Tag Archives: Government Code 54953.5(a)

Brown Act Pragmatics, Business Improvement Districts

Latest Episode In The Brown Act Enforcement Project Targets Studio City BID For Three Violations — Most Importantly They Require An ID And Permission From The BID To Attend Meetings — Also They Totally Screwed Up Closed Session Requirements — And Also They Deliberate Via Email Just Like The Byzantine BIDdies — So I Fired Off Another Demand Letter — Now We Wait Thirty Days To See If They Capitulate!

September 29, 2018 Mike Leave a comment

Last week I attended my first meeting of the Studio City BID‘s board of directors, and what a fiasco, friends! Aggressively clueless board member Matthew Dunn walking out because I was filming him and so on. But I put off telling you about the most interesting parts! Which is why I’ve gathered you all here this morning! You see, the BID violated the Brown Act in two very serious ways at the meeting.

First of all, the BID holds its meetings inside CBS Studio Center,¹ It not only requires an ID to get in there and the registration of one’s name and an image of one’s driver’s license, but also convincing a hostile security guard who thinks BID meetings aren’t open to the public and some other problems. All together these are, of course, violations of the Brown Act at §54953.3, which states unequivocally that:

A member of the public shall not be required, as a condition to attendance at a meeting of a legislative body of a local agency, to register his or her name, to provide other information, to complete a questionnaire, or otherwise to fulfill any condition precedent to his or her attendance.

We’ve seen exactly this kind of thing with BIDs around the City, who hold their meetings in so-called secure buildings, where IDs are required by the property owners rather than the BID itself. E.g. in October 2014, the very same month I founded this blog, Kerry Morrison and her Central Hollywood Coalition were guilty of this. More recently, in April I reported the South Park BID to the LA County DA for violating this exact provision. The universal excuse seems to be that it’s legal for the property owner to require ID, just not the BID.

Of course, the plain language of the statute shows that that argument is entirely fallacious. The law doesn’t say anything about who’s not allowed to require ID, so therefore no one is allowed to require ID. And because, as you know, I haven’t gotten much if any satisfaction from the LA County DA on Brown Act violations, I have decided to take matters into my own hands and use the provisions in the law which allow private citizens to enforce it.

I kicked off this project last month with a demand to the Byzantine Latino Quarter BID which was entirely successful, at least so far, in that the BID caved entirely and unconditionally agreed never ever ever to violate the law again. And the Studio City ID and name registration requirement is a perfect test case for the enforcement of §54953.3. Thus did I fire off this demand letter to BID secretary Gilbert Stayner yesterday afternoon, making Studio City the honored second participant in my private Brown Act enforcement project. They have thirty days to capitulate, and if they don’t, we’re off to Superior Court!²

And Brown Act violations are like cockroaches in the usual cliched sense, and this case is no exception to that rule. The BID also seriously messed up its closed session, which of course I added to the demand, and there was a little problem in May 2018 involving them deliberating via email, which I also added. The first of these is highly technical and the second is fairly repetitious, so I put all the details after the damn break!
Continue reading Latest Episode In The Brown Act Enforcement Project Targets Studio City BID For Three Violations — Most Importantly They Require An ID And Permission From The BID To Attend Meetings — Also They Totally Screwed Up Closed Session Requirements — And Also They Deliberate Via Email Just Like The Byzantine BIDdies — So I Fired Off Another Demand Letter — Now We Wait Thirty Days To See If They Capitulate! →

Business Improvement Districts

Studio City BID Board Meeting Spectacular! — Legally Captured On Video For Your Amusement And Edification! — Board Member And Angry Clown Matthew Dunn Flips Out At Being Filmed! — Throws Tantrum! — Storms Out! — Like A Whiny Damn Baby! — This Is The Kind Of Person The City Of Los Angeles Entrusts Its Public Funds To! — Pedantically Incompetent Flunky Damian Gatto Almost Violates The Brown Act! — Saved At Last Moment By Emmy-Winning Zeck Dreck John Walker! — A Fun Time For All! — Or At Least For Me!

September 19, 2018 Mike Leave a comment

Oh for goodness sake, friends! Day before yesterday I took an astonishingly complex combination of public transit routes out to the the wild and untamed-by-rule-of-law hinterlands of Studio City to attend my very first meeting of the board of directors of the Studio City BID. And Lord, what a scene! What a raving conglomeration of angry white men! I have a serious topic to write about with respect to this meeting, but there are some things I have to take care of first, so it’ll have to wait. Thus, tonight, you get a lighthearted highlights slash bloopers reel of some of the oh so crazy antics of these oh so crazy folks.

