Jose Huizar plays the blame game... and so do Angelenos

Gentle reader,

This Friday morning, finally, disgraced Los Angeles City Councilmember Jose Huizar will be sentenced to prison for his confessed crimes of racketeering, conspiracy and tax evasion.

The buzz around the courthouse is that he’ll get a sweetheart deal of about 11 years in Federal prison, and restitution to the City of Los Angeles of a scant portion of the unquantified millions in bribes he collected from developers and unknown others for land use votes that screwed up the city, cost taxpayers a fortune, disenfranchised millions of citizens and hurt the most vulnerable.

But it will be over when the handcuffs snap shut, and Los Angeles will be the better.

It was a year ago this week that Huizar, who claimed poverty and has been represented at taxpayer expense, pleaded guilty. Did he spend his last 12 months of freedom in heartfelt self-reflection, acknowledging the fundamental personality disorder and ethical vacuum that saw him molest and abuse employees, squander civic resources, surveille constituents, destroy treasured landmarks and make land use decisions for the benefit of foreign billionaires?

Nope! Huizar and his court appointed attorneys have instead developed a theory of blame so absurd, so offensive, that we recommend you wait at least two hours after eating before reading on, lest you puke up your meal.

It’s all his staff’s fault. And Huizar’s got the text messages to “prove” it: dozens of instances of cooperating witness George Esparza whining about his boss, fantasizing about his own political ascent and implicating other elected officials like Wendy “DUI” Carrillo. Can you believe this guy? Because we can’t.

Well, if you have nothing better to do than read 185 pages of self-serving baloney that has zero bearing on the violations of law, ethics, common sense and decency that will soon deliver Jose Huizar to a Federal cell, go to town.

But we suggest that instead you peruse three Victim Impact Statements that hit the court docket today: from us, from writer and Bunker Hill resident Lisa Napoli, and from former Chief of Police and Los Angeles City Councilmember Bernard C. Parks. Each has a grievance with the defendant that is both highly personal and fundamentally civic, and use their statements to argue a case that they hope will resonate with the judge—and with their fellow citizens. City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto also weighed in: she thinks the real victim is the city.

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Update 1/25/24: Jose Huizar has filed his letter to the Judge in advance of his sentencing, in which he claims he takes responsibility for his crimes. Less than a month ago, he filed Appendix A with the court blaming George Esparza!

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If anyone reading this believes that they have been harmed by the confessed criminal acts of Jose Huizar, they can submit a Victim Impact Statement to the US Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California. If you wish this to be a public document, you should state that explicitly, and if you want the judge to read it, hurry up. Email your VIS to (Mack.Jenkins@usdoj.gov) addressed to Mack E. Jenkins, Assistant United States Attorney Chief, Criminal Division, and cc Cassie.Palmer@usdoj.gov, Susan.Har@usdoj.gov and Brian.Faerstein@usdoj.gov.

It’s been strange, watching the days slip away before Jose Huizar is sentenced, and having them coincide with the complete meltdown of the Los Angeles Times. We believe that the mismanaged paper bears a lot of blame for the rampant corruption. As the Huizar era comes to an end, his story and that of his impact on Los Angeles is absent from his hometown newspaper—just as the newspaper is absent, its headquarters in El Segundo, its staff working from home, relying on wire service copy instead of going to court and actually reporting.

It’s a missed journalistic opportunity, to help clean up City Hall and likely score a Pulitzer. But sadly nobody writing for or editing the Times today has the guts, the sources, the insight or the chops to do justice to the Jose Huizar story. And from the dumb documents he’s filing with the court, it’s clear Huizar isn’t going to do it, either.

Adaptive Reuse Low Income Housing, 2016 (photo: T.K. Nagano)

With his sentencing set for Friday, this Saturday’s tour serves as the official beginning of the post-Jose Huizar era in Downtown Los Angeles. Fittingly, our theme is Broadway, the National Register historic theater district the crooked councilmember used to brand himself as a cultural creative, and build support for his mayoral ambitions. A decade ago, we gave a series of free Broadway on My Mind walking tours, to counter the politician’s messaging and the harm we saw him doing to independent businesses along the commercial corridor. The street continues to fascinate, and we hope you’ll join us for a stroll along Broadway: Downtown Los Angeles’ Beautiful, Magical Mess!

