Tag Archives: Kerry Morrison

Business Improvement Districts

Emmy Winning Studio City BID Zeck Dreck Dr. John Walker Ph.D. Is Quitting — Mike Bonin Field Deputy Taylor Bazley Applied For His Job — Listed Shadowy Venice Beach BID Boss Tara Devine As A Reference — John Walker Told Hiring Committee What A Loser Tara Devine Is And Maybe Her Recommendation Wasn’t Valuable — And She Wasn’t Returning Their Calls Anyway — Plus Kerry Morrison Was All Like Taylor Who?!?! —It Seems That The Position Is Still Unfilled — Except That These BIDdies Violate The Brown Act Constantly So They May Well Have Filled It In Secret

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Right now there is no BID more interesting to me in the entire City of Los Angeles than the Studio City BID. I mean, I dropped by one of their furtive little meetings last month and one of their directors, famously angry clown Matthew Dunn, was so rattled by my presence that he stormed out of his own meeting.1 And then they committed such an astonishing series of so very flagrant violations of the Brown Act that I was forced to send them a demand letter asking them to pinky swear that they’d never do it again.

And man, when it comes to his CPRAiatic duties, SCBID zeck dreck Dr. John Walker Ph.D.2 is a freaking pain in that thing that writers often resort to mentioning pains in for metaphorical purposes, but once in a while a few items trickle through the border wall as they did yesterday when he, or at least his pocky little minion Damian Gatto, sent over a few righteous goodies! And amongst these was this announcement from June 2018 in which the Studio City BID gave notice to the BID Consortium that it was hiring a replacement for Emmy-winning Zeck Dreck Dr. John Walker!! There is a transcription of this remarkable document after the break.

And then the applications started rolling in! The first applicant I have information about was evidently Ms. Vicki Nussbaum, who used to be the executive director of the Sherman Oaks BID and may still be for all I know, but is at least also the executive director of the Century City BID.3 You’ll hear more about this lady’s application quite soon, but not today.4

And the next applicant that I know anything about is our old friend Taylor Freaking Bazley! That’s right, Mike Bonin’s creepy little field deputy for Venice, deeply implicated in the horror show that is the Venice Beach BID, is out looking for another job! Do his friends at CD11 know about this?! Probably not, because he obviously isn’t using them as references! You can read everything I know in this September 12, 2018 email from SCBID Board member Ben Besley5 to John Walker, Board president Tony Richman, and fellow hiring committee members Barry Wise and Dean Cutler.

Here’s the story in brief, and you will find detailed discussion and transcriptions of all relevant emails after the break! About a month ago Taylor Bazley interviewed for the job. After his interview he sent a sycophantic thanks-friend! email to Board president Tony Richman about how the committee’s shit smelled like roses and so on.6 Also, he seems to have given shadowy BID president Tara Devine’s name as a reference. The hiring committee evidently found it difficult to get in touch with Tara Devine. Finally, Ben Besley got an email from admin@venicebeachbid.com, a well-known pseudonym of Ms. Tara Devine, splaining that Tara Devine was too busy to talk to him right now but maybe later!

Then John Walker weighed in with a story about how TD was being investigated for not spending BID money properly and also how the SCBID didn’t hire her to be their renewal consultant because she charged too damn much. He closed this defamational little missive with the defamer’s favorite excuse: “This is not meant to sway your investigation but I think you should be aware of some history.” So yeah, just another example of how the Los Angeles BID world is like one big seething daisy chain but without the sex.7 Turn the page for transcriptions of all relevant material!
Continue reading Emmy Winning Studio City BID Zeck Dreck Dr. John Walker Ph.D. Is Quitting — Mike Bonin Field Deputy Taylor Bazley Applied For His Job — Listed Shadowy Venice Beach BID Boss Tara Devine As A Reference — John Walker Told Hiring Committee What A Loser Tara Devine Is And Maybe Her Recommendation Wasn’t Valuable — And She Wasn’t Returning Their Calls Anyway — Plus Kerry Morrison Was All Like Taylor Who?!?! —It Seems That The Position Is Still Unfilled — Except That These BIDdies Violate The Brown Act Constantly So They May Well Have Filled It In Secret →

