Tag Archives: Form 700

LAPD

LAPD Chief Michel Moore’s Financial Disclosures Show That In 2021 To Date He Likely Earned Between $35,600 And $339,370 From Stocks And Dividends Alone — Which Works Out To Between $164.06 And $1,563.92 Per Day — Per Freaking Day! — Annualized It Is Between $59,881 And $579,830 — Which Is Entirely On Top Of His Annual Compensation Of More Than $450K Per Year

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Los Angeles Police Chief Michel Moore apparently earned between $164.06 and $1,563.92 per day in 2021 from his investments in the stock market alone. This is a total of something between $35,600 and $339,370 from January 4, 2021 to August 5, 2021. Annualized it comes to between $59,881 and $570,830, which is a lot of damn money!1 That’s the news, and the rest of the post consists of me showing my work. I put all salient information into a spreadsheet if you want to check my method.

We start with Moore’s 2020 Form 700.2 These require disclosure of some information about the employees’s investments including names of the stocks and which of four ranges includes their fair market value. The ranges are as follows, with links to their Yahoo Finance pages showing the historical data I used in the calculations:

  • $2,000—10,000
  • $10,001—$100,000
  • $100,001—$1,000,000
  • Over $1,000,000

Moore discloses ownership of fourteen different stocks, all of them but one with aggregate values in one of the two lower ranges. Here they are along with links to their Yahoo Finance pages, which is where I obtained historical price data:

Moore's Stock Holdings (click to expand)
Stock name Value range
Altria Group $2000—$10,000
Emerson Electric $2000—$10,000
Home Depot $10,001—$100,000
Cisco Systems $10,001—$100,000
Discover Financial Services $2000—$10,000
Intel $100,001—$1,000,000
Pfizer $2000—$10,000
Kraft $2000—$10,000
Philip Morris $10,001—$100,000
Mondelez $2000—$10,000
Royal Dutch Shell3 $10,001—$100,000
Western Digital $10,001—$100,000
Texas Instruments $10,001—$100,000
Linde PLC $10,001—$100,000

And here are the prices on January 4, 2021, on August 5, 2021, and the percent change in value:

Moore's Stock Prices (click to expand)
Stock 1/4/21 price 8/5/21 price Absolute change Relative change
Altria 40.84 47.36 6.52 15.96%
Emerson Electric 78.01 101.06 23.05 29.55%
Home Depot 263.92 333.111 69.191 26.22%
Cisco 43.96 55.76 11.8 26.84%
Discover Fin Serv 89.61 127.1 37.49 41.84%
Intel 49.67 53.89 4.22 8.5%
Pfizer 36.81 45.06 8.25 22.41%
Kraft 34.23 36.94 2.71 7.92%
Phillip Morris 81.5 99.59 18.09 2.22%
Mondelez 57.92 61.86 3.94 6.8%
Shell 36.03 41.2 5.17 14.35%
Western Digital 53.06 67.07 14.01 26.4%
Texas Instruments 162.22 193.16 30.94 19.07%
Linde PLC 258.81 304.83 46.02 17.78%

All but one of Moore’s stocks pay dividends, which can be a significant part of investment income. Here are the dividend rates as of August 5, 2021:4

Moore's dividend rates (click to expand)
Stock Dividend
Altria 7.26%
Emerson Electric 2%
Home Depot 2%
Cisco 2.65%
Discover Fin Serv 1.59%
Intel 2.58%
Pfizer 3.46%
Kraft 4.33%
Phillip Morris 4.82%
Mondelez 2.27%
Shell 3.67%
Western Digital N/A
Texas Instruments 2.11%
Linde PLC 1.39%

And applying the percent change to the minimum and maximum values of each range of Moore’s holdings and adding twice the dividend yield shows his minimum and maximum investment gains, both total and daily, for 2021 through August 5:5

