Tag Archives: Marie Rumsey

Johnathan Williams Of The Accelerated Schools Charter Empire And Marie Rumsey Of Zillionaire Terrorist Front The Central City Association Of Los Angeles — Working Together To Destroy Public Education In Los Angeles — One Of Their Weapons? — Commercial Real Estate Of Course — With Guest Appearances By Nightmare Zillionaire BID-Adjacent Clown Crew — Tom Gilmore — Adele Yellin — Steve Needleman — Wayne Ratkovich — Who Should Mostly Be In Literal Chains Rather Than Email Chains — But Here We Are In 21st Century Los Angeles

As you may recall, I got interested in charter schools in Los Angeles during the recent UTLA strike, and after learning that they are subject to the California Public Records Act I submitted a bunch of requests, and after a little amateurish obstructionism the goodies are starting to trickle in.1 Today’s installment is this small set of emails between Johnathan Williams, founder and head honcho of charter school empire The Accelerated Schools, and various people associated with zillionaire terrorist front group The Central City Association.

And one thing I’ve been learning recently, confirmed by these emails, is that there’s an extensive nexus of relationships among BIDdies and Charterites. BIDdies and their hired guns, like e.g. Jessica Lall and Noel Hyun of the CCALA, serve on many a charter school board. Their companies fund charters, arrange their real estate deals, introduce their executives around in the local zillionaire communities, and so on. Ultimately this shouldn’t have been a surprise to me, although it was.

Both BIDs and charter schools serve the zillionaire privatization agenda. Both are attacks on the public realm, seeking to destroy it so that it can be replaced with private institutions even more firmly under direct zillionaire control. The emails at hand give the tiniest glimpse into this world, just consisting of zillionaires and charterites passing names and email addresses around trying to find a place where the staff of one of Williams’s schools, the Wallis Annenberg High School, can hold a two day retreat.

But don’t be turned off by the triviality of the subject. The real story here is the existence of the network that allows such transactions as these to be negotiated seamlessly, effortlessly, genially, without friction. The shared presupposition of the value of charter schools revealed by the fact that no one questions it. That’s ultimately what we’re learning about, and such knowledge, like all knowledge worth having, comes a speck at a time. Until a vast panorama is revealed, like pointillism. Turn the page for transcriptions and links to the emails!
Continue reading Johnathan Williams Of The Accelerated Schools Charter Empire And Marie Rumsey Of Zillionaire Terrorist Front The Central City Association Of Los Angeles — Working Together To Destroy Public Education In Los Angeles — One Of Their Weapons? — Commercial Real Estate Of Course — With Guest Appearances By Nightmare Zillionaire BID-Adjacent Clown Crew — Tom Gilmore — Adele Yellin — Steve Needleman — Wayne Ratkovich — Who Should Mostly Be In Literal Chains Rather Than Email Chains — But Here We Are In 21st Century Los Angeles

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Central City Association Announces That Hearings On Sidewalk Vending Will Begin Again Soon — Habitual Criminal Marie Rumsey Pens CCALA-Approved Talking Points For Zillionaire Flunkies — Mean-As-A-Damn-Snake BID-Mistress Rena Leddy Distributes These To The BID Consortium — This All Happened On March 29, 2018 And Already I Have The Goods For You!

This is just a quick note to publish a quite important item that I obtained this afternoon. Here’s the background: for three years now, the Central City Association, in conspiracy with most of the BIDs in the City, has been fighting against sane sidewalk vending regulations in Los Angeles.

When Donald Trump was elected in 2016 and his hysterical delusionary rants about deporting everyone he could get his bloody hands on became suddenly a lot less delusionary, our usually stupidly inactive City Council rose momentarily to the occasion and voted to decriminalize street vending immediately because no one1 gets deported for administrative violations.

Soon after that, zillionaires and their BID flunkies pretty much gutted the whole thing by prevailing on their Councilpets to grant themselves the power to opt any given neighborhood out of the whole legal vending system, whatever it might turn out to be.