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Los Angeles City Council

Jocelyn Duarte Wrote A Letter To Mitch O’Farrell Supporting Herb Wesson’s Anti-Gadfly Motion — In Fact It Was Her Kid Whose Ears Famously Got Covered Due To Armando Herman’s Foul Mouth — Duarte Is The Interim Executive Director Of The Salvadoran-American Leadership And Educational Fund — O’Farrell Staffie David Giron Is SALEF’s Vice President — Who Presumably Will Decide If Her Position Is Made Permanent — Astroturfing Much? — Daily Irony Supplement: A Bunch Of Angry Rich White People Disrupt Public Meeting — Scream At David Ryu About Homeless Shelters — Don’t Get Banned From Future Meetings — Let Alone Ejected From That One — Or Even Arrested For Violating §403 PC

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Oh man, the whole damn city is buzzing over Herb Wesson’s latest attempt to use the U.S. and the California Constitutions as so much toilet paper just in order to score an ephemeral point or two against his nemeses Armando Herman and Wayne Spindler. Noted civil rights lawyer Stephen Rohde, who’s grown rich and fat from our City Council’s previous transgressions against freedom and decency, even had a piece in City Watch about it.

Kerry Morrison of the Hollywood Property Owners’ Alliance, who never met a fascist she didn’t worship the walking-on-ground of,1 predictably wrote an intensely stupid letter to the Times supporting Wesson. And the interim executive of the Salvadoran-American Leadership and Educational Fund, Jocelyn Duarte, famously had to cover her kid’s ears to keep out Armando Herman’s admittedly foul language and then she wrote this letter to Mitch O’Farrell begging him to think of the damn children.2

Herb Wesson famously solicited the letter from Duarte, just as this master of astroturfing famously solicits letters of support for all manner of his crackpot ideas.3 But this letter from Jocelyn Duarte is astroturfed in a whole different dimension. Take another look at the actual letter. See the board of directors on the left. Notice Mitch O’Freaking Farrell’s legislative director David Giron listed there. Note that Jocelyn Duarte is the interim executive director. And who else but David Giron and his board cronies is going to be filling the permanent position? Oh, of course, Mitch O’Farrell, who also never met a fascist he didn’t adore, seconded Wesson’s motion.

In one sense there’s nothing that shocking here. Our City’s council files are, it turns out, just full to the very rim with this kind of stage-managed illusion of popular support for every random whim of every random Council repster, submitted on demand in the hope of currying favor for God knows what sinister purposes. In another sense, it really is shocking, or at least interesting enough for me to keep writing about! Of course there’s a transcription of the letter after the break.

Before that, though, watch this video of a bunch of angry rich white anti-homeless people screaming at David Ryu last night to the point where he could no longer speak. See the cops standing around watching? No one’s getting clubbed, tased, banned from future meetings, arrested, or even ejected, which is amazing because, unlike saying “fuck” at a Council meeting, this kind of thing is actually a freaking crime.4 But of course these rich angry white people don’t bother Herb Wesson and the rest of them at all. No need to pass new laws against them or even to enforce existing ones. These angry rich white people make freaking campaign contributions!
Continue reading Jocelyn Duarte Wrote A Letter To Mitch O’Farrell Supporting Herb Wesson’s Anti-Gadfly Motion — In Fact It Was Her Kid Whose Ears Famously Got Covered Due To Armando Herman’s Foul Mouth — Duarte Is The Interim Executive Director Of The Salvadoran-American Leadership And Educational Fund — O’Farrell Staffie David Giron Is SALEF’s Vice President — Who Presumably Will Decide If Her Position Is Made Permanent — Astroturfing Much? — Daily Irony Supplement: A Bunch Of Angry Rich White People Disrupt Public Meeting — Scream At David Ryu About Homeless Shelters — Don’t Get Banned From Future Meetings — Let Alone Ejected From That One — Or Even Arrested For Violating §403 PC →

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LAPD, Public Records Act Pragmatics

Thousands Of Pages Of 2016 LAPD Emails Shed Light On Hollywood Nightclub Racism And Creepy Cop Tricks — Including Targeted Enforcement Against Minority-Serving Establishments — Sending People “To Jail Before They Commit Crimes” — Explicit Targeting Of Putatively Chronic Offenders — Not To Mention Bizarro-World Redaction Policies Which Shed Some Light On The LAPD’s Contempt For The Public Records Act