Moore's min/max 2021 gains (click to expand)
Stock Min 2021 gain Max 2021 gain
Altria $609.60 $3,048.00
Emerson Electric $671.00 $3,355.00
Home Depot $3,022.00 $30,220.00
Cisco $3,214.00 $32,140.00
Discover Fin Serv $900.40 $4,502.00
Intel $13,660.00 $136,600.00
Pfizer $586.60 $2,933.00
Kraft $331.60 $1,658.00
Phillip Morris $3,184.00 $31,840.00
Mondelez $226.80 $1,134.00
Shell $2,169.00 $21,690.00
Western Digital $2,640.00 $26,400.00
Texas Instruments $2,329.00 $23,290.00
Linde PLC $2,056.00 $20,560.00



Total $35,600.14 $339,370.00




Min daily gain: Max daily gain:

$164.06 $1,563.92

As stated in the opening paragraph, these calculations show that Moore’s estimated 2021 investment gains through August 5, 2021 were between $35,600 and $339,370. August 5, 2021 was the 217th day of the year, so simple division shows that from investments alone in 2021 Moore earned between $164.06 and $1,563.92 per day in 2021 from investments alone.

This isn’t insignificant, by the way. According to Transparent California Moore earned $462,648.52 in salary and benefits in 2019,6 which is $1267.53 per day. At the top end of my estimate, then, Moore’s investment income adds more than 73% to his annual compensation. At the very least he’s increasing it by 13%.

Does this mean something? Certainly. Am I going to speculate? Certainly not. Like I said above I put all the figures into a spreadsheet so you can check my work if you want to. And that’s it. That’s the blog post!

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Los Angeles City Government

Eric Garcetti And His Wife Amy Wakeland Own Three Rental Properties Between Them — One Commercial In The City Of Beverly Hills — And Two Residential In The City Of Los Angeles — But Even More Interesting Than That Is Garcetti’s Shares In Two Real-Estate-Owning Limited Partnerships — Formed Decades Ago By Zillionaire Gil Garcetti Crony Edward Zolla — And Now Controlled By His Widow Susan Zolla — Both Of Whom Have Been Major Donors To Eric Garcetti’s Campaigns — And Apparently Also To His Personal Wealth By Allowing Him To Partner Up With Them In A Hotel And An Apartment Building

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I recently wrote on the fact that at least seven members of the Los Angeles City Council are landlords, which may well have something to do with their reluctance to implement serious and effective protections for vulnerable tenants during the pandemic.7 And in the last few days tenants’ rights activists have organized two demonstrations at the home of Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti to protest his failure to implement a blanket eviction ban and rent forgiveness during the pandemic.8

So it didn’t really surprise me that much to learn that Garcetti is also a landlord. But I was surprised by the layered complexity of his real estate holdings, at least as compared to the fairly straightforward setups the Councilmembers have.9 It all starts, of course, with his Form 700, which lists three properties on Schedule B.10 One of these is a commercial building in the City of Beverly Hills11 but the other two are residential rentals in the City of Los Angeles.

First up we have 1299 Meadowbrook Avenue, which consists of three units,12 bought by Garcetti and his wife, Amy Wakeland, in 2016 as reported in the Los Angeles Times. On August 8, 2018 Garcetti and Wakeland formed the 1299 Meadowbrook LLC and then a few days later signed over the property to that entity as recorded in this grant deed.13 According to the Times article in 2016 the main house was listed at $5K per month and the two apartments at at least $2K each.14

The next property listed is 1809 W. 37th Place, which is a duplex near Exposition and Western. This is listed as Amy Wakeland’s sole property, which is consistent with the grant deed, on which Garcetti’s name does not appear. She bought the property on July 10, 2018 and, I guess to be extra-safe, that same day Garcetti filed a transfer deed assigning his rights in the property to Wakeland.15