Yours for Los Angeles,

Kim & Richard

Esotouric

Psst… If you’d like to support our efforts to be the voice of places worth preserving, we have a tip jar and a subscriber edition of this newsletter, vintage Los Angeles webinars available to stream, in-person tours and a souvenir shop you can browse in. We’ve also got recommended reading bookshelves on Amazon and the Bookshop indie bookstore site. And did you know we offer private versions of our walking and bus tours for groups big or small? Or just share this link with other people who care.

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UPCOMING BUS & WALKING TOURS

• Broadway: Downtown Los Angeles’ Beautiful, Magical Mess Walking Tour (Sat. 1/27) • Bunker Hill, Dead and Alive Walking Tour (Sat. 2/3) • Westlake Park Time Travel Trip Walking Tour (Sat. 2/10) • Angelino Heights & Carroll Avenue Time Travel Trip Walking Tour (Sat. 2/17) • The Real Black Dahlia Crime Bus Tour (Sat. 2/24) • SOLD OUT Know Your Downtown L.A.: Tunnels To Towers To The Dutch Chocolate Shop Walking Tour (Sat. 3/16) • The Run: Gay Downtown History Walking Tour (Sat. 3/23) • John Fante’s Downtown Los Angeles Birthday Walking Tour (Sat. 4/6)

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CLOSELY WATCHED TRAINS

On Thursday, the Cultural Heritage Commission heard the landmark nomination for Marilyn Monroe’s house. This supporting email from Parisian art historian Jacques Le Roux, about how MM is a sacred figure of veneration, is very powerful. We attended, made supportive public comment and live tweeted the proceedings—from the property owners and their attorney alleging improprieties with the nomination process, suggesting MM intended to move to New York, falsely claiming the house is not visible from the street, and offering to just pay to move the house somewhere else. Then to the commissioners, starting with Richard Barron crying as he described the experience of being in the room where she died. The vote, as we hoped, was a unanimous 5-0. Next up: PLUM and City Council—stay tuned!

Angelenos are using the National Register to save RSO multi-family housing from greedy landlords who demolish, evict and list on Airbnb. On 2/2, tune in for a hearing on Los Feliz Boulevard Courtyard Apartments and Winona Boulevard MCM Historic District.

After attending the Marilyn Monroe hearing at City Hall, we discovered some historic plaques had been stolen. Ten days prior when we last were here, the First Brick School House and Camel Corral were still honored on the Los Angeles Times Mirror addition at 1st & Spring opposite LAPD HQ. And on the lawn of City Hall, the Frank Putnam Flint memorial fountain was crafted in 1933 from marble from the same quarry used for the Lincoln Memorial. Mr. Flintridge would retch to see the state of it today.

Silent cinema sleuth John Bengtson finally finds where Buster Keaton's 20th century nuclear family (man, wife and pampered pup) lived in Three Ages (1923)—and it survives! We've added this gem to the bungalow court housing map.

A disturbing scene at Monastery of the Angels, which is on the market and closed to the public: a huge box truck is pulled up to the loading dock in Saturday’s rain. What are the Dominicans removing? We hope not the beloved statues! And not the baking kitchen!

On Saturday night, the ceiling of the Los Angeles Stock Exchange / Exchange LA collapsed on fans waiting for DJ Brennan Heart. This 1920s landmark was not designed for 110 db amplified sound and 100s of dancers moving in rhythm, and we have reached out to Office of Historic Resources with our concerns. The video these screenshots come from has since been deleted, but here are some others: 1, 2, 3.

We just found this short clip showing Peabody-Werden House in its original location in Boyle Heights, before we convinced property owner ELACC not to demolish, but to move it across the street. This was 9 years ago. It is long overdue to be restored and put to some good use.

What's happening with Casa La Golondrina's lawsuit against the City of Los Angeles over the decaying pipes under the city-owned Pelanconi House? 1/25 at 2pm in the Biscailuz Building basement, the El Pueblo Commissioners go into closed session to discuss.