SFV/NELA NOW meets on 8/17/13 and votes to endorse Sharon Hardee Jimenez to be LA Film Czar
On Saturday August 17, 2013, the Board of San Fernando Valley Northeast Los Angeles Chapter of the National Organization for Women voted to unanimously endorse Sharon Hardee Jimenez of the Bring Hollywood Home Foundation (BHHF) to be appointed by Mayor Eric Garcetti to be Los Angeles City Film Czar. Today we are mailing this letter to Garcetti to express our position on this critical appointment:
San Fernando Valley – Northeast Los Angeles Chapter
P.O. Box 7141 Van Nuys CA 91409-7141 (818) 539-5910 [email protected]
“The Valley’s Voice for Choice”
August 20, 2013
Mayor Eric Garcetti Los Angeles City Hall 200 N Spring Street Los Angeles CA 90012
Honorable Mayor Garcetti:
Susan B. Anthony taught social movements that:
“Cautious, careful people, always casting about to preserve their reputation and social standing, never can bring about a reform. Those who are really in earnest must be willing to be anything or nothing in the world’s estimation, and publicly and privately, in season and out, avow their sympathy with despised and persecuted ideas and their advocates, and bear the consequences…”
Sharon Jimenez with Grand-daughter Lily: we are more committed to the next generation than to the next election
Sharon Hardee Jimenez is a woman who is “….willing to be anything or nothing….” to accomplish our shared goal of bringing Hollywood home under circumstances that guarantee family friendly, unionized jobs at prevailing wages, and under working conditions that pro-actively guard against discrimination and sexual harassment amongst other problems within the entertainment industry in Los Angeles. That is why SFV/NELA NOW unanimously voted to endorse her to you for appointment as Los Angeles Film Czar.
Our position is that the LA Film Czar should minimally have a research and advocacy role that goes beyond the scope of just bringing production back to Hollywood. This office should also root out and prevent – by being a bully pulpit if nothing else – the systemic abuses that Hollywood moguls, corporatists and conglomerates have failed to address for decades. These abuses include:
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Sexual harassment, such as the proverbial casting couch
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Racial discrimination
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Blacklisting
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Corruption as exemplified by the conviction of Anthony Pellicano intertwined with many Hollywood figures in his career which was facilitated and protected by elements of Los Angeles City government.
Our Chapter has been following and pro-actively addressing sexual harassment in Hollywood for literally decades. As just one example, approximately one year after the infamous Clarence Thomas – Anita Hill hearings highlighted sexual harassment throughout the nation, Hollywood put on a “show” of what it was supposedly doing to address sexual harassment in the industry. A combined conference of corporate and union representatives was attended by Pat Jones and Jan B. Tucker of our chapter and the farce witnessed and documented. A couple of highlights for illustration of this debacle:
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The Screen Actors Guild provided a secretary in its office (who later became a member of SFV/NELA NOW) a script to read on a panel at the conference about what SAG was supposedly doing to protect its members from sexual harassment about fifteen minutes before the panel started. According to this person, the entire script was a figment of somebody’s imagination and had obviously been written by a propagandist as opposed to somebody familiar with SAG’s actual track record on the issue.
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The heads of Human Resources for both MCA and Universal, serving on a panel that included then head of the California Womens Law Center Sheila Kuehl, both openly stated without even evidencing a hint of embarrassment, that their policy was to teach women to cope with sexual harassment because it was too disruptive to the workplace to discipline or transfer the perpetrators. An investigation conducted by Jan B. Tucker for SFV/NELA NOW member and Attorney Ron Martinetti demonstrated that the perpetrator against his client, also a chapter member, had been sued for the same behavior three times in the past at MCA Universal by three different women.
Hollywood solutions to racial discrimination have been equally absurd, reprehensible and sick. For example, to “encourage” Latinos to become screenwriters, the industry worked out a deal with the Writers Guild of America to enable Latinos to be paid one half (½) of union scale, as though they were only half human beings. Sort of like African American slaves being defined by the Constitution as 3/5 of a person.
The notorious history of Hollywood blacklisting continues to this day and now is meted out against activists with the Bring Hollywood Home Foundation because of their political activities to expose the public policy abuses that lead to Hollywood outsourcing. These actions are arguably misdemeanors in violation of Section 1101, 1102, and 1103 of the California Labor Code.
It is possible that where there’s smoke that there isn’t actually fire. But when you see smoke in a forest, it’s a no brainer that you check out the source of the smoke. The corrupt practices of Hollywood insiders in conjunction with the prosecution of Anthony Pellicano were delved into by the United States Department of Justice, but the public only saw the tip of the iceberg into this aspect of that criminal case. There is much behind the scene that is of direct interest to the City of Los Angeles:
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The LAPD withheld information from the FBI and the prosecutors concerning prior disciplinary action taken against one of Pellicano’s co-defendants, Mark Arneson that was directly relevant to Arneson’s violations of the Information Practices Act which victimized multiple women
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Other LAPD officers were intimately involved in events surrounding another Pellicano co-defendant (who was adversarial to Pellicano)
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Your predecessor as Mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa, holds the singular distinction of being the only politician known to have ever received a campaign contribution from Anthony Pellicano and Villaraigosa failed and refused to respond to requests that he explain the contribution and/or to even deny knowledge of it.
In conclusion, we reiterate our strong support for Sharon Hardee Jimenez to be appointed Film Czar with a mandate to root out these systemic Hollywood practices as well as to bring jobs back to Los Angeles.
Sisterhood is Powerful, Linda Pruett, Cynthia Conover, Jan B. Tucker, Co-Presidents, SFV/NELA Chapter National Organization for Women