When I first arrived in the meeting room³ there were board packets at every seat at the table. Board packets everywhere! Additionally, incompetently pedantic flunky Damien Gatto was shuffling self-importantly about the place so I asked him to see a copy of the packet. Now, I don’t tend to ask BIDdies for any favors, because what’s the point? And this request for a board packet to look at was not asking for a favor. The Brown Act at §54957.5 requires any materials distributed to the board for a meeting to be made available to the audience immediately.⁴

Evidently pedantically incompetent flunky Damian Gatto never heard about this, though, because, says he, he’s only going to give me the minutes and the agenda, and not the financials cause, says he, they’re secret. So I said “why” and he said, in a performative demonstration of his pedantry, his incompetence, “because we don’t have to, that’s why.” Hmmm. Gotta love the intense commitment to public service evinced by this pocky little sucker on the public tit, eh?

Anyway, he then stumbled off to his lair where, I am guessing, he was set straight by Emmy-award-winning zeck dreck John Walker,⁵ because when he came back with the goodies they did, lo and behold and so on, include the top secret financials. You can read that toppest secretest board packet, complete with the ultra-toppest ultra-secretest financials that spotty little minion Damian Gatto did not want you to see by clicking right here!

Now, that’s all interesting, I’m sure, but by now it’s not news that these rampaging BIDdies don’t have the first clue how the Brown Act works.⁶ This little incident, though, was far, far from being the weirdest, lunatic-est, most-signifying-of-a-delusional-level-of-cluelessness-est, incident at this meeting. Those honoraria go to the bizarre little hissy pitched by board member Matthew Dunn who, it seems, doesn’t like to have his picture taken⁷ even though the right to record meetings is explicitly guaranteed by the Brown Act.⁸ Turn the page for details, links, and, of course, a transcription!
Continue reading Studio City BID Board Meeting Spectacular! — Legally Captured On Video For Your Amusement And Edification! — Board Member And Angry Clown Matthew Dunn Flips Out At Being Filmed! — Throws Tantrum! — Storms Out! — Like A Whiny Damn Baby! — This Is The Kind Of Person The City Of Los Angeles Entrusts Its Public Funds To! — Pedantically Incompetent Flunky Damian Gatto Almost Violates The Brown Act! — Saved At Last Moment By Emmy-Winning Zeck Dreck John Walker! — A Fun Time For All! — Or At Least For Me! →

Business Improvement Districts

Yesterday At The Arts District — Just A Perfectly Ordinary Average BID Board Meeting — Fear, Rumor, And Other Mongerings — Zillionaires Joking About How To Wheedle More Valuable Concessions Out Of The City — And The Familiar But Nevertheless Still Astonishing Hatred Of Transparency

June 9, 2018 Mike Leave a comment

Yesterday I paid my first visit to the Arts District BID board of directors. You can find the video here on YouTube and here on Archive.Org. Now, this BID is a fascinating and unique BIDdological case study due to its 2011 dissolution and entirely anomalous re-establishment in 2012, which involved creepy unethical subterfuge by City BID boss Miranda Paster and underhanded interventions by the whole weirdo panoply of the Downtown zillionaire power elite including, but never ever limited to, the zillion dollar woman herself.

But none of that rich and textured⁹ history was on display yesterday. No cracking of the bones of the homeless to greedily suck their marrow, no complaining about the skin color of the neighborhood’s non-zillionaires, no comparing groups of non-white people to caged animals. In short, none of the spectacularly white supremacist fireworks which sometimes burst forth to dazzle and bemuse sane onlookers.¹⁰

As I said, it was a quite ordinary BID meeting. But as ordinary as it was, it nevertheless displayed a wide variety of low-key instances of the usual BIDdie tropes. We had zillionaires laughing about how the City is not only able but willing to overturn any given development restriction on request. We had zillionaire anxiety about my filming, this time manifesting in a board member quietly confronting me on camera and then checking with the Arts District’s twittery little twerp of an Executive Director, Miguel Vargas.¹¹

We had zillionaires casually going off-agenda, poised to violate the Brown Act, be pulled back from the brink by an alert colleague. We had, as I said, the usual zillionaire jive. And it’s nevertheless fascinating. Turn the page to links and brief transcriptions of a few moments that I found worth noting.
Continue reading Yesterday At The Arts District — Just A Perfectly Ordinary Average BID Board Meeting — Fear, Rumor, And Other Mongerings — Zillionaires Joking About How To Wheedle More Valuable Concessions Out Of The City — And The Familiar But Nevertheless Still Astonishing Hatred Of Transparency →