Tag Archives: George Francisco

Los Angeles City Government, Venice

George Francisco — Venice Neighborhood Council Candidate — And Supreme Boss Of The Venice Chamber Of Commerce — And Notably Creepy Little Zillionaire — Speaks Publicly Of His Vast And Unbounded Support For The LGBTQ Community Of Venice — And In Private It Appears That He Will Say “I Have Gotten A Lot Of Mileage Out Of That Rainbow Shit” — So — You Know — Vote Your Conscience On Sunday, Friends

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Yoicks, man! This George Francisco fellow is like a Russian nesting doll where the layers get surrealler rather than tinier. The other day I wrote about a complaint filed against the dude for taking money from developers to arrange for supportive comments at public meetings. Evidently inspired by that a source sent me what really appears to be a screenshot of more of Francisco’s text messages. These ones are about the famous raising of the world’s largest rainbow flag last year by Venice Pride.

As you can imagine, all of the world’s Francisco-adjacent organizations, along with every sane person in the whole wide world, are deeply supportive of LGBTQ people. And as you can imagine, they will happily tell the whole world about this, which is as it should be. Why, e.g., just look at this press release from the Venice Chamber of Commerce, in which Francisco is a reasonably powerful figure, and its quite direct, quite laudable, statement that “The Venice Chamber of Commerce is strongly in support of our LGBTQ members and the wider LGBTQ community and we always will be.”

Or also this screenshot from the Venice Sign Insta account or the direct link here announcing how the sign will be lit up in rainbow colors for Pride Month, which is June of 2019.1 The text is inspiring:

The historic Venice Sign will be lit up in rainbow hues during the month of June to celebrate diversity and equality for all. This year also marks the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, and the VCC os [sic] proud to join commemorating a key moment in the struggle for inclusion and LGBTQ rights.

Laudable sentiments indeed, O Iconic Venice Sign! But what does your human controller, George Francisco, have to say about LGBTQ issues when he thinks no one’s listening? Well, it appears from this apparent screenshot that apparently it is something more along the lines of:

I have gotten a lot of mileage out of that rainbow shit.

Which is more true? Well, I leave discernment up to you! And turn the page for images of the screenshots.
Continue reading George Francisco — Venice Neighborhood Council Candidate — And Supreme Boss Of The Venice Chamber Of Commerce — And Notably Creepy Little Zillionaire — Speaks Publicly Of His Vast And Unbounded Support For The LGBTQ Community Of Venice — And In Private It Appears That He Will Say “I Have Gotten A Lot Of Mileage Out Of That Rainbow Shit” — So — You Know — Vote Your Conscience On Sunday, Friends →

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Los Angeles City Government, Venice

The Venice Neighborhood Council Election Just Went Thermonuclear — This Very Day Upstart Vice-Presidential Candidate Grant Turck Filed A Bombshell Complaint Against Incumbent And Creepy Little Venice Zillionaire George Francisco — Very Credibly Alleges Bribe-Taking — And Misuse Of Position To Create A Private Advantage — And Soliciting Gifts From Restricted Sources — And Illegally Receiving Compensation To Communicate With Intent To Influence — And There Are What Appear To Be Copies Of George Francisco’s Texts And Emails — Outlining An Exchange Of $5,000 For Lining Up Speakers To Support A Project Before City Planning — It Looks Really Bad For Old George

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OK, elections are coming up for the Venice Neighborhood Council.2 And you can read this excellent guide to the candidates and the issues at the excellent Free Venice Beachhead. And of course you know our old friend, the creepy little Venice zillionaire himself, George Francisco, who is long-time Vice President of the VNC.

He’s famously also president of the Venice Chamber of Commerce, as well as the supergenius who once got the LAPD to relocate a homeless man who happened to be in the way of some nonsensical “high-impact event” he was planning on the site of the guy’s tent.And his opponent in the already-highly-charged election is Venice Pride head Grant Turck. And there are some debates coming up and stuff, but Turck isn’t holding fire, not holding at all.

This afternoon, May 17, 2019, Turck filed this complaint against George Francisco with the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission. He alleges very credibly a number of extremely serious violations of various governmental ethics ordinances. What’s more amazing is that he has copies of what really appear to be Francisco’s text messages and emails implicating himself in what look like some really deeply shady shenanigans.

