If the BID is established forget about food trucks. BIDs freaking hate food trucks. Especially if they’re near a restaurant, like this one on Logan Street North of Sunset is.If the Echo Park BID is established forget about little old ladies selling flowers, like this one on Sunset Blvd. just West of Echo Park Avenue. BIDs freaking hate little old ladies!If the Echo Park BID is established forget about signs like this. BIDs freaking hate signs on the sidewalk.If the BID is established in Echo Park say goodbye to RVs around the Park itself. BIDs freaking hate RVs.Due to some kind-hearted click bait1 bestowed by loyal FOMs Esotouric, my colleagues’ recent post on the resurgence of the long-dormant proposed Echo Park Business Improvement District has turned out to be one of our most popular posts of 2016. The colleagues left out some absolutely essential information and so I’m following up on their behalves. Also I used the whole situation as an excuse to ride the 704 Eastbound to Echo Park Avenue and Sunset Blvd. to check out the situation on the ground.
First the essential info: This thing is on the agenda for the Economic Development Committee meeting on Tuesday, May 10, in room 1010 in City Hall. You can go tell them what you think about it. Unfortunately I have other commitments, and I’m sure approval is a foregone conclusion, but there’s the info if you want it.
Second, as you can see from the images accompanying this post, if the BID’s approved a lot of stuff is going to change out there. They’re going to chase off taco trucks. BIDs hate taco trucks with a passion that’s hard to understand. They even, believe it or not, hate taco trucks parked on private property. Showing an astonishing ignorance of the rights of property owners in a free society, they’ve been known to express amazement that they’re not against the law.
The BID Patrol can’t make its numbers just arresting one homeless person at a time.(I apologize in advance for this necessarily data-heavy post, but it’s essential information).
In 20132 the BID Patrol arrested homeless people at more than 57 times the rate that the LAPD did. Furthermore, they were responsible for more than 1% of all arrests made in the entire City of Los Angeles that year even while working only 0.13% of the hours that the LAPD did. Approximately one in fourteen arrests of homeless people in the entire city of Los Angeles that year was made by the BID Patrol.
Carol Schatz’s duplicity laid bare by Venn diagrams!UPDATE (3/17 9:40 a.m.): Just now the City Clerk sent out the agenda for a special meeting of the City Council tomorrow morning, amended to include the very change described in this post, requested by Carol Schatz only yesterday. Now THAT is political juice. Disgusting.
Carol Schatz, she of the zillion dollars an hour paycheck, just this evening with respect to Council file 14-1656-S1, on homeless people’s property, had a letter to the Council appear, advocating a change in conjunction from “and” to “or” in the proposed statute. Here’s what Carol Schatz had to say about the current proposal:
The ordinance from the City Attorney transmitted to the PWGR committee6 only leads to a violation if a person refuses to remove a tent and obstructs removal.
And why is this bad, Carol? Pray, do tell:
This is unreasonable in light of limited city resources. It would require the continued involvement of the LAPD to have tents deconstructed on a daily basis, which is not practical or the best use of resources. It also does not meet the City’s goal of decriminalizing homelessness.
And not only that, but look:
This is unfair to homeless individuals, business owners, residents and other community stakeholders.
You read it here second, friends! Carol Schatz is concerned that some City law is unfair to homeless people.7 Carol Schatz, the homeless people’s friend! Well, anyway, that line about the proposed law not decriminalizing homelessness is true, at least. Arresting homeless people because they won’t remove their tent and obstruct its removal “…does not meet the City’s goal of decriminalizing homelessness.” After all, it provides a way to arrest people, and only homeless people are affected. So what’s her solution? We are glad you asked! Read on for details: Continue reading Shame, Shame on Carol Schatz: The Zillion Dollar Woman’s Duplicity is Revealed by Propositional Logic Even Though She Just Wants to be Fair to “Homeless Individuals”→
Councilmember Mitch O’Farrell
200 N Spring St #450
Los Angeles CA 90012
Dear Councilmember O’Farrell,
I am writing to you regarding plans that the Hollywood Property Owners Alliance and the Los Angeles Police Department are making to extend the patrol hours of the Andrews International BID Patrol in the Hollywood Entertainment District until 4 a.m. In particular, I heard at the last HPOA board meeting that you were considering funding all or part of this program from your discretionary money. If this report is accurate, I hope that you will ultimately decide not to fund an expansion of BID Patrol hours in Hollywood. Here are a number of reasons why I think your funding this project would be a bad idea:
1. Regardless of the intention, it looks like a way to evade Police Commission oversight of law enforcement in Hollywood: This expansion of the BID Patrol’s operations is apparently being planned at the request of Hollywood Divison’s Commanding Officer Peter Zarcone. If it’s implemented it will therefore create a City-funded group of quasi-police assembled at the City’s request who are not subject to any kind of civilian oversight or control. I understand that in some technical sense the BID Patrol aren’t police, but this plan makes that seem even more like a distinction without a difference than it already does. Continue reading An Open Letter to Mitch O’Farrell Regarding Plans to Fund Andrews International BID Patrol Operations in Hollywood→
Foul whisperings are abroad. Unnatural deeds Do breed unnatural troubles; infected minds To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets. More needs she the divine than the physician. God, God, forgive us all!