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Friends, cast your minds back to the Spring of 2015! Kerry Morrison’s various BIDs were all in a psychotic tizzy about dark-skinned people coming to Hollywood on the weekends to drink and dance and have some damn fun. Kerry Morrison and her yes-mob started a campaign against the nightclubs on Hollywood Blvd whose patrons were insufficiently lacking in melanin.1 This led, by the Fall of 2015, to Hollywood’s itchy skritchy little Council-snitchy, the one, the only, Mitch O’Freaking Farrell, starting a high-profile public campaign to shut down every nightspot that made Ms. Kerry Freaking Morrison wrinkle her freaking nose in disdain.

There was some pushback from the club owners in 2016, e.g. from the owner of the Rusty Mullet, whose lawyers played video from this blog at a Council hearing, and the organizers of the #blackhollywoodmatters campaign who, notably, convinced Marqueece Harris-Dawson to vote against the wishes of his smarmy little buddy from CD13 in a committee hearing, although naturally he reversed himself at the full Council vote. But in the usual way of things these minor victories didn’t have much of an effect,2 and by the end of August 2016 Kerry Morrison was, like Grendel’s momma, sitting around her reeking lair counting her ill-gotten victories on her poisonous and twisted little talons.

Around this time, that is, in August 2016, I filed a public records act request with the LAPD asking for emails related to these matters. And because the LAPD is basically a criminal conspiracy with respect to CPRA and just will not comply with the freaking law, which is why they get sued under the CPRA all the freaking time, it took them two whole years to hand over the goods. But they finally did produce thousands of pages3 and I recently published the whole pile on Archive.Org for your pleasure and edification.

At this late date, of course, and this was doubtless the City’s intention, the battle for the soul of Hollywood Blvd is pretty much over, with the reprehensible frightening whitening brightening of its nightlife essentially complete. However, history is interesting as well as political science, so I plan to write on these emails from time to time as there’s a lot of really disturbing and important material in there. The texts for today’s sermon come from this set here, and turn the page for the details!
Continue reading Thousands Of Pages Of 2016 LAPD Emails Shed Light On Hollywood Nightclub Racism And Creepy Cop Tricks — Including Targeted Enforcement Against Minority-Serving Establishments — Sending People “To Jail Before They Commit Crimes” — Explicit Targeting Of Putatively Chronic Offenders — Not To Mention Bizarro-World Redaction Policies Which Shed Some Light On The LAPD’s Contempt For The Public Records Act →

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Hollywood Property Owners Alliance, Los Angeles City Government

In 1995 The City Attorney And The Fair Political Practices Commission Both Agreed That BIDs Were Government Agencies And Their Board Members Were Public Officials Subject To The Brown Act And The CPRA — So When Aaron Epstein Sued The City And The Hollywood BID In 1999 Why Did The City Take Kerry Morrison’s Side Even Though They Already Knew Epstein Was Right? — Probably Yet Another Case Of Yielding To Her Every Damn Whim No Matter How Dire The Consequences — Ironically The Same Lawyer, Patricia Tubert, Argued Both Contradictory Sides Of The Dispute

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I’ve written many times about the monumental case Epstein v. Hollywood Entertainment District BID and will, I have no doubt, write about it many more times to come. The issue in 1998 was that Hollywood property owner Aaron Epstein thought that he ought to be able to attend BID meetings whereas executive director Kerry Morrison, then at the very dawn of her BIDdological career but as characteristically secretive as ever, refused to let him in to watch his money being spent.

He sued in 1999, claiming that the BID1 was required to comply with the Brown Act by virtue of §54952(c)(1)(A), which makes an entity of the following type subject to its transparency requirements:

A board, commission, committee, or other multimember body that governs a private corporation, limited liability company, or other entity that … [i]s created by the elected legislative body in order to exercise authority that may lawfully be delegated by the elected governing body to a private corporation, limited liability company, or other entity.

