May 3, 2007
Honorable Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa
Los Angeles City Hall
200 North Spring Street, Room 303
Los Angeles, CA 90012
Honorable Mayor Villaraigosa:
First, let me state at the outset that from our past acquaintance, I know you to be an honorable person and a capable public servant.
I noted in the Los Angeles Times recently that the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission had a problem with your contribution from Bruce Corwin on technical grounds. To me, that problem is neither here nor there, but the fact that you received a contribution at all from Bruce Corwin would be a problem if you were aware of his role as the former owner of Film Processing Company. For the future, I want to bring those issues to your attention, and to make a California Public Records Act request for documents of your predecessor’s administration (Thomas Bradley).
Film Processing Company was located on Crenshaw Blvd in the Leimert Park area, owned by Metropolitan Theatres Corporation, and headed up by his brother-in-law. The working conditions there were appalling, so the employees, who were exclusively Mexican immigrants, appealed to District Council 2 of the Graphic Communications International Union to organize and represent them.
A committee met with GCIU officials on a Wednesday. By the next day, about 75% of the workers had signed union cards. On Friday, the organizers were fired, but the working conditions were so bad that this did not deter the workers and by Saturday, 95% of the work force had signed up with the union!
In the course of our investigation and efforts on behalf of the workers, we learned that virtually every single woman had been sexually harassed by management. Most the managers were gabachos, with the exception of the plant manager himself, who was an emigrante. He was the worst of the lot. I interviewed one woman, a single mother of two small children, who was pressured into going on a “date” with the man while he arranged for her time card to be punched in at the plant so that he would have an alibi for what he intended to do.
Instead of taking her out to dinner, he took her to his apartment and forcibly raped her. He overcame her resistance to rape by threatening to fire her. Given that she had two small children to raise, this prospect was terrifying, and frankly, she was not even cognizant of the fact that what had been done to her was illegal.
Ira Reiner’s District Attorney’s office launched an “investigation” but refused to assign a female, let alone a hispanic female, to interview the woman. Given the cultural sensitivity of what had happened to her, the District Attorney’s office conveniently insured that nothing would come of her allegations, inasmuch as she wouldn’t speak to the typical gringos employed as D.A. Investigators at that time (she spoke tome because my background, as you know, is far from typical).
65 of the 66 employees that the union had tested turned out to be so chemically poisoned by the plant that they could never work around chemicals again. One man, who’d fathered two perfectly normal children before working there, fathered a child subsequently who lived for a few hours after birth, but one of its lungs was so large, it virtually displaced the other lung, the heart, and the liver, amongst other genetic defects. In Chicago, the Cook County prosecutor brought up the owner of the same kind of plant on murder charges because of these kind of transgressions, but in Los Angeles the authorities of the time considered this to be a civil matter, at best.
In these pre-NAFTA days, the plant up and moved to Mexico, so I recommended to the union that we call upon the CTM for solidarity moves south of the border. The CTM responded nobly, with the solidarity that one would except of good comrades: they got two reporters assigned by Excelsior to write a series of articles in Mexico on the conditions that the workers had been subjected to in the E.E.U.U. They also got the PRI to investigate how the plant had moved across the border….without paying any import duties. It turned out that the plant manager—the rapist—had gotten his father, a customs official, to look the other way. Mexico did the right thing: the government issued warrants for the arrest of the plant manager and his father and chased the firm back into the United States.
Around this time, Reporter Andy Furillo was sent by the Los Angeles Herald Examiner to Mexico to report on the plant’s operations. He was “arrested” by plant management at gunpoint (if I recall the story correctly), driven to the border, and told to get out of Mexico and never come back.
Just before Andy’s story was about to be published, the Office of the Mayor called in certain management folks from the Herald Examiner and reportedly gave them an ultimatum: the paper would get no leaks out of City Hall and no cooperation whatsoever, EVER, if they printed this story about Bruce Corwin’s operation. This will be a subject of my California Public Records Act request, below.
On another topic, the Los Angeles City Controller report entitled “Follow Up Audit of Contracting Practices at the Los Angeles World Airports” and dated June 24, 2005 indicates at page 6 that “All contracts over $100,000 require a formal review and approval of the Board. Additionally, all contracts are reviewed by the City Attorney as to form and legal compliance.”
The proverbial “little birdie” landed on my shoulder and indicated to me that a substantial number of contracts at LAX are granted in the amount of $99,999.99 for short term periods, like three (3) months. At the risk of claiming that the emperor is naked, the very nature of the contract term and amount indicates mens rea on the part of everybody involved in the submission and approval process to avoid scrutiny of the contract.
Additionally, years ago, cashiers in the parking lots at LAX were arrested and charged with skimming cash proceeds. At the time, two (2) different criminal defense attorneys I knew, neither or whom knew each other, both indicated that they had been told by a District Attorney Investigator that in spite of their clients’ offers to roll over on higher ups in the company who they independently contended were receiving kick backs, the case would go no further “because it would lead straight into City Hall.” When Miguel Contreras was a member of the Airport Commission, I supplied him with a copy of my file on this matter so that he could appropriately question the company involved when they sought to get their contract back.
