Tag Archives: Nicole Shahenian

Business Improvement Districts, Public Records Act Pragmatics

More Eye-Poppingly Implausible Deliberative Process Exemption Claims By Attorney Briggs, BID-Addled Self-Proclaimed 36th Level Shaolin Black Belt CPRA-Fu Master — Not!

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Recently, first on February 8, 2018 and then again on February 17, 2018, I’ve published some sets of emails for which self-proclaimed Hollywood Superlawyer Jeffrey Charles Briggs had at some point in the past claimed were exempt from production via the California Public Records Act due to the half-delusional common law principle known to the zillionaire elite and their minions as the Deliberative Process Exemption.

Both of those sets of documents were collateral fallout from an almost-concluded writ petition I was forced by Briggs’s bizarro intransigence to file against his client, the Hollywood Media District. Today, though, I have yet another set, this batch from the East Hollywood BID. They are also a client of Briggs, moved not only to bizarro intransigence but to a freaking intransigential paradigm shift by Briggs’s newly emboldened stance against simple compliance with the law.1

There are two quite distinct parts to this story. First, there are the actual emails that Briggs Esq. claimed to be exempt. Along with those goes much more than a modicum of mockery. Second, there’s the story of the CPRA request itself and how Attorney Briggs cannot for the freaking life of him just tell his client to follow the damn law because it’s easier for everyone in the long run. Turn the page for an obsessively detailed discussion of the first part.2 Continue reading More Eye-Poppingly Implausible Deliberative Process Exemption Claims By Attorney Briggs, BID-Addled Self-Proclaimed 36th Level Shaolin Black Belt CPRA-Fu Master — Not! →

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Business Improvement Districts, Fashion District BID

110 New Emails Between The City of LA And The East Hollywood BID Reveal Essentially Nothing About Anything, As Do The BID’s Bylaws — Also A Bunch Of Advertising Slash Branding Bullshit From The Fashion District Is Easy To Mock But Not So Informative After All

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Ah, friends, just another desultory announcement of yet another batch of public records obtained from our friends at the BIDs, the meaning of none of which is yet clear, but we don’t let that worry us here in MK-dot-Org-landia. Everything happens for a reason, as they say, and I’m sure all this junk is no exception and some day it will prove to comprise crucially important pieces in puzzles whose very existence is as yet undiscerned. But for now I’m just announcing its existence, and do with it what you will. Anyway, here’s what I got:

  • Emails between the East Hollywood BID and the City of LA — March 2017 through July 2017. There are 110 emails here, attachments are attached to the emails, it’s amazing how empty of content this batch is. About 84% of them consist of Nicole Shahenian trying to get people to use her new email at ehbid.org. I don’t know for sure but I’d bet money that she made this switch because of my CPRA requests. Also, Aram Taslagyan’s replacement as CD13 East Hollywood field deputy introduces himself herein, but I already forgot his name.

And turn the page for the rest of the junk and more random commentary!
Continue reading 110 New Emails Between The City of LA And The East Hollywood BID Reveal Essentially Nothing About Anything, As Do The BID’s Bylaws — Also A Bunch Of Advertising Slash Branding Bullshit From The Fashion District Is Easy To Mock But Not So Informative After All →

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Business Improvement Districts

In June 2017 The East Hollywood BID Board Of Directors Approved Minutes From Five Of Its 2016 Meetings. Here’s How I Think That Came About And Some Speculation On What It Might Mean

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Maybe you remember that in March of this year I noticed that Nicole Shahenian, executive directrix of the East Hollywood BID, seems to have told the City of Los Angeles a lie with respect to the BID’s 2015 annual planning report.3 Briefly, the problem was that Shahenian submitted a letter to the City claiming that the Board had approved the report at its meeting of December 29, 2014, but my collection of minutes suggested that the Board had not met in December 2014.