The case yielded a monumental opinion from the Court of Appeal, dripping with sarcasm and barely disguised contempt for the weak arguments of the defendants. It’s worth reading in its entirety, or take a look here for selections. But for our purposes here it’s enough to know that both the BID, driven by Ms. Kerry Morrison and her absolute disgust at the possibility of public oversight of her publicly funded activities, and the City of Los Angeles in the person of then-deputy-City-Attorney Patricia Tubert, argued vehemently that the BID was not in any way subject to the Brown Act.

So what a surprise it was, the other day, to obtain a copy of this 1995 report from the Los Angeles City Attorney, authored by none other than Patricia Tubert, which explicitly stated that in the opinion of the City Attorney BIDs were in fact subject to the Brown Act, exactly as the Court of Appeal ruled in 2001 over the City’s objections. And attached to this report was a 1994 opinion issued by the Fair Political Practices Commission in response to an explicit request from none other than the Los Angeles City Attorney which reached precisely the same conclusion.

And not only that but both agencies agreed that BID board members are in fact public officials with respect to these laws and also subject to state prohibitions on conflicts of interest.2 So it’s really a mystery now why in 1998 when Aaron Epstein wanted to attend BID meetings the City of Los Angeles didn’t just tell Kerry Morrison and her infernal board of directors that they had to let him in. Why they spent three long and undoubtedly expensive years defending a position that they already knew to be wrong.

At this late date and because the attorney client privilege between the City and the City Attorney is doubtlessly implicated, we are probably never going to know for sure why they made the obviously wrong decision to defend an indefensible position. But if they were thinking about Kerry Morrison and her weirdo schemes back then like they are now, and why wouldn’t they have been, they wouldn’t have needed any more of a reason beyond Kerry Morrison’s request. Shameful. And harmful. But not a surprise. Turn the page for selected transcriptions.
Continue reading In 1995 The City Attorney And The Fair Political Practices Commission Both Agreed That BIDs Were Government Agencies And Their Board Members Were Public Officials Subject To The Brown Act And The CPRA — So When Aaron Epstein Sued The City And The Hollywood BID In 1999 Why Did The City Take Kerry Morrison’s Side Even Though They Already Knew Epstein Was Right? — Probably Yet Another Case Of Yielding To Her Every Damn Whim No Matter How Dire The Consequences — Ironically The Same Lawyer, Patricia Tubert, Argued Both Contradictory Sides Of The Dispute →

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Hollywood Property Owners Alliance, Los Angeles City Government

In 2013 Kerry Morrison Told The City Council That Without City Oversight Of BID Compliance With The Public Records Act “It Is Very Possible That One Of The BID Boards Would Be Sued, Which Would Also Involve The City” — This Despite Decades Of Kerry Morrison’s Refusing To Have Her BID Be Overseen In Any Way — Protesting Any Proposed Oversight Schemes — And Repeatedly Violating The Brown Act And CPRA In Flamboyantly Intentional Ways

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It seems that in 2013 the City was considering transferring BID management functions away from the City Clerk to some to-be-created Office of Imaginary Money-Shuffling Practices or suchlike nonsense. Obviously it didn’t happen, but nevertheless we’re still as lucky as can be to have recently discovered a copy of a letter written by Ms. Kerry Morrison, chock-full of her characteristically narcissistic stylings, in support of keeping BIDditude with the Clerk.

Her unwritten point is that the Clerk’s BID unit is already firmly under the thumb of the BIDs,1 and any change would be detrimental to the BIDs, therefore no change should be made, whatever the needs of the City, and these she really does not deign to consider, might be. Her written points are more prosaic, and except for one of these the interest mainly lies in counting her weirdly nonconscious invocation of cliches.2

Her sole interesting point, and it’s interesting mostly for the way it highlights her absolute indifference towards the truth, has to do with one of our favorite topics on this blog, which is the intersection of BIDdology with the Brown Act and the Public Records Act:

Because of litigation that our BID was involved in at the turn of the century, the boards that manage BIDs are now subject to the Public Records Act and the Brown Act. The City Clerk’s staff helps to ensure compliance. Absent this oversight, it is very possible that one of the BID boards would be sued, which would also involve the city of LA.

