CommentsERIC PREVEN’S NOTEBOOK - Thwarted: A Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy has filed a lawsuit alleging that her career was thwarted after she decided a close friend of Sheriff Alex Villanueva’s wife was unfit to serve as a deputy.
The lawsuit alleges that the Sheriff's wife said, "I'm going to go off on that "B---"
A deputy in the Los Angeles City Attorney's office also filed a lawsuit alleging that her career had been thwarted, because rather than discussing reasonable accommodations that might be possible, her superior told her, "We all know the workers' comp claim is bullshit."
The case of Elizabeth L. Greenwood, is a bizarre and protracted case of alleged workplace retaliation for complaining about a bad back, a hysterectomy, menopause, a series of related absences - and an unmet or met after protracted delay -- provision of a prescribed ergonomic desk set-up with chair.
But if you read the LA Times or watch KCAL you'd think her beef was over the fact that she got Typhus during the September 2018 Typhus outbreak downtown. Greenwood had blood drawn on Nov 20 and by Nov 27, 2018 she was given a Typhus diagnosis and contracted viral meningitis.
Unsurprisingly, Greenwood who also worked for LACERS offers no evidence, just conjecture, that she "probably" contracted the Typhus from a flea at city hall... east.
Raid:
"The scene could have been out of a movie: more than a dozen FBI agents striding out of elevators on the fourth floor of Los Angeles City Hall and descending on the office of Councilman Jose Huizar," wrote the Times on November 7, 2018.
Additional federal warrants filed in court and made public on November 27, 2018 but reviewed by The Los Angeles Times on Saturday January 12, 2019, sought evidence involving Councilman Curren Price and a senior aide to Council President Herb Wesson, as well as several other city officials and business figures.
Almost immediately a robust "gotta check the ceilings" campaign was put into motion. Initially, it seemed like a routine round of scapegoating the homeless for the holidays. As a co-author of the Intercept expose the previous winter entitled "Los Angeles blames wildfire on homeless, but evicting them won’t solve the real problems: climate change and urban sprawl," 2.0 was expected.
As with everything downtown, labor turned out to be a significant factor. We learned from a CPRA of city emails, that GSD had stopped emptying the trash at desks in 2011, forcing employees to centralize their desk trash to a larger container. The plot seemed to thicken further, or thin, when Victim #1, the LACERs exec, Elizabeth L. Greenwood -- claimed she'd (probably) been attacked by a flea belonging to a city hall rat, who probably gave her Typhus.
The Los Angeles City Employees' Retirement System is a department of the City of Los Angeles to provides retirement benefits to civilian employees. Greenwood took a test on November 20, and was diagnosed with Typhus on November 27, 2018.
v 27 Plaintiff + Deputy City Attorney Elizabeth L. Greenwood learns she had Typhus (excerpt from April 2019 Complaint).
Nov 27 Same day a federal Warrant was made public including Deron Williams (LAT Jan 12)
Nov 27 2:57pm Same day a Work Order initiated out of Deron Williams office to check for rats.
Nov 28 Vendor set traps
Nov 29 Val Meloff of General Services Division GSD writes Tony (GM) got a complaint about droppings in the Council member's office.
Nov 30 Have staff complete a thorough cleaning. GSD Bldg maint came by to check rat traps.
Dec 3 Gladys Espinoza Deron Williams Chief of staff's assistant, Deron asked me to forward this email
Dec 3 CatsUSA Pest control came by. We are prepared to clean the carpets after the rat issue is resolved.
Dec 4 As a precaution we have a vendor coming out to install some traps above the ceiling. They found very little activity in the ceiling
Dec 5 Let custodial know they can schedule the carpet cleaning.
Dec 9 Eddie, please schedule carpet cleaning timely or we will schedule outside vendor.
