Tag Archives: Heidi Marston

Lawsuits, Los Angeles City Council, Los Angeles City Government, Los Angeles County Government, Public Records Act Pragmatics

Last Week The Los Angeles Sunshine Coalition And Friends Filed Four CPRA Petitions — Three Against The City Of Los Angeles And One Against LAHSA — The LA City Suits Are Versus CD4 — And CD15 — And The Information Tech Agency — The CD15 One Includes A Taxpayer Suit Based On California Code of Civil Procedure 526a — Which Lets Us Allege That Buscaino Is Wasting Public Money By Using It To Violate The CPRA — And May Lead To Lasting Policy Changes Rather Than A Mere Production Of Records

August 4, 2021 Mike Leave a comment

This post is about four CPRA suits filed last week. If you want to skip the nonsense and read the petitions here are the links:
⤕ Los Angeles Sunshine Coalition v. City of Los Angeles (CD4) — Council District 4 ignores requests and refuses to produce native format. 
⤕ Los Angeles Sunshine Coalition v. City of Los Angeles (ITA) — The Information Technology Agency of the City of Los Angeles refuses to produce native formats and refuses to produce complete records.
⤕ Los Angeles Sunshine Coalition v. LAHSA — The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority refuses to produce records in a timely manner and also ignores requests for years on end.
⤕ Riskin v. City of Los Angeles (CD15) — CD15 refuses to produce records in a timely manner and won’t produce native format. This one is also a taxpayer suit under the California Code of Civil Procedure at §526a, which is huge!

It’s been a big few days around here! The Los Angeles Sunshine Coalition filed two CPRA suits against the City of Los Angeles and one against LAHSA and I personally filed one against the City of Los Angeles. Both LASC and I are repped by the formidable Gina Hong of the Los Angeles Center for Community Law and Action.

The case against CD15 is based on a request I made in June 2019, for which, two years later, I’ve only received minimal responsives with no unexpired deadline for production forthcoming. Buscaino staffer Amy Gebert’s shameless violations of the CPRA led me to file two distinct complaints against her with the LA Ethics Commission, one in August 2020 and the other in February 2021.

This is an extremely exciting petition. It’s the first time I’ve used a cause of action based on California Code of Civil Procedure §526a, which allows taxpayers to file suit against government agencies for wasting tax money.¹ The idea is that by insisting on producing emails by printing them in color on paper and then scanning the paper to PDFs CD15 is wasting staff time on unnecessary processes and public money on completely unnecessary color printing.
Continue reading Last Week The Los Angeles Sunshine Coalition And Friends Filed Four CPRA Petitions — Three Against The City Of Los Angeles And One Against LAHSA — The LA City Suits Are Versus CD4 — And CD15 — And The Information Tech Agency — The CD15 One Includes A Taxpayer Suit Based On California Code of Civil Procedure 526a — Which Lets Us Allege That Buscaino Is Wasting Public Money By Using It To Violate The CPRA — And May Lead To Lasting Policy Changes Rather Than A Mere Production Of Records →

Los Angeles City Government, Los Angeles County Government

On July 13, 2020 Victor Hinderliter of LAHSA Wrote A Formal Memo To Director Heidi Marston Recommending That Kristy Lovich Be Fired — Here Is A Copy Of The Memo — Hinderliter Had Disciplined Lovich In June — And Here’s A Copy Of That Disciplinary Action Report — And Lovich’s Response To It — Which Reveals That Hinderliter Knew In Advance About Her Fateful All-Staff Email — The One She Was Fired For Sending — And Yet Did Not Advise Her Not To Send It — Hinderliter And Staff From The Mayor’s Office Monitored Lovich’s Social Media Usage — And Cited Posts In The Firing Recommendation — Including The Accusation That She Tweeted About A Post On This Blog!