Unfortunately I don’t have the time to dissect the unselfconsciously sprinkled self-satisfied hermeneutics of this lil cupcake of a prose poem, However, let’s move past the break and consider some of the inaccuracies and omissions. And, of course, there’s also a transcription of the whole damn letter.
Continue reading In 2013 Kerry Morrison Told The City Council That Without City Oversight Of BID Compliance With The Public Records Act “It Is Very Possible That One Of The BID Boards Would Be Sued, Which Would Also Involve The City” — This Despite Decades Of Kerry Morrison’s Refusing To Have Her BID Be Overseen In Any Way — Protesting Any Proposed Oversight Schemes — And Repeatedly Violating The Brown Act And CPRA In Flamboyantly Intentional Ways →

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CD13, Hollywood Property Owners Alliance

The Hollywood Property Owners’ Alliance In Cahoots With CD13 Is Removing Ficus Trees From Hollywood — Why Has The City Of Los Angeles Ceded Its Duty To Care For Our Trees To A Bunch Of Nihilistic Zillionaires Who Don’t Even Live In Hollywood?

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The Hollywood Property Owners’ Alliance, which runs the major Hollywood BID, has a long and troubled relationship with the City of Los Angeles and tree regulations. For instance, remember when that billboard company illegally cut down all those trees in Silver Lake in 2016 and the whole City flipped out even to the extent of revenge vandalism? This crisis somehow catapulted Mitch O’Farrell and David Ryu into a rare moment of sanity and they initiated CF 15-0467-S4, in which they asked for report-backs from the City Attorney and the Bureau of Street Services on how to prevent future rogue tree removals.

And the Bureau of Street Services came in with a pretty strong set of recommendations, which included requiring before-and-after photos of tree maintenance done by private parties as well as requiring the presence of City tree surgeons. Well, as you may recall, the BID absolutely flipped out over this in their characteristically privileged manner, which included typically unsubstantiated claims of their unparalleled arboreal competence and even featured archetypal BID genius Mark Echevarria of Musso & Frank giggling like a six-fingered chucklehead cause he never heard of tree surgeons.1

And over the last two years the issue of the wanton destruction of our City’s trees has not died down. In fact it’s getting worse and worse. For a good overview see this fine article by Alissa Walker in Curbed LA. The unwarranted removal of trees has emerged as a significant social justice issue with serious ecological ramifications. And political action can save trees. But political action is impossible if the City sneaks around and removes trees covertly.

And of course, the City’s favorite way to sneak around and do anything covertly is to palm it off onto the damn BIDs.2 Thus it was no surprise to discover a newly released email conversation between Marisol Rodriguez and Dan Halden of Mitch O’Farrell’s staff and Kerry Morrison and Rich Sarian of the HPOA which shows that the BID is in fact involved in secret tree destruction in Hollywood with the advice and consent of CD13.

It’s pretty clear that these actions are shady. It’s plausible that they’re illegal. Turn the page for transcriptions of as much of the record as we have available.
Continue reading The Hollywood Property Owners’ Alliance In Cahoots With CD13 Is Removing Ficus Trees From Hollywood — Why Has The City Of Los Angeles Ceded Its Duty To Care For Our Trees To A Bunch Of Nihilistic Zillionaires Who Don’t Even Live In Hollywood? →

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Hollywood Property Owners Alliance

Kerry Morrison To Leave Hollywood Property Owners’ Alliance In February 2019 To Spend More Time Advocating For More Zillionaire Friendly Homeless Incarceration Laws

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Kerry Morrison, founding director of the Hollywood Property Owners’ Alliance, which administers the Hollywood Entertainment District BID in Hollywood, announced that she’s leaving that position effective February 2019 in order to focus on making it easier for cops to lock up homeless people against their will.

Although she has no background or training in mental health, law, or human decency, and although she has spent the last twenty years being paid to organize tens of thousands of punitive arrests of homeless people and other human beings, she has somehow managed to have herself accepted as a compassionate expert in mental health care issues and presumably whatever she does next will have to do with that inexplicable perception. Perhaps Morrison, oft compared to Leni Riefenstahl, will expand her hobby of making homeless exploitation flicks into a career.

