Tag Archives: Gil Cedillo

As Previously Reported — On May 15, 2018 Bill Cody, The World’s Oldest Field Deputy, Told Jesse Rosas And The Highland Park Business Improvement District That Gil Cedillo Had Hired Barrio Planners To Help Displaced Small Businesses — But Newly Obtained Emails Reveal That On May 20, 2018 Bill Cody Emailed Barrio Planners And Asked Them To Help The Businesses — Bill Cody, We Wouldn’t Want To Accuse You Of Having Lied On May 15, Friend — Probably It Seemed True While You Were Saying It — And Then You Kinda Made It Be True Later — So It’s Kinda OK I Guess

November 25, 2018 Mike Leave a comment

Anyone who’s paying attention to Los Angeles politics recently knows about the hipster apocalypse presently unfolding in Highland Park. I had occasion yesterday morning to walk south on Figueroa Street this morning from Avenue 61 to Avenue 50¹ and it’s basically like hipster Jim Crow, with businesses duplicated on every block and divided starkly along racial lines. A hipster tonsorial salon² next to a Latino barber, hipster clothing next to work shoes or ropas segundas, hipster cold-press juice bars next to stands selling jugos naturales, and so on.

Weirdest of all is the situation with coffee places. Over and over and over again one sees a hipster coffee place full of tattooed young white people right next to a panaderia full of brown people. Both places serve coffee and baked goods and yet somehow there’s evidently no way that one place can satisfy both crowds. It makes absolutely no sense to me, probably not to any sane people.³ These coffee places, three or four to the block, are a stark and clear symbol of the holocaust that so-called legacy businesses along Figueroa Street are undergoing and which those along York Boulevard have already undergone baby gone.

And because hipster-serving establishments charge prices that are many times the prices the older businesses can sustain, they can afford rents high enough to drive the older places out of business. And the landlords are thrilled by this, of course, because they pocket the extra money with extra outlay of neither capital nor labor on their part. It’s a zillionaire’s wet dream.⁴ And it’s also not a mystery. It’s well-covered in the press. Rents go up and very soon after the vultures start feathering their nests.

And because it’s not a mystery, and because it’s a subject of deep import to many constituents in CD1, it’s entirely fitting and proper that residents would share their concern with their Council staffers and entirely fitting and proper that said Council staffers would respond. And we have already seen that something like this happened with the world’s oldest field deputy, Bill Cody, the crankiest and most bellicose flunky ever to rep Gil Cedillo or, for that matter, any other Councilmember in the entire damn history of Los Angeles.

At the May 15 meeting of the North Figueroa Association, which is the property owners’ association for the infamous Highland Park BID, he was questioned pretty intensely by Jesse Rosas about this very issue and responded in a rather mealy-mouthed fashion by claiming that his boss, Gil Cedillo, was taking care of it by hiring some kind of a firm, known as Barrio Planners, that presumably knows how to take care of such things:

And I’m always worried about that. Oh, one more thing. We have Barrio Planners, who’s been helping a lot of the local businesses to try to find placement for some of the ones who, um, … a couple of properties have changed situations and … I have been working with all those businesses, I [unintelligible] them together with Barrio Planners, they’ll work on that issue, we pay them to do that. So, we’re very, very concerned about that and we’ve been working tirelessly on that issue.