Even if nothing comes of this matter, and who can say what will happen when the Ethics Commission is involved, it ought to make the debates interesting and, maybe, just maybe, it’ll be enough to get the creepy little zillionaire tossed out of the temple3 if not into the slammer. Read on for a transcription of Turck’s work and images of the amazing text messages and emails.
Continue reading The Venice Neighborhood Council Election Just Went Thermonuclear — This Very Day Upstart Vice-Presidential Candidate Grant Turck Filed A Bombshell Complaint Against Incumbent And Creepy Little Venice Zillionaire George Francisco — Very Credibly Alleges Bribe-Taking — And Misuse Of Position To Create A Private Advantage — And Soliciting Gifts From Restricted Sources — And Illegally Receiving Compensation To Communicate With Intent To Influence — And There Are What Appear To Be Copies Of George Francisco’s Texts And Emails — Outlining An Exchange Of $5,000 For Lining Up Speakers To Support A Project Before City Planning — It Looks Really Bad For Old George →

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Los Angeles City Government, Venice

Some Eric Garcetti Staffers And The Venice Chamber Of Commerce Held A Private Meeting At The Hotel Erwin On March 1, 2019 — Which We Learned About From A Characteristically Whiny Privileged And Entitled Nextdoor Post By Gun-Toting Homeless Hating Ben And Jerry’s Franchise Owning Angry White Dude Klaus Moeller — We Now Have The List Of Attendees! — With Email Addresses! — And The List Of Speakers!

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On March 1, 2019 Klaus Moeller, the extraordinarily whiny, privileged, and entitled owner of the extraordinarily anti-human Ben and Jerry’s franchise on the Boardwalk, posted some not-so-extraordinarily whiny, privileged, and entitled nonsense on the extraordinarily anti-human white supremacist bulletin board Nextdoor.Com.

And there among the assorted delusional rants about how the entire government of the City of Los Angeles is conspiring against the poor beleaguered zillionaires of Venice to prevent them from opening even more cute restaurants so that there will be more space for homeless people4 was an actual important piece of information. According to El Moeller, his “daughter just came back from a small round table meeting with 20 people at the Erwin Hotel. The meeting was called for by the Mayor’s office and the Venice Chamber of Commerce.”

So this is news, right? The Mayor’s office is holding top secret invite-only meetings with Venice zillionaires in the white supremacist paradise known as the Hotel Erwin! And other people were interested in the story besides me! And someone fired off a CPRA request to David Harrison, who seems to be one of the Mayor’s lawyers.5 And wow! Just yesterday the Office of the Mayor sent over 8 pages of emails explaining what happened, and containing a really unexpected gift!

What it was was a “business summit” organized by the Venice Chamber of Commerce in the person of Chamber CEO Donna Lasman. And what was it meant to be about? Well, here’s what Lasman said to Garcetti staffers Robert Park and Ami Fields-Meyer about it:

I am pleased to inform you that we have secured a location for our business summit on Friday, 3/01. The event will be at Hotel Erwin – 1697 Pacific Avenue = and will be organized into 2 sessions. The first session will be located in Larry’s Loft from 9:00 am – 1030 am and will consist of your presentation.

We have sent invitations to approximately 50 business leaders in the community from diverse business sectors and representing the various areas in Venice – Abbot Kinney, Lincoln Blvd., Ocean Front Walk, Rose Avenue and Washington Square. We expect approximately 30 people to attend.

As we discussed during our meeting, we are interested in hearing an assessment on the current business climate and trends for the Westside community, issues and initiatives that the Mayor’s office is working on, and how business leaders in Venice can partner with the Mayor’s office to work on issues that support a thriving economy in Venice.

Carol/George – please chime if there is more that you want to add.6

The second session from 10:30 am to 12:00 pm will be a focus group/planning session with about 15 stakeholders. Our goal for this segment is to identify priorities for our business community and create actionable items for mobilizing our business community. Though there is no need for you to stay, you are of course welcome to join

And another interesting fact revealed in these emails is the list of speakers. Here they are:

• Robert Park, Community Business Manager for Mayor Eric Garcetti

• Ami Fields-Meyer, West Area Representative for Mayor Eric Garcetti

• Bhavna Sivanand, Executive Director of lmpact@Anderson, UCLA Anderson School of Management

• Dion Wiltshire, Business Services Supervisor, West LA WorkSource

• Patti MacJennett, Senior Vice President for Business Affairs, Los Angeles Tourism and Convention Board

