Yum, danger dogs!So today the City Council moved forward with CF 13-1493, which, of course, is the famed street vending thing. For a good, objective,1 discussion of today’s developments, take a look at this article in today’s Times by the incomparable Emily Alpert Reyes.2 This is just a brief post to note the fact that the various anti-human opponents of legalized street vending won a major, seemingly unnoticed by anyone but me, victory via amendment in the current version of the motion.
This kind of thing really has to stop soon. This man was arrested and handcuffed in Hollywood and his ice cream set out to melt by the Andrews International BID Patrol, but the LAPD does the same and worse, as mostly likely does the Fashion District BID’s rent-a-cops.
You can read up on the background in this 2015 LA times story and also in our multiple stories on the subject. Most of the paper filed in the case is available here.
A number of new documents have been filed in the National Lawyers’ Guild’s suit against the City of Los Angeles and the Fashion District business improvement district for their disgraceful treatment of street vendors. Here’s a list, followed by my usual uninformed commentary:
Joint Rule 26(f) report — This is a surprisingly interesting document. It’s evidently required by Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(f), which regulates pretrial discovery agreements. For our purposes, though, it also seems to require that all the parties lay out their views of the case. This is especially interesting with respect to the Fashion District, which, even though it did answer the complaint, did so in a completely vacuous manner. There’s some substance here, and I discuss it after the break.
Court Order re: Scheduling Conference — Here Judge O’Connell cancels a settlement conference that was to be held Monday, orders that the parties complete the dispute resolution process by December 4, 2017, and file a joint report on it within 7 days of its conclusion.
Lee Baca, Paul Tanaka, and this freaking genius…nothing but the best and the brightest for the LA County Sheriff…Our correspondent hasn’t been to the Joint Security Committee of the HPOA and the CHC in a long time, but we do miss his reports; that’s where the real crazy happens. You can watch last Thursday’s meeting in its entirety and we’ll be presenting a few different selections from it over the next few days. Tonight’s little jewel has to do with the unknown LA County Sheriff’s Deputy whose picture is presently gracing your screen somewhere near this sentence. No one could understand his name when he announced it during the introductions, which is unfortunate because blasting the personal identity of ham-fisted babbling Sarah-Palin-wannabe cheese eaters like this genius all over the internet in close Google-cinity of their carefully transcribed moronic pronouncements is kind of this blog’s whole raison d’être and stuff. But ’twas not to be.
If the BID is established forget about food trucks. BIDs freaking hate food trucks. Especially if they’re near a restaurant, like this one on Logan Street North of Sunset is.If the Echo Park BID is established forget about little old ladies selling flowers, like this one on Sunset Blvd. just West of Echo Park Avenue. BIDs freaking hate little old ladies!If the Echo Park BID is established forget about signs like this. BIDs freaking hate signs on the sidewalk.If the BID is established in Echo Park say goodbye to RVs around the Park itself. BIDs freaking hate RVs.Due to some kind-hearted click bait4 bestowed by loyal FOMs Esotouric, my colleagues’ recent post on the resurgence of the long-dormant proposed Echo Park Business Improvement District has turned out to be one of our most popular posts of 2016. The colleagues left out some absolutely essential information and so I’m following up on their behalves. Also I used the whole situation as an excuse to ride the 704 Eastbound to Echo Park Avenue and Sunset Blvd. to check out the situation on the ground.
First the essential info: This thing is on the agenda for the Economic Development Committee meeting on Tuesday, May 10, in room 1010 in City Hall. You can go tell them what you think about it. Unfortunately I have other commitments, and I’m sure approval is a foregone conclusion, but there’s the info if you want it.
Second, as you can see from the images accompanying this post, if the BID’s approved a lot of stuff is going to change out there. They’re going to chase off taco trucks. BIDs hate taco trucks with a passion that’s hard to understand. They even, believe it or not, hate taco trucks parked on private property. Showing an astonishing ignorance of the rights of property owners in a free society, they’ve been known to express amazement that they’re not against the law.
