Tag Archives: Studio City BID

Lawsuits, Public Records Act Pragmatics

Even Though Gavin Newsom — At The Behest Of A Bunch Of Bad BIDdies With Dark And Bloody Secrets To Keep — Vetoed Todd Gloria’s Essential Email Retention Bill — The Question Of Whether Existing Law Already Requires Local Agencies To Retain Emails For Two Years Is Potentially Up Before The California Supreme Court — The Electronic Frontier Foundation And A Host Of Other Government Transparency Advocates Urge The Court To Accept The Case And Find That The Law Does In Fact Prohibit These Book Burners From Destroying Public Records — Here’s A Copy Of The Amicus Letter — And A Little Assorted Ranting Of My Own On This Essential Topic

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As you may know, email retention policies among public agencies in California are a mess, with agencies claiming, however implausibly, that they automatically delete emails very rapidly, sometimes even immediately on receipt. This would seem to run afoul of the law at Government Code §34090, which states pretty clearly that cities are not to delete public records less than two years old. And the California Public Records Act at §6252(g) explicitly defines the phrase “public records” to include emails.

But cities and other local agencies such as business improvement districts along with their legal minions have cooked up amongst themselves a theory that emails aren’t covered by §34090 unless they make some kind of specific effort to retain them, like for instance printing them out and putting them in a drawer. This is the kind of theory, very popular among CPRA-subject agencies, that no one actually believes is valid. It’s only meant to hold up in court long enough for the agency to avoid sanctions for flouting the law.

And this year Assemblymember Todd Gloria tried to strangle this nonsense in its metaphorical crib with his AB-1184, which would have clarified that agencies are required to retain emails for two years just like every other kind of record. But agencies lobbied hard against this bill, pushing the narrative that retaining emails for two years would cost too much money. The bill passed the legislature anyway, but our feckless governor vetoed it and essentially let the agencies write his idiotic veto message.

That such a law is essential is not only obvious in theory, but the incredibly dishonest behavior of various local agencies shows how important it is in our very specific practical context.1 So for instance, here behold the entire Board of Directors of the entire Fashion District BID swearing under oath no less that they delete all BID-related emails on receipt and that’s why they don’t ever produce them in response to CPRA requests. And the judge believed them, although he admitted that the whole story was implausible. But no evidence controverted it.
Continue reading Even Though Gavin Newsom — At The Behest Of A Bunch Of Bad BIDdies With Dark And Bloody Secrets To Keep — Vetoed Todd Gloria’s Essential Email Retention Bill — The Question Of Whether Existing Law Already Requires Local Agencies To Retain Emails For Two Years Is Potentially Up Before The California Supreme Court — The Electronic Frontier Foundation And A Host Of Other Government Transparency Advocates Urge The Court To Accept The Case And Find That The Law Does In Fact Prohibit These Book Burners From Destroying Public Records — Here’s A Copy Of The Amicus Letter — And A Little Assorted Ranting Of My Own On This Essential Topic →

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Business Improvement Districts

This Is To Confirm That The Studio City BID Did In Fact Hire Vicki Nussbaum As New Zeck Dreck — And She’s Leaving Her Job At The Sherman Oaks BID — And Refusing To Complete Tasks Assigned To Her By Board President Leslie Elkans — Cause Why Not She’s Already Gone — Her Excuse Is That She’s Too Busy Reading About The Brown Act — Ironically The Studio City BID Violated The Brown Act When Hiring Her — Wonder If She Got That From Her Reading?

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You remember last month we were still trying to figure out if the damn Studio City BID had hired erstwhile Sherman Oaks BIDdie-boss Vicki Freaking Nussbaum to replace outgoing zeck dreck Dr. John Walker Ph.D. and it pretty much looked like they had cause of some cryptic-ish emails between Vicki Nussbaum and SCBID Board dominus Tony Freaking Richman but at the same time it was kinda hard to be sure?

