Tag Archives: Emails

New Documents: Halden and Taslagyan Schedules, Emails Galore, South Park BID Shenanigans, PATH Reports

October 14, 2016 Mike Leave a comment

This is just a quick post to announce the availability of tons of new records (with more to come this weekend, I hope!) These are available both on Archive.Org and locally through the menu structure above or directly from our document storage.

There’s a list of the new stuff after the break.
Continue reading New Documents: Halden and Taslagyan Schedules, Emails Galore, South Park BID Shenanigans, PATH Reports →

Announcements, CD13, Homeless Issues, Public Records Act Pragmatics

Newly Available Emails From CD13 May Shed Some Light On City’s Procedures For Breaking Up Homeless Encampments. Also Glossary Updates And Some Fragmentary Information On The City’s Encampment Cleanup Authorization System

October 2, 2016 Mike Leave a comment

This (decontextualized) image from an email to CD13 staff suggests that despite the City's rhetoric on the matter, their policy towards people living in encampments is not all sunshine and outreach. — This (decontextualized) image from an email to CD13 staff suggests that despite the City’s rhetoric on the matter, their policy towards people living in encampments is not all sunshine and outreach.

My recent success in using CPRA to get advance notice of an encampment clean-up from the City reminded me that I had a number of emails to/from Council District 13 organizing such operations between January and April 2016 that I still hadn’t prepared for publication.¹ So I spent this morning getting them into shape and putting them up on the Internet. This material sheds new light on the City’s still-mysterious encampment-breaking system. Also, some of the attachments to these emails reveal crucial information about the computer database(s) used by the City to coordinate the process. I discuss this matter, along with some other issues, after the break. Meanwhile, here are the locations of these emails:

On the Internet Archive — As usual, this has the advantage that you can get the whole batch via BitTorrent if that’s useful. By later today, also, there should be OCRed PDFs there, and text versions.
From our local server

Also, I added a few new terms to our glossary to help you read the emails, which are decidedly acronym heavy.² These are CES, CSI, HE, PATH, and M&O. You can see the new definitions after the break (as well, of course, as via the menu structure or on the page itself). After the break I also discuss some fragmentary information about the City’s so-called Encampment Cleanup Authorization System.³ Continue reading Newly Available Emails From CD13 May Shed Some Light On City’s Procedures For Breaking Up Homeless Encampments. Also Glossary Updates And Some Fragmentary Information On The City’s Encampment Cleanup Authorization System →

CD13

Mitch O’Farrell’s Consigliere Marisol Rodriguez: It Is Good For The CM To Meet With Residents/Stakeholders From Time To Time So That They Know That The CM Is Fighting For Them. But They Must Ask With Respect. They Must Think To Call Him Godfather

September 30, 2016 Mike Leave a comment

I understand. ... The police protected you and there were courts of law. You didn't need a friend like me. But, now you come to me, and you say: "Councilman O'Farrell, give me justice." But you don't ask with respect. You don't offer friendship. You don't even think to call me Godfather. — I understand. … The police protected you and there were courts of law. You didn’t need a friend like me. But, now you come to me, and you say: “Councilman O’Farrell, give me justice.” But you don’t ask with respect. You don’t offer friendship. You don’t even think to call me Godfather.

This is just a brief episode from the saga of the cat-kicking K-Town slumlord Bryan Kim and his unholy compact with Mitch O’Farrell’s office to trade lunch money for homeless encampment clean-ups. It seems that on March 11, 2016, while Bryan Kim was still negotiating the terms of his on-demand encampment clean-up with CD13 staff, he asked CD13 scheduler David Cano for a meet with the CM himself, Mitch O’Farrell, in the first of this series of emails:

As discussed, I’d would [sic] like to request to meet with Councilmember O’Farrell re:The Homeless Encampment issue near LA City College to see how we can collectively work together on short term and sustainable permanent solution.

Well, if there’s one thing I’ve learned about these City Government types, it’s that they never do anything on their own. Always, it’s consultations, consultations, consultations.⁴ So eight minutes later David Cano wrote to Aram Taslagyan and strongarm O’Farrell consigliere Marisol Rodriguez:

Thoughts? D.O. time?

Continue reading →

Venice Beach BID

2014 VBBID Emails Reveal, Among Other Things, That Bonin Staffer Debbie Dyner Harris Was On Venice Beach BID Steering Committee Since 2014 Despite Consistent Denials of City Involvement In Formation Process

September 22, 2016 Mike Leave a comment

Mike Bonin aide and Fairy godmother Debbie Dyner Harris posing with what will be left of her darling Venice Beach BID after the clock strikes the appointed hour.