Dec 10 Custodial services will clean council president's carpet at 5:30pm on December 13, 2018
Dec 10 Tower event, [email protected] please empty Recycling container
Dec 12 Michelle Gibbs complains that 224 is not being properly cleaned
Dec 13 GSD CustodialSvs writes, Hi, Michelle, deskside trash removal is a service that was discontinued in FY 2011... and has not been brought back (see memo) Deskside trash is to be taken to a centralized trash bin. We recommend no wet food trash in small cans.
Dec 28 11:07am Re: Rat problem not improving Holly Wolcott: Tony, Happy holidays? Sorry to bug. We are complying with directions to remove all food and plants, although they are eating paper. I am sure with a building this old and big, it's probably a monster job to deal with rodents, but in my 31 years, I have never seen anything like this. I again have to ask if efforts can be increased. We have problems on both the second and third floor of City Hall.
Dec 28 11:42am Please ask Val to have BMD address this request asap. Thanks.
Dec 28 11:57am David Costa, "we have increased efforts. We brought our vendor back out again yesterday to see what additional steps can be taken. I have been working with several people at City Hall to help address their concerns. I have staff checking daily on all the traps and asking people to try and remove any food items that will draw rodents to their spaces.
The vendor walked the exterior and interior of the building. They noted that there is a homeless population and a lot of waste and garbage outside of the facility that is attracting the rats. One of his recommendations was to relocate the homeless population around the building. To also eliminate all the trash and waste outside the facility. He also plans on putting down a pesticide outside the building to kill the rat population and additional traps. He also found several openings he recommended being closed up, so we are working on that as well. I have attached the report for your review (not attached)
Dec 28 12:14pm Thanks. Val: please contact LAPD security and Brian Buchner about homeless encampment issues around City Hall and request they address these issues asap. Thanks.
Dec 28 12:41pm David Costa, "it may be missed in the report, but the homeless are using the grated areas above the pits as their bathroom and relieving themselves. This is also attracting the rats. Custodial will need to do some hazmat cleaning of the grates and pits. There are even hypodermic needles being tossed in the pits along with human waste and other garbage."
Dec 28 12:43pm Val: Hi, Loretta Will you please look into this and advise ASAP.
Jan 12 An ongoing FBI investigation into Los Angeles City Councilman Jose Huizar is part of a broader corruption probe in which agents are seeking possible evidence involving Councilman Curren Price and a senior aide to Council President Herb Wesson, as well as several other city officials and business figures, according to a federal search warrant. The warrant, which was filed in federal court in November but reviewed by The Times on Saturday, said agents were seeking evidence related to an investigation into an array of potential crimes, including bribery, kickbacks, extortion, and money laundering involving 13 people.
Jan 14 [email protected] writes: [email protected] City Clerk is experiencing a marked increase in rats in their building area. BMD is taking several approaches to eliminate the issue, traps, etc. but the consensus after little success is that there are food sources and custodial services is lacking in some areas throughout the suite. Attached is a recap of the findings from the walk-through of the area by BMD trying to assess and eliminate all food sources.
Please have custodial staff clean the area well tonight. Place this on the hot sheet for supervision to walk the area daily after the cleaning has been completed with reports back to me on any findings. THX.
Report 2 page
Feb 11 4:52pm [email protected] writes, "Good afternoon, Requesting that the custodial services vacuum in room 361 Raoul Mendoza's office. Board of Public Works - City Hall Main Room 361. There was a rat spotted in the office and food stuff has been cleaned up.
Feb 11 5:35pm Please see forwarded request. Please let us know the plan of action, who task was assigned to and when task was completed
Feb 12 11:36am Task was assigned to Head Custodian Cynthia Davis last night.
March 8, 2019 City Council No Fleas - click item 22
At 2:55:50 Paschal starts his speech... "1800 flea traps... for the purpose of trying to identify... verify the presence or absence of fleas. traps set feb 8 or feb 9 for seven days. Findings: Did not and again NO FLEAS Recommendation: "increase vacuuming" [sounds like a labor play] At 3:14:00 Preven speaks
April 21, 2019 Greenwood files $5M claim
Deputy City Atty. Elizabeth Greenwood has filed a $5-million claim against the city, saying she contracted typhus while working in her office at City Hall East. She says the flea-borne illness spread as a result of trash and homeless encampments outside her office.