Well, last week, on Monday, November 5,1 the good old Studio City BID held a damn board meeting,2 and right there on the agenda, right there under item 3 was this little gem right here: “President’s Comments and introduction of new Executive Director: Vicki Nussbaum.” So out we rode,3 northwest bound on a dizzying sequence of buses and trains, to watch the meeting. And of course we filmed it for you. And of course you can watch it here on YouTube or else here on Archive.Org.4

And here you can watch Tony Richman introducing her, and here you can watch her own introductory remarks. And it’s all pretty tedious, and certainly not worth transcribing. But there’s a context, and the context makes it interesting. You see, first of all, Vicki Nussbaum is not just joining the Studio City BID, she is also leaving the Village at Sherman Oaks BID.

And you know how it is when you’re leaving a job. Your boss can email you and be all hey friend do this little task that you’re being paid to do and you can email back and be all like sorry friend I have my feet up on the desk and I’m on the clock drinking horchata and reading random websites about lemurs and what are you going to do about it, fire me? And it seems that that’s just what’s going on in this case with Vicki Nussbaum and the VSOBID President Leslie Elkans!

You see, on September 21, 2018, Vicki Nussbaum emailed SCBID President Tony Richman to ask did she get the new job and Tony Richman told her yep friend you did get it. Read that exchange here. And by October 3, 2018 she and Tony Richman were negotiating her start date. Read that email here. So by October 14, 2018, when Leslie Elkans sent this little email to Vicki Nussbaum, making a simple request, it really seems that Vicki Nussbaum was not having any of it, in her response being all like no I will not do it, I’m at home reading up on the damn Brown Act thx bye.

And turn the page for, as always, transcriptions of the emails, analysis, and some really melodramatic irony!
Continue reading This Is To Confirm That The Studio City BID Did In Fact Hire Vicki Nussbaum As New Zeck Dreck — And She’s Leaving Her Job At The Sherman Oaks BID — And Refusing To Complete Tasks Assigned To Her By Board President Leslie Elkans — Cause Why Not She’s Already Gone — Her Excuse Is That She’s Too Busy Reading About The Brown Act — Ironically The Studio City BID Violated The Brown Act When Hiring Her — Wonder If She Got That From Her Reading? →

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Business Improvement Districts

The South Park BID Failed To Even Negotiate Let Alone Execute A Contract With Tara Devine For Handling Their 2017 Renewal — They Didn’t Even Realize There Was No Contract Until My CPRA Request Called Their Attention To It — At Which Point Bob Buente Suggested Fraudulently Executing A Back-Dated Contract — But Worried This Would Haunt The Board If “we’re deposed because Tara does something nefarious” — Ellen Riotto — Who Has More Common Sense Than The Average Zeck Dreck — Advised Against It

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So in 2017, back when I was trying to understand Tara Devine’s BID consultancy work for the South Park BID, I sent the Parkies a CPRA request for her contract.1 At the time, twisted little minion Katie Kiefer, who quit the BID earlier this year and is now working for shockingly rapey CD14 repster José Huizar, kept telling me that the BID didn’t have any records responsive to my request. I found this impossible to believe, that putatively competent zillionaire business types would hire someone to do a job for which they’d be paid in the high five figures and not have a written contract explaining what they were expected to do.

It didn’t seem plausible2 so I assumed Katie Kiefer was playing word games with me, which was exactly the kind of crapola she was pulling at the time, all under the baleful influence of Carol Humiston, the world’s angriest CPRA lawyer, along with the rest of her 2017 Parkie buddies. You can read the whole correspondence here on Archive.Org if you’re interested.3 But now, thanks to the recent release of Bob Buente’s emails, a hyper-Aladdinesque trove of wonders provided to me by the ever-helpful Ellen Salome Riotto, current zeck dreck of the Parkers, the truth has come out and can now be explained!

