This post originally appeared in the Esotouric Substack newsletter.
Gentle reader,
Too often, when Angelenos attempt to engage in the democratic process, it can feel as if the fix is in before they even walk through the doors of City Hall.
Elected officials have developed a troubling brand of hypocrisy: they go through all the motions of holding public hearings, taking public comment and very occasionally engaging in the most trivial of debates, then no matter how the public feels, they vote exactly the way the initiating official desires.
Sometimes citizens have to sue to stop them from acting this way—an expensive process that takes years to resolve and that distracts some of our best and brightest from otherwise improving the city they love.
But whoa, these lawsuits can turn up some wild discovery documents—evidence that changes how we view public hearings where votes are held, because we know there are puppet-masters inside City Hall who script the hearings and tell the “decision makers” what to say and how to vote.
That’s illegal, as is the “gentleman’s agreement” to always vote yes on a colleague’s motion, which the state considers bribery. Yet most votes in City Council are unanimous, with no debate.
Anyway, yesterday we went out to Pan Pacific Park to attend the Rec and Parks Commission hearing on fencing MacArthur Park. The fix was in there, with commissioners who were not as courageous or as serious about the task before them as the Cultural Heritage Commission was in July.
Rubber-stamping problematic documents is just how you do it, if you want to keep your place in the City Family. It’s one way of being an Angeleno involved in local government, we guess. Not our way, but we hear the parties are better.
At least we got to share an apple fritter from Bob’s Coffee & Doughnuts (est. 1947) in the Original Farmer’s Market afterwards, and visit with the ghosts of absent friends who are everywhere there.
We will have to write more about the RAP hearing, which like many incredibly significant public meetings, has no video or audio record online, because the only other local reporter in attendance decided to only share the City’s side, and not the opposition from us and many others in the public record. That’s one way of doing local interest journalism, we guess. But why? Doesn’t conflict between citizens and City Hall get clicks?
But not today. There’s a deadline looming, and we’re not going to blow it.
It’s been 28 days since the problematic vote to rename the World War I memorial Pershing Square after Biddy Mason, a remarkable early Angeleno who already has a fine park dedicated to her memory just a few blocks away.
We’ve just filed a cure and correct demand with the City, asking that the vote be tossed out and the hearing held again.
Two things went wrong that day that we believe require a do-over.
A false claim on the Council floor. Before asking her colleagues for their yes votes, Councilmember Ysabel Jurado said General John J. Pershing “never [set] foot into the city of L.A.” Only, he did.
On January 26, 1920, Pershing rode down Broadway in an open car beside Mayor Meredith P. Snyder. Snyder was a personal friend of Biddy Mason who spoke from the pulpit at First AME Church when her memorial window was dedicated in 1904. His own son, Captain Ross Snyder, was killed in France in July 1918 and his repatriated body would lie in state in Pershing Square in 1923.
The same false and ignorant claim about Pershing never visiting Los Angeles appeared in Kevin de León’s 2024 motion, was publicly refuted and dropped when Jurado updated his proposal with her new language. But then she said it anyway, using misinformation as justification for her council colleagues to vote to erase a war memorial.
Those elected officials, the public and all who are honored by the name Pershing Square deserve to have a truthful public record established before a vote occurs.
A thumb on the scale in public comment. City Council rules stated that there would be one minute of public comment per item. Four supporters of the renaming got to express themselves well beyond that, uninterrupted. WWI historian Courtland Jindra spoke against the renaming and was cut off. Virtual comment closed early, with us still waiting on the phone to be called.
The Council’s rules allow extra time only if every speaker gets it. Doing it this lopsided way violates the First Amendment (ratified 1791).
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
City Council, the same body that seeks to change it, conferred Pershing Square’s name on 11/12/1918, one day after the Armistice. The resolution invited General Pershing to visit for the dedication. That makes Pershing Square quite likely the first World War I memorial so designated in the United States.
We have asked the City to rescind the vote, hold off directing the Rec and Parks Commission from holding what we expect would be a pro-forma, rubber-stamped vote to approve the name change, preserve the meeting records, correct the historic record and rehear the item with equal time for all.
We’re also asking for the City to abide by its own well-understood process for renaming public spaces, which includes the staunch assertion that elected officials should never select the new name!
The City has 30 days to respond. And you have 2 days—until Sunday, 10/4/2026—to submit your own cure and correct demand, should you wish to join us in this advocacy.
Feel free to copy the text of our letter (embedded below), adapt it or write your own, then click the NEW button with the pencil icon here to submit it to the council file (don’t forget to click the link in the confirmation email that will follow), and via an email sent directly to these “decision makers”: To: councilmember.harris-dawson@lacity.org; councilmember.blumenfield@lacity.org; councilmember.jurado@lacity.org; cityatty.help@lacity.org; strefan.fauble@lacity.org Cc: rap.commissioners@lacity.org; jimmy.kim@lacity.org
We hold Biddy Mason in high regard and enjoy telling her inspiring story at the park that’s located on the site of her homestead. We think the citizens and elected officials of Los Angeles having moved heaven and earth to so quickly dedicate a monument to peace and to all who served under General Pershing is pretty cool, too.
Our hope is that a true public hearing and a referral to a proper citizen-driven renaming process will allow for fresh ideas that improve Pershing Square, honor Biddy Mason and protect and preserve the internationally-significant war memorial.
Maybe the way to do that is with a fountain for Biddy Mason in the heart of the park.
Or maybe there are better ideas out there. Let’s hear them!
It is a pleasure to brainstorm with caring and thoughtful Angelenos about how to use public space and resources in ways that make Los Angeles a better place. And it’s a stone cold bore to attend fake hearings where the fix is in and our history can be twisted for political purposes, as if it wasn’t holy, powerful stuff.
Yours for Los Angeles,
Kim & Richard
Esotouric
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