And then things get really interesting! On Schedule A-1 of his Form 700, which covers “Stocks, Bonds, and Other Interests,” Garcetti lists a couple of limited partnerships, which are IPDR Associates and Del Rey Vista Associates. Later, on Schedule C,16 it turns out that IPDR owns a hotel at 435 Culver Blvd and Del Rey owns an apartment building at 11519 Culver. These two corporate entities were formed decades ago by zillionaire real estate developer Edward Zolla and are now owned17 by his widow, Susan Zolla.18 Continue reading Eric Garcetti And His Wife Amy Wakeland Own Three Rental Properties Between Them — One Commercial In The City Of Beverly Hills — And Two Residential In The City Of Los Angeles — But Even More Interesting Than That Is Garcetti’s Shares In Two Real-Estate-Owning Limited Partnerships — Formed Decades Ago By Zillionaire Gil Garcetti Crony Edward Zolla — And Now Controlled By His Widow Susan Zolla — Both Of Whom Have Been Major Donors To Eric Garcetti’s Campaigns — And Apparently Also To His Personal Wealth By Allowing Him To Partner Up With Them In A Hotel And An Apartment Building →

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Los Angeles City Council, Municipal Ethics

David Ryu Certainly Seems To Be Yet Another Landlord On The Los Angeles City Council — And Apparently Perfectly Comfortable Voting On Various Tenants’ Rights Issues Without Recusing Himself Or Even Mentioning It — He And His Sister Esther Bought A Four Unit Apartment Building In 2018 — And Immediately Signed It Over To A Shady Entity Called Daejopia LLC — Controlled By Their Brother Joseph — Ryu Acknowledged On His Form 700 That He Owns The Building — Although He Lists It By Parcel Number Rather Than Address — But Denies Receiving Any Rental Income From It — Which Seems Really Highly Unlikely Given That It Appears To Be Fully Occupied — But Maybe He’ll Explain Himself If For Some Unknown Reason It Is True — Did I Mention That Kenneth Yoon — Who Sold The Building To David And Esther Ryu — Turned Around And Gave Ryu An $800 Contribution A Month After The Deal Closed? — And That The Ryus Only Needed To Borrow $460K On What Was Apparently A $840K Transaction?

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On Tuesday, March 17, 2020 the Los Angeles City Council considered an emergency ordinance to halt evictions and give renters 24 months to cover missed payments. Or at least that’s what the original motion, introduced by CD11 rep Mike Bonin, called for. During the debate,19 though, various other councilmembers, notably Paul Krekorian, Paul Koretz, and Herb Wesson, argued passionately against the harm that such an ordinance would do to the proverbial mom and pop landlords by giving these deadbeat tenants so damn long to settle up.

Two years is far long, they said. Mom and pops can’t afford to wait, they said. Will increase default rate, said they. They said all kinds of impassioned stuff in favor of reducing repayment time by a murderous 75%. But one of the things they didn’t say was that all three of these councilmembers are themselves landlords. It’s impossible to imagine that they weren’t thinking of their own interests while arguing to amend this motion. I wrote a piece on this a few days ago, the research for which also revealed that they weren’t the only three, by the way.

It turned out that Jose Huizar, Nury Martinez, and Curren Price are also landlords and also voted yes on the change to a 6 month grace period. My method of landlord discovery relied solely on Form 700s, which are annual financial disclosure forms required of elected officials in California. And rental income is a specific category which must be identified as such. For instance, consider the relevant section from Paul Krekorian’s most recent filing.

But it turned out that this method was flawed. Not flawed in the sense of producing false positives. The six that I identified are in fact landlords. Flawed, though, in the sense of producing false negatives based, as it is, on the disclosures being honest.20 And that’s how I missed the fact that CD4 representative David Ryu is also a landlord,21 although it’s certainly not obvious at all from his most recent Form 700. First, take a look at the relevant section:

He lists an assessor’s parcel number rather than an address. I didn’t previously look up the property, though, because he checked off the box indicating that he’d received no rental income. It turns out, though, that skipping this was a huge mistake on my part. I finally did look into the matter and it turns out that I had previously missed everything! Read on for the whole astonishingly sordid story of David Ryu and this property!
Continue reading David Ryu Certainly Seems To Be Yet Another Landlord On The Los Angeles City Council — And Apparently Perfectly Comfortable Voting On Various Tenants’ Rights Issues Without Recusing Himself Or Even Mentioning It — He And His Sister Esther Bought A Four Unit Apartment Building In 2018 — And Immediately Signed It Over To A Shady Entity Called Daejopia LLC — Controlled By Their Brother Joseph — Ryu Acknowledged On His Form 700 That He Owns The Building — Although He Lists It By Parcel Number Rather Than Address — But Denies Receiving Any Rental Income From It — Which Seems Really Highly Unlikely Given That It Appears To Be Fully Occupied — But Maybe He’ll Explain Himself If For Some Unknown Reason It Is True — Did I Mention That Kenneth Yoon — Who Sold The Building To David And Esther Ryu — Turned Around And Gave Ryu An $800 Contribution A Month After The Deal Closed? — And That The Ryus Only Needed To Borrow $460K On What Was Apparently A $840K Transaction? →

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Los Angeles City Council

Yesterday The Los Angeles City Council Eviscerated A Reasonably Good Eviction Moratorium Motion — On The Insistence Of Paul Krekorian And Herb Wesson — Who Kept Talking Up The Needs Of The So-Called Mom And Pop Landlords — Who In Everyone’s Fantasies About Capitalism On A Human Scale Are Not Insatiable Villainous Psychopaths Like Non Mom And Pop Landlords Are — And Somehow Neither Krekorian Nor Wesson Thought It Was Worth Mentioning That They Themselves Are Mom And Pop Landlords — As Is Paul Koretz — And Nury Martinez — And Curren Price — And Jose Huizar — And Mike Bonin’s Husband — Although Bonin Voted Against Krekorian’s Eviscerating Motion — So At Least There’s That

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Yesterday the Los Angeles City Council considered and passed22 a long list of motions intended to alleviate some of the devastating effects of the coronavirus pandemic on our City. One of the most essential of these was CD11 rep Mike Bonin’s motion to stop evictions and ban late rent fees until the end of the emergency declaration and then give renters 24 months to pay missed rent.

The meeting itself was interminable and the public is excluded from City Hall and had to sit out on the front patio under a tent. But fortunately a number of extremely hard-working reporters were on the case, and it’s due to the incomparable Sahra Sulaiman‘s live-tweeting of this episode that I’m able to tell the story I’m telling here.

Sulaiman reported that Paul Krekorian, our second fashiest councilmember, was all about 24 months to repay being far, far too long:

Can’t tell who (Krekorian?) suggests that we are shifting loss bc if we give tenants too much time to pay back, the grace pd may extend beyond their lease and therefore end up being uncollectable. And that we need to consider more options, like applying security deposit to rent.

Krekorian went on to say that:

He acknowledges some folks will never be able to pay it back and that some landlords can absorb that, but others cannot, and that may have other negative consequences.

Got it? Paul Krekorian acknowledges that some landlords can absorb the loss from tenants not paying back rent while other landlords cannot absorb the loss. This is his reason for wanting to cut the repayment period down from 24 months to 6 months.

Hey, did you know that California state law requires public officials like Paul Krekorian to file annual disclosures of their financial interests? Well, it does. They’re called “Form 700s” and here’s Paul Krekorian’s from 2018. And as expected, rental income is income and thus counts as a financial interest to be listed on the form.
Continue reading Yesterday The Los Angeles City Council Eviscerated A Reasonably Good Eviction Moratorium Motion — On The Insistence Of Paul Krekorian And Herb Wesson — Who Kept Talking Up The Needs Of The So-Called Mom And Pop Landlords — Who In Everyone’s Fantasies About Capitalism On A Human Scale Are Not Insatiable Villainous Psychopaths Like Non Mom And Pop Landlords Are — And Somehow Neither Krekorian Nor Wesson Thought It Was Worth Mentioning That They Themselves Are Mom And Pop Landlords — As Is Paul Koretz — And Nury Martinez — And Curren Price — And Jose Huizar — And Mike Bonin’s Husband — Although Bonin Voted Against Krekorian’s Eviscerating Motion — So At Least There’s That →