September 23, 2020 Mike Leave a comment

But first some background! In June 2020 Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority supervisor Kristy Lovich sent an email to all LAHSA employees calling for the agency to stop working with police during homeless encampment sweeps and seeking signatures on a petition. She was screamed at by her bosses over this and they ended up firing her over it in July. I recently obtained a copy of a June disciplinary report filed against Lovich by Victor Hinderliter, her supervisor.

I also obtained a formal memo from Hinderliter to LAHSA Director Heidi Marston from July recommending that Lovich be fired. There’s also a strangely formatted email conversation from June between Lovich and Hinderliter in which she responds to the accusations he would later include in both reports, in part by listing examples of HInderliter supporting her in precisely the kinds of activities he used to advocate that she be fired.

Hinderliter apparently even knew about Lovich’s all-staff email in advance and failed to advise her not to send it, a fact which did not deter him from later listing it as a reason for firing her. One of the most surprising aspects of this fiasco is the extent to which Lovich’s superiors at LAHSA and also random staffers in the Mayor’s office monitored her social media usage, which Hinderliter quoted from extensively in his recommendation. Read on for a transcription of the July memo:
Continue reading On July 13, 2020 Victor Hinderliter of LAHSA Wrote A Formal Memo To Director Heidi Marston Recommending That Kristy Lovich Be Fired — Here Is A Copy Of The Memo — Hinderliter Had Disciplined Lovich In June — And Here’s A Copy Of That Disciplinary Action Report — And Lovich’s Response To It — Which Reveals That Hinderliter Knew In Advance About Her Fateful All-Staff Email — The One She Was Fired For Sending — And Yet Did Not Advise Her Not To Send It — Hinderliter And Staff From The Mayor’s Office Monitored Lovich’s Social Media Usage — And Cited Posts In The Firing Recommendation — Including The Accusation That She Tweeted About A Post On This Blog! →

Homeless Issues, Los Angeles City Government, Los Angeles County Government

LAHSA Director Heidi Marston Fired Kristy Lovich In July 2020 For Advocating That LAHSA Cut Ties With Law Enforcement — For The Simple Reason That Cop Involvement Makes Effective Outreach Impossible — As Her Comms Staff Struggled To Concoct A Response To The Subsequent Outcry Marston Told Them Not To Say Explicitly That The Response Was About Lovich — And To Rewrite Their Messaging “To Infuse A Tone Of Compassion” — You Can Read The Actual Comments She Inserted In The Document!

September 12, 2020 Mike Leave a comment

This post is based on a few items from a small set of emails that LAHSA produced to me recently. There’s other interesting stuff in there, so take a look at the whole set!

In June 2020 Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority staffer Kristy Lovich started a petition calling on her employer to sever ties with law enforcement agencies. On July 28, 2020 LAHSA Director Heidi Marston fired her in retaliation,¹ which prompted swift and brutal criticism on social media and a powerful public response from Lovich the next day, July 29. And very soon thereafter Marston’s publicity machine started revving its powerful engines! I don’t yet have the full story,² but on July 30 Marston emailed her communications staff and thanked them for their work:

From: Heidi Marston <hmarston@lahsa.org>
To: Christopher Yee <cyee@lahsa.org>, Nadia James <njames@lahsa.org>, Ahmad Chapman <achapman@lahsa.org>, Paloma Beltroy <pbeltroy@lahsa.org>
Subject: Letter response for social

Hi all,

Thanks for pulling this together. My comments are attached but overall, I like the google doc and the messaging in that the best. Also love the call to action in asking municipalities to commit to our principles. The more we can center on compassion and humanizing this, the better.

Continue reading LAHSA Director Heidi Marston Fired Kristy Lovich In July 2020 For Advocating That LAHSA Cut Ties With Law Enforcement — For The Simple Reason That Cop Involvement Makes Effective Outreach Impossible — As Her Comms Staff Struggled To Concoct A Response To The Subsequent Outcry Marston Told Them Not To Say Explicitly That The Response Was About Lovich — And To Rewrite Their Messaging “To Infuse A Tone Of Compassion” — You Can Read The Actual Comments She Inserted In The Document! →