Tag Archives: Public Records

Are Los Angeles County Sheriff Deputy Gang Tattoos Public Records? — And Therefore Subject To The Public Records Act? — I Don’t See Why Not! — Although I’m Not A Lawyer And Could Easily Be Wrong — But I Could Easily Be Right!

The FBI is investigating tattooed gangs of LA County Sheriff’s deputies and a suit filed by a former deputy includes allegations of gangs with matching tattoos controlling the Compton Station. Thus the idea that LASD gang tattoos may be subject to the California Public Records Act is in the air! So I thought that I would give you my amateurish and decidedly nonlawyerly take on it. The starting point for any such inquiry is the CPRA at §6253(a), where we read that:

Public records are open to inspection at all times during the office hours of the state or local agency and every person has a right to inspect any public record, except as hereafter provided. Any reasonably segregable portion of a record shall be available for inspection by any person requesting the record after deletion of the portions that are exempted by law.

This is very clear. If they’re public records they must be open to inspection unless they’re exempt.1 If Sheriff gang tattoos are public records, then we can look at them! So are they?
Continue reading Are Los Angeles County Sheriff Deputy Gang Tattoos Public Records? — And Therefore Subject To The Public Records Act? — I Don’t See Why Not! — Although I’m Not A Lawyer And Could Easily Be Wrong — But I Could Easily Be Right!

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Announcing An Interesting Although Limited Selection Of New-Ish Hollywood BID Patrol Records Including Twelve Characteristically Imbecilic Seyler Reports — Also Some Fairly Gratuitous Mockery Of Hurricane Kerry Morrison, Who Was Recently Named One Of The 500 Most Influential People In Los Angeles By A Local Who’s Who Scam Operation, Including A Surprising Fact About Her Substance Of Choice

Well, yesterday’s post on how the BID Patrol arrests about 90% fewer people per year since October 2014 (when I started writing about them) seems to have reminded readers that I haven’t written much about them lately.1 I got some correspondence on the matter, and the result is this post.

The main substantial matter disclosed here is the publication of some new records about the BID Patrol. I’ll be writing about some of this stuff in great detail in the future, but until then, you can find an assortment of records here on my Archive.Org site and also I’ve updated the collection of Steve Seyler’s imbecilic reports to the Joint Security Committee with entries from 2016 and 2017.2

Also to be found after the break is some much deserved, much delayed, mockery of Ms. Kerry Morrison, who last summer, it seems, was named one of LA’s 500 most influential zillionaire lackeys by the Los Angeles Business Journal, paper of record for the zillionaire elite of Los Angeles, in what seems to be nothing much more than a ramified Who’s Who scam given that they’re selling copies for $100 each. You can read Ms. Kerry Morrison’s entry before turning the page to read what it means!3 Continue reading Announcing An Interesting Although Limited Selection Of New-Ish Hollywood BID Patrol Records Including Twelve Characteristically Imbecilic Seyler Reports — Also Some Fairly Gratuitous Mockery Of Hurricane Kerry Morrison, Who Was Recently Named One Of The 500 Most Influential People In Los Angeles By A Local Who’s Who Scam Operation, Including A Surprising Fact About Her Substance Of Choice

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New And Semi-New Fashion District BID Documents: Minutes, Agendas, Board Packets, A Small Batch Of Emails

This is just a short post to formally announce some records from the Fashion District. Some have been available for a while, others I just uploaded tonight, but I haven’t posted about the existence of any of them yet. If you want some background noise while you’re reading, check out this video featuring Ariana Gomez and Kent Smith of the Fashion District blathering on about God knows what kind of BIDolatry.1

I will be writing in great detail about some of this material in the very near future, but I just wanted to get some links up as soon as possible:
Continue reading New And Semi-New Fashion District BID Documents: Minutes, Agendas, Board Packets, A Small Batch Of Emails

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New Documents: Lisa Trifiletti and Omar Pulido Emails, Wilshire Center BID And East Hollywood BID Emails To/From City Of LA From February 2017

This is just a short note to announce three new sets of documents for your entertainment, your edification, and, if you’re interested, a little puzzle for you to solve.

