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L.A. Tea Party Lament The following letter was posted on the L.A. Tea Party website on April 6, the day the L.A. Tax Day Protest was canceled. Planning committee members describe how an Orange County political operative destroyed plans for their Tax Day protest. Patriots: We had a vision for the Tax Day Rally. We wanted to unite conservatives behind the ideas of personal freedom, constitutionally limited government, free markets, and lower taxes and energize them to get involved in the 2012 election fight to unseat big spending/taxing politicians. This is a battle we should have all been able to get behind. Instead, sadly, a single woman has divided us against each other, dooming the entire event. We apologize for the length of this e-mail, but we feel compelled to explain what happened in some detail so that all of you can make sure this never happens again and to set the record straight in light of the untrue rumors that are flying around. Here is a nutshell of what transpired: Mark Sonnenklar decided to throw his hat over the wall on March 13 and spearhead a Tax Day Rally at the Federal Building in Westwood to occur one month later. He formed an organizational committee for the event composed of Ermias Alemayehu of the South Central LA Tea Party (Reverend Jesse Lee Peterson’s group) and Michael Fell, who had been recommended by a trusted source and had planned several similar events. Michael Fell told us he had a friend who could guarantee the permit within a few days and would also provide the stage, podium, audio/visual system and speakers, generator, videographer, and photographer, all at this person’s own expense. We were ecstatic! Michael Fell had not yet disclosed the name of his female friend, but we trusted Michael Fell and we were so excited about her contribution to the event that we didn’t think to check out her background. Admittedly, this was a mistake. We have since found out from many people that Frances Akhavi has ruined numerous past events with her controlling, divisive, and manipulating behavior. On March 16, less than twenty-four hours after Michael Fell told us that his friend could get the permit, without having met or spoken to Mark or Ermias, Frances Akhavi took it upon herself to drive from Orange County to the Federal Building in Westwood and secure a permit. Soon thereafter, Mark called Frances to thank her for what appeared at the time to be an altruistic contribution and to discuss working together on the event. It was a positive conversation, although Frances Akhavi essentially appointed herself as the organizer of Orange County on that phone call. On one of our organizational conference calls a couple days later, Michael Fell told us that he was having lunch with Frances Akhavi that day because he had been unemployed for years and she told him she may have a job for him. On March 27, with no prior notice of any problems in the relationship with Frances Akhavi, we received an email from Frances Akhavi telling us that she was pulling out of the event and withdrawing all of her equipment and people. She was angry that Mark Sonnenklar had responded to email questions from Orange County leaders without copying her on those emails. Nonetheless, she said she would send us the permit. This was the first of many times that she would promise to deliver the permit and then go back on that promise. Mark called Frances Akhavi the same day to address her concerns and invite her back into the event. This was the first of our many attempts to appease and pacify Frances Akhavi. She demanded that Mark not contact any leaders in Orange County, because, according to her, she was acting as their representative. Mark agreed to this to keep her involved in the event and avoid problems with the permit and having to find and pay for an alternate stage, A/V equipment, generator, podium, videographers, photographers, etc. That night, Frances Akhavi sent us an email with a list of 21 groups and instructed us not to have any contact with them. Those groups included the Tea Party Orange County, Laguna Beach Tea Party Patriots, Huntington Beach Surf City Tea Party, United and Independent Radio, Redlands Tea Party Patriots, North Orange County Conservative Coalition, 6 Miles Square Patriots, Oath Keepers, Chino Hills Tea Party, Tea Party North Orange County, Robert Ginnaty, Central Tea Party, Leadership Alliance, Irvine Republican Council, Constitution And Country, Eagle Forum, Newport Tea Party, Costa Mesa - Newport Tea Party, Santa Ana Tea Party, San Juan Capistrano Tea Party, and Atlas. Things were starting to smell very bad. She also sent us an email to “confirm” our conversation to add her group, Constitution and Country, as a sponsor of the event with the Hancock Park Patriots and the South Central LA Tea Party. She again threatened to pull out if we did not agree to her terms by noon the next day. Despite her characterization of the demand as a confirmation of what had already been discussed, Frances Akhavi had never previously requested being listed as a sponsor of the event. Ironically, if she had simply requested to be a sponsor before we became acquainted with her manipulation, we would have gladly made her group a sponsor. At this point, our experience with Frances Akhavi made it very clear that she was not a person with whom we could work. Yet, she still had the permit, she had promised to cover a lot of items for the event, and time was running out to replace those items. Mark called her the next day and offered to make her group a sponsor, as long as she understood that she would not be included in the organizational committee that included Mark, Ermias, and Michael Fell. In response, she threatened to hold her own tax day rally at the same location on the same day. She proceeded to hang up on Mark and did not respond to Mark’s multiple voicemails to her that day. Throughout this process, Michael Fell had been defending Frances Akhavi and her behavior on conference calls with Mark and Ermias and urging us to capitulate to her every demand. This was unfathomable to us, and we lost confidence in him. Rather than stand up to Frances Akhavi, Michael Fell resigned from the organizational committee. We have no explanation for why Michael Fell chose to stand with Frances Akhavi. At any rate, Frances Akhavi was not