I made my original request for Tara Devine’s contract on July 12, 2017. On July 13, 2017 the Parkies, hiding as usual behind their sinister masks, told me that there was no contract. And here’s where things get interesting! The next day, on July 14, 2017, Ellen Riotto emailed her executive committee and asked them if there even was a contract:

From: Ellen Riotto <ellen@southpark.la>
To: Robin Bieker <robin@biekerco.com>, “Sjordan@legends.net” <Sjordan@legends.net>, “daniel@jadeent.com” <daniel@jadeent.com>, “bbuente@1010dev.org” <bbuente@1010dev.org>, “JLall@ccala.org” <JLall@ccala.org>
Subject: Devine Strategies Contract approval

All,

Per the CA Public Records Act, we’ve been asked to disclose our contract with Tara. The only record we have on file is her proposal, attached. We do not have a final signed contract. We looked through meeting mins to see if we could track down a board vote to approve the proposal, but were unsuccessful. Do you recall if this decision was made by the executive committee?

Thanks

Ellen

The attached proposal she mentions in the email is available here. Also note that if she were following the law she would have asked these BIDdies if they had the records before she told me that they did not, but there’s not much to be done about that. And with that simple request, things really went off the rails!
Continue reading The South Park BID Failed To Even Negotiate Let Alone Execute A Contract With Tara Devine For Handling Their 2017 Renewal — They Didn’t Even Realize There Was No Contract Until My CPRA Request Called Their Attention To It — At Which Point Bob Buente Suggested Fraudulently Executing A Back-Dated Contract — But Worried This Would Haunt The Board If “we’re deposed because Tara does something nefarious” — Ellen Riotto — Who Has More Common Sense Than The Average Zeck Dreck — Advised Against It →

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Brown Act Pragmatics, Business Improvement Districts

Studio City BID Issues Dishonest And Combative But Mostly (Although Not Entirely) Submissive Response To My Brown Act Demand Letter — BID President Tony Richman Signs His Name To A Bunch Of Ill-Tempered Truculent Lies Probably Written By Ill-Tempered Truculent BID Lawyer Carol Humiston — Does That Make Tony Richman An Ill-Tempered Truculent Liar Also? — Maybe — But Also Maybe Just A Patsy

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A few weeks ago I sent the Studio City BID a Brown Act demand letter insisting that they stop breaking the law in four specific ways. According to the Brown Act at §54960.2 the BID can avoid litigation by responding to such a demand with an unconditional commitment to refrain from violating the specific statutory sections in the future. And on Monday, October 15, the SCBID Board met and decided to do just that.

And amazingly enough, the next day, this letter showed up in my inbox! So they weren’t just blowing smoke, it seems. The BID hired Bradley & Gmelich to represent them, which definitely means Carol Freaking Humiston, the world’s angriest Brown Act attorney, almost certainly wrote the letter. And it is written in her inimitable style,1 which essentially consists of variations on the following narrative in six acts:

  1. You’re wrong about what the law says.
  2. Because you’re stupid.
  3. Nothing in the law requires us to do what you demand.
  4. You thought it did because you’re wrong and stupid.
  5. So shut up.
  6. We’re complying with your demand.

The four issues I raised in the letter were first that IDs were required to attend the Board meeting, second that the Board didn’t adequately describe the subject of its closed session, third that the Board didn’t reconvene in open session after the closed session, and fourth that a majority of the Board members had at one time discussed a matter via email instead of in public.

The BID’s response letter was overflowing with a lot of sound and fury2 and belligerent bluster but essentially contained adequate unconditional commitments never ever to do three out of the four. The third item, though, on reconvening in open session, for some reason they declined to commit not to violate. With respect to that, well, I’m studying my options and stay tuned for updates.