And since that day, more than five months ago at this point, my compatriots and I have been trying to figure out exactly what the heck Bill Freaking Cody was talking about. And because the CPRA mill grinds slowly we didn’t get much action for quite a while, but because the CPRA mill does grind, CD1 finally handed over some emails. You can read all of them here on Archive.Org, and turn the page for selections that reveal that despite the good game talked by Bill Cody, the Council District’s intervention via Barrio Planners on behalf of these threatened businesses seems to have been quite minimal and therefore the subject of wild overhyping by Bill Cody when e.g. he claims that they have “been working tirelessly on that issue.”
Continue reading As Previously Reported — On May 15, 2018 Bill Cody, The World’s Oldest Field Deputy, Told Jesse Rosas And The Highland Park Business Improvement District That Gil Cedillo Had Hired Barrio Planners To Help Displaced Small Businesses — But Newly Obtained Emails Reveal That On May 20, 2018 Bill Cody Emailed Barrio Planners And Asked Them To Help The Businesses — Bill Cody, We Wouldn’t Want To Accuse You Of Having Lied On May 15, Friend — Probably It Seemed True While You Were Saying It — And Then You Kinda Made It Be True Later — So It’s Kinda OK I Guess →

Announcements, Business Improvement Districts, Los Angeles City Council

Two New Coffee Mugs! — One Featuring Angry Studio City Clown And Board Member Matthew Dunn! — Commemorating His Epic Freakout Slash Walkout! — The Other In Honor Of Councildude Gil Cedillo’s Propensity For Being All Things To All People! — Featuring An All New Never Before Seen Cartoon! Get Both Today!!

September 21, 2018 Mike Leave a comment

After Monday’s epic freakout by Studio City BID board member Matthew Dunn, in which he ended up storming out of his own meeting because he hates America, freedom, mom, apple pie, and the California Constitution, I was so moved that just merely writing this mocking post about the guy wasn’t enough to express my feelings. Hence I designed an entirely new coffee mug, which, as always, you can buy on the MK.Org CafePress store by clicking right here! It’s a perfect gift for commemorating birthdays, bat mitzvahs, retirements, involuntary commitments, every significant family occasion!

And while you’re at the store you should check out this other brand new mug! This one features Gil Cedillo and plays on his propensity for being all things to all people, talking up immigrant rights and radical Latino politics on the one hand while selling off the neighborhoods in his council district to developers who then price the present inhabitants right out of there. The cartoon appears at the head of this post!

And, as always, turn the page for links to the full-sized image files used to generate the mugs so you can see exactly what you’re spending your money on.
Continue reading Two New Coffee Mugs! — One Featuring Angry Studio City Clown And Board Member Matthew Dunn! — Commemorating His Epic Freakout Slash Walkout! — The Other In Honor Of Councildude Gil Cedillo’s Propensity For Being All Things To All People! — Featuring An All New Never Before Seen Cartoon! Get Both Today!! →

Business Improvement Districts, Los Angeles City Government

Has The Los Angeles Unified School District Turned Against BIDs? — At Its May 8, 2018 The School Board Voted Against A Staff Recommendation To Support Seven Renewals — On The Grounds That The Money Would Be Better Used For — Gasp!! — Educating Students

July 21, 2018 Mike Leave a comment

It’s well-known that the City of Los Angeles always votes its property in favor of BID formation. In fact, an ordinance passed in 1996 directs the Clerk to vote yes on both petitions and ballots unless the City Council specifically directs otherwise. And to my knowledge, the same has been true of the Los Angeles Unified School District. There have been signs, albeit not dispositive, of some LAUSD discontent with the policy, e.g. the probably intentional voiding of all petitions, but no open rebellion that I’m aware of.

And BIDs are evidently used to taking LAUSD petitions and ballots for granted. For instance, the Byzantine Latino Quarter BID is currently in the process of renewing.¹ And I just received a huge release of emails about the renewal from BLQBID director Moises Gomez, which you can look at here on Archive.Org. It’s clear from the discussion that Don Duckworth and Moises Gomez were counting the LAUSD petitions as already-hatched chickens² but, amazingly, it was not to be.

In April 2018 LAUSD staff prepared a report recommending that the Board sign petitions approving seven BIDs in Los Angeles. But at its May 8, 2018 meeting, the LAUSD Board voted down the staff proposal, and, according to staffer Yekaterina Boyajian, writing in an email to Moises Gomez on May 21, this is how it went down:

The proposal for the District to sign these petitions in support of the BIDs was not approved. The Board expressed the desire to support the BID petitions, and staff spoke to the positive relationships schools have with existing BIDs, but the Board felt that they could not justify supporting the expenditure of public education funds for purposes other than education in a time when the District is facing historic budget deficits.

