Tag Archives: Hollywood Media District BID

Announcements

Lots of New Unsorted Emails Between HPOA, LAPD, the Media District BID, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, and CD13

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Adam Schiff hovering over a full-mouthed Peter Zarcone at one of those rubber chicken extravaganzas.
Adam Schiff hovering over a full-mouthed Peter Zarcone at one of those rubber chicken extravaganzas.
I uploaded tons of emails today, some between the LAPD and the three Hollywood BIDs, some between CD13 and the Hollywood BIDs and/or the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce. The LAPD emails are notable because I made the request that they were provided in response to on January 9, 2015. I have had to hassle them, complain to OIG about them, hassle them some more, bargain with them, plead with them, and finally, after more than 11 months, they actually handed over some emails. There seem to be about 16,000 pages to go, so at this rate I should have them all slightly less than 30 years from now.
Dan Halden in March 2015. One thing I learned from the emails presented here is that Kerry Morrison doesn't know and will not learn how to spell his name.
Dan Halden in March 2015. One thing I learned from the emails presented here is that Kerry Morrison does not know and will not learn how to spell his name.
At this point, by way of contrast, let me just mention that the staff at CD13, Dan Halden especially, and also Marisol Rodriguez, are helpful, honest, reliable, patient with my endless requests, and just all-round wonderful. We can all be proud that they’re part of our city government. Enough sentimentality! Without further ado, look here for the CD13 emails or download the PDFs directly: one—two—three—four. You can find the LAPD ones here or download the PDF directly here.
Continue reading Lots of New Unsorted Emails Between HPOA, LAPD, the Media District BID, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, and CD13 →

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Announcements

New Los Angeles BID Wiki and also Some Media District Documents

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Amongst the many photos taken by the BID patrol we find four different images of this "officer" helping this blind guy across the street. It goes to show something. In fact, it goes to show many things. Probably none of them are what Steve Seyler meant it to show. Is this relevant to the subject of this post? Not especially.
Amongst the many photos taken by the BID patrol we find four different images of this “officer” helping this blind guy across the street. It goes to show something. In fact, it goes to show many things. Probably none of them are what Steve Seyler meant it to show. Is this relevant to the subject of this post? Not especially.
Today I have one ordinary announcement and one extraordinary announcement. First there are some new documents from the Media District BID. In particular, there are a bunch of policies, whistleblower, document retention, conflict of interest, and so forth. These seem to be essentially city boilerplate but I haven’t looked at them that closely. You can find them here or directly from storage here or from the menus above. The really big news is after the break!
Continue reading New Los Angeles BID Wiki and also Some Media District Documents →

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Announcements

Many New Documents: CCEA, Media District, and HPOA.

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Suzanne Holley, Chief Operating Something-or-Another with the DCBID and the Central City Association as well.
Suzanne Holley, Chief Operating Something-or-Another with the DCBID and the Central City Association as well. This image adorns this post for no reason whatsoever. I don’t even have any new documents from the DCBID.
Today is all documents, minimal commentary, no analysis:

  1. 2009 emails from HPOA about Sesame Street characters. See tag archive for context.
  2. Some new Universal Protection Service internal reports from the Media District. We already wrote about one of these. Here are a couple more.
  3. Many, many years worth of Board of Directors minutes from the CCEA provided by the ever-helpful-in-bizarro-world Raquel K. Beard. As always these people take no thought for making files sort properly in directories. I’ll fix this when I have time.
  4. A minimal number of CCEA committee minutes. According to Raquel K. Beard, “Committees do not meet monthly or quarterly, more so as needed,” whatever the hell that’s supposed to mean. If you want a little puzzle to work out until someone around here gets time to write about it, you can think about why this item plus this email chain might add up to very, very bad news for the CCEA.


Image of Suzanne Holley is from a screenshot of this DCBID newsletter which, being a California public record, is in the public domain.

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Announcements, Business Improvement Districts

Media District BID Tax Returns for 2011 Through 2013 Now Available

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As the mohel said about the knick-knacks displayed in the window of his storefront: "So, what do you want me to put there?"
As the mohel said about the knick-knacks displayed in the window of his storefront: “So, what do you want me to put there?”
This is just a brief announcement that I have the Media District BID’s tax returns for tax years 2011 and 2012 and 2013. Nonprofits have to put quite a bit more information down than do private parties, so these are not only intrinsically interesting, but they are a little bit like menus for public-records-act-requesting banquets.

In any case, you can get them from the links above, from this page in the header menu structure, or direct from our static storage.