It never occurred to us—Carol Massie, Lady Macbeth…hmmm…
Watch, listen, and learn as Central Hollywood Coalition BID-Boardies Brian Folb and Carol Massie misunderstand everything about everything about homelessness in Los Angeles. We suppose that one of the big drawbacks to being a zillionaire is that you end up thinking you’re the sun and the rest of the world orbits around you and then you expose your delusions in public, maybe even on camera, and then you get mocked (to witness which, if you’re wondering, is why you’ve all been summoned here today!)
BID Patrol Officer Courtney Kanagi (badge #130) in 2011.A search of the newly released 2013 daily activity logs of the BID Patrol reveals 50 mentions of the Hollywood Farmers’ Market. You can read all of these with links to the logs at the bottom of this post. Now, we have written before about how the BID Patrol only arrests and warns homeless people for violating the abhorrent LAMC 41.18(d). Finally we have conclusive proof that this is true on a massive, previously unsuspected scale, and it comes from the BID Patrol’s own logs.
Here is just one example out of many, many, many. On March 11, 2013 at 11:50 AM, BID Patrol Officers Courtney Kanagi (badge #130) and G. Merkens (badge #112) recorded the following activity:
1150 BACK-UP FB3: FARMER’S MARKET (IVAR/SELMA); INFORMATION BOOTH CALLED RE: A MALE TRANSIENT AGGRESSIVELY PANHANDLING; OFFICERS MET UP WITH THE SECURITY AND FB3; OFFICERS ADVISED MALE OF HIS VIOLATION; COMPLIED BY LEAVING THE AREA WITH NO FURTHER INCIDENT. Mass violations by non-homeless people of LAMC 41.18(d) on Cosmo Street on October 12, 2014 (and every other Sunday) go unaddressed by the BID Patrol.In other words, Kanagi and Merkens were in the Farmers’ Market at 11:50 AM and did not arrest, warn, or even mention the gangs of people who appear every single Sunday and sit on the sidewalk on Cosmo Street north of Selma to eat. But during this same watch they warned 37 (thirty-fricking-seven!) “TRANSIENTS” (their word) outside of the Market for violating LAMC 41.18(d). Three of these warnings took place a mere 15 minutes after Kanagi and Merkens logged their presence in the Market:
1205 CONTACT (3): HOLLYWOOD/CAHUENGA; OFFICERS OBSERVED 3 TRANSIENTS SITTING; ADVISED OF THEIR LAMC VIOLATION; COMPLIED BY STANDING UP AND LEAVING THE AREA WITH NO FURTHER INCIDENT.
Edward Camarillo at the January 26, 2016 meeting of the CCEA at 725 S. Crocker Street.I’m formally initiating coverage of the Central City East Association with some video of yesterday’s meeting of the Board of Directors at CCEA headquarters at 725 S. Crocker Street. You can find Part 1 and also Part 2. Note that the record is not complete because the Board went into closed session and I couldn’t stick around to see them reconvene. Part I consists entirely of CD14 representative Jose Huizar policy director Martin Schlageter talking about homeless issues in the BID’s territory and then, most interesting of all, taking questions from the Board members. The level of micromanagement is astonishing. We hope to write on some of the details later, but check some representative Q&A after the break. Part 2 is mostly taken up by a representative from the Runyon Group seeking CCEA support for entitlements for their ROW DTLA project (this project was formerly known as Alameda Square). Someone here will be writing on this soon in some detail. Continue reading Video of Yesterday’s Central City East Association Meeting Now Available→
Richard Bloom, former mayor of Santa Monica, prepares to ask the questions he’s been asked to ask.According to an email chain recently obtained by our correspondent, on September 24, 2015, Assemblyman Richard Bloom toured the Hollywood Entertainment District BID, accompanied by Kerry Morrison, Carol Massie, some other businessfolks, and Councildude Mitch O’Farrell. The BID Patrol usually goes around the place waking up sidewalk sleepers at 6 a.m., which is the earliest it’s legal1 to do so under the settlement in Jones v. City of Los Angeles. However, on the day of Richard’s tour Kerry directed the BID Patrol to delay the wake-up call, seemingly so that Richard could see people sleeping on the sidewalk and thereby draw the conclusions that Kerry wanted drawn. Here’s how it unfolded in the emails. On September 17 at 4:30 pm, Bloom aide Tim Harter wrote to Kerry (CC to Dan Halden of CD13):
Kerry,
I wanted to chat with you about morning of Sept. 24th, I believe we will be getting a tour with Captain Zarcone and the Homelessness taskforce on Thursday morning from LAPD from 8am-9am you are welcome to join if you would like nothing has been confirmed, I have been playing phone tag with Captain Zarcone. We will be at the Hollywood BID at 9am, I wanted to see if you have an idea of who will be at the meeting with us?
