Tag Archives: Skid Row

City of Los Angeles asks Judge Otero to Clarify Last Month’s Preliminary Injunction Against Full Enforcement of LAMC 56.11

May 11, 2016 Mike Leave a comment

(See Gale Holland’s excellent story in the Times on Mitchell v. LA as well as our other stories on the subject for the background to this post).

Recall that last month Judge Otero issued a preliminary injunction forbidding the City of Los Angeles from confiscating the property of homeless people in and/or around Skid Row without following required due process. Today the City filed a motion asking Otero to clarify what he meant. They also filed a proposed order for the Judge’s signature which, I imagine, is mostly of value here as it shows what the City wishes the injunction means.

Additionally the city filed a map of Skid Row, a copy of LAMC 56.11, and a declaration of Scott Marcus, the assistant chief of the Civil Litigation Branch of the City Attorney’s office. Marcus’s main point seems to be that he met with Carol Sobel for four hours in the company of Magistrate Judge Carla Woerhle and they couldn’t come to a common understanding about what the order meant.
Continue reading City of Los Angeles asks Judge Otero to Clarify Last Month’s Preliminary Injunction Against Full Enforcement of LAMC 56.11 →

Lawsuits

Plaintiffs File Opposition to City of LA’s Motion to Dismiss, Alleging Blatant Violations of Local Court Rules in Addition to All-Around Wrongness

April 18, 2016 Mike Leave a comment

(See Gale Holland’s excellent story in the Times on Mitchell v. LA as well as our other stories on the subject for the background to this post).

On April 5, 2016 the City of Los Angeles, defendant in Mitchell v. Los Angeles, the latest homeless-rights lawsuit to come off the line at Carol Sobel‘s magic workshop, filed a motion to dismiss, staking their position on the seemingly (even to me, who knows little to nothing about the legal issues at stake) very thin grounds that they had the right to destroy whatever they wanted to because they passed a law saying that they did.¹

Today the plaintiffs filed a response to the City’s motion which was supported by a declaration of Carol Sobel and a bunch of exhibits. This stuff is pretty much too technical for me to even discuss, but, as always, I got the pleadings from PACER so I want to make them available here for you. However, I suppose that if the court has already found that the plaintiffs’ arguments are likely to succeed on their merits and issued an injunction, it’s not too very likely that he’s going to grant a motion to dismiss. Like I said, though, I have no idea what I’m talking about.² Continue reading Plaintiffs File Opposition to City of LA’s Motion to Dismiss, Alleging Blatant Violations of Local Court Rules in Addition to All-Around Wrongness →

Lawsuits

Mitchell v. LA Plaintiffs Respond to City’s Opposition to Application for Temporary Restraining Order against Further Property Confiscation, City Files Opposition to Plaintiffs’ Application to Strike and/or Seal Publicly Filed Documents,

April 9, 2016 Mike Leave a comment

(See Gale Holland’s excellent story in the Times for background).

Here’s a brief summary of what’s been going on in this turbulent case over the last week: On April 1 the plaintiffs in this already-hotly-contested suit against the City of Los Angeles for its policies regarding the confiscation of the property of the homeless on Skid Row asked the Court to issue a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) enjoining the City from further confiscations of their property. On April 6 the City filed a fragmentation grenade of a response accusing both plaintiffs and their attorneys of lying and asking that they be sanctioned by the court. The City’s pleadings had accusations that were sufficiently inflammatory that they prompted the plaintiffs the next day to lodge a request that some of the stuff the City filed be sealed due to privacy concerns.

This brings us to late Thursday afternoon, when the City filed its opposition to the plaintiffs’ application to seal along with a hypertechnical “clarification” that’s beyond my capacity to interpret. And yesterday, April 8, the plaintiffs filed a bunch of stuff in reply to the City’s opposition to the application for the restraining order. You can find it all here or see a list after the break. There’s too much going on for me to discuss it all, but the essential argument (and some pretty convincing photographic proof that the City is misrepresenting facts) can be found after the break.
Continue reading Mitchell v. LA Plaintiffs Respond to City’s Opposition to Application for Temporary Restraining Order against Further Property Confiscation, City Files Opposition to Plaintiffs’ Application to Strike and/or Seal Publicly Filed Documents, →

Lawsuits

City of LA Files No-Holds-Barred Opposition to Plaintiffs’ Application for Restraining Order Against Enforcement of LAMC 56.11; Accuses both Plaintiffs and their Attorneys of Lying, Requests Sanctions Against Them

April 6, 2016 Mike Leave a comment

[Updated on April 9 to remove information that the plaintiffs have requested that the court place under seal. I’ll reevaluate this elision after the court rules.]

(See Gale Holland’s excellent story in the Times for background).