Here are eleven pages of emails from 2014 released to me yesterday by Miranda Paster of the Los Angeles City Clerk’s office.⁵ These provide a unique⁶ window into the process by which BIDs are created in the City of Los Angeles. It’s clear from these emails that, despite the fact that everyone in the City government denies it, the BID formation process is encouraged, facilitated, and inextricably interwoven with City action at every stage. Of course, this confirms precisely what the California Court of Appeal found in its landmark decision in Epstein v. HPOA: that “by giving the BID the legal breath of life, the City breathe[s] life into the POA as well.”⁷

In any case, here are many, many interesting facts newly revealed by these emails:
Continue reading 2014 VBBID Emails Reveal, Among Other Things, That Bonin Staffer Debbie Dyner Harris Was On Venice Beach BID Steering Committee Since 2014 Despite Consistent Denials of City Involvement In Formation Process →

Announcements

Lots of New Documents: CD5 Food Coalition Emails, CD13 HPOA Emails, Carol Schatz and Mike Feuer Material, 2016 Quarterly Reports From A Bunch Of BIDs

September 10, 2016 Mike Leave a comment

The subterranean archives at MK.org are filling up fast!

Just a quick post this fine Saturday morning before heading off to Canter’s for breakfast. I’ve been quietly uploading stuff to Archive.Org over the last few weeks, and there’s gotten to be quite a bit of unannounced material over there:

Emails to/from CD5 relating to Greater West Hollywood Food Coalition. This is about 20MB of emails. More NIMBY ranting, emails to/from Ted Landreth, the cops, and all the usual suspects. There doesn’t seem to be anything both unknown and shocking here, but I haven’t had time to read it all carefully yet.
July 2016 emails between CD13 and the Hollywood Property Owners Alliance. This is a thin selection of emails, more suggestive than indicative. Here is an interesting item although it may not seem so on its face. I will be writing more about this subject in the future.

And turn the page for material to do with Carol Schatz, Mike Feuer, and a bunch of highly assorted quarterly BID reports from the first half of 2016.
Continue reading Lots of New Documents: CD5 Food Coalition Emails, CD13 HPOA Emails, Carol Schatz and Mike Feuer Material, 2016 Quarterly Reports From A Bunch Of BIDs →

Venice Beach BID

Newly Obtained Emails Suggest that CD11 Had Significant Input Regarding Inclusion And Assessment of City Parcels In BID Despite Bonin, Staff Denials That This Is So

August 25, 2016 Mike Leave a comment

Mike Bonin discussing the fish that got away, or the process for including City parcels in a BID, or some other subject that's traditionally related with absolute veracity. — Mike Bonin discussing the fish that got away, or the process for including City parcels in a BID, or some other subject that’s traditionally related with absolute veracity.

A persistent issue in the lead-up to the Venice Beach BID has been the question of the City parcels included in the proposed boundaries. Since City parcels are always voted in favor of BID formation (although why this is is an open question), BID proponents are eager to gerrymander in as many as possible. This is a well-known tactic in the BID consultant playbook. Yesterday, however, after the Council’s shameful and probably illegal approval of the Venice Beach BID, CD11 Councilmember Mike Bonin was quoted in Yo! Venice claiming not only that there was no gerrymandering, but that there could not have been gerrymandering:

The Venice BID boundaries were determined based on the same rules as every other BID, which excludes any residentially-zoned land (but includes commercially-zoned, industrially-zoned and government/public facilities-zoned parcels). The BID proponents decided to include all of the property that is eligible for assessment west of Abbot Kinney (which already has a Merchant’s Association that functions similarly to a BID). This is consistent with state and local law.

This statement is disingenuous at best. Sure, an engineer’s report is required, and there has to be a justification of why the boundaries are set where they’re set, but the “rules” that Bonin seems to be claiming ensure fairness only say which properties can’t be included. They don’t say anything about where the boundaries have to go. So the decision to include a strip of Venice Blvd, notably bereft of businesses of any kind, into the BID is allowed under state law and can be justified easily enough in the report since it’s not residential, but it’s hard to see any purpose for this other than to increase the City presence in the BID, which is certainly gerrymandering. ⁸ Finally, note that Bonin seems to be intentionally conflating the idea that the boundaries were “determined” by state law with the idea that they’re “consistent with state” law. If boundaries are determined there’s no choice. There are many choices among things that are consistent with the law.
Continue reading →

Venice Beach BID

Property Owner Protests Against Venice Beach BID Hit Council File. Miranda Paster Of Clerk’s Office Imposes Curtain Of Silence, Forbids Communication, Prohibits Dialogue, Instructs Subordinates: “Do Not Respond To The Email”

August 19, 2016 Mike Leave a comment

God helps those who help themselves, but a miracle never hurts.