Alisa Orduna free-associating unintelligibly on Tuesday, November 10, 2015, at the Sunset-Vine BID Board meeting.Well, our faithful correspondent hasn’t had time to attend a BID meeting in a while, but he made it to the SVBID Board Meeting on Tuesday, November 10, over at the Hollywood YMCA (right across the street from the famed Selma Park). And what a witches brew of craziness he witnessed over there! They had brand-new Eric Garcetti aide Alisa Orduna there to talk to them about the mayor’s declaration of a state of emergency about homelessness. And can she ever talk. Does she make sense? Some of the time.1 But, as Sigmund Freud taught the world, even in incomprehensible free-associationalism, truth can be found by those who take the time to look. And it does take time. We were planning to cover Alisa’s entire 40-ish minute thing in one post, but after spending two days transcribing just the first 12 minutes, we found that our sanity requires us to lay it on you in increments. You can watch here and, as always, there’s a transcription of the whole thing after the break for context (for some reason these links to YouTube into the middle of videos don’t seem to work well in Firefox. If you get an error, try Chrome).
Thus spake Alisa Orduna: So with all of that said, on September 22nd, Mayor Garcetti along with City Council made an announcement declaring an emergency. And there was a commitment of a hundred million dollars in resources to finally address homelessness. And, looking at it since that time, what does that really mean?
And later she said: So the hundred million was an announcement, and that was just a commitment, so that was just kinda throwing a benchmark out there and saying how are we gonna rise to the occasion?
And then Fabio Conti proclaimed: Did anybody think, oh a hundred million! That’s [unintelligible]. There’s no hundred million.
And she replied: It’s kind of [unintelligible] is standing by that commitment, so everyone is looking for it.
No one had the hundred million, but don’t worry, it shows we take it seriously and also don’t worry, we’re all out looking for the money! So we guess this was known, kind of. We guess there’s not really a revelation here. The New York Times quoted Herb Wesson at the time of the declaration as saying “The $100 million figure was chosen in part for its symbolism, said Herb J. Wesson Jr., the City Council president, to show county, state and federal officials that the city was willing to make a significant contribution to an urgent problem.” Now we find out from Alisa that actually it was chosen not just in part for its symbolism, but it was entirely symbolic. We wondering if she’s talking out of school, being new and maybe not entirely broken to the plow. Time will tell, we suppose. Read on for the rest of the news. And iPads! When will the city learn that iPads are not only going to solve problems, they’re likely to lead to FBI raids on public buildings and speculation about indictments? Continue reading Garcetti Aide Alisa Orduna at the SVBID Part 1, in which she Admits that Announced $100,000,000 for Homelessness Isn’t Real Money, State of Emergency Declaration will Ease Real-Estate Development for Zillionaires, Fund iPads for the BID Patrol→
Cowgirl Kerry Morrison explains everything about everything to everyone and everybody.People often ask us what the hardest thing about writing this blog is. It’s not pestering unwilling politicos for documents the publication of which will, if such a thing were possible, shame them before the world. It’s not attending and filming the public meetings of the BIDs and watching angry white people spitting and hissing at the world they think has done them so very wrong. It’s not thinking of nasty things to say about them. Lord, it’s not even resisting the temptation to say all the very, very nasty things we think of when confronted with them. A picture of some ostensibly homeless people’s tents on Homewood Avenue between Ivar and Vine Street, used by Kerry Morrison to illustrate a recent blog post on homelessness in Hollywood.
No, none of these. Right at this very moment, the hardest thing about writing this blog is stopping ourselves, all three of us, from running out onto the street, grabbing random people by the collar, and forcing them to read Kerry Morrison’s latest blog post on Hollywood homeless people, to subsequently acknowledge just how completely freaking batshit insane it is, and finally to join us in drinking ourselves rapidly into a stupor sufficiently deep to erase the last traces of this febrile outpouring of dangerous delusions from our long-suffering minds. We’re not doing any of that because we’re writing this essay instead, but we make neither promises nor representations concerning what we might do when we’re done with it.
Anyway, as usual, we’re going to mock this nonsense one piece at a time, with Kerry’s words in blue. The links are Kerry’s. Full fathom five thy father lies; Of his bones are coral made; Those are pearls that were his eyes; Nothing of him that doth fade, But doth suffer a sea-change Into something rich and strange. Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell: Ding-dong. Hark! now I hear them — Ding-dong, bell.As we inch toward Labor Day, I realize that this summer will be characterized by the one issue that has dominated my attention: the increased evidence of homelessness in our city. Every day has involved phone calls with stakeholders, ad-hoc community meetings, or city and coalition task forces evaluating the factors at work and the solutions in play. So many people have suggested that we are in the midst of a new trend – a sea change of sorts – because what we are seeing does not resemble the face of homelessness five or ten years ago.