Kerry Morrison, as you probably know, has been one of the untiring forces behind the social destruction of Hollywood over the last two decades. There is literally nothing she’s done that’s improved life for human beings and non-zillionaires in that most beset of the spiritual centers of Los Angeles. Nevertheless, it’s fitting, as they say, to give the Devil her due, or to give Satan her salute. Turn the page for what passes in these parts as kind words about Ms. Kerry Morrison.
Continue reading Kerry Morrison To Leave Hollywood Property Owners’ Alliance In February 2019 To Spend More Time Advocating For More Zillionaire Friendly Homeless Incarceration Laws →

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Hollywood Property Owners Alliance, Homeless Issues, Los Angeles County Government

In 2017 Kerry Morrison — Whose Experience Of Mental Health Policy Seems To Consist Mainly Of Illegally Locking Up Homeless People In Hollywood — Was Asked By County Mental Health Staff To Name Potential Commissioners — Among Others She Identified Steve Seyler — Whose Experience With Mental Health Policy Seems To Consist Of Bossing A Heavily Armed Gang Of Thugs In Hollywood Responsible For Incarcerating The Homeless At An Astonishing Rate — And Who Doesn’t Even Live In L.A. County, For That Matter

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As you’re surely aware, our old friend Kerry Morrison has managed over the last twenty two years to position herself as some kind of neutral expert on homelessness in Los Angeles and thereby to be appointed to all kinds of influential positions even though actually, as executive director of the Hollywood Property Owners’ Alliance, she earns her salary by overseeing the arrest of homeless residents of Hollywood at an astonishing rate as part of her ultimate goal of moving them out of her BIDs by any means necessary.

For instance, as a result, former CD13 rep Eric Garcetti felt free to appoint her to the LAHSA Commission and subsequently to the Prop HHH Citizens’ oversight committee.1 The fact that Kerry Morrison is a politically viable candidate for such appointments despite the fact that her positions differ not at all in any pragmatic way from those of e.g. open advocate for violence, slavering anti-homeless psychopath, and manifestly unappointable-to-anything Mark Ryavec shows the disheartening extent to which she’s managed, through deception and the inattention of journalists to BIDs in Los Angeles, to maintain her public image as some kind of local Mother Teresa figure.2

Kerry Morrison’s genius for reputation-laundering reached a kind of apotheosis in 2016 when she wangled herself a Stanton Fellowship, which is some kind of grant awarded by the Durfee Foundation3 to “allow leaders to test a hunch,” whatever that means.4 And regardless of what it means to the Foundation, it’s also very convenient for Ms. Kerry Morrison as yet another way to fail to acknowledge her paymasters at the BID.5

Given all this it was no surprise to discover that in 2017 Kerry Morrison somehow found her way onto something called the Los Angeles County Mental Health Commission‘s Ad Hoc Committee on LA County’s Board And Care System. When I learned of this in February, naturally I went ahead and sent a CPRA request to the County for all relevant emails. After an astonishing level of obstructionist shenanigans6 they finally released some subset of what I asked for, and you can read the whole set here on Archive.Org.

One moderately interesting item lurking amongst the chaff is the actual report prepared by the Ad Hockies. It’s mostly expected platitudes and stuff, though. The most interesting part is that, as discussed above, Kerry Morrison gives her institutional affiliation as “Stanton Fellow 2016-17” rather than as something honest like, e.g., queen homeless killer for the HPOA.

And there is a lot to write about in this set of records, but the text for today’s sermon is this June 12, 2017 email from Kerry Morrison7 to her gang of yes-people on the Hollywood 4WRD mailing list8 asking if any of them want to be appointed to the County Mental Health Commission. Turn the page for links to the emails, transcriptions thereof, and some commentary!
Continue reading In 2017 Kerry Morrison — Whose Experience Of Mental Health Policy Seems To Consist Mainly Of Illegally Locking Up Homeless People In Hollywood — Was Asked By County Mental Health Staff To Name Potential Commissioners — Among Others She Identified Steve Seyler — Whose Experience With Mental Health Policy Seems To Consist Of Bossing A Heavily Armed Gang Of Thugs In Hollywood Responsible For Incarcerating The Homeless At An Astonishing Rate — And Who Doesn’t Even Live In L.A. County, For That Matter →

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Business Improvement Districts, Los Angeles City Government

Two Very Interesting Records For Release — The Contract Between The City Of Los Angeles And Civitas Advisors For Establishment Of The Hollywood Route 66 BID — Shedding Light On Intersection Between BID Consulting And Lobbying — Also On Exactly What Role The Engineer Plays In Establishment Process — And February 2018 Feasibility Report Produced By Civitas

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There seem to be two distinct ways that BIDs get started in Los Angeles. One is that a bunch of property owners want to start one, they talk to their council rep or the City Clerk, hire a consultant, and go through the process we’ve all come to know and love. But it seems that sometimes the City takes the initiative, they hire their own consultant, and as part of their duties, the consultant puts together a proponent group.