It wasn’t just the BLQ BID that got its hopes dashed, either. The other BIDs whose petitions were rejected were the Arts District, the Fashion District, the Hollywood Entertainment District, the Hollywood Media District, the Lincoln Heights Benefit District, and the Melrose BID. Quite a distinguished list, eh?

And turn the page for a detailed explanation of the BLQ BID’s evolving thinking about these LAUSD petitions between February and May 2018, along with the usual links to and transcriptions of any number of really interesting emails!
Continue reading Has The Los Angeles Unified School District Turned Against BIDs? — At Its May 8, 2018 The School Board Voted Against A Staff Recommendation To Support Seven Renewals — On The Grounds That The Money Would Be Better Used For — Gasp!! — Educating Students →

Los Angeles City Council

The Highland Park Heroines At Restorative Justice For The Arts Have Started A Petition Asking Gil Cedillo To Get Rid Of Bill Cody, The World’s Oldest Field Deputy, Because Of Him Being A Bully And A Harasser — Sign It Today, Friends!

July 15, 2018 Mike Leave a comment

Bill Freaking Cody, where to start? I mean, you’ve read about how the guy yells at everyone, about how the guy’s an inveterate enabler of white supremacy, how he and his BID buddies Facebook-stalk local activists, and so on.

Now read about how the guy allegedly harasses women in Highland Park, the very women he’s supposed to be helping his boss, Gil Cedillo, serve as a representative of Los Angeles City Government. In fact, do more than read about it, sign a Change.Org petition asking Gil Cedillo to fire the guy! This petition was started by two of the unsung Heroes of this City, the founders of Restorative Justice for the Arts. And turn the page for some excerpts.
Continue reading The Highland Park Heroines At Restorative Justice For The Arts Have Started A Petition Asking Gil Cedillo To Get Rid Of Bill Cody, The World’s Oldest Field Deputy, Because Of Him Being A Bully And A Harasser — Sign It Today, Friends! →

Business Improvement Districts

At Last Tuesday’s North Figueroa Association Meeting Jesse Rosas Wanted To Talk About Small Businesses Being Gentrified Out Of Existence In Highland Park — NFA Board Führer Tom Wilson And Bill Cody, The World’s Oldest Field Deputy, Kept Trying To Get Him To Shut Up — Probably Because They Didn’t Want To Talk About It On Camera — And Gil Cedillo Has Hired An Urban Planning Firm To Help Relocate Businesses Out Of Highland Park

May 21, 2018 Mike 3 Comments

If you’re following the situation in Highland Park these days you’ll know that one big issue is with commercial landlords jacking up their tenants’ rents by as much as 300% in some cases just because they can. This drives out familiar businesses to make room for even more hot yoga studios or whatever. And of course, this kind of thing doesn’t just happen by itself. There are actually people making a living arranging it.

And it’s well known that business improvement districts represent the interests of commercial property owners, like these rent-jacking landlords.¹ So it wouldn’t be big news that BIDs were in on these conspiracies as well. And thus it was no surprise to discover, when I visited the North Figueroa Association last week, to discover that the plight of the small businesses along Figueroa was a hot topic of discussion.

