manual Billing For Year One — BID Treasurer Bob Buente Blamed Tara Devine For This — Publicly Proclaimed Himself To Be “Not A Tara Fan” — And Also Congratulated Himself Cause He Didn’t Yell At Her On The Phone! — And When Tara Failed Ellen Salome Riotto Stepped In! — Saved The Damn Day! — And Was Rewarded Just Like A Real Life Fairy Tale! →

Business Improvement Districts, Public Records Act Pragmatics

The Education Of Ms. Ellen Salome Riotto, Episode 837 — Another Brown Act Violation At South Park — Not To Mention A Copy Of A Presentation By Sonder™ — The World’s Creepiest Hotel Company — Well Beloved, Of Course, Of South Park, The World’s Fourth Creepiest BID

July 2, 2018 Mike Leave a comment

It’s beginning to feel like all I do around here is educate the freaking South Park BIDdies about their legal obligations under the Brown Act. These are people who are so lawyered up in their daily lives that they don’t even tell their kids they love them except on advice of counsel but for whatever reason they cannot or will not get reliable guidance on how to follow a single one of California’s government transparency laws.¹

There was this episode in February, this episode in April, this other episode in April, and now here we are in July with yet another hilarious tale of egregious flouting of statutory obligations on the part of the South Parkers.² You may well recall that the South Parkies had a board meeting last Thursday, June 28, and that I attended and recorded it. And Ms. Joella Hopkins was a highlight, but not the only highlight.

There were also two presentations, one from AEG and another from yet another creepy-as-fuck hotel industry disrupter, known as Sonder, whose main advantage over Motel 6 seems to be that they have listening devices in their hotel rooms so that if guests play music too loud the company can turn it down remotely. What could possibly go wrong with that? You can watch Sonder’s spiel starting here, and AEG’s starting here.

Both of these presentations had associated slide shows, which the presenters seemed to think were somehow confidential. Sonder’s had some statement on it about how it was tip-top-secret, and the AEG presenters actually asked if there were any media representatives in the room. Watch and listen here as the AEG lady asks directly albeit fairly incoherently: “Can I just ask for process oriented are there any media in the room today?”

But as far as I’m concerned, and the law tends to agree with me, once people show a slideshow in a meeting covered by the Brown Act, that slideshow is public property. So naturally I sent Ellen S. an email asking for copies of the goods, and turn the page for transcriptions, commentary, and to learn what ensued!
Continue reading The Education Of Ms. Ellen Salome Riotto, Episode 837 — Another Brown Act Violation At South Park — Not To Mention A Copy Of A Presentation By Sonder™ — The World’s Creepiest Hotel Company — Well Beloved, Of Course, Of South Park, The World’s Fourth Creepiest BID →

Business Improvement Districts

How I Finally Had To Report The South Park BID To The District Attorney For Violating The Brown Act Even Though Board Member, Working Class Hero, And Self-Proclaimed Schmuck Paul Keller, The Finest Legal Mind Of His Generation, Screamed At Me In The Lobby That They Didn’t Actually Violate It

April 27, 2018 Mike Leave a comment

As you know well if you follow this blog, the South Park BID is severely challenged when it comes to Brown Act compliance. First, in February, they had deficient agenda descriptions, although they fixed that in response to my advice. Then last week they had a deficient teleconferencing option, which again they fixed in response to my advice. However, yesterday’s board meeting was held in a building where signing in as a condition of entry was mandatory. This is a clear violation of the Brown Act at §54953.3, which states unequivocally that:

A member of the public shall not be required, as a condition to attendance at a meeting of a legislative body of a local agency, to register his or her name, to provide other information, to complete a questionnaire, or otherwise to fulfill any condition precedent to his or her attendance.

Based on a previous visit to the building I suspected that they might require visitors to sign in, so I recorded the whole scene. I also determined to offer them a chance to avoid the violation by discussing it with the BIDdies if signing in was in fact required, which it was. The security guard didn’t have the BID’s phone number, so that was out.¹

Anyway, while I was talking about it with the guard, South Park BID board member and self-proclaimed schmuck Paul Keller, the finest legal mind of his generation, came in and yelled at me for pressing the issue. His theory is that the law wasn’t violated because a signature was required to enter the building rather than the BID meeting. Maybe he wasn’t aware that his executive director, Ellen Salome Riotto,² relies implicitly on my legal advice, with respect to the Brown Act anyway.

Far be it from me to say why he thinks this, him being the finest legal mind and all. Perhaps he’s basing it on the popular zillionaire legal maxim that any law that inconveniences even a single zillionaire must be unconstitutional. This is true, of course, at least $99\frac{44}{100}\%$ of the time, but not this particular time. On the other hand his rant suggests that the sign-in requirement wasn’t just another oversight, but actually constitutes BID policy.

Whatever was going on, I feel like they’ve had enough chances to mend their ways and have shown no interest in doing so. Hence I filed a complaint against them with the Public Integrity Division of the Los Angeles County District Attorney. Turn the page for a transcription, and stay tuned for details!
Continue reading How I Finally Had To Report The South Park BID To The District Attorney For Violating The Brown Act Even Though Board Member, Working Class Hero, And Self-Proclaimed Schmuck Paul Keller, The Finest Legal Mind Of His Generation, Screamed At Me In The Lobby That They Didn’t Actually Violate It →