That seems to be what’s going on with the infamous Echo Park BID, and it’s also the way that the Hollywood Route 66 BID is being formed.1 Both of these establishments are being handled by OG2 BID consultancy Civitas Advisors. And as you may recall, a good citizen of Los Angeles recently supplied me with a massive set of emails between Civitas and the City Clerk‘s office.3

And buried amongst the interminable babbling about God-knows-what-all4 I uncovered a couple of really interesting gems. First, there is the contract between the City and Civitas for establishing the Hollywood Route 66 BID, and second there is a feasibility study for the BID prepared by Civitas in February 2018.5 Both of them have a lot to tell us about how BIDs get started and function in Los Angeles! Turn the page for excerpts and discussion.
Continue reading Two Very Interesting Records For Release — The Contract Between The City Of Los Angeles And Civitas Advisors For Establishment Of The Hollywood Route 66 BID — Shedding Light On Intersection Between BID Consulting And Lobbying — Also On Exactly What Role The Engineer Plays In Establishment Process — And February 2018 Feasibility Report Produced By Civitas →

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Business Improvement Districts, Homeless Issues, Los Angeles City Council

A Motion In City Council Asks The HHH Citizens’ Oversight Committee To Recommend Ways To Speed Up Development Of Housing For The Homeless, Creating An Unacknowledged But Not Unexpected Conflict Of Interest For Members Kerry Morrison And Blair Besten, Whose Salaries Are Paid By Real Estate Developers For The Express Purpose Of Advocating For Their Interests With The City

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In November 2016 the voters of Los Angeles approved Measure HHH, which provided a huge amount of funding for housing homeless people. The measure also created a Citizens’ Oversight Committee, putatively for the purpose of making sure the money was well-spent. Subsequently, Eric Garcetti appointed Hollywood BIDdie and famous mayoral pookie-pie Kerry Morrison and some other people to the Committee and the City Council appointed Downtown BIDdie and famous José Huizar pookie-pie Blair Besten to the Committee.

These appointments meant that 2 of 7 committee members work for business improvement districts,1 which was bad enough in itself given that one of the main purposes of BIDs is to banish the homeless from their districts and to basically waste public money in the form of their assessments while doing that. But on Wednesday matters got immeasurably worse.

What happened is that Marqueece Harris-Dawson and Mitchell Englander introduced a motion proposing to expand the remit of the CoC to include making

comprehensive recommendations to the Homelessness and Poverty Committee regarding changes to the permanent supportive housing process and funding structure to enable a more expedited delivery of homeless housing.

That is, the Committee is now charged with weakening the funding process and the permitting and building approval process for projects that will help house the homeless. This sounds superficially like a good thing, but there’s at least one huge problem with it. Blair Besten’s employers, Kerry Morrison’s employers, are huge commercial property owners and developers and weakened processes are their bread and butter. They know exactly how to turn weakened processes into strengthened profit margins.

At least some of them, e.g. Ruben Islas, make immense amounts of money from building and owning housing for the homeless. Blair Besten has lobbied the City intensively on relaxing zoning codes and on granting psychotically expansive tax breaks to such developers. This new proposal, therefore, would grant Blair Besten and Kerry Morrison the power to make recommendations directly to City Council on issues that they are already paid by developers and property owners to lobby the City over.
Continue reading A Motion In City Council Asks The HHH Citizens’ Oversight Committee To Recommend Ways To Speed Up Development Of Housing For The Homeless, Creating An Unacknowledged But Not Unexpected Conflict Of Interest For Members Kerry Morrison And Blair Besten, Whose Salaries Are Paid By Real Estate Developers For The Express Purpose Of Advocating For Their Interests With The City →

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