The resulting proposal, for it’s not anywhere near becoming a law quite yet, is so embarrassingly ad hoc and transparently zillionaire-serving that State Senator Ricardo Lara boldly took it upon himself to cut the knot by proposing a sweeping law, SB 946, that would severely limit Cities’ regulatory power over sidewalk vending. Predictably, this has driven the BIDdies and the CCALA into a frenzy of potentially thwarted white privilege, hating as they do any public policy that might give poor people, especially nonwhite poor people, any measure of self-determination, self-expression, and human dignity.

The breaking news is that, according to the CCALA, City Council is going to resume discussions of this issue very soon. Here is a March 29, 2018 email from Fashion District BID Executive Directrix Rena Leddy to the BID Consortium announcing this development and also distributing as an attachment an item entitled Sidewalk Vending Speaking Points March 2018, penned by noted scofflaw Marie Rumsey.

The CCALA’s proposals are brutal, as expected. They call for vendors to have their goods confiscated if they’re operating without a permit, to obtain permission from the property or business owners adjacent to them,2 and to not only have to pay fees to the City but also to BIDs themselves, which is ultra-weird.

It’s an all-too-rare occasion for us to get hold of this kind of stuff in such a timely manner, however, so that alone makes it exciting. There are transcriptions of everything after the break. Start thinking of counterarguments, because if CCALA is correct3 and the hearings start up again, every sane truth-telling voice will be needed.
Continue reading Central City Association Announces That Hearings On Sidewalk Vending Will Begin Again Soon — Habitual Criminal Marie Rumsey Pens CCALA-Approved Talking Points For Zillionaire Flunkies — Mean-As-A-Damn-Snake BID-Mistress Rena Leddy Distributes These To The BID Consortium — This All Happened On March 29, 2018 And Already I Have The Goods For You!

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How Kerry Freaking Morrison Found Out About Senator Ricardo Lara’s Street Vending Bill In January 2018 And Told No-Epithet-Yet Suzanne Holley, Chardonnay-Swilling Scarf Monster Rena Leddy, And Batty Little Fusspot Blair Besten All About It And Suzanne Freaking Holley Went And Told Carol Freaking Schatz, The Zillion Dollar Woman, Who Subsequently Swore A Solemn Oath To Destroy SB 946

Just another quick note from all them DCBID emails I’ve been dining out on for weeks now. It’s inconsequential in one sense, but on the other hand, it illuminates how information spreads among the zillionaire flunkies who run this City’s BIDs. Here is the original email chain, and I’m just going to lay it on you without commentary. Or without much, anyway.

On January 31, 2018, the incomparable Emily Alpert Reyes emailed Kerry Freaking Morrison thusly:

From: Alpert, Emily mailto:Emily.Alpert@latimes.com
Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2018 9:23 AM
To: Kerry Morrison <Kerry@hollvwoodbid.org>

Subject: State bill on street vending

Hi Kerry — I hope all is well! I was curious for your thoughts on this state bill that would override local regulations on vending:

http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201720180SB946&search_keywords=vendor

I’m at ■■■-■■■-■■■■. Thanks!

Emily

Did Kerry Morrison answer her? Well, I don’t know, but I will say that Emily Alpert Reyes published a fine article on Lara’s bill on February 2, and Kerry Morrison is not quoted in it. In any case, we do know that Kerry Morrison read the email because …. turn the page if you want to find out!
Continue reading How Kerry Freaking Morrison Found Out About Senator Ricardo Lara’s Street Vending Bill In January 2018 And Told No-Epithet-Yet Suzanne Holley, Chardonnay-Swilling Scarf Monster Rena Leddy, And Batty Little Fusspot Blair Besten All About It And Suzanne Freaking Holley Went And Told Carol Freaking Schatz, The Zillion Dollar Woman, Who Subsequently Swore A Solemn Oath To Destroy SB 946

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More Than Ten Thousand Emails! Downtown Santa Monica BID And Downtown Center BID! Two Unbelievably Rich Sets Of Records!

This is just a short note to announce two massive sets of emails that I’ve obtained over the last couple weeks. There’s so much material here that it’s taken an unusual amount of time to get it processed and published. I will be writing about this material over the next few weeks. There’s so much, and it’s so rich, that it’s going to take me a while to get it all sorted out, so I thought it’d be best to make it available to you right away:

  • Downtown Santa Monica BID — Emails between the City of Santa Monica and the Downtown Santa Monica BID from January 1 through September 8, 2017.
  • Downtown Center BID — Assorted emails from the Downtown Center BID, mostly from 2017.