This fact in itself seems to have some serious ramifications, my theories concerning which you can read all about in the original post. But the discovery of this ghost meeting led me to scrutinize my collection of EHBID minutes more closely. This closer look revealed that a number of meetings from 2016 seemed to have taken place but their minutes seemed never to have been approved by the Board. So in March 2017 I asked EHBID lawyer extraordinaire4 Jeffrey Charles Briggs Esq. for copies of all the ones that appeared to be missing.
Continue reading In June 2017 The East Hollywood BID Board Of Directors Approved Minutes From Five Of Its 2016 Meetings. Here’s How I Think That Came About And Some Speculation On What It Might Mean →

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Announcements, Business Improvement Districts, Hollywood BID Patrol

New Documents! East Hollywood BID Quarterly Reports, Media District BID Emails, Media District BID Materials About Andrews International Security Switcheroo Including Emails, Draft Contracts, Price Matrices, And So On!

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Yesterday I received a bunch of new records from Hollywood BIDboy attorney Jeffrey Charles Briggs, acting on behalf of the East Hollywood BID and also the Media District BID. Some of the stuff had to do with the Media District’s early renewal, which I wrote about yesterday, and today I’m mostly just announcing the balance of the material, which is available from our Archive.Org collections. In particular, we have:

  • East Hollywood BID quarterly reports 2012-2016 — BIDs are required by their contracts with the City to submit quarterly reports with updates on how they’ve been spending their money.5 These are useful to have on hand for reference. There’s nothing in these that stands out right now, but I haven’t read them carefully yet nor even looked at all of them.
  • Media District emails with the City of LA — And also a few from the Hollywood Property Owners Alliance folks, although nothing substantial. Again, it’s essential to have this material on hand for reference. There doesn’t seem to be much of special interest here, although there’s a lot more evidence of Rita Moreno’s uncharacteristically activist style as a BID analyst with the Clerk’s office, which is abstractly a good thing, although certainly she’s not going to be an activist if it upsets the BIDs too much.
  • Media District emails about Andrews International Security contract — The Media District BID is in the process of hiring infamous private security monolith Andrews International as its security provider, to begin July 1. These are some emails about the process. The most interesting things here are the attachments, which include A/I’s standard contract as well as proposed pricing matrices and so on. Andrews International famously runs the infernal Hollywood BID Patrol for the even-more-infernal Hollwood Property Owners Alliance just North of the Media District, so everything about them is interesting. There is much more material to come regarding this matter, and I will write about it in detail as it comes in, but it’s essential enough that I thought I’d better publish what I had immediately.

So that’s the new stuff, all except for one little email which didn’t exactly fit into any of those categories. It appears to constitute attorney/client communications, and perhaps it was handed over in error. But legally handed over it was, so I’m publishing it, and you can see a copy and read all about it after the break!
Continue reading New Documents! East Hollywood BID Quarterly Reports, Media District BID Emails, Media District BID Materials About Andrews International Security Switcheroo Including Emails, Draft Contracts, Price Matrices, And So On! →

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Business Improvement Districts, Municipal Ethics

The Hollywood Chamber Of Commerce Amended Its Lobbying Registration Form in April 2017 And The Only Change Was The Date They Qualified — More Interesting, Though, Is The Fact That They Consider Their Pro-Establishment Advocacy For Jeff Zarrinnam’s Inchoate Hollywood-Western And Route 66 BIDs To Be Lobbying Activity

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It’s well-known that the Municipal Lobbying Ordinance requires lobbyists of all stripes to register with the City Ethics Commission. The Hollywood Chamber of Commerce is no exception to the rule.6 They are also required to amend their registration forms if there are any material changes in the information provided.7

And as you know if you follow this blog, I find everything to do with lobbyists in Los Angeles fascinating, and thus I haunt the Ethics Commission’s lobbying pages, poring over the alphabetical lists of individual lobbyists and of lobbyist firms and employers to see if anything’s changed or if something is newly interesting.