responding to our calls, and we were becoming very concerned that she was not going to provide us with the permit. So, for the next 6 days, we proceeded to ask for help from various tea party leaders who knew Frances, including Dawn Wildman of the CA Tea Party Groups Coalition and others. A pattern in those conversations emerged: Frances would promise each tea party leader to turn over the permit if certain demands were met, but, when those demands were met (and her demands changed continuously) or before anyone had an opportunity to meet those demands, she would change her mind and refuse to deliver the permit. She kept moving the goalposts. Yesterday, even though many people were still encouraging us to continue our efforts, it became clear to us that Frances Akhavi had no intention of providing us with the permit, and we decided to cancel the event. We have left no stone unturned, including searching for alternate venues. We made the mistake of trying to appease Francis Akhavi from the beginning. Appeasing her merely emboldened her. We have put much effort into only reciting the facts in this e-mail and avoiding editorializing. We do have numerous emails from Frances and others that support the facts as we have laid them out in this email. We are also well aware that Frances Akhavi has been calling and emailing many of you to rally behind her, and she will no doubt continue to do so. There are many things we do not know about Frances Akhavi; however, one thing we do know is that Frances Akhavi is quite willing to lie to protect herself. We urge you to take whatever Frances Akhavi might say to you with a grain of salt. We believe we speak with authority when we say she is not a person that can be trusted. Unfortunately, over the course of the past week, we have spoken with various Orange County leaders who know Frances and, for some reason, want to excuse her behavior. They say she has had a difficult life growing up in Iran. They say she just doesn’t understand how to communicate like an American. They say she is paranoid and distrustful and therefore must be handled with kid gloves. These are nothing but excuses. The conservative movement stands for personal responsibility; there are no excuses for Frances Akhavi’s behavior. Many of you will receive phone calls and emails from Frances in the coming days. Frances and her cohorts will tell you that the Hancock Park Patriots and the South Central LA Tea Party were only interested in getting credit for the event. Nonsense! We were interested in unifying conservatives and calling them to action in a critical election year. We would have gladly planned this rally without a sponsorship credit if we believed that that would have made the difference. Frances and her people will tell you that the Hancock Park Patriots and the South Central LA Tea Party wanted to plan the event by themselves without input from others. Not true! Since we began planning the event, we have held four planning committee conference calls to which approximately 180 conservative leaders were invited. Those meetings were well-attended (with up to 25 people from many different groups on the call), and we took minutes. They provided a forum for people to express their ideas, give their feedback, and get involved with the planning process. If we had had more than one month to plan the event, we certainly would have spent more time reaching out personally to all of you and building consensus. That was not a luxury we had. Frances Akhavi will say that Mark and Ermias demonstrated poor judgment for distributing a Tax Day Rally flyer that spoofed a communist symbol. Perhaps. We thought it would generate media attention to use the left’s iconography against itself. It was vetted by six PR/marketing professionals who had volunteered to work on this event, and it was shown to all of the participants on the third planning call the day before it was distributed. We received a number of emails and phone calls about the flyer after it was distributed. Many people did not like it. Some leaders loved it. The intense reaction of those who did not like it made us quickly realize that we had to retract it, and we did so within two hours of its distribution. Everyone makes mistakes; this was one of ours. Frances Akhavi will say that we were collecting money from co-sponsors for the benefit of our own groups. Not true! We recently sent out a budget that showed where we intended to spend the money. Bond Action (Reverend Peterson’s group) was collecting the co-sponsor checks, and, beyond the costs of the equipment, we planned to spend significant funds on public relations and marketing to boost attendance and media coverage of the event. Frances Akhavi will tell you that she didn’t provide us with the permit because we did not have liability insurance for the event. This is yet one more excuse that she raised at the last moment to again deny us the permit. Frances Akhavi will say that we cancelled the rally because the co-sponsors pulled out. Not at all! Despite Frances Akhavi’s campaign to encourage co-sponsors to pull out, we still have 15 co-sponsors, and several more contacted us this week to be added to the list. In the end, we are proud of what we were able to accomplish in such a short period of time. Within the first week, we had confirmed 19 co-sponsors for the event. We also secured Mark Meckler, Pat Boone, Reverend Peterson, Ben Shapiro, Assemblyman Tim Donnelly, Evan Sayet, and Tony Katz as guest speakers. We are also proud of the way that we comported ourselves with Frances Akhavi and Michael Fell. Despite how challenging the past nine days have been for us, we intend to continue leading the fight against the left and those on the right who seek to divide us. We believe it is possible to unite all of the conservative groups in Southern California, and we will not rest until that is accomplished. Finally, we would like to thank all of you who have reached out to provide us with your support during this very difficult ordeal. We might not have made it through without your kind words. You are an inspiration to us. There are so many fine people in the conservative movement, and we appreciate all of you. Let’s not dwell on this matter any further. Let’s get back to making a difference for this great country! Blessings, |
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