The Greater Chinatown Business Improvement District (Chinatown BID) will expire on December 31, 2020 and must cease all BID operations after that date. The Office of the City Clerk is requesting a letter indicating the intention of the BID to renew or expire. If it is the BID’s intention to expire and not renew, this Office will require the following:
1. A letter from the Board President indicating intent to allow the BID to expire.
2. An inventory of all assets currently held by the Chinatown BID.
3. A timeline for winding down the Chinatown BID and an estimate of the associated costs.
Additionally, in accordance with Section 10 of Contract No. C-118431 between the City of Los Angeles and the Los Angeles Chinatown Business Council, Incorporated, all remaining revenues of the District, after all outstanding debts have been paid, derived from the levy of assessments, or derived from the sale of assets acquired with the revenues, shall be refunded to property owners in the manner described in Division 6, Chapter 9, Section 6.619 of the Los Angeles Administrative Code.
If you have any questions, please contact Eugene Van Cise of my staff at (213) 675-2960.
Sincerely,
Patrice Y. Lattimore, Chief
Business Improvement District Division
Office of the City Clerk
PYL:CG:RKS:ev
c: Honorable Gilbert Cedillo, Councilmember, District 1
They continued to ignore the whole situation so last week our attorneys filed a motion asking the judge to hold them in contempt of court for refusing to comply with his order. They didn’t show up for the hearing on that either, which was on Friday morning, so the judge ordered them to show up on December 27, 2019 at 9:30 AM1 and explain themselves. The charge is contempt of court, which is defined in the California Code of Civil Procedure at §1209 to include “Disobedience of any lawful judgment, order, or process of the court.”
An enraged George Yu out of his chair and walking aggressively toward a public commenter because Yu didn’t like what the person was saying. This is the kind of unhinged anger that Yu brings to his BID. This is one of many reasons why George Yu and his damn BID need to get out of Chinatown, out of Los Angeles.George Yu, executive director for life of the Chinatown Business Improvement District, is well-known for his defiance of the law in BID-related matters. For instance, he has utterly refused to participate in a lawsuit brought against the BID to enforce the California Public Records Act.2 And he cannot keep his mouth shut about his outlaw proclivities, like for instance last year at a BID board meeting he announced that he had broken the law by spending BID money on harassing homeless human beings outside the boundaries of the BID.3
So, you know, I went to today’s meeting expecting more of the usual George Yu crapola. But what actually happened was far, far more important than the stuff on the agenda. During the section of the meeting on public safety, long-time Chinatown residents Zen Sekizawa and Mario Correa had a few things to say to Yu and to the public at large about multiple attacks on them by George Yu and, at his direction and with his support, the BID’s off-the-chain security forces. I filmed the whole meeting, of course, and you can download a copy here from Archive.Org or watch it here on YouTube. The chaos starts at 23:19
It’s been a fluff piece about how great this gentleman is, however, what I have understood is that he has an antipathy against unhoused people. He calls them bums. He stalks. He surveils. He does everything in his power to make it uncomfortable. I am the gentleman that was on that quality of life issue the previous meeting. So I decided to come and have my side of the story because obviously this [unintelligible] has been posted everywhere. I have heard several different crazy stories. If I had not known it was about me I would be understandably afraid. So let us not excuse his behavior and try to de-escalate or invalidate these people’s concerns. These are legitimate. These are homeowners. These are community members. I have been a community member. I have lived over here over ten years before I became unhoused. So I have as much of a right as anybody else in here. He doesn’t even live here. He lives way out in some gated community. So this is the issue that community members that sit here and listen to him and hang on to his every word need to understand. We do not want him or his business improvement district employees here. He is a terrorist to people that are working class, an elitist, and an outright bully. And it is unacceptable. I am tired of it, and I want the community to understand and to do something about it.
George Yu did not like what he heard. Not. At. All. George Yu argued, accused, tried to derail, and when he could not shut down the flow of truth, adjourned the meeting unexpectedly and rose out of his chair in anger and walked aggressively toward Theo Henderson, another member of the public giving comment. This is a turning point in the history of this BID, maybe of all BIDs in Los Angeles. George Yu has long been unhinged, but now he’s decompensating.
You can read transcribed selections below and here’s a super-short summary. The Chinatown BID is a major player in municipal politics. This includes George’s Yu’s participation in the conspiracy against the Skid Row Neighborhood Council. Through our CPRA requests we sought to understand the BID’s role in this and their relationship with the City in general.
Well, it turns out that he’s also the man who thinks that he can ignore people’s requests for public records for more than a year without even answering. We’re hoping this petition, which is a little different from most of the ones I report on here in that Katherine McNenny and I filed it jointly, will teach him the error of his ways, at least with respect to the CPRA.
The whole thing started in May 2017 when, after it became clear that George Yu had played a central role in the Downtown BIDs’ underhanded conspiracy to torpedo the Skid Row Neighborhood Council subdivision effort, Katherine McNenny requested a bunch of records on this topic from the Chinatown BID.7 He did not even respond, and has not responded yet, which is a clear violation of the law.8
Independently of Katherine McNenny’s requests but for the same purpose, in March 2018 I sent George Yu three requests also, slightly broader than hers but still focused on the SRNC formation effort and George Yu’s role in sinking it. He also ignored these requests. To date he has not even made the initial response required by §6253(c). For reasons I will never understand George Yu9 thinks its better to break the law repeatedly and then pay potentially tens of thousands of dollars as a consequence than to just comply in the first damn place.