Well, let me qualify that. It was a hot topic of discussion for Jesse Rosas, a local businessman,² but, probably because they were hyper-aware of my camera,³ BID boss Tom Wilson and Bill Freaking Cody, the world’s oldest field deputy, kept interrupting him and trying to shush him up. They eventually did get him to stop talking, but not before he managed to mention the words they all dread so very much, to wit: commercial rent control.⁴

Oh, and not before BIDdenführer Tom Wilson made one of the most ludicrously false statements to which, over the long and illustrious course of my entire BIDdological career, I have been privileged to serve as witness: “we’re here to talk about security and trash.” The only sane response to that is “Yeah, right, Tom Freaking Wilson!!” Watch the conversation for yourself and there’s a transcription and discussion of a few details after the break.
Continue reading At Last Tuesday’s North Figueroa Association Meeting Jesse Rosas Wanted To Talk About Small Businesses Being Gentrified Out Of Existence In Highland Park — NFA Board Führer Tom Wilson And Bill Cody, The World’s Oldest Field Deputy, Kept Trying To Get Him To Shut Up — Probably Because They Didn’t Want To Talk About It On Camera — And Gil Cedillo Has Hired An Urban Planning Firm To Help Relocate Businesses Out Of Highland Park →

Business Improvement Districts

Highland Park BID Accused Of Promoting Gentrification By Among Other Things Asking The City To Enforce Anti-Mural Laws And Selectively Promoting White-Serving Businesses — Board Of Directors Spy On Activists’ Facebook Comments — All Of Which Sheds Some Light On The Exceedly Underappreciated Facts That (A) Property-Based BIDs Do Not In Any Way Represent Businesses — They Represent Property Owners And Only Property Owners and (B) The City Is More Complicit In Gentrification Than Anyone Will Admit

April 9, 2018 Mike Leave a comment

One purpose of this post is to announce the availability of a bunch of emails from the Highland Park BID from 2017 and early 2018. The Highland Park BID is a new client¹ of mine, and thus far they, in the person of their executive director Misty Iwatsu, have been exceedingly cooperative, for which I thank them very much.

There’s a lot of interesting material in there,² and I’ll be writing about at least a few more items over the coming weeks, but most interesting of all, I think, is some material from November 2017 about antigentrification activists in Highland Park and their understanding of the BID’s role in social cleansing for the sake of financial gain.³

This story provides an excellent example of what pernicious gentrification looks like in Los Angeles, how it is covertly but significantly supported by the City government, and how property-based BIDs do not care a whit about the interests of business owners per se. They only care about the interests of the owners of commercial property who, in this City at least, are predominately white. Turn the page for all the details!
Continue reading Highland Park BID Accused Of Promoting Gentrification By Among Other Things Asking The City To Enforce Anti-Mural Laws And Selectively Promoting White-Serving Businesses — Board Of Directors Spy On Activists’ Facebook Comments — All Of Which Sheds Some Light On The Exceedly Underappreciated Facts That (A) Property-Based BIDs Do Not In Any Way Represent Businesses — They Represent Property Owners And Only Property Owners and (B) The City Is More Complicit In Gentrification Than Anyone Will Admit →

Business Improvement Districts, Los Angeles City Government

First Known Instance Of Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office Involvement In BID Formation Revealed By Emails Between Rampart Neighborhood Prosecutor Andrew Said And Wilshire Center Director Mike Russell About How To Get A BID In Westlake

March 17, 2018 Mike Leave a comment

It’s well known in the anti-BID community that the City of Los Angeles is fully committed to the completely false story that a BIDs is formed by a spontaneous upswelling of property owners, uninfluenced by the City and completely outside of the City’s power to direct. Of course, as I said, this is a lie, and there’s plenty of evidence that it is a lie. State law not only gives the City the absolute right to determine everything BIDs do with their money but the City is not shy about exercising this right when necessary.

And there are plenty of concrete proofs that it’s actually the City of Los Angeles that creates BIDs. From then-CD13-rep Jackie Goldberg’s tireless efforts to form a BID in Hollywood in the mid 1990s to Eric Garcetti’s and Mitch O’Farrell’s almost decade-long quest to put together a BID in Echo Park to CD9 repster Curren Price’s strongarmed extortion of a South LA car dealership to get seed money for a BID along MLK Blvd. to CD11 rep Mike Bonin’s mendacious little flunky Debbie Dyner Harris’s multi-year involvement with the Venice Beach BID formation effort, the City is the motivating force, I’d venture, for every damn BID we have now and are gonna have in the future.