Recall that on April 1, the plaintiffs in Mitchell v. Los Angeles asked the court to enjoin the City from confiscating the plaintiffs’ property while the case was pending. Today the City filed its opposition to this application. The pleading pulls no punches:

Defendant City of Los Angeles hereby opposes the Plaintiffs’ request for a temporary restraining order. The grounds for the opposition are that the Plaintiffs have misrepresented the facts which led to the destruction of their property, there is no widespread practice violating federal law which requires enjoining, and there is no urgency justifying ex parte relief.

Further, should the Court deem it appropriate, the City requests that the Court set a Rule 11 briefing to determine an appropriate amount of sanctions against Plaintiffs and their counsel, jointly and severally, for submitting factual contentions which have no evidentiary support. In the alternative, the City requests that the Court set said hearing at least against Plaintiffs Escobedo and Roque and their counsel, jointly and severally.

The relevant part of Rule 11 seems to be:

(b) By presenting to the court a pleading, written motion, or other paper—whether by signing, filing, submitting, or later advocating it—an attorney or unrepresented party certifies that to the best of the person’s knowledge, information, and belief, formed after an inquiry reasonable under the circumstances:
…
(3) the factual contentions have evidentiary support or, if specifically so identified, will likely have evidentiary support after a reasonable opportunity for further investigation or discovery; and

The City also filed a number of other interesting items, which I have not yet have time to read in detail. You can find a list of them and some more detailed selections from the Opposition after the break.
Continue reading City of LA Files No-Holds-Barred Opposition to Plaintiffs’ Application for Restraining Order Against Enforcement of LAMC 56.11; Accuses both Plaintiffs and their Attorneys of Lying, Requests Sanctions Against Them →

Lawsuits

City Files Motion to Dismiss Mitchell v. Los Angeles, Hearing Set for Monday, May 9 at 10 a.m.

April 5, 2016 Mike Leave a comment

(See Gale Holland’s excellent story in the Times for background).

Today the City of Los Angeles, defendant in Carol Sobel et al.’s latest suit on behalf of homeless people, filed a motion to dismiss many of the causes of action in the complaint. There is also an associated request for judicial notice regarding one of the facts recited in the motion. The issues seem mostly technical and beyond my capacity to interpret, but I will venture some comments on one claim by the City. They seem to assert (at p.5, L.9) that one of the causes should be dismissed because the initial complaint didn’t argue that the City didn’t have a valid reason for seizing and destroying the property at issue. Specifically that
Plaintiffs never plead that all of the property seized was lawful to possess, and was clean or at least uncontaminated by direct contact with or close proximity to the hazardous materials common on a Skid Row street – feces, rats, maggots, blood, etc. – such that the property did not pose an immediate hazard to health.
And further, that because it’s at least plausible that the property was contaminated just by being on Skid Row, the only allowed relief from the destruction of their property is money damages from the City. I don’t see how this can be right, though.
Continue reading City Files Motion to Dismiss Mitchell v. Los Angeles, Hearing Set for Monday, May 9 at 10 a.m. →

Central City East Association

Video of Yesterday’s Central City East Association Meeting Now Available

January 27, 2016 Mike Leave a comment

Edward Camarillo at the January 26, 2016 meeting of the CCEA at 725 S. Crocker Street.

I’m formally initiating coverage of the Central City East Association with some video of yesterday’s meeting of the Board of Directors at CCEA headquarters at 725 S. Crocker Street. You can find Part 1 and also Part 2. Note that the record is not complete because the Board went into closed session and I couldn’t stick around to see them reconvene. Part I consists entirely of CD14 representative Jose Huizar policy director Martin Schlageter talking about homeless issues in the BID’s territory and then, most interesting of all, taking questions from the Board members. The level of micromanagement is astonishing. We hope to write on some of the details later, but check some representative Q&A after the break. Part 2 is mostly taken up by a representative from the Runyon Group seeking CCEA support for entitlements for their ROW DTLA project (this project was formerly known as Alameda Square). Someone here will be writing on this soon in some detail.
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Announcements, Central City East Association

Downtown Industrial District BID / Central City East Association Documents Now Available

October 30, 2015 Mike Leave a comment

White skin and red blood on Skid Row.

I recently started requesting documents from the Central City East Association (CCEA), which runs the Downtown Industrial District BID. I’m not sure why, it was just a whim, but the executive directrix, a lady named Raquel Beard (who long-time readers may remember for her stunningly weird remarks about sidewalk vending), turned out to be so delightfully trollable that I’m just going to keep it up for a while. I can already see a couple of ways it might develop into a long game, but I’m keeping schtum about that for now. Meanwhile, take a look at what I got today. You can begin with CCEA in the Documents menu above. Also, here is a page for the new subdirectory. After the break I describe things in more detail, if you’re interested.
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