Like I said, there’s so much here that it will take a while to get it sorted through. Meanwhile, though, turn the page for some interesting stuff you can begin to look for on your own.
Continue reading More Than Ten Thousand Emails! Downtown Santa Monica BID And Downtown Center BID! Two Unbelievably Rich Sets Of Records!

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City Council Approves Update To Ethics Laws Which, Among Other Changes, Imposes At Long Last A Duty On City Officials And Employees To Report Violations To The Ethics Commission Within Ten Days — A Law Like This Will Cut Down On Apparent Collusion By City Officials Or At Least Provide Another Fruitful Channel For Reporting Them

The Los Angeles Ethics Commission is charged not only with enforcing ethics laws and regulations but also with reviewing and revising them periodically. Because the City Council is subject to these laws it wouldn’t make much sense for them to be able to alter them at will. The temptation to exempt themselves and their creepy zillionaire buddies would ultimately be too much for their corrupt vestigial little senses of morality to bear and we’d end up without any ethics laws at all.

Thus the process, as described in the City Charter at §703(a), requires the Ethics Commission to propose the changes and gives the City Council the authority only to disapprove but not to modify them.1 This strikes me as a quite clever way to balance the competing interests involved:

The commission may adopt, amend and rescind rules and regulations, subject to Council approval without modification, to carry out the purposes and provisions of the Charter and ordinances of the City relating to campaign finance, conflicts of interest, lobbying, and governmental ethics and to govern procedures of the commission.2

So at its meeting in February, the Ethics Commission approved a bunch of revised enforcement regulations. You can read the original proposal. This was duly sent up to the City Council, where it was placed in Council File 14-0049-S1. Well, on Thursday, after the Mayor’s concurrence was received, the Council finalized the matter and the new regulations are approved and will take effect on August 14.3

There were bunches of changes, mostly technical in nature, and beyond my capacity to evaluate. But the one that really excites me is that the new ordinance requires City departments and appointees to report violations of the Ethics laws or the Municipal Lobbying Ordinance within ten days. This is a huge development! Read on for details and for a number of horrific instances in which the lack of a mandate to report created absolutely nauseating scenarios involving law-flouting lobbyists and City officials.
Continue reading City Council Approves Update To Ethics Laws Which, Among Other Changes, Imposes At Long Last A Duty On City Officials And Employees To Report Violations To The Ethics Commission Within Ten Days — A Law Like This Will Cut Down On Apparent Collusion By City Officials Or At Least Provide Another Fruitful Channel For Reporting Them

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Announcing MichaelKohlhaas.Org Souvenir Coffee Cups!! Commemorating Significant Episodes In The History Of Bad BIDditude And Featuring Your Favorite Bad BIDdies!! Colorful Yet Functional Designs!!

In response to years of ongoing public outcry and fervent pleading, we have finally set up a MichaelKohlhaas.Org store at CafePress. Right now, there are only three products, but they are doozies, friends! If you’re viewing the desktop version of this blog, you can also get to our store through the “Merch” menu up on the top bar, and otherwise go to this dedicated page. We here at the blog are all extremely excited about this new project. The three coffee mugs are pictured here, and also I’m going to describe and link to each of them separately.

First of all we have the Besten Show Award Prize Mug. The executive directrix of the Historic Core BID, third weirdest of the minor downtown BIDs, Blair Besten, is famous for her passive-aggressive, active-aggressive, rageball-acting-out antics in the face of what everyone in the universe except, for some reason her, understands are perfectly normal CPRA requests. Take a look at the actual email which clinched the award for her! Here, after I asked her a few simple questions about a pending request, one that’s been pending for two months now: (a) was there any news on it, (b) had she finished collecting the responsive material into one place, and (c) how much data in bytes was responsive? She answered with, in pertinent part, the following queries:

  • Please clarify what you mean by “collecting” and what you mean by “data?”
  • Please define what you mean by “in one place.”
  • Not clear on how many “bytes.” ?
  • What do you mean by news?