But every case I know of has involved the local Council District. This isn’t just my imagination, either. It’s reflected in these BID formation guidelines, published by the Los Angeles City Clerk‘s BID office, which state unequivocally that the BID formation process begins when: An individual, or a group of individuals (“proponent group”), or a Councilmember, desires to investigate the possibility of establishing a BID in a given area.

Consequently, what a surprise it was to find a set of emails between Andrew Said, who is neighborhood prosecutor for the Rampart Division, and Mike Russell, director of the Wilshire Center BID, which feature Andrew Said asking for Mr. Mike’s advice on how to start a BID in Westlake. The emails, which are part of a larger set I received yesterday,¹ are available here on Archive.Org. Turn the page for transcriptions and some more discussion of what this might mean.
Continue reading First Known Instance Of Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office Involvement In BID Formation Revealed By Emails Between Rampart Neighborhood Prosecutor Andrew Said And Wilshire Center Director Mike Russell About How To Get A BID In Westlake →

Los Angeles City Government, Skid Row Neighborhood Council

Herb Wesson Introduces Motion In Council This Morning Decrying Donald Trump’s Use Of The Digital Divide To Disenfranchise “Low-Income And Immigrant Communities” While Never Even Mentioning How He And His Demonic Cronies Used Online Voting Against The Skid Row Neighborhood Council To Do The Same Freaking Thing

January 30, 2018 Mike Leave a comment

UPDATE JANUARY 31, 2018: This morning the motion that’s the subject of this post was assigned to Council File CF 18-0002-S8 if you want to track it.

A few days ago, Herb Wesson and his brain-dead gang-of-fifteen cronies at 200 N Spring Street introduced a motion to outlaw civil rights violations in Los Angeles, all without mentioning their dark and bloody work disenfranchising the Skid Row Neighborhood Council formation effort in opposition to everyone’s civil rights. One of the main techniques they used in this nightmarish project was online voting, introduced at the last minute in the face of explicit testimony that electronic politics disenfranchises people who can’t afford computers.

Well, not that anyone who’s paying attention expects consistency out of the Fifteen Lords and Ladies of our City, but when their hypocrisy reaches a certain feverishly hysterical pitch I find there’s nothing for it but to speak up. You see, evidently the Census Bureau in 2020 is going to use online response forms for the first time ever.

And for some reason, the badness of this, the fact of the digital divide and the role it might play in helping the government to erase the presence of the poor, the immigrant, is not lost on our City Council president, Herb Wesson, in this case. That’s why, it appears, that he and Gil Cedillo introduced a motion this morning (transcription after the break) positioning the City to oppose the Census Bureau’s intention to use this new electronic form to ask respondents about citizenship. In particular, saith Herb Wesson:

WHEREAS , the 2020 Census is the first Census that will be performed primarily electronically, which creates additional barriers for low-income and immigrant communities …

So it’s on the record now. Herb Wesson and Gil Cedillo are opposed to using online political forms because they tend to oppress low-income and immigrant communities. Unless, of course, it’s necessary to oppress low-income and immigrant communities at the behest of local zillionaires and campaign donors. Then they’re all for it. Turn the page for the complete text of the motion.
Continue reading Herb Wesson Introduces Motion In Council This Morning Decrying Donald Trump’s Use Of The Digital Divide To Disenfranchise “Low-Income And Immigrant Communities” While Never Even Mentioning How He And His Demonic Cronies Used Online Voting Against The Skid Row Neighborhood Council To Do The Same Freaking Thing →

Los Angeles City Council

Wesson, Cedillo, and Martinez Introduce Motion Instructing City Attorney To Write A Civil Rights Law Prohibiting Various Kinds Of Discrimination And Establishing A Commission To Enforce It — Demonstrating Yet Again How Our City Council Members Are Liars Even When Every Word Out Of Their Mendacious Mouths Is True

January 26, 2018 Mike Leave a comment

This is just a quick note to call attention to this motion, introduced in Council this morning by Herb Wesson, Gil Cedillo, and Nury Martinez (there’s a transcription of the PDF after the break). The motion, which has been assigned CF 18-0086, instructs the City Attorney with assistance from some other offices to draft a new civil rights law. The proposed law has two main parts.

