A document filed in Federal Court yesterday suggests that the LACAN/LACW lawsuit against the City of LA and the CCEA over the illegal confiscation of the property of the homeless may be within a scant two weeks of a settlement. The document is a joint stipulation asking that discovery be delayed (but not the trial date; if you’ve been following the case you’ll recall that last November the parties asked Judge Gutierrez to delay the trial, but he refused. I suppose they’re not making the same mistake again). In any case, the pleading states that:

The settlement conferences with [Magistrate] Judge [Carla M.] Woehrle have been very productive, and based on the most recent settlement conference [on February 2, 2016] and subsequent discussions, parties are hopeful that further settlement discussions over the next two weeks may lead to resolution of many if not all matters in this litigation. The City of Los Angeles in particular has indicated that it needs additional time to consider Plaintiffs’ proposal but that it will be responding shortly.

This is interesting news indeed! It also sounds as if, whatever the plaintiffs’ offer is, the CCEA is happy with it and it’s only the City of LA that needs to think it over. This makes sense given that the City must have to check with many more people before settling than the CCEA. It’s also tangentially interesting because the CCEA is perennially Brown Act challenged¹ and I can’t help but wonder how they could know if they will accept a settlement offer without having had a noticed meeting of at least their Executive Committee, let alone the Board of Directors. But that’s a question for another day and a bunch more public records act requests.

Image of CCEA secret headquarters is ©2015 MichaelKohlhaas.org.

1. I hope to be able to write a great deal about this at some point in the not-too-far-off future (although I know I habitually say that and rarely follow through. I am working on a lot of stuff over here!)