Based upon those issues and others, the following request is made pursuant to the California Public Records Act and the decisions in KNSD Channels 7/39 v. Superior Court (Vasquez) (1998) 63 Cal.App.4th 1200, 74 Cal.Rptr.2d 595 [No. D029949. Fourth Dist., Div. One. May 13, 1998.], Copley Press, Inc. v. Superior Court (M.P.R.) (1998) 63 Cal.App.4th 367, 74 Cal.Rptr.2d 69 [No. D029986. Fourth Dist., Div. One. Apr 20, 1998.], and Copley Press, Inc. v. Superior Court (Adams) (1992) 6 Cal.App.4th 106, 7 Cal.Rptr.2d 841 [No. D016546. Fourth Dist., Div. One. May 7, 1992.] which govern the common law and constitutional right to public access to government and judicial records.
These laws and decisions preceded the enactment of SCA 1 (Proposition 59) which was passed overwhelmingly by the voters in November 2004. SCA 1 amended Article I, Section 3 of the California Constitution by providing that “The people have the right of access to information concerning the conduct of the people’s business, and, therefore, the meetings of public bodies and the writings of public officials and agencies shall be open to public scrutiny” and that
”A statute, court rule, or other authority, including those in effect on the effective date of this subdivision, shall be broadly construed if it furthers the people’s right of access, and narrowly construed if it limits the right of access.”
In the event that you intend to object to release of these records because you believe that the request is somehow related to litigation, unless the records requested were expressly prepared for counsel, attorney-client privilege does not apply. Additionally, the fact that litigation exists or might come into play is fundamentally irrelevant to the California Public Records Act. See City of Hemet v. Superior Court (Press-Enterprise Co.) (1995) 37 Cal.App.4th 1411, 44 Cal.Rptr.2d 532. If any of the writings I am requesting constitute demands for compensation made under the California Tort Claims Act or deposition transcripts, be advised that you cannot withhold them from me under provisions of Section 6254 of the Government Code (see Board of Trustees of California State University v. Superior Court (The Copley Press, Inc.) (2005)132 Cal.App.4th 889 , — Cal.Rptr.3d -) and Poway Unified School Dist. v. Superior Court (Copley Press Inc.) (1998) 62 Cal.App.4th 1496, 73 Cal.Rptr.2d 777).
I am requesting copies of the following writings as defined in California Public Records Act Section 6252(f) and Evidence Code Section 250:
1. Any writings in any way concerning the operations of the Office of the Mayor and/or of the City of Los Angeles in connection with the investigative reporting of Andy Furillo on Film Processing Company, Bruce Corwin, and/or Metropolitan Theatre Corporation;
2. Any writings concerning the theft of parking revenues at LAX that indicate any relationship between city employees and any companies involved in those thefts.
Under Section 6253 of the Government Code you have ten (10) days to comply with this request.
If you believe that I am not entitled to the records I am requesting, you must justify your refusal within (ten) 10 days in writing under Section 6255 of the Government Code. You may only refuse to give me these records if there is an express law prohibiting you from giving them to me. In the case of California State University, Fresno Assn., Inc. v. Superior Court (McClatchy Co.) (2001) 90 Cal.App.4th 810, 108 Cal.Rptr.2d 870 [No. F037383. Fifth Dist. Jul. 16, 2001.] the court held that “The burden of proof is on the proponent of nondisclosure, who must demonstrate a ‘clear overbalance’ on the side of confidentiality. [Citations.] The purpose of the requesting party in seeking disclosure cannot be considered…. It is also irrelevant that the requesting party is a newspaper or other form of media, because it is well established that the media has no greater right of access to public records than the general public….”
If any of the items I am requesting as defined in Evidence Code Section 250 and Section 6252(f) of the Government Code constitute video and/or audio recordings, and if you withhold them as not obtainable through the California Public Records Act, then this letter will serve as notice that these items may have evidentiary value and you are required to maintain them pursuant to Government Code Section 26202.6. If you destroy, lose, misplace, damage or otherwise make these items unavailable prior to the time that a court order or subpoena duces tecum can be obtained, you may be subject to a variety of sanctions (see Willard vs. Caterpillar, Inc. [1995] 40 Cal.App.4th 892.
Please note that as a Licensed Private Investigator, I am entitled to un-redacted copies of police reports under Section 6254(f)(3) of the California Government Code.
If you fail to comply with this request, I have a legal right to bring suit to force you to comply under Section 6259 of the Government Code and if I prevail, it is mandatory that the court award me reasonable attorney fees and costs.
Thanking you for your prompt attention, I remain,
Respectfully and Cordially Yours,
Jan B. Tucker