But the real gem was this spreadsheet, which contains the RSVP list for the event, along with email addresses! The people listed here may not be the ones that ruined Venice in the first place, but they’re the ones who are keeping it ruined and ruining it even more! This is extraordinarily useful information! And there’s an auto-generated HTML version of the spreadsheet after the break. And also there’s the pretty interesting and enlightening full story of how I got the spreadsheet via the CPRA request, which you should definitely read if you’re interested in CPRA pragmatics!
Continue reading Some Eric Garcetti Staffers And The Venice Chamber Of Commerce Held A Private Meeting At The Hotel Erwin On March 1, 2019 — Which We Learned About From A Characteristically Whiny Privileged And Entitled Nextdoor Post By Gun-Toting Homeless Hating Ben And Jerry’s Franchise Owning Angry White Dude Klaus Moeller — We Now Have The List Of Attendees! — With Email Addresses! — And The List Of Speakers! →

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LAPD, Los Angeles City Council

Creepy Little Venice Zillionaire George Francisco Wanted A Homeless Man Evicted For The Sake Of His Sign Lighting Event — So He Got Creepy Little Venice Field Deputy Taylor Bazley To Look Into “Commanding” The Homeless Man To Leave — Mayoral Flunky Brian Buchner Turned Out To Be The Grownup In The Room And Put The Nix On This Plan — So Much For The Theory That Encampment Cleanups Target Health And Safety Problems — Given That Bazley And Francisco Value A “High Profile Event” More Than A Human Being’s Residence

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Ask the City’s powerful and you’ll hear a familiar story. That breaking up and cleaning out homeless encampments promotes health, promotes safety, is even good for the people whose homes are being destroyed. Just ask Estela Lopez, the executive director of the Downtown Industrial District BID, who will tell you that these cleanups are good for the very people who are getting cleaned up. Ask famous-on-Facebook homelessness hero Betsy Starman, who’ll tell you that even arresting homeless people is for their own damn good. Ask LAPD’s HOPE team, who will tell you the whole thing is for the benefit of the victims.

Heck, ask zillionaire property owner, serial plagiarist, and erstwhile president of the board of directors of the whole damn Hollywood Property Owners Alliance John Tronson, who will tell you that arresting the homeless isn’t just necessary to help them, but it’s actually good for them. Ask Tronson’s once-upon-a-time BID Patrol minion Mike Coogle, who at one point responded to a social worker’s worries about a man who wasn’t 5150-eligible but who she still wanted to lock up with an offer to arrest him as much as possible so that eventually warrants would issue and she would be able to help him whether he wanted it or not. How’s that for arrests being good for the homeless?!

And this is a good narrative, I guess, or at least a useful one. It lets people who just want the homeless moved out and away and don’t give a damn about the pain and destruction to feel like they’re helping people while helping themselves, to feel like they at least appear that they do give a damn about human suffering. It strains the credulity of the sane, though, to believe that arresting homeless people, that breaking up their camps and destroying their possessions, is actually good for anyone, let alone the people it’s happening to. Or even that anyone actually intends it to be good.

There are just too many episodes like the one about CD13’s scheduling a cleanup because some zillionaire landlord had a property inspection coming up or the one about CD14 arranging a cleanup in advance of a movie company’s planned filming. It sure seems like, no matter what the lies the powerful are telling themselves in the morning mirror, the motives for evicting the homeless are really not humane at all.7

And today I have another example, albeit with a twist this time, which is the involvement of Garcetti homelessness staffer Brian Buchner who, if not humane, at least understands how to manage appearances. The whole story is told in this email conversation between CD11 field deputy Taylor Bazley,8 Brian Buchner, Dominic Choi, Emada Tingirides, and Garcetti’s latest magic bullet, the Unified Homelessness Response Center. The subject is universally-reviled-by-sane-people Venice zillionaire George Francisco and his infernal Venice Sign comma lighting ceremony therefor, scheduled last year for Saturday, December 1, 2018. You can read the special event permit here.

And the problem? Well, there was a human being living on the sidewalk where this very special event was to take place. And George Francisco wasn’t having it. So he had Taylor Bazley email a bunch of LAPDs and ask the eternal burning question, which is how can we get the homeless person out of the way of the zillionaire party? Turn the page for a transcription of this and the rest of the discussion, and don’t ever believe them again when they tell you they’re arresting homeless people for their own damn good.
Continue reading Creepy Little Venice Zillionaire George Francisco Wanted A Homeless Man Evicted For The Sake Of His Sign Lighting Event — So He Got Creepy Little Venice Field Deputy Taylor Bazley To Look Into “Commanding” The Homeless Man To Leave — Mayoral Flunky Brian Buchner Turned Out To Be The Grownup In The Room And Put The Nix On This Plan — So Much For The Theory That Encampment Cleanups Target Health And Safety Problems — Given That Bazley And Francisco Value A “High Profile Event” More Than A Human Being’s Residence →