And lo! Last night I noticed that our old friends, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, had amended their registration form on April 28. Here are the two forms:

Well, I stared and stared and stared at those two forms just trying to figure out what had changed. Eventually I noticed that the original form had January 31, 2017 as the date they’d qualified as a lobbying entity8 whereas the amended version had January 1, 2017 as the day of qualifying.

One of the Hollywood Chamber’s registration forms superimposed on the other with 38% opacity so that it’s clear that the only difference is in the qualifying date. Click to enlarge, of course.
There’s a lot of information on the forms, though, and I didn’t feel confident that the difference I’d noticed was in fact the only difference. I wasn’t sure what do to until this morning, when it occurred to me that if I put both pages into the GIMP, superimposed one on top of the other, and then faded the opacity up and down I’d be able to notice what changed.9 And it turns out that in fact, it’s correct that the only change was the date of the Hollywood Chamber’s qualifying as a lobbyist.

Which leads irresistibly to the question of why Leron Gubler and/or Nicole Shahenian, who are the Hollywood Chamber’s two registered lobbyists, felt the need to make this tiny change. Read on for speculations and some other chit-chat about the fact that Leron Gubler lists the establishment of the Hollywood Western and the Route 66 BIDs as issues the Chamber is lobbying for this year.
Continue reading The Hollywood Chamber Of Commerce Amended Its Lobbying Registration Form in April 2017 And The Only Change Was The Date They Qualified — More Interesting, Though, Is The Fact That They Consider Their Pro-Establishment Advocacy For Jeff Zarrinnam’s Inchoate Hollywood-Western And Route 66 BIDs To Be Lobbying Activity →

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Business Improvement Districts

The East Hollywood BID Is Conducting A Survey To Find Out What *YOU* Want To Rename East Hollywood! Enter Now To Give Your Thoughts And Possibly Win A $50 Starbucks Gift Card!! Cause Nothing Screams Freaking East Hollywood Like Starbucks, Amirite!?!?!

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Well, dang, friends! How time does fly! It seems like only yesterday that we here at MK.Org secret headquarters were sitting around the metaphorical fire just mocking away at Hollywood Hotel über-düber-Führer Jeff Zarrinnam’s weirdo plans to rebrand-slash-restyle East Hollywood as Ee-Ho or some such nonsense. But in fact, it has been almost a month.

However, it is well-known that rust never sleeps and neither do freaking real estate boosters. Thus it’s certainly no surprise to find that the good old East Hollywood BID is moving on up with its plans for the grand East Hollywood rebrandarama. They have a freaking Survey Monkey up! And, at least for now, you can take the survey! And enter to win a Starbucks gift card!! For Fifty! Freaking! Dollars!! Turn the page for your chance to WIN WIN WIN!!!
Continue reading The East Hollywood BID Is Conducting A Survey To Find Out What *YOU* Want To Rename East Hollywood! Enter Now To Give Your Thoughts And Possibly Win A $50 Starbucks Gift Card!! Cause Nothing Screams Freaking East Hollywood Like Starbucks, Amirite!?!?! →

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Business Improvement Districts

Oh For God’s Sake, People, Have Some Freaking Courtesy And Some Taste: East Hollywood BID Pays An Actual Consultant Actual Money To Suggest “Rebranding” East Hollywood As … Wait For It … EHO!?! EaHO?!!? EEEEEE-Ho!!!

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Jeff Zarrinnam wondering why Las Vegas never thought to re-freaking-brand themselves as LaVey.
Occasionally people in my position find that actual factual matters are weirder than we could have even imagined. It’s hard to make fun of people whose publicly revealed antics are not only stranger than fiction but stranger even than satire. The great Mark Russell used to call this kind of material “rip and read.”10
An actual image from the EHBID’s “brainstorming” session with Counterintuity.. cause it ain’t “brainstorming” unless there is colored markers and oversized sheets of paper taped to the freaking wall!
So yesterday, courtesy of the ever-courtly but but not always ever lawful Nicole Shahenian, EHBID ED, all the materials for this afternoon’s East Hollywood BID meeting arrived via email. And there to my wondering eyes did appear the following greasy little slabs of marketitation:11