Garcetti’s last laugh…the Echo Park BID claws its grimy way out of its once-forgotten grave.NOTE: Part Two of this series is now live on the internets.
I mean, sure, we’re being overdramatic, but what is anyone to think when a long-forgotten council file comes roaring back to life after six years of inactivity. We didn’t even know that was legal!
Rena Leddy, Managing Director of the Fashion District BID and MK.org CPRA Hero of the Fricking Year!!Just this morning I received, via Dropbox, every one of Kent Smith’s emails for the month of July 2015. You can see all 1098 of them on the archive. Most of it’s dismal mass-blasted junk, of course, but even a lot of that is interesting. E.g. search in there for CCA (Central City Association) to see bunches of their bulletins, like this one, advertising special guests Jessica Borek and Matt Rodriguez. Unfortunately there’s probably no way to find out what was said there, but at least we know it happened. Yet another smoking gun, as if it weren’t clear enough that Marie Rumsey is a big-time lawbreaker.
The most amazing thing about this document dump is the formatting. They’re PDFs, which often is a bad sign for emails, although these are text-based6 so they can be searched reasonably effectively. Too many agencies think somehow that a scanned PDF of a printed email satisfies CPRA’s requirement that electronic documents be produced in native formats. These PDFs are on a level I’ve never seen before, though. First of all, the links are live, including the links to remote images. Also the links to attachments are live and the attachments are embedded in the PDFs. For instance, look at this email about anti-street-vending strategies from Marie Rumsey to various people. It has an actual schedule of actual meetings with Councilmembers that CCA set up for street vending opponents attached, and you can click on it and read it! Or here it is if you’re lazy. This is the real deal! Look at the properties in that last item and see that Marie Rumsey spent 2015 breaking the revolving door ordinance to an even greater extent than anyone here imagined. Also take a look at this email from Jessica Borek to the gang which comes with a copy of a Power Point thing by Jessica Borek about the Coalition to Save Small Business strategy as well as a marked-up copy of ELACC’s proposed framework. This is the real deal, friends! It’s what CPRA was actually meant to yield. Continue reading Fashion District BID Executive Director Kent Smith’s Complete July 2015 Emails Now Available. FDBID Managing Director Rena Leddy Wins MK.org Excellence in BID Transparency Award!→
One of those hammers they seem to have in a lot of courtrooms.One week ago, on Friday, January 29, there was a telephonic conference before Federal Magistrate Judge Andrew Wistrich, who’s handling what’s turned out to be a grueling discovery process in the LA Community Action Network and LA Catholic Worker lawsuit against the City of LA and the Central City East Association concerning the illegal confiscation of the property of homeless people. The minutes and associated order just showed up in the Court’s RSS feed this afternoon, and you can grab a copy here. It sounds like a hot time was had by all, and the upshot is that:
Counsel for the City represented that the City will complete the LAPD production described during the telephonic conference by February 1, 2016 and the production of other agencies within 14 days. The City is directed to perform those promises. If it is necessary for plaintiffs to retake depositions because of delay or inadequacy in the City’s production of documents, the City will be responsible for all associated reasonable costs and attorneys fees. Counsel for the City assured the Court that the City would cooperate with any efforts by plaintiffs to seek adjustments to the case schedule to mitigate prejudice to plaintiffs resulting from delay or inadequacy in the City’s document production.
There’s no mention of the CCEA, so I suppose that either they’re complying with discovery finally or else they’re failing to comply so badly that it couldn’t be dealt with at this conference.
Judge Beverly Reid O’Connell presenting an award to some people in Burbank.This is not a big deal, but I just thought I’d mention it. On Tuesday all the parties to the street vending lawsuit filed a stipulation asking Judge O’Connell to extend the deadline for the defendants to answer the initial complaint until February 25, 2016. Today the judge filed an order granting that request. The reason for the delay is the settlement conference scheduled for February 11, 2016. You read it here first, friends!
Image of Judge O’Connell in Burbank seems to me to be a public record in California since I got it from the website of the California Judiciary.