For more details about the contents of the letter, the usual amateur analysis, and a modicum of mockery, turn the damn page!
Continue reading Studio City BID Issues Dishonest And Combative But Mostly (Although Not Entirely) Submissive Response To My Brown Act Demand Letter — BID President Tony Richman Signs His Name To A Bunch Of Ill-Tempered Truculent Lies Probably Written By Ill-Tempered Truculent BID Lawyer Carol Humiston — Does That Make Tony Richman An Ill-Tempered Truculent Liar Also? — Maybe — But Also Maybe Just A Patsy →

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Brown Act Pragmatics, Business Improvement Districts

Studio City BID Holds Special Board Meeting — Capitulates To Demand Letter — Votes 7 to 1 To Issue Unconditional Commitment To Stop Violating The Freaking Brown Act — Hires Bradley & Freaking Gmelich At $400 Per Hour To Advise And Write Response For Them — Ben Besley Reads The Motion Like A Robot — Michael Sitkin Then Proceeds To Violate The Brown Act In A Whole New Way — Watch For New Demand Letter Coming Soonish!

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Ah, the Studio City Business Improvement District! As you may recall, a few weeks ago I sent them a demand letter insisting that they stop violating the damn Brown Act by requiring ID to get into their meetings, by not describing their closed session business adequately, by failing to reconvene in open session after a closed session, and by discussing issues by email outside of an open meeting. You can read the actual letter here if you are so inclined.

This project is based on the Brown Act at §54960.2, which allows the BID to avoid litigation by issuing an unconditional commitment never again to violate the particular sections of the law in contention.1 One of the interesting aspects of this section is that it requires the BID to approve the sending of the letter in an open session of a publicly noticed meeting,2 and that’s just what the BID did yesterday! You can watch a video of the whole meeting, all eleven minutes of it, here on YouTube or if you prefer here on Archive.Org.

I don’t have an actual letter from the BID in hand yet, so I’m going to refrain from commenting on or speculating about what it’s going to contain. You can watch Ben Besley make the motion here and he goes on to describe what the letter will be about. Also watch Mike Sitkin ask for clarification and then watch as Dr. John Walker Ph.D. explains everything exactly wrong!

This bit is worth transcribing, and you can find not only that, but a bunch of other interesting stuff after the break! Not least is the episode where after the Board votes to commit to not violating the Brown Act in those specific ways in the future, they go ahead and violate it in a whole new way! Gonna send them another letter quite soon! After I have this one in the bag, that is.
Continue reading Studio City BID Holds Special Board Meeting — Capitulates To Demand Letter — Votes 7 to 1 To Issue Unconditional Commitment To Stop Violating The Freaking Brown Act — Hires Bradley & Freaking Gmelich At $400 Per Hour To Advise And Write Response For Them — Ben Besley Reads The Motion Like A Robot — Michael Sitkin Then Proceeds To Violate The Brown Act In A Whole New Way — Watch For New Demand Letter Coming Soonish! →

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Business Improvement Districts

Vicki Nussbaum To Replace Dr. John Walker Ph.D. As Zeck Dreck Of The Studio City BID! — This Despite Fact That Sarah Besley Finds Her Weirdo Lonerism “Concerning”! — Guess Sarah Besley Ain’t Running Everything After All! — Oh And The Board Evidently Decided To Hire Vicki Nussbaum At Their Infamous Closed Session On September 17! — You Know, The One Where Dr. John Walker Ph.D. Said There Was Going To Be Nothing To Report Out! — Guess Dr. John Walker’s Credibility Is Completely Shot To Hell Cause Hiring A Damn Staffer Certainly Counts As Action Taken!

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Oh Lord, see, Dr. John Walker, Ph.D., zeck dreck of the infamous Studio City BID, decided at some point that he was going to handle all my CPRA requests his own self instead of having their IT consultant do it like they had done in the past. And the evidence shows strongly that despite having a Ph.D., Dr. John Walker actually can’t carry out a keyword search of his own email. That’s one of the reasons why what was previously a steady flow of interesting material from this creepy little BID has dried to a painfully extracted trickle. But, as I have said, occasionally something interesting gets through!