First we have a couple of monthly sets of emails between BIDs and the City of Los Angeles. This turns out to be a useful request for keeping finger on pulse, often leading to unexpected discoveries, so I make it every month of all my favorite BIDs.1 Perhaps there are some lurking here:

And turn the page for the most interesting item of all for today!
Continue reading New Documents: Lisa Trifiletti and Omar Pulido Emails, Wilshire Center BID And East Hollywood BID Emails To/From City Of LA From February 2017

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Minutes and Agendas From Wilshire Center BID 2015-2016, In Which We Learn, e.g., That The LAPD Is Attempting To Mitigate Homelessness Amongst Mentally Ill Criminals By Being “Nurturing” and “Helping Out By Giving Socks”

A beautiful office building at 3701 Wilshire Boulevard which, I think, is in the Wilshire Center BID.
A super-short note to announce the availability of two years worth of minutes and agendas from the Wilshire Center BID Board of Directors. These are available both via Archive.Org and also in local static storage. These are interesting for the usual reasons, e.g. understanding connections between BIDs and City agencies, what BIDs are up to with respect to public policy, and so forth. And, as usual, there’s also some weirdness to mock, although, sadly, nothing even approaching the real-estate-agents-on-acid weirdness of the Pacific Palisades BID. For instance, in the October 2015 minutes we read:

The question of why homelessness is worsening was discussed. Early release of criminals, mental illness, and service resistant individuals are some of the major reasons. By using a nurturing approach, more of the homeless may be helped. Getting to know individuals, helping out by giving socks, asking if they would like help, are some of the ways the LAPD is breaking through.

The principle of charity leads me to assume that these are the kind of socks one wears on one’s feet rather than the kind one might expect the LAPD to be handing out to the homeless if one were to consider their long, long history of violence.

By July 2016 we have learned that the BID is working with its Council Offices, but they don’t know how to spell David Ryu’s name and they seem to think Herb Wesson’s name is Justin:1
The BID will continue to work closely with the LAPD and the Council Offices, CD4 (Councilman David Ru) and CD10 (Justin Wesson) to help mitigate problems in our area.

Finally, if you’re interested in extreme CPRA geekery, turn the page for a brief discussion of how the WCBID violated the law by exporting these minutes from Microsoft Word as PDFs, sending me only the PDFs, and then refusing2 to send me the Word documents.
Continue reading Minutes and Agendas From Wilshire Center BID 2015-2016, In Which We Learn, e.g., That The LAPD Is Attempting To Mitigate Homelessness Amongst Mentally Ill Criminals By Being “Nurturing” and “Helping Out By Giving Socks”

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ACLU And Eric Preven Score Huge California Supreme Court CPRA Victory Against Los Angeles County Over Release Of Attorney Invoices

Eric Preven is not only winning huge CPRA victories, he is also running for mayor of Los Angeles.
Last week local hero and candidate for mayor Eric Preven along with the ACLU of Southern California won a major victory for CPRA rights in the California Supreme Court. This was well-covered by both the ACLU and the Los Angeles Times. The main point of this post is to make available some of the paperwork from the case, but here’s how the ACLU summarized the issues:

Today, the California Supreme Court affirmed the public’s right to access government billing records with private law firms, overturning a previous appeals court ruling in a California Public Records Act (CPRA) case brought against Los Angeles County.

L.A. County should now release the invoices for all closed cases, so that the public can learn how much taxpayer money is going to private lawyers to defend the county and its employees, including the many cases against the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department for brutality against inmates in the county jails.

In 2013, the ACLU Foundation of Southern California … and … Eric Preven … sued the county demanding that it and the Office of County Counsel release invoices detailing the amounts of money billed by private law firms in lawsuits filed against the sheriff’s department and its personnel. The laws​uit, ACLU/Preven v. Los Angeles County, came after county counsel denied several CPRA requests for the documents that list the amounts billed by private attorneys, which are paid by county taxpayers.In the opinion the court rejected the county’s argument that attorney-client privilege extends to government invoices with private legal counsel in closed cases, writing that “contents of an invoice are privileged only if they either communicate information for the purpose of consultation or risk exposing information.”