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LAUSD

New Los Angeles Charter School Board Member Financial Disclosure Forms Reveal Extent Of Zillionaire Infiltration And Control — Most Interesting Is The Case Of Bari Cooper Sherman — A Principal In Some Incomprehensible Financial Services Firm — Turner Impact Capital — Which Manages A Charter School Real Estate Fund — The Existence Of Such A Thing Is Entirely New To Me — May Be A Path Towards Understanding The Megabucks-Fueled Necromancy Behind Charter Schools

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The Political Reform Act of 1974 requires various public officials in California to file financial disclosure forms, known to the locals23 as Form 700s. In many cases it’s very clear who has to file. Elected officials, high-powered appointed decisionmakers, like e.g. the City Clerk of Los Angeles. But when one descends into the peculiar brushy backwater thickets of privatization where are found the local agencies whose publicness is merely quasi, e.g. business improvements and charter schools, things become murkier indeed.

I don’t (yet) understand the details, but BID staff and directors are required to disclose in some jurisdictions, e.g. the City of Fortuna, California, and not in others, e.g. the City of Los Angeles. And I really don’t know what’s up with California charter schools in general, but I do know that LAUSD charter boards and executive staff are required to file disclosures. And these forms are very likely to make interesting reading, so they’re a must-request item for CPRA sleuths!24

And just recently a stack of Form 700s came in from our old friends at New Los Angeles Charter Schools came in! You can read the whole spool here in a single PDF and there are links to some individual files below. And they’re pretty various. Some have nothing to declare and it seems legit. Others have nothing to declare and appear to be lying about it. There’s one guy with a zillion small positions in various individual stocks, not that creatively chosen. See that an apparently inordinate number of these folks are associated with The Wildwood School. But one of these forms really stands out to me,25 and that’s the one belonging to board member Bari Cooper Sherman.
Continue reading New Los Angeles Charter School Board Member Financial Disclosure Forms Reveal Extent Of Zillionaire Infiltration And Control — Most Interesting Is The Case Of Bari Cooper Sherman — A Principal In Some Incomprehensible Financial Services Firm — Turner Impact Capital — Which Manages A Charter School Real Estate Fund — The Existence Of Such A Thing Is Entirely New To Me — May Be A Path Towards Understanding The Megabucks-Fueled Necromancy Behind Charter Schools →

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Business Improvement Districts, California State Government

The Checkered History Of Streets And Highways Code §36612 — How The California Court Of Appeals Made BIDs Cry By Holding That They Were Subject To The Brown Act And The Public Records Act — And How Bad BIDmother Jackie Goldberg Soothed Their Hurt Feelings By Passing A Law Stating That They Weren’t Public Officials — Is It Constitutional? — It Hasn’t Been Adjudicated So Who Knows?!

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The only reason that this blog even exists is that business improvement districts in California are subject to the California Public Records Act. And the first part of the story of how this came to be is fairly well known. In 1998 Hollywood property owner Aaron Epstein wanted to attend meetings of the Hollywood Property Owners’ Alliance26 and Kerry Morrison, who then as now would willingly brook no interference in her proprietary demesne, told him to go pound sand.

Instead of slapping the silica, though, Epstein filed suit against the BID, and the process culminated in the lovely holding, in Epstein v. Hollywood Entertainment District BID, that BIDs27 were subject to the Brown Act and the CPRA. This ushered anti-BID activists into a paradise from which we are unlikely to be expelled. Kerry Morrison didn’t take this outcome with any grace whatsoever and has been pissing and moaning about it from the outset all the way to the present day.

But that opinion isn’t the only authority that subjects BIDs to transparency laws. There is also the famous §36612 of the PBID Law of 1994, which states in no uncertain terms that BIDs are subject to both the Brown Act and the CPRA.28 It also states explicitly (and ominously) that BID board members and staff are not public officials. Obviously this section was added by the legislature after the Epstein ruling, but I never took the time to investigate the history.