Image is released under the CC BY 2.0 by its creator Tim Pierce and is available via Flickr.

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Announcements

Contractor Responsibility Questionnaires from the City Clerk’s Office for HPOA, Central Hollywood Coalition, and the Media District BID

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I wanted to put something here and this is the best thing I could think of.
I wanted to put something here and this is the best thing I could think of.
Today I received three interesting documents from the office of the L.A. City Clerk who, as you may know, oversees BIDs. One of the things that BIDs are contractually obligated to do is to fill out questionnaires related to the Contractor Responsibility Ordinance. On these they’re questioned about lawsuits against them and stuff like that. So I’m pleased to present these documents for the HPOA, and the Central Hollywood Coalition, and, finally, the Media District BID. I requested these as part of a long-term project which I can’t say too much about yet, although, of course, you’ll be the first to know when the fruit is ripe!
Continue reading Contractor Responsibility Questionnaires from the City Clerk’s Office for HPOA, Central Hollywood Coalition, and the Media District BID →

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Announcements, Business Improvement Districts

More Media District BID Documents Now Available

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Captain John Irigoyen is watching you, so watch yourself!
Captain John Irigoyen is watching you, so watch yourself!
I have a few new documents from the Media District BID. First of all, the Board meeting minutes through August of 2015 are here. Minutes from various committee meetings in 2015 are here, and minutes from one very special executive committee meeting are here.

We’re also inaugurating a project to identify all the Media District security guards by name and image, parallel to the one we’re doing for the Andrews International BID Patrol. I’ve started a page for this project. There’s not much there now other than a list of all the current green shirts by name, but I hope to add more in the future.

Read on for a little bit of what passes for metadata analysis around here.
Continue reading More Media District BID Documents Now Available →

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Business Improvement Districts, Hollywood BID Patrol

Media District Use-of-Handcuffs Investigation from 2010 by UPS Now Available, Casting Even More Doubt on Legality, Professionalism, Sanity, of A/I BID Patrol Arrest Policy

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One of 649 people arrested, handcuffed, and chained to a bench for drinking in public by the Andrews International BID Patrol in 2010.
One of 649 people arrested, handcuffed, and chained to a bench for drinking in public by the Andrews International BID Patrol in 2010. Was there “a threat towards any officer” here, Stevie?
On September 28, 2010 Media District BID safety patrol officers handcuffed a man because he was drinking in public and wandering around in traffic. This triggered an extensive investigation by Universal Protection Service, the company which manages security for the BID. You can read all 13 pages of it here. The level of concern on the part of the investigator, Daryl Whitt, is remarkable:

Here is the recap of my interviews with the officers involved with the detainment/arrest on 9-28-10.

There are still some gaps in their stories that I have been unable to close. The main issue as I see it is that CPL Garcia reacted in the wrong manner. He should have never advised the officer to place handcuffs on the subject as there was no threat towards any officer.

One of 649 people arrested, handcuffed, and chained to a bench for drinking in public by the Andrews International BID Patrol in 2010.
One of 649 people arrested, handcuffed, and chained to a bench for drinking in public by the Andrews International BID Patrol in 2010. Was there “a threat towards any officer” here, Stevie?
Obviously UPS doesn’t take it lightly that their employees handcuffed a man. Nor should they. Also, fully three pages out of the 13 comprise an “Initial Notice” of “General Liability” sent by Daryl Whitt to his supervisors at UPS. Furthermore, The state of California putatively doesn’t take handcuffing lightly either. Just look at the 83 page training manual published by the Bureau of Security and Investigative Services detailing every procedure, concern, legal obligation, and liability involved with the handcuffing of people by private security.1
Continue reading Media District Use-of-Handcuffs Investigation from 2010 by UPS Now Available, Casting Even More Doubt on Legality, Professionalism, Sanity, of A/I BID Patrol Arrest Policy →

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Business Improvement Districts

Breaking News Flash! Indefatigably Feckless Dude-Bro Steven Whiddon Out as Media District BID Exec Direc!

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Indefatigably feckless dudebro Steven Whiddon and erstwhile exec direc of the media district BID. He's off the bus for as yet undetermined reasons.
Indefatigably feckless dudebro Steven Whiddon and erstwhile exec direc of the media district BID. He’s off the bus for as yet undetermined reasons.
California politics is a tough way to make a living. We play hardball out here on the coast! If you can’t hit major league pitching you gotta leave the bright lights big city and head back in bowed-down shame to Santa Monica or West Hollywood or some other no-count small town.