It’s been going on like that with her for months. Back and forth, pulling teeth, no results yet. None even on the horizon. So she wins the first Besten Show Award, although she will have to buy her own darn mug if she wants one or get someone to buy it for her. Note that Blair Besten was famously appointed to the Citizens’ Prop HHH oversight committee and they are meeting tomorrow, March 17, at 1 p.m. Get your mug and bring it to the meeting to show Blair how you feel! And turn the page to read about our other two offerings.
Continue reading Announcing MichaelKohlhaas.Org Souvenir Coffee Cups!! Commemorating Significant Episodes In The History Of Bad BIDditude And Featuring Your Favorite Bad BIDdies!! Colorful Yet Functional Designs!!

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Open Letter to the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission on the proposed stipulation in Case No. 2016-13, In the Matter of Marie Rumsey

Herb Wesson being way, way, way too friendly with Marie Rumsey on November 17, 2015.
Herb Wesson being way, way, way too friendly with Marie Rumsey on November 17, 2015.
I reported on Friday that the City Ethics Commission is slated to consider the case of Marie Rumsey, formerly of CD13 but now working as a lobbyist for the Central City Association, and her repeated violations of the City’s revolving door ordinance, found at LAMC 49.5.13(C)(1). As I noted then, she admitted guilt and excused herself in a particularly implausible way, according to the CEC’s report:

Rumsey received inaccurate legal advice from CCA’s former legal counsel and mistakenly believed that she could attempt to influence any City agency except Councilmember O’Farrell’s office.

Well, I’ve been thinking and thinking about it, and it occurred to me that, since Rumsey spoke before the Council a number of times, it ought to be possible to track down evidence that she had actually attempted to influence Darth Four-Eyes1 himself. So the first piece of evidence I found was this speaker card from the City Council meeting of November 17, 2015. Marie Rumsey signed up to speak on CF 14-1656-S1.2 Next, I had to track down the item on the Council video of that meeting. Well, I did track it down, and here is a link right to her comment. Not only does she address the Council in violation of the law, not only does Mitch O’Farrell end up voting yes on the matter before the Council after she asked him to in violation of the law, but Herb Wesson, who really ought to know better, welcomes her before she violates the law by saying “Ms. Ramsey, [sic] welcome home, good to see you.”

Well, that’s too much. Not only was it against the law for Marie Rumsey to be speaking in front of the Council, not only does it make a mockery of her explanation that her lawyer told her she was only forbidden from trying to influence Mitch O’Farrell’s office,3 but it shows Herb Wesson to be an even bigger idiot than previously suspected. Thus I resolved to write to the Ethics Commission urging them to reject their staff’s proposed stipulation, carry out further investigations, charge Marie Rumsey with ALL of her violations of the revolving door ordinance, and to consider whether Wesson and/or O’Farrell were in violation of LAMC 49.5.16(A)(1)(c), which prohibits aiding and abetting violations of the rest of the Government Ethics Ordinance. So I spent this evening writing this letter to the CEC and submitting it as a public comment for Tuesday’s meeting.4 You can also read it after the break if you’re on mobile or for some other reason prefer not to deal with a PDF.
Continue reading Open Letter to the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission on the proposed stipulation in Case No. 2016-13, In the Matter of Marie Rumsey

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Probably On Basis Of Our Complaint, Scofflaw Lobbyist Marie Rumsey Has Been Nailed By Ethics Commission For Violating Post-Employment Restrictions, Provides Pathetically Implausible Excuse, Enforcement Staff Recommends She Be Let Off With Wrist Slap

Marie Rumsey in happier days at CD13 before she got hired on at the Central City Association and turned to a life of crime, infamy, and outlawry.
Marie Rumsey in happier days at CD13 before she got hired on at the Central City Association and turned to a life of crime, infamy, and outlawry.
My colleagues and I reported in January 2016 that former Mitch O’Farrell aide Marie Rumsey appeared to be in violation of Los Angeles Municipal Code §49.5.13.C.1. A few weeks later I submitted a report on the matter to the City Ethics Commission. Well, last night the CEC published its agenda for the December 6 meeting and, lo! A stipulation in the matter of Marie Rumsey is Item 5!