Her lawsuit goes before a judge in June 2022, as the city seeks to have the case dismissed.
Ms. Greenwood forgot to mention her ten-year retaliation feud with City Hall to the Los Angeles Times or KCAL/CBS when she broke her Typhus story in 2019. If either outlet had done any reporting, they might have discovered that the city paid Greenwood, $50,000 in 2006-7 to settle a different retaliation claim.
Elizabeth Greenwood may be a very sick woman and a particularly annoying character, so retaliation and the relative costs and benefits must have been carefully considered by the City Attorney. Litigation often brings out the worst in opposing parties.
Why wasn't such a damaged individual placed on permanent disability, years ago?
Why was her conflict-riddled matter not disposed of appropriately?
Why was a conflict panel firm not chosen, given the egregious conflicts here?
Michael N. Feuer, the City Attorney currently running for mayor is personally named in Greenwood's lawsuit, but will remind that he has over 12,000 pending cases...
If Ms. Greenwood's claims are legitimate, that she was prescribed an ergonomic chair by her doctors and the city simply failed to provide it... and that her supervisor repeatedly stared at her breasts when she complained about her employers, what would be the appropriate remedy?
What do the taxpayers have to do with this? Other than paying too much for it.
As for the timing of Deron Williams issuing a work order on the heels of getting a subpoena -- isn't that a little... ‘obstruction’ish ?
And was the City Clerk, Holly Wolcott, putting in writing that ‘They’re eating paper’ ... about the fake rats, pushing a little too hard?
Yes and Yes.
The Presumption of Irregularity:
Some major differences between the way the Bonin recall signatures failed and the Eric Preven CD2 signatures collected by me personally failed to meet the required threshold to make the ballot.
For the large organized campaign, the city clerk nixed over 1500 possibly valid signatures because of the way the petition was signed by the circulator, and over 2800 were allegedly duplicates. That accounts for X%.
By contrast, my very handsome grassroots campaign had zero rejects in either of those two categories, but rather 89% of my rejects were declared invalid by the city clerk's office. When the Registrar-Recorder is asked how 1 in 3 constituents believe they are registered and live in the district but are deemed otherwise by the clerk,
Why do those categories account for only half the recall rejects, but 89% of the CD2 rejects?
Maybe the invalid rate had to be artificially elevated... since there were no duplicates and no circulator affidavits to invalidate my high-quality signatures.
Beckloff, get in here!
County RFP: "Dog that don't hunt"
RE: Outside Law Firm / Forensic Auditor re: Federal Allegations, MRT, Flynn etc.
Dear Mr. Preven,
Hello. I hope all is well.
In October 2021, the Board directed an independent investigation and audit of County service contracts between the years 2008 and 2020, including those referenced in the federal indictment. The Board instructed County Counsel to retain an outside law firm to conduct the investigation, and for the outside law firm to retain a forensic auditor as part of the investigation.
The selection of an outside law firm and forensic auditor to conduct the investigation and audit has not been finalized. Once that process is complete, we will provide another update.
Thank you for your patience.
Sincerely,
Norayr (Noro) Zurabyan
Board Liaison Division
Office of the Los Angeles County Counsel
648 Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration
500 West Temple Street
Los Angeles, California 90012
Friendly Fire:
In a December declaration accompanying the filing, Vanessa Bryant wrote, "I also feel extreme sadness and anger knowing that photos of my husband's and daughter's bodies were laughed about while shown at a bar and an awards banquet."
"For the rest of my life, one of two things will happen: either close-up photos of my husband's and daughter's bodies will go viral online, or I will continue to live in fear of that happening," Bryant added.