Until now, that is. And what an obvious-after-the-fact surprise it was to find that the bill that added that section was written by none other than Jackie Goldberg, who as CD13 Councilmember during the formation of the Hollywood Entertainment District BID was known to have a great deal of blood on her hands already.29 But by March 2001, when Epstein was finally decided, Goldberg was in the Assembly, so naturally it was to her that the BIDdies, emotionally traumatized by the court’s decision,30 went running for comfort.

And in response to their pleas Goldberg introduced AB 1021 (2001) to coat the bitter pill of Epstein with some soothing syrup and to codify these changes in §36612 of the PBID law even while acknowledging that the legislature wasn’t going to be able to change the court’s holding 31 And I recently obtained a copy of the bill analysis prepared at the time for the Assembly’s Committee on Local Government to help them understand what they were voting for.32 Therein are laid out not only the provisions of the new law, but the complaints of the BIDdies, so the connection is perfectly clear.

The main concessions to the BIDdie agenda found in the code section are the explicit statement that BIDs are private corporations and that neither BID boards nor staff can be considered public officials for any reason. This last bit is tied in to the BIDs’ fear that board members might be subject to California’s political reform act and to Government Code §1090 and therefore to various ethics restrictions and financial disclosure requirements, although it’s not really clear to me that the language has that effect. I’m no kind of expert, though.

Another sop to the BIDdies provided here by Goldberg was the authorization of 10 year renewals. Previously BIDs could only renew for up to five years. In any case, turn the page for more detail, more non-expert discussion and, as always, a transcription of the document.
Continue reading The Checkered History Of Streets And Highways Code §36612 — How The California Court Of Appeals Made BIDs Cry By Holding That They Were Subject To The Brown Act And The Public Records Act — And How Bad BIDmother Jackie Goldberg Soothed Their Hurt Feelings By Passing A Law Stating That They Weren’t Public Officials — Is It Constitutional? — It Hasn’t Been Adjudicated So Who Knows?! →

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Municipal Ethics

Worst-Of-The-Bunch Ethics Commission Veep Serena Oberstein, Who’s Paid $87,500 Annually By Her 501(c)(3) Employer Vision To Learn, Both Of Whom Were Poised To Reap Benefit From Version Of Municipal Lobbying Ordinance Revision Pushed Hard By Serena Oberstein, Suspiciously Neglected To Mention This Fact In Any Of The Literally Zillions Of Public Forums Held On The Matter

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It hasn’t even been two weeks since the Los Angeles Ethics Commission put our City’s Municipal Lobbying Ordinance in danger of being made meaningless, primarily at the instigation of worst-of-the-bunch Commission Veep Serena Oberstein, with respect to 501(c)(3) nonprofits, so it’s not surprising that all the ramifications of their misfeasance have not yet been completely understood. Along those lines, therefore, here’s another episode from the ethical Twilight Zone in which at least some members of the Commission seem to dwell in these latter days.

You see, Serena Oberstein is not just the City’s most corrupt Ethics Commissioner, what with her sub rosa agenda-pushing for her nonprofit buddies Shyaam Subramanian33 and Nancy Berlin, amongst others, not to mention her refusal to agendize a perfectly reasonable request that her Commission disclose their ex parte communications,34 she’s also the Chief Operating Officer of some Westside do-gooder outfit called Vision to Learn.