Yesterday evening a number of emails protesting the formation of a BID in Venice were added to the Council File. These demonstrate the heartening fact that not every owner of commercial property within the boundaries of the proposed BID supports its formation. The arguments are solid, too. For instance, Kevin Ragsdale says:

At this point, the idea of a VERY small group of property owners who may be handed $1.8 million with NO oversight, even by the City, is frightening and not appropriate unless and until we know more and have some say in the process that may well drastically change the face and character of the Venice we know and love in the name of profit making and creating a private police force. The consequences of this action without careful analysis will be profound and must be discussed in a wider audience of people, who also include the majority of property owners who have to pay and those who have more at stake than a desire to clean up Venice Beach to make more money.

Or Frank Lutz, who’s lived in Venice for 48 years:
Continue reading →

Announcements, CD13, Downtown Center BID, Hollywood Property Owners Alliance

Dan Halden and Mitch O’Farrell’s Staff are Among the Readers of this Blog and Other News from a Batch of Highly Assorted Emails from CD13

July 17, 2016 kohlhaas Leave a comment

Dan Halden of CD13 forwards links to MK.org around to his colleagues and tells them not to reply. What's up with THAT, we wonder, although we could certainly make a guess! — Dan Halden of CD13 forwards links to MK.org around to his colleagues and tells them not to reply. What’s up with THAT, we wonder, although we could certainly make a guess!

Last Wednesday our faithful correspondent and a small contingent of other MK.org staffers hit the 704 Eastbound on SMB to the Echo Park Office of Hollywood’s own Mitch O’Farrell, where he had an appointment with Hollywood Field Deputy Daniel Halden to look at both oodles and scads of very highly miscellaneous emails and other goodies.

It was our intention to follow our traditional course of conduct after such missions and hit up the loveliest Brite Spot at the corner of Sunset and Park, but ’twas not to be. For some reason known only to them and their accountant they’re closing at 4 pm throughout the Summer. One can only hope and pray that they’ll get back to normal hours later. But we digress.

The Brite Spot in May 2016. This is your brain on diners.

Here is a link to the raw scans, which we’ve barely had time to sift through. Some are renamed, but most are not. Extraneous blank pages have mostly not yet been stripped. If you’re interested in reading hundreds of pages of emails from her highness, Queen Laurie Goldman about random multi-use monstrosities in Hollywood and why Robert Silverstein is pretty much Satan incarnate we’ll hook you up! There’s even a letter from Silverstein to someone about something in there somewhere. We got a few emails about recent anti-nightclub conspiracies between Mitch O’Farrell and the cops (recall that we reported on this a lot last year). But the real gems (that’s sarcasm, of a sort) we’ll reveal below the fold!
Continue reading →

Announcements

Many, Many New Emails from CD13 About Homeless Encampments, From CD4 About the Food Coalition, and From South Park BID About Street Vending

June 28, 2016 Mike Leave a comment

An image attached to one of many CD13 emails discussing breaking up homeless encampments on Melrose, Vermont, Alvarado, Beverly, and some adjacent streets.

Today I’m just announcing three new collections of emails, all of which can be found (for now) exclusively in our Archive.org collections. First we have emails to and from CD13 about homeless encampments on Vermont Avenue, Melrose, Beverly, Alvarado, and some adjacent streets. The Council District was involved with breaking up these encampments in March 2016 and these emails document the process. They also contain a lot of fodder for future requests, since some of them list specific document numbers for Bureau of Street Services and also Sanitation Department orders and reports. It’s almost as if no one at CD13 was aware that breaking up homeless encampments puts federal money in jeopardy.
Continue reading →

Announcements, Hollywood BID Patrol

Many Years Worth of New Documents: Arrest Reports, Daily Logs, Photographs, Videos, Fashion District Emails

May 29, 2016 Mike Leave a comment

I’m pleased to announce a huge amount of records, mostly from the Andrews International BID Patrol. These include arrest reports and daily logs, which bring our coverage up to the end of 2015. I put these on the Archive because the amount of material would overwhelm our hosting plan. There are individual links after the break and also here.

Note that there’s something fishy about the 2015 arrest reports. There are fewer than 350 of them, when the 2015 totals spreadsheet claims 606. This may have something to do with a new category for 2015 called “alcohol referral.” If these turn out to not be genuine custodial arrests we will have reduced the BID Patrol arrest rate by far, far more than I previously thought.

Also there are:

And some more emails from the Fashion District BID. These are prepared in the inimitably complete manner of Rena Leddy and cover the time from January 2015 through March 2016. They have to do with street vending and such topics:

Finally, there are over 6 GB of 2015 BID Patrol videos. I will be putting the videos on our YouTube channel soon, but that takes a lot of time, so I thought I’d make them available here first.

As I said, look after the break for individual links to our complete collection of A/I BID Patrol arrest reports and daily logs 2007-2015.
Continue reading Many Years Worth of New Documents: Arrest Reports, Daily Logs, Photographs, Videos, Fashion District Emails →