Well, it’s always interesting to visit a new BID for the first time, and today’s journey out to Chinatown was certainly no exception. The BID meets in the Far East Plaza upstairs10 so up I went. They tried to get me to sign in, but I just ignored them because that’s illegal, innit?11 I did record the meeting, and you can watch the whole thing if you want here on YouTube and also here on Archive.Org if Google gives you the willies.12
There was a lot to write about at that meeting, but the most interesting thing13 was the fact that George Yu, just like that lady from the Arts District last month, decided he was going to confront me about recording his meeting, so he came over, just like she did, and stuck his face right in the camera, just like she did, and proceeded to embarrass himself in his anger and his shame, just like she did. Watch the whole frickin’ episode right here.
Now, a lot of other interesting stuff happened at this meeting, but I’m going to have to put off writing about it, because the very most interesting thing that happened today happened right after the meeting. As you’re probably aware, Howlin’ Rays does not actually define the the Far East Plaza, which also has some nice restaurants that are NOT overrun by zombie hipster hordes. And since the BID meeting was right at lunch time I thought I’d eat a banh mi and some pho before hopping the good old 45 southbound back to reality.
But after I ordered and before most of my food came,14 a security guard came busting into the restaurant and told me that the Far East Plaza was private property and that the owner didn’t want me there any more and that I would have to leave. Did I mention I recorded him too? Watch it here on YouTube or here on Archive.Org.15
Which is why, just the day before yesterday, we won the damn suit. I will write about this soon but more urgent matters keep arising. You can read the judge’s final ruling here. Orders are forthcoming but they’re not out yet.
Sadly, ironically, it does not seem to be illegal for BIDs to spend their money on harassing homeless human beings per se. They seem to be allowed to harass as many homeless human beings as they want, as much as they want to harass them. They are, however, explicitly forbidden from harassing homeless human beings, or doing anything whatsoever, outside the boundaries of their damnable BIDs, by the Property and Business Improvement District Law at §36625(a)(6), which states unequivocally that: The revenue from the levy of assessments within a district shall not be used to provide improvements, maintenance, or activities outside the district … So yeah, BIDs, the legislature says you can harass away! As long as you only harass within your boundaries!
According to Noam Chomsky and probably any number of other theorists, its unbounded recursive potential is one of the defining features of natural human language and, if I hadn’t already believed this, my exposure to legal writing would certainly have convinced me of it. Like I said, we had a motion to expedite hearing of the motion to compel, and if they weren’t such damn head-in-the-sanders the BID would file a response in opposition to the motion to expedite the hearing of the motion to compel and then we would file a reply to the response in opposition to the motion to expedite the hearing of the motion to compel and then the judge would file an order whose name, if I were to type it here, might break the Internet but would certainly cause my hosting costs to go up, and so on. I am absolutely not complaining. Legal writing, despite its bad rep, is one of my absolutely favorite genres!
The general pattern in one of these cases is that it starts out with a petitioner, the person who’s trying to enforce rights under the CPRA, filing a petition. This is a brief statement of the facts and possibly some argument and background. Ideally then the respondent, which is the person who allegedly violated the CPRA, files a brief answer to the petition. Then there may or may not be discovery, there’s a brief hearing to set the trial date and agree to various other things, this is the trial-setting conference. Then the petitioner’s opening brief is typically due 60 days before trial, the respondent’s response to that is due 30 days before trial, and the petitioner can file an answer to that 15 days before the trial.
Which is so-called declaratory relief, defined by the Wiki as“a form of legally binding preventive adjudication by which a party involved in an actual or possible legal matter can ask a court to conclusively rule on and affirm the rights, duties, or obligations of one or more parties in a civil dispute”
All of these requests are appended to the petition as exhibits. For technical reasons, mostly involving laziness, I’m not linking to them separately here.
Of course readers of this blog are well aware that the CPRA requires public agencies such as the BID to at least respond within 10 (or 24 under certain circumstances) with some kind of estimate of when the goods will be ready. This is at §6253(c), which states: ” Each agency, upon a request for a copy of records, shall, within 10 days from receipt of the request, determine whether the request, in whole or in part, seeks copies of disclosable public records in the possession of the agency and shall promptly notify the person making the request of the determination and the reasons therefor. In unusual circumstances, the time limit prescribed in this section may be extended by written notice by the head of the agency or his or her designee to the person making the request, setting forth the reasons for the extension and the date on which a determination is expected to be dispatched. No notice shall specify a date that would result in an extension for more than 14 days. When the agency dispatches the determination, and if the agency determines that the request seeks disclosable public records, the agency shall state the estimated date and time when the records will be made available.”
And a lot of his BIDdie colleagues.
Downstairs you have to step carefully through the everpresent zombie hipster mob, praying to your higher power or whatever that they don’t mistake your face for something from Howlin’ Rays and proceed to chew it off in their hunger and confusion after three days straight in line. I’m pretty sure babies have been born in that line. I’m pretty sure it’s the same damn people in line from when the place first opened. At first I was waiting for the line to die down before I tried it. Now I’ve given up cause actually there’s no way food can be so good as to induce a years-long line, which means the hipsters are just fronting and who’s got time for that?
See the Brown Act at §54953.3: “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.”
And why wouldn’t it?
The most interesting thing during the meeting. The most interesting thing of all happened after the meeting, and you’ll just have to read on to hear about that.
I made it through half the pho and none of the banh mi.
He also told me it was illegal to record him. Good luck with that one, friend.
It’s the California Constitution, friend, which is still a constitution.
I would like to thank volunteers from Chinatown Community for Equitable Development for calling my attention to the monumental significance of these records.