I submitted evidence of three violations, although there were clearly many others. They tagged her for two of them. She admitted that she’d broken the law, but gave as an exceedingly lame excuse that… well, let the CEC tell it:

Rumsey received inaccurate legal advice from CCA’s former legal counsel and mistakenly believed that she could attempt to influence any City agency except Councilmember O’Farrell’s office.

Because of this and because of her cooperation, CEC staff is recommending leniency:

The maximum administrative penalty for a violation of the City’s post-employment laws is the greater of $5,000 or three times the amount of compensation that was improperly received. Los Angeles City Charter § 706(c)(3). In this case, the two counts against Rumsey result in a maximum penalty of $14,250. We recommend a penalty of $7,125, which is equal to 50 percent of the maximum in this case. We believe the recommended penalty is appropriate, because it takes into consideration the serious nature of the violations while also encouraging cooperation with Ethics Commission investigations and the early resolution of violations.

These offers of 50% of the fine seem to be standard for people who cooperate with the CEC. And the $7,125 isn’t pocket change, even if the CCA ends up paying it for her.1 In this case, though, I think such a low offer is a mistake, not least because on analysis her excuse turns out to be unsupportable. For details on this, and some other interesting matters regarding this case, read on!
Continue reading Probably On Basis Of Our Complaint, Scofflaw Lobbyist Marie Rumsey Has Been Nailed By Ethics Commission For Violating Post-Employment Restrictions, Provides Pathetically Implausible Excuse, Enforcement Staff Recommends She Be Let Off With Wrist Slap

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Many, Many New Emails from CD13 About Homeless Encampments, From CD4 About the Food Coalition, and From South Park BID About Street Vending

An image attached to one of many CD13 emails discussing breaking up homeless encampments on Melrose, Vermont, Alvarado, Beverly, and some adjacent streets.
An image attached to one of many CD13 emails discussing breaking up homeless encampments on Melrose, Vermont, Alvarado, Beverly, and some adjacent streets.
Today I’m just announcing three new collections of emails, all of which can be found (for now) exclusively in our Archive.org collections. First we have emails to and from CD13 about homeless encampments on Vermont Avenue, Melrose, Beverly, Alvarado, and some adjacent streets. The Council District was involved with breaking up these encampments in March 2016 and these emails document the process. They also contain a lot of fodder for future requests, since some of them list specific document numbers for Bureau of Street Services and also Sanitation Department orders and reports. It’s almost as if no one at CD13 was aware that breaking up homeless encampments puts federal money in jeopardy.
Continue reading Many, Many New Emails from CD13 About Homeless Encampments, From CD4 About the Food Coalition, and From South Park BID About Street Vending

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In December 2015 Garcetti Held Invite-Only Meeting to be Sure Homelessness Policies were Acceptable to Business Leaders, Including Carol Schatz, Central Hollywood Coalition, Central City Association, Others

Alisa Orduna in November 2015, just about a month before the Mayor's BID Round Table on homelessness.
Alisa Orduna in November 2015, just about a month before the Mayor’s BID Round Table on homelessness.
Yesterday we obtained some emails exchanged between Garcetti homelessness czarina Alisa Orduna and Central City Association flacks and criminals, Marie Rumsey and her boss, Carol Schatz, the zillion dollar woman, whose creepazoid views on homelessness already have a disproportionate influence on city policy. The main thing is an invite from Alisa Orduna to Carol Schatz to attend

…an Intimate Round Table
[sic] discussion… This meeting is invite-only and intentionally small to learn and discuss strategies for BIDS [sic] that are addressing homelessness in way one [sic] or another so that we can include the City’s plan is [sic] inclusive of this perspective.

This is bad enough, that Garcetti solicits the intimate opinions of these delusional BIDdies, who not only just make stuff up about the homeless but whose ultimate homeless policy is terrorism. It’s bad enough, as we said, but the reasons are even worse:

Mayor Garcetti is very committed to working with CCA and the other BIDS to develop homelessness policies and practices that address homelessness without unintentional harm to our business community. In the long run, we need businesses to provide pathways out of poverty through self-sustaining wages and pride in individual ability and skills.

Continue reading In December 2015 Garcetti Held Invite-Only Meeting to be Sure Homelessness Policies were Acceptable to Business Leaders, Including Carol Schatz, Central Hollywood Coalition, Central City Association, Others

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