And while I had some inchoate notion that her involvement with 501(c)(3) nonprofits might explain at least some of her motivations in the recent fiasco, whereby mostly at Serena Oberstein’s instigation, the Commission ended up recommending to the Council that all 501(c)(3)s with gross annual revenues under $2 million be exempt from registration as lobbyists, I hadn’t taken the time to investigate. But recently it occurred to me to look at Vision to Learn’s35 Form 990s to see how the modifications pushed by Serena Oberstein would affect her employer.36 I published the last few years here on Archive.Org, or you can go directly to the PDFs here:

So take a look at the evidence yourself, or turn the page to see what I found!
Continue reading Worst-Of-The-Bunch Ethics Commission Veep Serena Oberstein, Who’s Paid $87,500 Annually By Her 501(c)(3) Employer Vision To Learn, Both Of Whom Were Poised To Reap Benefit From Version Of Municipal Lobbying Ordinance Revision Pushed Hard By Serena Oberstein, Suspiciously Neglected To Mention This Fact In Any Of The Literally Zillions Of Public Forums Held On The Matter →

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Municipal Ethics

Between 2014 and 2015 Confirmation Hearings, Ethics Commissioner Ana Dahan Dropped Mention of NBCUniversal Lobbying And Campaign Funding Work From Her Résumé

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Los Angeles City Ethics Commissioner Ana Dahan on August 9, 2016.
Los Angeles City Ethics Commissioner Ana Dahan on August 9, 2016.
A few days ago I wrote about Ethics Commissioner Ana Dahan’s day job at NBCUniversal’s so-called Legal & Governmental Affairs Unit, which turns out to be their lobbying department. The point was that it’s hard to see how she can create at least the appearance of impartiality in regulating lobbyists when she works for a bunch of lobbyists and employers thereof.

In any case, it turns out that Commissioners have to be confirmed by the City Council, and that creates a Council File (CF 14-1464). Dahan was appointed by Eric Garcetti in 2014 to fill a vacancy, and then again in 2015 for a full term. Thus she had two confirmation hearings just one year apart, and she made an interesting change in her résumé between the two.
Continue reading Between 2014 and 2015 Confirmation Hearings, Ethics Commissioner Ana Dahan Dropped Mention of NBCUniversal Lobbying And Campaign Funding Work From Her Résumé →

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Announcements

Lots of Documents, and Not of the Usual Sort!

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Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Worker Movement, 99 years ago in 1916. Her truth, like that of John Brown, goes marching on in Los Angeles in 2015.
Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Worker Movement, 99 years ago in 1916. Her truth, like that of John Brown, goes marching on in Los Angeles in 2015.
Today I’m pleased to announce the availability of a bunch more documents, some of them really interesting, and none of them of the sort we’ve usually featured here. First of all we are adding the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority to our list of scrutinizees, albeit in a fairly desultory manner. Documents we obtain will be available from the usual menus above, and here is a link to that page. We kick things off with a couple years worth of form 700s from the Commissioners and the Executive Director. For almost certainly nefarious reasons, the city of Los Angeles, unlike other more enlightened cities in California, does not require BID board members or high-level employees to file financial disclosures (although this may be changing soon, fingers crossed!), so obtaining these forms was the only way to get any insight into Kerry Morrison’s finances insofar as they relate to her work for the HPOA. And now, like Jesus Christ hisself, we have saved the best for last, so the good stuff is after the break!
Continue reading Lots of Documents, and Not of the Usual Sort! →

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Hollywood Property Owners Alliance

Hollywood Area BIDs Get all Jeansy-Creamsy Over Multiplying Starbuckses, Garcetti Grins All the Way to the Bank

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Eric Garcetti, thinking about his Starbucks stock and smiling upon the machinations of the city's BIDs
Eric Garcetti, thinking about his Starbucks stock and smiling down upon the machinational shenanigans of the city’s BIDs
There’s no question that the BIDs love them some Starbucks. Even the Sunset-Vine “Baby BID” loves its Starbucks. Heck, even the Hollywood Media District, the most thuggish of the Hollywood area BIDs, was caught loving up Starbucks in its macho, cowboy-faced manner on August 6, 2014.

But why do they love Starbucks so much? What is in it for them? It can’t be the coffee. Not even the BID folks are that depraved.

Never fear! We are going, inspired by the creative example of our Hollywood area business improvement districts, to explain it all to you!
Continue reading Hollywood Area BIDs Get all Jeansy-Creamsy Over Multiplying Starbuckses, Garcetti Grins All the Way to the Bank →

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