And turn the page to download bunches of pleadings in the case, including the Supreme Court opinion.
Continue reading ACLU And Eric Preven Score Huge California Supreme Court CPRA Victory Against Los Angeles County Over Release Of Attorney Invoices

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Almost 1200 Media District Emails Available, More On The Way

Downed stop sign at Santa Monica Blvd and McCadden Place reported to the City of LA via email by Lisa Schechter.
The other day I uploaded a bunch of new documents from the Hollywood Media District BID which did not, unfortunately, include the many, many emails I received in response to the same request. At the time I didn’t know how to convert .eml files to PDF in batch1 but I have since learned!2 Unfortunately I don’t yet know how to extract attachments en masse, so I’ve published the PDFs without attachments. I’m still working on a solution, but if you need copies of any, feel free to get in touch. Meanwhile, here are links to the goodies:

I have quite a backlog of these eml files, so expect to see more of these big document dumps in the near future.3 I will be writing about individual conversations, I hope as early as tomorrow. Stay tuned!
Continue reading Almost 1200 Media District Emails Available, More On The Way

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Bunches of New Media District BID Documents And More Evidence Of This Blog’s Popularity Among City of LA Employees

Photograph of busted light in the Media District taken by Media District BID Executive Director and preconviction malfeasant Lisa Schechter.
This is just a quick announcement of some new documents from the Hollywood Media District BID. We have the BID’s 2014 and 2015 tax returns as well as minutes from all Board and Committee meetings from February through December 2016. I also got a ton of emails from Laurie Goldman and Lisa Schechter to and from the City of L.A. They’re not ready to make available yet, though. The Media District BID, alone among all BIDs of whom I request records,1 provides emails to me in native .eml format. This is absolutely ideal for my own research for a number of reasons, but it does create some obstacles in distribution.2 Hence I’ll be making those emails available as necessary and will put them all on the Archive if I ever manage to get a batch eml to PDF converter working properly.3

Anyway, you can find the new material:

And turn the page for a quirky little item showing our eternal popularity amongst City of LA employees!
Continue reading Bunches of New Media District BID Documents And More Evidence Of This Blog’s Popularity Among City of LA Employees

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Lobbyist-Loving Ethics Commissioner Ana Dahan Is Out! Also Tons, Scads, Oodles, And Beaucoup De Fashion District BID Emails!

Lobbyist-Loving Erstwhile Los Angeles City Ethics Commissioner Ana Dahan on August 9, 2016.
Lobbyist-Loving Erstwhile Los Angeles City Ethics Commissioner Ana Dahan on August 9, 2016.
Here are a couple unrelated announcements with which to begin another fine, windy weekend.

First, recall that lobbyist-loving ethics commissioner Ana T. Dahan was appointed to the Commission by Eric Garcetti in November 2014 to finish the remainder of a term, and then permanently a year later. Well, according to a report scheduled to be presented by Ethics Commission executive director Heather Holt at Tuesday’s Commission meeting, Ana Dahan has resigned:

We said farewell to Commissioner Dahan this month. She was appointed by Mayor Eric Garcetti in 2014, and we deeply appreciate the time she devoted to the Ethics Commission and her contributions to our enforcement and policy work. We wish her well as she embarks on a new career.

No word yet on her new career, although perhaps it is something to do with lobbying?

Finally, a ton of email from the Fashion District BID, thoughtfully and comprehensively provided to MK.Org by the ever-helpful Rena Masten Leddy. Turn the page for links and some description.
Continue reading Lobbyist-Loving Ethics Commissioner Ana Dahan Is Out! Also Tons, Scads, Oodles, And Beaucoup De Fashion District BID Emails!

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New Documents: LASAN Encampment Investigation Reports, Lots of Emails About Venice Beach BID, BID Feasibility Reports, Save Valley Village Lawsuit

image_from_sanitation_reportAnnouncing lots of new documents!

Venice Beach BID Emails:

LA Sanitation Homeless Encampment Materials. Note the crappy quality of these things. That’s because, even though CPRA says both clearly and explicitly that if records are stored electronically they must be released in an electronic format, not only does LASAN refuse to do this, insisting on printing these low quality black and white copies from the electronic color originals, but they won’t even answer my emails about this, even though CPRA also compels them to answer. Ah, sigh, right?

BID Feasibility Reports. It seems that BID consultants are supposed to prepare these reports before the BID formation process starts. It also seems that this rule is not enforced. When I asked Miranda Paster for all of these, she sent me only these two: San Pedro and Pacoima. Perhaps these are all there are, in which case yet another rule is being broken.

And finally, turn the page for the City of LA’s answer to the Save Valley Village vote-fixing lawsuit!
Continue reading New Documents: LASAN Encampment Investigation Reports, Lots of Emails About Venice Beach BID, BID Feasibility Reports, Save Valley Village Lawsuit

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