Anyway, you’ll recall that Dr. John Walker Ph.D. is leaving the BID’s employ, and the two main candidates to replace him are the reprehensible Taylor Bazley and the equally reprehensible Vicki Nussbaum. Originally I thought Vicki Nussbaum didn’t get the job cause she started interviewing in June and they still didn’t seem to have hired her. But just today I received this email from La Nussbaum to BID Pressy Tony Richman making it clear that in fact she has been hired as Dr. John Ph.D.’s replacement:1
From: Vicki Nussbaum <vicki.carr.nussbaum@gmail.com>
Subject: Checking in
Date: September 21, 2018 at 7:40 AM
To: Tony RICHMAN <latonyr@gmail.com>

Tony,

Checking to see how the Board meeting went Monday and if we are official.

Take care,
Vicki

Continue reading Vicki Nussbaum To Replace Dr. John Walker Ph.D. As Zeck Dreck Of The Studio City BID! — This Despite Fact That Sarah Besley Finds Her Weirdo Lonerism “Concerning”! — Guess Sarah Besley Ain’t Running Everything After All! — Oh And The Board Evidently Decided To Hire Vicki Nussbaum At Their Infamous Closed Session On September 17! — You Know, The One Where Dr. John Walker Ph.D. Said There Was Going To Be Nothing To Report Out! — Guess Dr. John Walker’s Credibility Is Completely Shot To Hell Cause Hiring A Damn Staffer Certainly Counts As Action Taken! →

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Business Improvement Districts

Vicki Nussbaum Applied In June 2018 For John Walker’s Job At The Studio City BID — The BID Asked Kerry Morrison’s Opinion On Vicki Nussbaum Cause Why Not? — Kerry Morrison Doesn’t Know Vicki Nussbaum — Ben Besley Found This Fact “Telling” — Sarah Besley Told Hubbie Ben Besley That Vicki Nussbaum Didn’t “Participate In The BID Community” — Sarah Besley Found This “Concerning” — Ben Besley Is On The Hiring Committee — Vicki Nussbaum Interviewed In June — But Seems Like She Didn’t Get The Job Cause They Interviewed Taylor Bazley In September — Seems Like Sarah Besley Did A Hatchet Job On Vicki Nussbaum — Sad If True — But There Are No Innocents In BIDlandia

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The short version of the backstory is that the Studio City BID is hiring a replacement for its executive director, Dr. John Walker Ph.D. You can read the details and see a copy of the job announcement here in yesterday’s post. Yesterday we talked about applicant Taylor Bazley. Today’s topic is Ms. Vicki Nussbaum. Here’s what I know about Vicki Nussbaum. She was the director of the Village at Sherman Oaks BID at least since January 2016 and likely earlier than that.1 More recently she was appointed executive director of the Century City BID.2 So she’s been around BIDlandia for at least three years if not more.

Oh, and I also know that she applied for Dr. John Walker’s job and not only that but just a few days after the job announcement was published Dr. Walker Ph.D. offered her an in-person interview!3 The interview was set for July 11, 2018, and I have no reason to suspect that it didn’t come off exactly as planned. Of course we know they didn’t hire her right then because in early September they interviewed Taylor Bazley.

And BID Board member Ben Besley is on the hiring committee. And he claims to be married to Sarah McPherson Besley, well-known for the fact that she used to work for Kerry Morrison in Hollywood where she was famous for hating Peruvians and hating overpasses. Don’t know which she hates worse. Anyway, for reasons that aren’t yet clear, Sarah Besley went and asked Kerry Morrison about Vicki Nussbaum and Kerry Morrison didn’t know her. And Sarah Besley didn’t know her either. And … oh, heck, why not let Ben Besley tell it. In this stunning little email chain he says:

I also got some interesting feedback, or telling lack of feedback, on Vicki from my wife Sarah, who used to Chair the Los Angeles BID Consortium. Sarah doesn’t know Vicki and neither does her former manager Kerry Morrison. This is telling of someone who is now managing multiple BIDs. Sarah thought it was concerning that she hasn’t been participating in the “BID community” over her the course of her career.

