The HCNC subdivision application is a fraud A blog dated 4/20/2018 (read it here) detailed the many inconsistencies and outright lies connected to the fraudulent neighborhood council subdivision application of the Historic Cultural North Neighborhood Council Formation Committee (HCNNCFC). Make no mistake: the primary purpose of this travesty is to consolidate political power in Chinatown at the expense of the stakeholder caucuses of Victor Heights, El Pueblo de Los Angeles, and Solano Canyon. The Arts District and Little Tokyo, stakeholder caucuses that are presently members of the Historic Cultural Neighborhood Council (HCNC), were deliberately cut out of the HCNC by the HCNNC subdivision proposal; the result is that they will be isolated and left to fend for themselves. The HCNNCFC staged a so-called 'press conference' at 11:30 a.m. yesterday in Chinatown, ostensibly to explain their divisive subdivision proposal. In truth, it was a travesty fraught with half-truths, distortions of the truth, falsehoods, and outright lies. You can view the flyer for the press conference here. The first statement of the so-called 'press release' is a lie The so-called 'press conference' says that its purpose is to announce a "... subdivision of Historic Cultural Neighborhood Council (HCNC) into north and south." To be clear: this is a lie. The proposal does not mention anything, anywhere, about a southern portion of the division of the HCNC. The neighborhood council what would result from the subdivision is called Historic Cultural North Neighborhood Council. The original subdivision application may be seen here. Notice that the primary signatory of the subdivision application is Angelica Lopez Moyes (more about her follows). The remainder of the 'press release' is not based on truth The formation committee (those who called the press conference, along with their co-conspiritors) cannot make their case with the truth, so they resort to half-truths, innuendo, faulty logic — and yes, lies. HCNC was formed more than fifteen years ago. Today, it no longer has the The first misstatement in the statement above is that the HCNC was formed more than fifteen years ago. The fact is that the HCNC was formed in 2003, which was, indeed, fifteen years ago; but by some magical arithmetic, the fifteen years that have elapsed between 2003 and today has become 'more than fifteen years', which is nothing more than an attempt to portray the HCNC as an out-of-date, decrepit organization. One of the primary authors of the HCNNC subdivision application is Angelica Lopez Moyes. Ms. Moyes uses the technique of asserting that everything she says is true, with the expectation that her word alone thereby constitutes the veracity of whatever she says, and that her word, alone, should be sufficient as proof. A classic example of this technique is her statement that the HCNC "... no longer has the capacity to serve all areas effectively." Notice that Ms. Moyes provides no proof of this ridiculous statement of her personal opinion; yet she expects it to be believed simply because she has said it. And as Ms. Moyes tells it, 'fifteen years' has become 'more than fifteen years'. Ms. Moyes never lets an exaggeration go to waste ... Ms. Moyes would also have us believe that her every utterance is true and correct in every particular. Unfortunately, this, too, may be nothing more than a smoke screen — to what purpose, one can only guess. One might consider these comments about some of Ms. Moyes' past history. Can we really rationally lend credence to anything Ms. Moyes says? You can read about some of her checkered past here. That she is promulgating this travesty against the HCNC is disturbing, to say the least. The man in the photographs in the link, above, is her one-time boyfriend, Tad Wanawine, the President of the Echo Park Neighborhood Council, who has a clear conflict of interest in the subdivision application due to his association with Ms. Moyes. Make no mistake: The HCNNC subdivision application is all about a political power-grab on the part of Chinatown The flawed logic here is that Chinatown, Victor Heights, El Pueblo de los Angeles, and Solano Canyon are all quiet, residential communities that share much in common. Nothing could be further from the truth. The fact is that Victor Heights and Solano Canyon are, in fact, quiet, residential communities. El Pueblo is not particularly residential, and is centered around the Plaza. Chinatown, on the other hand, is very-much development-oriented, and it is clearly the intent of the proposed subdivision to consolidate what political power is available to a neighborhood council in Chinatown's hands at the expense of the surrounding stakeholder caucuses. The existing HCNC does not want the subdivision The board of directors of the HCNC has submitted a Community Impact Statement (CIS) in opposition to the subdivision proposal. This CIS was addressed to the Los Angeles City Council. You can read the CIS from the HCNC here. The subdivided NC's bylaws were re-written for Chinatown One of the obligations of a subdivision formation committee is to write proposed bylaws for the new NC if it is approved. However, there now exist not one, but two sets of bylaws for the HCNNC: one that exists on the City's website and is presumably the official set of bylaws, and the other that was re-written by Ms. Moyes, in which she sets out criteria that will effectively eliminate the possibility of many existing HCNC board members to continue onto the new board, if the subdivision were to be ultimately approved. This is yet another example of the political power-grab on the part of Chinatown and the devious tactics employed by Ms. Moyes. The HCNNC bylaws on the City's website (the 'official' bylaws) may be found here. On the other hand, the re-written bylaws that favor Chinatown may be found here. The critical change that Ms. Moyes inserted is the paragraph entitled "Additional Requirements for Board Eligibility", in which she picked a magical number of 30 months ("one and a quarter terms"); any board member's having served longer than that term becomes ineligible to carry over to the new board. Nowhere does Ms. Moyes explain the logic of her reasoning; but suffice it to say that Ms. Moyes is using this very criterion as her argument that 'some board members will not be able to serve on the new board' as a selling point to garner support for the subdivision. The subdivision application could not exist without the cooperation of the Department of Neighborhood Development (DONE) This ill-conceived and fraudulent HCNC subdivision application would never have seen the light of day and survived scrutiny were it not for the dereliction of duty, collusion, and denial of due process on the part of the DONE, the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment, which is a City-charted entity. DONE employees are public servants, sworn to uphold the law and the policies and procedures of the City of Los Angeles. Yet there are multiple examples where this has not been done. Such violations leave these public servants subject to administrative, civil, and, in extreme cases, criminal penalties as a result of their actions; yet the Deputy City Attorneys who are charged with advising City entities such as DONE have turned a blind eye to such misdeeds. The HCNNC subdivision application is ill-conceived and fraudulent. It must be withdrawn in its entirety.
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About the AuthorLawrence Bouett is a retired research scientist and registered professional engineer who now conducts historical and genealogical research full-time. A ninth-generation Californian, his primary historical research interests are Los Angeles in general and the Stone Quarry Hills in particular. His ancestors arrived in California with Portolá in 1769 and came to Los Angeles from Mission San Gabriel with the pobladores on September 4, 1781. Lawrence Bouett may be contacted directly here.
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