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LAPD, Venice Beach BID

A Random Selection Of Emails Between Carl Lambert Or Mark Sokol And Various Cops Reveal Some Interesting Stuff About Venice — Lambert Divides Venice Neighborhood Council Members Into “Friendlies” And Otherwise — Sokol Arranged A Hotel Room For Officer Peggy Thusing In 2013 — The Venice BID Formation Process — Which Lambert Declared Began “Renaissance Of Venice” — Was Bankrolled By Brian Dror — Lambert Raised Money For Slavering Psychopath Mark Ryavec By Telling Homeless Horror Stories

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I recently obtained a small collection of emails between Venice beat cops Kristan Delatori, Peggy Thusing, and the recently self-destructed Nicole Alberca9 and those fan favorite BIDdies Mark Sokol and Carl Lambert. You can peruse the whole set here on Archive dot Org, and in today’s post I’ll discuss a few high/low-lights!

OK, remember the Venice Neighborhood Council election in 2016? The outcome was widely interpreted by sane people as being yet another death blow administered to the longtime rotting corpse of Venice. And now, thanks to this June 2016 day-after email from Carl Lambert to undisclosed recipients including Nicole Alberca we learn that Lambert divides the winners up into friendlies and not-friendlies.

And we learn who the friendlies are! And that there is a supermajority of them! And we also learn that Carl Lambert sends late-night texts to Nicole Alberca! And they make her smile! All these Venice zillionaires and their pet cops are really far too cozy for our safety and comfort, I think.

Oh yes, of course you want to know the names! Well, the friendlies are: George Francisco, Melissa Diner, Matt Kline, Evan White, Matt Royce, Matt Shaw, Robert Thibodeau, Will Hawkins, John Reed, Steve Livigni, Sunny Bak, Cayley Lambur, Jim Murez, Michelle Meepos, and Laurie Burns. And the not friendly? They are Ira Koslow, Hugh Harrison, Ilana Marosi, Erin Darling, Colleen Saro, and Gina Maslow. Got it? And turn the page for more, more, more!
Continue reading A Random Selection Of Emails Between Carl Lambert Or Mark Sokol And Various Cops Reveal Some Interesting Stuff About Venice — Lambert Divides Venice Neighborhood Council Members Into “Friendlies” And Otherwise — Sokol Arranged A Hotel Room For Officer Peggy Thusing In 2013 — The Venice BID Formation Process — Which Lambert Declared Began “Renaissance Of Venice” — Was Bankrolled By Brian Dror — Lambert Raised Money For Slavering Psychopath Mark Ryavec By Telling Homeless Horror Stories →

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Venice Beach BID

Venice Beach BID Board Unilaterally Raises Everyone’s Property Taxes By 5% In The Face Of Universal Opposition — The BID Spends About 10% Of Its Annual Income On Lawyers — And About 10% On Tara Freaking Devine — George “Demonic Goatee” Francisco And Taylor “Smartest Guy In Room Cause UCLA” Bazley Spent What Seemed Like The Whole Damn Meeting Cooing Icky-Sticky Satanic Incantations In Each Others’ Ears

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Last Wednesday the Venice Beach BID board of directors met. I was able to attend and record video of the entire dark and bloody ritual, which you can watch either on YouTube or else on Archive.Org depending on which way your pleasure tends.10

Anyway, the most sinister part was the fact that the board voted to raise assessments 5% for next year. You can watch the actual vote here — it was five to one, with useful idiot and legitimacy-lender Connie Brooks voting against despite Mark Sokol’s unsuccessful attempt to bully her into abstaining.11 This from a BID which didn’t start operations until far more than a year after it was created and did so little its first year that the City forced it to refund everyone’s money.

As late as March 2018 the City was still having to threaten this BID with disestablishment due to its inability to meet even the most basic terms of its contract. These are the people who are boosting everyone’s taxes by 5% next year. And what do they need that money for given that they have not actually done anything with all the money they’ve already bled out of the people of Venice?
Continue reading Venice Beach BID Board Unilaterally Raises Everyone’s Property Taxes By 5% In The Face Of Universal Opposition — The BID Spends About 10% Of Its Annual Income On Lawyers — And About 10% On Tara Freaking Devine — George “Demonic Goatee” Francisco And Taylor “Smartest Guy In Room Cause UCLA” Bazley Spent What Seemed Like The Whole Damn Meeting Cooing Icky-Sticky Satanic Incantations In Each Others’ Ears →

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