"This has always been about accountability," Luis Li, her attorney said in response to the motion. "We look forward to presenting the facts to a jury."
"We respectfully disagree with the Court's ruling," said Skip Miller, partner at the firm Miller Barondess, who is representing LA County. "The fact remains that the County did not cause Ms. Bryant's loss and, as was promised on the day of the crash, none of the County's accident site photos were ever publicly disseminated. The County did its job and looks forward to showing that at trial."
Skipper, where are we with the public dissemination of the invoices - or other way you may have been paid, including venmo, submitted to the County of Los Angeles for various fancy legal work.
Urban Alchemy > LAHSA
Mitchell O'farrell was enthusiastic about Domingo and TJ Knight and Greg Goode of Public Works being in attendance and so many others to incrementally move along his treasured Urban Alchemy initiative. After a quick thanking of the city family, O'farrell said he wanted to get back to recruiting individuals... "turning compassion into action." "I am proud to be part of an organization that seeks to provide local employment opportunities on a path to wellness while performing cleanups.
As he led the charge on the re-upping and expansion of the 2019 pilot with Urban Alchemy, he offered a question, "City workers from OCB Beautification do not interact with the unhoused.. is that accurate?"
The staffer agreed.
Urban Alchemy, who have lived experience..." O'farrell chirped on, "make the relationships, and then by extension ... " get sanitation to come and take away the junk.
He wondered, "How do these services augment the existing programs that the city is responsible for? The innovative program does not supplant but... compliments... isn't that correct?"
O'farrell was positively delighted at the notion of hiring locals as we strive to take better care. "I want to give voice to... and reference... "an ideal hybrid model."
Taking Urban Alchemy Citywide would require "daily resources, new resources, that are needed."
O'farrell automatically agreed with staff that a large alleyway, with 29 tons of material would be more of a sanitation job, not Urban Alchemy. But, if there were personal property in the right of way or a blocked sidewalk...
"Perhaps, there is an opportunity, there?" mused staff.
Domingo, a staffer said, "we want to coordinate and streamline.... this is paramount to success."
It all comes down to safety and training. And capacity and scale.
O'farrell wants to find the sweet spot.. "for them to grow."
Koretz reminded us we do have CARE service in every district, 5 times per week and CARE+ twice a week. "Let's not spend money on work that is being done by our department. It's not easy to fully staff up... "
The staff jumped right in Koretz' lap, "You've nailed it, sir."
Staffing is going to be a driver.
O'Farrell said, "This is a small nimble approach. We can all benefit from resources, we expect to increase our resources..."
Krekorian wanted a few answers before scaling up...and to hear any lessons learned from the pilot--what sort of impacts ...lack of coordination.
He said he wanted a forthright discussion because I know the way DeLeon leads. He wondered, do we need another cook in the kitchen?
Krekorian went off on the status quo, "LAHSA won't come out if LAPD is there. LA sanitation won't come out unless LAPD is there. Nobody shares because of HIPPA"
He said he could see advantages, but is "adding one more layer..."
He faux-urged staff to come clean about the Pilot... "were there deficiencies? Be as forthright as possible, not department speak, we have to fix this... "
Cedillo jumps in... If we are going to scale up, then how do we do it,... "in-house?"
Staff admitted under cross-examination that O'farrell had come to our yard "to help us understand our motivation."
How do we oversee the process so there is the coordination of services so we weave this all into one solution?
Has this pilot contract ... been helpful or more complicated? Regular routing is the key... five days a week service... is routine and deployment... the Urban Alchemy crew follow along, a 1, 2 service model.
How is LAHSA involved?
(Krekorian, politely exits the meeting)
Staff works with UHRC, within the county, they share through UHRC. For citywide regularized routing, it would be key. Everyone had personally experienced the failure of UHRC... the Urban Alchemy teams have been doing the LAHSA piece. *ding ding ding*
Kevin Deleon, who is running for mayor piped up and admitted, that on this pilot program in CD14 "we have not coordinated with LAHSA ."