Our faithful correspondent was just informed this morning by none other than BID mouthpiece Jeffrey Charles Briggs that “Steven [Whiddon] is no longer with the BID.” JCB didn’t say why it was that Mr. Whiddon didn’t even last a year in his new job. How did the BID go from shelling out way, WAY too much money for new computers for Steven in October 2014 to him being “no longer with the BID” in September 2015? Perhaps it was his tin-eared insensitivity to the subtly expressed desires of his board. Perhaps it was his general all-round dude-bro-itude. Perhaps it was reckless disregard of both law and decency. Perhap it was his crazed and imprudent spending habits. Perhaps, though, as rumor has it…(we always put the unsubstantiated juicy stuff after the break, don’t you know?)
Continue reading Breaking News Flash! Indefatigably Feckless Dude-Bro Steven Whiddon Out as Media District BID Exec Direc! →

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Announcements

New Documents, including 2011, 2012 HPOA Federal Tax Returns and Beginning of BID Patrol Identification Project

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Some of the BID Patrol's anonymous warriors. We're taking on the project of identifying these people.
Some of the BID Patrol’s anonymous warriors. We’re taking on the project of identifying these people.
Today I’m pleased to announce a bunch of new documents. First of all there is a ton of new information on the HPOA’s sleazy sweetsy-heartsy lease of city property for a homebase-slash-mothership for its cleansy-upsy crew. So much that we started a whole subpage for the matter. What’s new are some emails between CD13 and the HPOA about the lease and the actual lease application filled out by the HPOA as part of the leasing process. This includes beaucoup info about the inner workings of the HPOA, including full federal tax returns for 2011 and 2012. Read it!

Next there’s the first set of documents in our new project to identify by name, photograph, and badge number, every BID patrol officer currently working the streets of Hollywood and as many of the past officers as possible. I’ve set up a new subpage dedicated to this endeavor, and the first two documents can be found there. They’re invoices from A/I to the HPOA for personnel, listed by name, for the week beginning August 14, 2015. Also get them here: HED BID and S-V BID.

One last little document, find out after the break!
Continue reading New Documents, including 2011, 2012 HPOA Federal Tax Returns and Beginning of BID Patrol Identification Project →

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Business Improvement Districts

In Rare Conflict with BID LAPD Deputy Chief Beatrice Girmala Exercises Totalitarian Veto Power over Private Real Estate Transactions in Hollywood, Insinuates that Protecting, Serving Homeless is Waste of LAPD Time

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Exceedingly powerful LAPD officer Bea Girmala, pictured here with sidelong-glancing former Inglewood PD guy Steve Seyler who, we gotta admit, has nothing to do with this story, but here he is in the picture anyway.
Exceedingly powerful LAPD officer Bea Girmala, pictured here with sidelong-glancing former Inglewood PD guy Steve Seyler who, we gotta admit, has nothing to do with this story, but here he is in the picture anyway.
OK, listen up! Long-time readers1 of this blog will recall that in 2010 and 2011 the Greater West Hollywood Food Coalition, the Media District BID, some LAPD folks, and some random neighborhood residents all engaged in a “mediation process” of some type, mostly aimed at getting the food coalition to move its nightly feeding program out of the BID. The whole document is well worth reading, stunning as it is vis–à–vis its truly astonishing level of crazy, but we’re focusing on just one episode. Let us now lay out the dramatis personæ.

First we have facilitator Peter Robinson, now at Pepperdine. We don’t have much to say about him except that, according to his Pepperdine bio, he’s got an excellent sense of humor. He’d have to have, wouldn’t he?

Official LAPD photo of Deputy Chief Girmala, cop extraordinaire and interferer-by-proxy in the private real estate dealings of citizens of Hollywood.
Official LAPD photo of Deputy Chief Girmala, cop extraordinaire and interferer-by-proxy in the private real estate dealings of citizens of Hollywood.
Second, we have then Hollywood Patrol Commanding Officer (now Deputy Chief) Beatrice Girmala,2 who, although not actually present at the moment about which we write, was nevertheless in control of everything that transpired in a way in which we, free citizens of a constitutional republic, do not expect to be associated with our police. We are certainly pragmatists, though, and understand that once the police can gun us down on the streets with impunity they can a fortiori randomly interfere in our lawful business dealings as well. Read on for the real crazy!
Continue reading In Rare Conflict with BID LAPD Deputy Chief Beatrice Girmala Exercises Totalitarian Veto Power over Private Real Estate Transactions in Hollywood, Insinuates that Protecting, Serving Homeless is Waste of LAPD Time →

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