How’s that for hard core, friends? If you don’t know Kerry Morrison and Sarah Besley you don’t get the job! It wasn’t listed as a necessary attribute,4 but man, it sure freaking turned out to be. Pretty tragic for Vicki Nussbaum, I think, cause obviously she had no idea this was a job requirement. At least the publication of this vital information makes it clear for all future applicants! You gotta kiss up to Kerry Morrison and Sarah Besley if you wanna be a BID zeck dreck! Anyway, turn the page for transcriptions of all the emails arranging for Vicki Nussbaum’s seemingly fruitless visit to the damn Studio City BID!
Continue reading Vicki Nussbaum Applied In June 2018 For John Walker’s Job At The Studio City BID — The BID Asked Kerry Morrison’s Opinion On Vicki Nussbaum Cause Why Not? — Kerry Morrison Doesn’t Know Vicki Nussbaum — Ben Besley Found This Fact “Telling” — Sarah Besley Told Hubbie Ben Besley That Vicki Nussbaum Didn’t “Participate In The BID Community” — Sarah Besley Found This “Concerning” — Ben Besley Is On The Hiring Committee — Vicki Nussbaum Interviewed In June — But Seems Like She Didn’t Get The Job Cause They Interviewed Taylor Bazley In September — Seems Like Sarah Besley Did A Hatchet Job On Vicki Nussbaum — Sad If True — But There Are No Innocents In BIDlandia →

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Business Improvement Districts

Emmy Winning Studio City BID Zeck Dreck Dr. John Walker Ph.D. Is Quitting — Mike Bonin Field Deputy Taylor Bazley Applied For His Job — Listed Shadowy Venice Beach BID Boss Tara Devine As A Reference — John Walker Told Hiring Committee What A Loser Tara Devine Is And Maybe Her Recommendation Wasn’t Valuable — And She Wasn’t Returning Their Calls Anyway — Plus Kerry Morrison Was All Like Taylor Who?!?! —It Seems That The Position Is Still Unfilled — Except That These BIDdies Violate The Brown Act Constantly So They May Well Have Filled It In Secret

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Right now there is no BID more interesting to me in the entire City of Los Angeles than the Studio City BID. I mean, I dropped by one of their furtive little meetings last month and one of their directors, famously angry clown Matthew Dunn, was so rattled by my presence that he stormed out of his own meeting.1 And then they committed such an astonishing series of so very flagrant violations of the Brown Act that I was forced to send them a demand letter asking them to pinky swear that they’d never do it again.

And man, when it comes to his CPRAiatic duties, SCBID zeck dreck Dr. John Walker Ph.D.2 is a freaking pain in that thing that writers often resort to mentioning pains in for metaphorical purposes, but once in a while a few items trickle through the border wall as they did yesterday when he, or at least his pocky little minion Damian Gatto, sent over a few righteous goodies! And amongst these was this announcement from June 2018 in which the Studio City BID gave notice to the BID Consortium that it was hiring a replacement for Emmy-winning Zeck Dreck Dr. John Walker!! There is a transcription of this remarkable document after the break.

And then the applications started rolling in! The first applicant I have information about was evidently Ms. Vicki Nussbaum, who used to be the executive director of the Sherman Oaks BID and may still be for all I know, but is at least also the executive director of the Century City BID.3 You’ll hear more about this lady’s application quite soon, but not today.4

And the next applicant that I know anything about is our old friend Taylor Freaking Bazley! That’s right, Mike Bonin’s creepy little field deputy for Venice, deeply implicated in the horror show that is the Venice Beach BID, is out looking for another job! Do his friends at CD11 know about this?! Probably not, because he obviously isn’t using them as references! You can read everything I know in this September 12, 2018 email from SCBID Board member Ben Besley5 to John Walker, Board president Tony Richman, and fellow hiring committee members Barry Wise and Dean Cutler.