On other things, yes, but Urban Alchemy has been "responsive and reliable."
He said they're a good candidate for expansion. As for LAHSA, " we don't usually coordinate with them."
Sanitation workers have been assaulted.
Urban Alchemy is on the ground. Ready to offer a unique particular, specialized service. "Hey, let me help you discard some of the items you no longer need?"
They help arrange a pile and off they go... O'Farrell said, "uniqueness... if I may offer that?"
Cedillo is modest, ... "shared experience" is a gateway, the bridge... "we need to make this more fine-tuned, take it to the next level... kick it up... make it a citywide experience."
Deleon, says he has commentary, more than questions.
Kudos for LASAN, most important. "Communication, Communication, Communication... and Execution, Execution, Execution...." will be the key to success.
In the short time, fourteen months... since he's arrived, the challenge has not been the unhoused neighbors, but rather folks with JDs, MAs, PhDs, departments, agencies, highly educated folks, that have created challenges. Well-intentioned, but they have forgotten more than I actually know. "
He said they'd made headway, but "Coordination is important ... before we go live."
Then he dove into a rant, "LAHSA, We don't know is it a government agency or advocacy org or both or ... with their own agenda, and LASAN, the Council, United Way... " he rattled off a list before veering on those "so-called activists... who have been preventing people from being housed."
Deleon talked about his own expertise being in Energy, but the problem before us now is far more complex: "the homeless industrial complex is complex, not because of deep trauma, racism, poverty but rather all the layers of uncoordinated turf battles... litigation with LAHSA ... between the city and county who are not on the same page... in front of a federal judge.
These people, not the homeless, are making it worse, he said, before reminding that he had shipped two folks back to Nashville recently on a bus.
These folks "who are not housed... after over 150 contacts... with them.
He talked about the human element. 93 % of the folks were offered room key, home key, tiny home, bigness village.
"Very few folks won't take housing... " he said.
Congregate is another thing but housing they take. "Congregate, I get it."
"We have become paralyzed..." he said.
When anyone sane, had had more than enough, it was time for item 1, a franchise agreement with the RecycleLA, the city's sanitation contracts.
RecycleLA:
The pandemic and economic calamity have caused all sorts of suffering, so the city was having second thoughts about a pre-negotiated RecycleLA rate increase going into effect on Jan 1...
The interim 'freeze' solution from last year has lapsed. The rsp's have offered to extend the relief program. All multi-family properties will be able to defer increase staring 9/21 for 2022 ... if they do, no late fees, or charges... through June 2022...
O'Farrell said, "We did not anticipate the pandemic and our waste haulers have to understand businesses... are asking, "how can we continue?"
Cedillo said he understood the increases were set contractually. "I appreciate that ... but we are in a global pandemic...we've broken tons of contracts. Thousands. This one stands unique in the world. This is case book...I don't want to be disruptive."
O'Farrell, asked Madame city attorney, "could we get an opinion? Can the city suspend the agreed-upon elements ... of contractual obligation, franchise agreement?
What constitutional authority do we have to weigh in and disrupt the rate increase? What other contracts have we suspended?
The city attorney said she would pass along the 'breaking contract' document she sent them a few months ago.
Koretz, who is running for office, offered faux gratitude for the waste haulers and then echoed Cedillo... "we've interfered with other contractual obligations... we offered a very generous contract with generous rate increases... not sure they were necessary. Regardless, of whatever the city attorney says... "I think we should tell them they will not be able to get this rate increase. We may face legal action? Suspend for one year the rate increase.
And if they kvetch, Koretz implied, he would never shut his mouth about the new Food Waste recycling program.
(Eric Preven is a longtime community activist and is a contributor to CityWatch. The opinions expressed by Eric Preven are solely his and not the opinions of CityWatch)