Continue reading Oh For God’s Sake, People, Have Some Freaking Courtesy And Some Taste: East Hollywood BID Pays An Actual Consultant Actual Money To Suggest “Rebranding” East Hollywood As … Wait For It … EHO!?! EaHO?!!? EEEEEE-Ho!!! →

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Business Improvement Districts, Hollywood BID Patrol, Los Angeles City Government

February 2, 2017 Email From Eugene Shin Of The LA Police Commission To Nicole Shahenian Of The East Hollywood BID Confirms Continued Progress Of BID Patrol Registration Project But Leaves Unanswered Question Of Whether Or Not The EHBID Has A BID Patrol

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You may recall that late last year, on the basis of my complaint to the Police Commission, the City of LA resumed enforcement of LAMC 52.34 against BID security forces.12 Since then it’s been possible to track the progress of this massive project via various CPRA requests. So in November 2016 the Police Commission informed all BIDs of the registration requirement and, at the same time, told them that their BID patrollies would be subject to arrest if they didn’t submit. In December 2017 the Police Commission told the BIDs to quit whining about it because the law is the law.

Well, just yesterday, as part of a larger release of records from the East Hollywood BID, I discovered a February 2017 email from Eugene Shin to Nicole Shahenian. Eugene Shin, as you may recall, is the Police Commission investigator that’s heading up the registration project. Nicole Shahenian is the Executive Director of the East Hollywood BID. The email confirms that not only is registration still ongoing, but that the Police Commission is pursuing it fairly aggressively. Turn the page for a transcription and some discussion.
Continue reading February 2, 2017 Email From Eugene Shin Of The LA Police Commission To Nicole Shahenian Of The East Hollywood BID Confirms Continued Progress Of BID Patrol Registration Project But Leaves Unanswered Question Of Whether Or Not The EHBID Has A BID Patrol →

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Announcements, Business Improvement Districts

New Documents: Palisades BID Bylaws, Gateway To LA BID Homeless Outreach Collaboration With Heirs Of Sister Aimee In Venice, And Beaucoup De Minutes From North Hollywood, Figueroa Corridor, and East Hollywood

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So much new stuff! Here’s the list, friends:

And turn the page for minutes, minutes, minutes, and more minutes. Hours worth of minutes!
Continue reading New Documents: Palisades BID Bylaws, Gateway To LA BID Homeless Outreach Collaboration With Heirs Of Sister Aimee In Venice, And Beaucoup De Minutes From North Hollywood, Figueroa Corridor, and East Hollywood →

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Business Improvement Districts, Los Angeles City Government, Municipal Ethics

Open Letter To Holly Wolcott And Miranda Paster Regarding Nicole Shahenian’s Violation Of LAMC 48.04(B) In 2014

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Here’s a letter I sent this morning to Holly Wolcott and Miranda Paster about the fact that East Hollywood BID Director Nicole Shahenian appears to have violated LAMC 48.04(B) by stating that the EHBID’s 2015 Annual Planning Report had been prepared at a Board meeting on December 29, 2014, when in reality no such meeting took place. Also maybe look at the actual complaint I filed with the Ethics Commission.

The main points are that the Clerk ought to institute some kind of oversight to make sure that this nonsense stops happening. The Ethics Commission will rule on Nicole Shahenian’s violation of the Municipal Lobbying Ordinance, but that only applies because she was coincidentally registered as a lobbyist in 2014. Most BID directors are not registered lobbyists,13 but many of them apparently lie about the APR approval process. This could potentially create dire consequences due to the fact that, e.g., BIDs can actually be disestablished for such transgressions, whether or not the Municipal Lobbying Ordinance is involved. Anyway, as I said, here is the letter as a PDF, and turn the page for a transcription.
Continue reading Open Letter To Holly Wolcott And Miranda Paster Regarding Nicole Shahenian’s Violation Of LAMC 48.04(B) In 2014 →

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