Tag Archives: Frisco Dwellers

Patti Berman, Estela Lopez, Rena Leddy, Unite DTLA, Rocky Delgadillo, Tentatively Foiled In Their Evil Plan: Skid Row Neighborhood Council Victory In Sight As Hearing Panel Recommends Do-Over Of One Sort Or Another!

Some guy whose name I didn’t catch last night at the SRNC appeal hearing speaking what evidently passes for truth in some circles these days, although I’m not sure what circles those are.
Background: Last month the Skid Row Neighborhood Council failed to be formed and then General Jeff Page, head of the formation committee, and his colleague Katherine McNenny discovered some very shady looking activity and filed an appeal with the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment. You can also read a more balanced version of the story by Gale Holland of the Times.

Last night a panel consisting of three neighborhood council presidents from around the City heard General Jeff’s appeal of the election that defeated the Skid Row Neighborhood Council separation from DLANC last month. You can read the whole appeal here, including DONE boss Grayce Liu’s recommendations to the panel. The gist of it is that someone sent around an email that looked like it came from DLANC urging people to vote against the SRNC. If this had been a candidate for a neighborhood council office this evidence would have been enough to incur sanctions from the City based on the rules in the official election manual.

As it was, though, the panel unambiguously recommended that DONE either hold another election without the exceedingly contentious online voting that was unaccountably allowed in this election.1 Note that you can also read a less impressionistic version of this story than mine by Gale Holland, writing in this morning’s Times.

The hearing panel.
The meeting was well-attended and the level of interest and excitement was high. Unfortunately I had to leave after only three hours, long before anything was decided, but what I did see was well worth the trip. Most exciting was the public comments, which, at least while I was there, were all but one in favor of Skid Row. They were insightful, heartfelt, moving, convincing, enough to restore understandably flagging faiths in democracy. The one guy who was against the new NC was…well, his comments are summarized in the image that appears at the start of this post. It may seem like a joke, but it was not.

I’m pleased to note, also, that at least one public commenter mentioned my recent public records request on the SRNC, connecting up the immoral, probably illegal anti-partition campaign with the nefarious activities of Downtown Business Improvement Districts and their cross-appointed-to-DLANC executive directors Rena Leddy and Estela Lopez. Even puppet-wielding crackpot Wayne Spindler, evidently seeing the gravity of the situation, laid his creepy-moronic pig-performance aside and said something important in favor of the SRNC, and was applauded. Anyway, that’s the news. Find a little unfounded speculative nerdview material after the break.
Continue reading Patti Berman, Estela Lopez, Rena Leddy, Unite DTLA, Rocky Delgadillo, Tentatively Foiled In Their Evil Plan: Skid Row Neighborhood Council Victory In Sight As Hearing Panel Recommends Do-Over Of One Sort Or Another!

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Kerry Morrison Tries, Fails, to Serve Two Masters, Unfolding Events Yield Two Pressing Reasons for Her to Resign from LAHSA Immediately

Kerry Morrison chooses which of the two masters she's gonna love and, consequently, which she's gonna hate.
Kerry Morrison chooses which of the two masters she’s gonna love and, consequently, which she’s gonna hate.
In the last two weeks, two cataclysmic changes in the the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority‘s mission have made it, in not just our opinion but in the opinion of any sane observer, impossible for Kerry Morrison to ethically continue to serve as both a LAHSA Commissioner and the executive directrix of the HPOA. Since as of a few years ago she was earning $192,794 per annum1 from the HPOA we’re guessing it’s not that job she’s gonna quit. What happened is this: both the Los Angeles City Council and the Department of Housing and Urban Development are poised to ask LAHSA to (a) decide where across the city to locate service centers for the homeless and (b) to stop breaking up homeless encampments.
Kerry Morrison counting a homeless person, no doubt using the local methodology that "[f]ederal officials are disputing," according to the Los Angeles Times.
Kerry Morrison counting a homeless person, no doubt using the local methodology that “[f]ederal officials are disputing,” according to the Los Angeles Times.
Unfortunately, Kerry’s masters on the BID Boards expect her to target the homeless for hyperenforcement even as they scoff at the very idea that homeless human beings have rights and, accordingly, she’s directed her flunkies (we’re talking about you, Steve Seyler) to arrest homeless people in encampments and for any other random thing that pops into their heads. She can’t ethically do both, for, as a wise man once said:2

No one can serve two masters, for either he
will hate the one and love the other; or else
he will be devoted to one and despise the
other. You can’t serve both God and Mammon.

Well, we’re not cynics, not at all, so we’re not going to predict what she’s going to do. We are, however, going to write much more about the choices she’s facing right below the fold!
Continue reading Kerry Morrison Tries, Fails, to Serve Two Masters, Unfolding Events Yield Two Pressing Reasons for Her to Resign from LAHSA Immediately

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Frisco Dwellers don’t LA; Never Have, Never Will

If this were a college class, it'd be Rocks for Jocks
If this were a college class, it’d be Rocks for Jocks
Maybe you’ve been out of state and had some wit tell you that they hate Los Angeles “but love San Francisco.” This is a commonplace sentiment among easterners (around here, we believe that easterners start at the San Bernardino County line). Here’s an explanation: San Francisco is a tiny, transparent town. It’s easy to understand because it’s small and because it’s a self-conscious imitation of eastern cities, themselves often self-conscious imitations of European cities. It’s visually appealing in a facile way. It’s got pretty houses and the “bad” neighborhoods, such as they are, have been suppressed and relocated to the point where tourists don’t have to go there. Their local burritos are just exotic enough to thrill but not so different from Chipotle™ that they disconcert the outta-towners.

San Francisco is exactly what easterners expect from a city and the weather’s better and the executioner’s face is always well hidden. So they “get it” immediately and love it instinctively, like tourists love Denny’s because the food’s the same wherever they are. Frisco dwellers crave this universal approval, too. They’re addicted to an extent where, like junkies, they need a big dose of tourist-love-bombing daily just to feel normal. Like sex addicts, they continually need yet another piece of strange or they’ll forget they exist. For over a hundred years they’ve been letting this addiction distort their city’s culture and politics to make it even more pleasing to easterners.
Continue reading Frisco Dwellers don’t LA; Never Have, Never Will

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