First, it would prohibit “discrimination, prejudice, intolerance and bigotry that results in denial of equal treatment of any individual” and would do this by banning discrimination based on:

race
color
ethnicity
creed
age
national origin
citizenship status or perceived status
gender
gender identity or expression
sexual orientation or perceived orientation
disability
marital status
partnership status
employment status
source of income

in the areas of

employment
housing
medical services
businesses
other establishments¹

Second, it would establish a new commission, to be called the Civil and Human Rights Commission, which would enforce the law. Now, I am completely opposed to all these kinds of discrimination, and, as you might have guessed, I’m completely in favor of establishing any kind of new venue for me to complain about BIDs to.² However, as is so often the case with our City Council, things are probably not exactly what they seem to be on the surface.
Continue reading Wesson, Cedillo, and Martinez Introduce Motion Instructing City Attorney To Write A Civil Rights Law Prohibiting Various Kinds Of Discrimination And Establishing A Commission To Enforce It — Demonstrating Yet Again How Our City Council Members Are Liars Even When Every Word Out Of Their Mendacious Mouths Is True →

Los Angeles City Government

Housing Committee Hears Cedillo/Harris-Dawson Just Cause Eviction Motion, Public Comments From Opposition Continue To Make No Damn Sense Whatsoever, Motion Scheduled For Full Council On June 28

June 25, 2017 Mike Leave a comment

This is just a short (very late, sorry) report on the progress of the Cedillo/Harris-Dawson motion (found in CF 17-0454) to extend the same protections against arbitrary evictions granted to tenants in buildings covered by the Rent Stabilization Ordinance to all tenants in the City. The motion was heard by the Housing Committee at its June 21 meeting. A report was approved (transcription after the break) and sent to the full Council, where it is on the calendar for June 28.¹ The motion instructs HCIDLA to report back to the Council on the feasibility of preparing an ordinance. It looks like it’s headed for passage, and it looks like Cedillo is pushing it hard, but there’s a lot to be done before we have a law in place.

Anyway, I downloaded the audio of the meeting from the City and put it up on Archive.Org if you’re interested. This item starts at 1:28:58.² It’s definitely worth a listen. Both Cedillo and Harris-Dawson are actually willing to argue with the opposing comment-makers, which is refreshing behavior from our Council, and they don’t seem willing to compromise about this ordinance, which bodes well for its success.³ In particular, Gil Cedillo repeatedly makes the point that it makes no sense at all to have one level of protection for poorer tenants in RSO buildings and another, weaker level for tenants in non-RSO buildings.

Meanwhile, it’s instructive to listen to the opposing public comments, if only to understand the class rage and the sense of entitlement of the property-owning classes in Los Angeles. They’re so used to getting their way that they don’t seem to even feel like their arguments have to make sense. Just for instance, listen to this comment by Valley landlord and former bandleader Horace Heidt, Jr. (transcription after the break). His argument seems to be that if they’re required to have reasons for evicting tenants, the construction of new units will halt completely. It’s not the worst comment, it’s not the meanest comment, but it’s unique in that he makes no attempt whatsoever to connect the two propositions. Why would this happen? Being a zillionaire, it seems, means never having to explain what the heck you’re talking about.
Continue reading Housing Committee Hears Cedillo/Harris-Dawson Just Cause Eviction Motion, Public Comments From Opposition Continue To Make No Damn Sense Whatsoever, Motion Scheduled For Full Council On June 28 →