Here’s the story in brief, and you will find detailed discussion and transcriptions of all relevant emails after the break! About a month ago Taylor Bazley interviewed for the job. After his interview he sent a sycophantic thanks-friend! email to Board president Tony Richman about how the committee’s shit smelled like roses and so on.6 Also, he seems to have given shadowy BID president Tara Devine’s name as a reference. The hiring committee evidently found it difficult to get in touch with Tara Devine. Finally, Ben Besley got an email from admin@venicebeachbid.com, a well-known pseudonym of Ms. Tara Devine, splaining that Tara Devine was too busy to talk to him right now but maybe later!

Then John Walker weighed in with a story about how TD was being investigated for not spending BID money properly and also how the SCBID didn’t hire her to be their renewal consultant because she charged too damn much. He closed this defamational little missive with the defamer’s favorite excuse: “This is not meant to sway your investigation but I think you should be aware of some history.” So yeah, just another example of how the Los Angeles BID world is like one big seething daisy chain but without the sex.7 Turn the page for transcriptions of all relevant material!
Continue reading Emmy Winning Studio City BID Zeck Dreck Dr. John Walker Ph.D. Is Quitting — Mike Bonin Field Deputy Taylor Bazley Applied For His Job — Listed Shadowy Venice Beach BID Boss Tara Devine As A Reference — John Walker Told Hiring Committee What A Loser Tara Devine Is And Maybe Her Recommendation Wasn’t Valuable — And She Wasn’t Returning Their Calls Anyway — Plus Kerry Morrison Was All Like Taylor Who?!?! —It Seems That The Position Is Still Unfilled — Except That These BIDdies Violate The Brown Act Constantly So They May Well Have Filled It In Secret →

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Downtown Center BID

The Downtown Center BID Is The Latest In A Long Line Of BIDs To Change Up A Brown-Act-Deficient Agenda In Response To My Freely Offered Amateur Criticism — Someday, Lord, And It Won’t Be Long, All These Damn BIDs In Los Angeles Are Just Gonna Follow The Damn Law Right From The Start — In My Dreams, Anyway

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It’s quite a common occurrence around here for some random BID to send out yet another completely freaking illegal agenda or violate some other major requirement of the Brown Act and then, because I can’t send demand letters to all of them, I just drop them a friendly note and they, because you can’t argue with the truth, just go ahead and fix the damn agenda.

This is a useful pastime for all concerned. The BIDs get a free and easy lesson in how to follow the damn law,1 I get to write a blog post on the episode,2 and you, the faithful reader, get to hear about yet another technical violation of the Brown Act, which is really edumacational and why else is anyone even reading this damn blog if not to be edumacated? So like for instance the South Park BID does this on a regular basis, and the Venice BID has had an episode as well.

Oh, and I know I said above that you can’t argue with the truth, but actually the baddest BIDdies of them all of the moment, that unhinged flashmob of sick chuckleheads3 known to all students of BIDology as the Studio City BID, famous for having board members whose consciences are so guilty that they will not allow themselve to appear on camera, can in fact argue with the truth.4 This is why, after they refused to consider my friendly admonition that they were really blowing it with respect to the Brown Act, I had to send them a demand letter.5

But those Studio City-zens are the exception rather than the rule. Which brings us to today’s episode.6 It seems that on Monday, October 1, 2017, I received this agenda for a meeting of the Downtown Center BID’s executive committee, scheduled for yesterday morning. Thereon appeared this item:

IV. CLOSED SESSION
a. Personnel Matters, California Government Code §54957(b)(1) (ACTION) WOLK

And, you know, this is better than some attempts at describing closed sessions I’ve seen. At least they cited an actual code section as justification for closing it, which is more than many BIDdies will do. But it’s still not good enough, not nearly. These BIDdies gotta learn that a basic principal of the Brown Act is that what they say in a closed session might get to be a secret but what they’re doing in there rarely does. Read on for the gory details and what happened next!
Continue reading The Downtown Center BID Is The Latest In A Long Line Of BIDs To Change Up A Brown-Act-Deficient Agenda In Response To My Freely Offered Amateur Criticism — Someday, Lord, And It Won’t Be Long, All These Damn BIDs In Los Angeles Are Just Gonna Follow The Damn Law Right From The Start — In My Dreams, Anyway →

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Brown Act Pragmatics, Business Improvement Districts

Latest Episode In The Brown Act Enforcement Project Targets Studio City BID For Three Violations — Most Importantly They Require An ID And Permission From The BID To Attend Meetings — Also They Totally Screwed Up Closed Session Requirements — And Also They Deliberate Via Email Just Like The Byzantine BIDdies — So I Fired Off Another Demand Letter — Now We Wait Thirty Days To See If They Capitulate!

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Last week I attended my first meeting of the Studio City BID‘s board of directors, and what a fiasco, friends! Aggressively clueless board member Matthew Dunn walking out because I was filming him and so on. But I put off telling you about the most interesting parts! Which is why I’ve gathered you all here this morning! You see, the BID violated the Brown Act in two very serious ways at the meeting.

First of all, the BID holds its meetings inside CBS Studio Center,1 It not only requires an ID to get in there and the registration of one’s name and an image of one’s driver’s license, but also convincing a hostile security guard who thinks BID meetings aren’t open to the public and some other problems. All together these are, of course, violations of the Brown Act at §54953.3, which states unequivocally that:

A member of the public shall not be required, as a condition to attendance at a meeting of a legislative body of a local agency, to register his or her name, to provide other information, to complete a questionnaire, or otherwise to fulfill any condition precedent to his or her attendance.

We’ve seen exactly this kind of thing with BIDs around the City, who hold their meetings in so-called secure buildings, where IDs are required by the property owners rather than the BID itself. E.g. in October 2014, the very same month I founded this blog, Kerry Morrison and her Central Hollywood Coalition were guilty of this. More recently, in April I reported the South Park BID to the LA County DA for violating this exact provision. The universal excuse seems to be that it’s legal for the property owner to require ID, just not the BID.

Of course, the plain language of the statute shows that that argument is entirely fallacious. The law doesn’t say anything about who’s not allowed to require ID, so therefore no one is allowed to require ID. And because, as you know, I haven’t gotten much if any satisfaction from the LA County DA on Brown Act violations, I have decided to take matters into my own hands and use the provisions in the law which allow private citizens to enforce it.

I kicked off this project last month with a demand to the Byzantine Latino Quarter BID which was entirely successful, at least so far, in that the BID caved entirely and unconditionally agreed never ever ever to violate the law again. And the Studio City ID and name registration requirement is a perfect test case for the enforcement of §54953.3. Thus did I fire off this demand letter to BID secretary Gilbert Stayner yesterday afternoon, making Studio City the honored second participant in my private Brown Act enforcement project. They have thirty days to capitulate, and if they don’t, we’re off to Superior Court!2

And Brown Act violations are like cockroaches in the usual cliched sense, and this case is no exception to that rule. The BID also seriously messed up its closed session, which of course I added to the demand, and there was a little problem in May 2018 involving them deliberating via email, which I also added. The first of these is highly technical and the second is fairly repetitious, so I put all the details after the damn break!
Continue reading Latest Episode In The Brown Act Enforcement Project Targets Studio City BID For Three Violations — Most Importantly They Require An ID And Permission From The BID To Attend Meetings — Also They Totally Screwed Up Closed Session Requirements — And Also They Deliberate Via Email Just Like The Byzantine BIDdies — So I Fired Off Another Demand Letter — Now We Wait Thirty Days To See If They Capitulate! →

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