CommentsERIC PREVEN’S NOTEBOOK - The LA Times had it on some authority that Herb J. Wesson might be tapped as CD10 seat warmer,
but neither Price nor Rodriquez were in attendance, so for those of us who waited around, we had to endure O’Farrell and Krekorian kvetching about plastics.
Don't get me wrong, I've hated them ever since the brilliant scene between Mr. McGuire and a young Dustin Hoffman,
Mr. McGuire: I want to say one word to you. Just one word.
Benjamin: Yes, sir.
Mr. McGuire: Are you listening?
Benjamin: Yes, I am.
Mr. McGuire: Plastics.
If only O’Farrell could have been so blunt. He blathered on for quite some time, before handing the plastic baton to Krekorian, who really enjoys bitching about plastics. "There is a lot of leadership. We lead by example. The world is drowning in plastics. This is a degraded, absurd disaster. Petro-chemical companies are doing it with lies. The recycling of plastics is a myth. Only 5% in the world history...of plastics ever get recycled. It's not being recycled. Only a fraction ... most ends up in a landfill, blown around into our drains out to the ocean."
Where was Greig Smith when you need him? Mr. Waste Management would have given these grandstanding blowhards something to think about! "The cleaner" was on the mind, because the possibility of bringing Herbie back to CD10 was being tested in the Rick Orlov backroom. It was Herb J Wesson himself who masterminded the Englander soft landing, by going on ABC and pretending it was about stepping into a new adventure lobbying, for Oakview.
Turns out it was a federal problem.
How about a measure of gratitude for the Personnel department? One, for the departure of Wendy Macy, a very sharp cookie, who is leaving to pursue other dreams, and the employee who we learned at the Ethics Commission meeting today, misused his position to his own advantage. In the end, after he got caught he agreed to pay $5,000 to Ethics as a stipulation to resolve his minor 'recycling' of active city property.
The Ethics commission meetings have shimmied from Tuesday's during the city council meeting to Wednesday's during the council meetings, once every other month.
The behested payments are posted and frankly one wonders what the law firm Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP did at the behest of City Attorney Mike Feuer, to the tune of $190,744? I get that it was a Governmental payment... por que?
And the fact that Covington & Burling, LLP is doing anything for the City Attorney, to the tune of $15,370 behested to Feuer, is creepy because that's the quicker picker-upper law firm that has just been hired by the County Board of Supervisors to deflavorize the county's contracting fraud problem. Eric Holder is one of the top bananas over there.
Skip "Louis" Miller of Miller Barondess LLP, was on the report giving $5,000 to Charles Drew University at Mark Ridley-Thomas's behest. So, yuck.
The highpoint of a boring meeting was when Mitchell Englander's lawyer, Gary S. Winuk, who was also the lawyer for the LA County Board of Supervisors, when they were caught jamming their thumbs on the scales during the measure H campaign to get $350 million annually to service all the housing from HHH. Pffft.
The only issue was who would try Englander for his city offenses. Winuk wanted it referred to the California Office of Administrative Hearings (OAH). The Ethics commission went along.
By the way, MRT and the county board finally settled with Harold Jarvis Taxpayers for... $1,350,000. Who pays that sum? The taxpayers!
Olympic Memory: Fri, Aug 4, 2017 10:11 am Subject: Olympics & Public comment & CM filibuster-- clear cut case
The Chair Wesson has once again denied comment to me--though I was among the earliest arrivals--for every single Olympic Committee meeting (9). This constitutes a pattern and practice of content-based discrimination. Westall, Fauble etc are complicitors. O'Farrell needs to return the Maciborski llc excessive contributions. Warm regards, Eric Preven
Welcome to Los Angeles:
L.A. welcomes all visitors and continues to prioritize the safety of all residents.
The big story for regular non-billionaire Angelenos, is the smooth transition of Rick Caruso from his post as USC's Chief Corruption Officer. 🚩to blowhard candidate who can't stand mediocrity.
The Ramshouse transformation of the Hollywood sign was a bit of dud. You couldn't read it.
It is safe to assume Caruso would be outraged. This is, like everything else, "a lack of leadership."
Some ideas, like threatening zero tolerance as it relates to his historic sole source 30,000 cot edict, do raise questions, like, "What if they don't want to go?"
The sole source shackle program. Next question.
While there is increased law enforcement presence related to the Super Bowl, neighbors are clamoring for safety, too.
I asked the Mayor to explain a Lamar Billboard on a well-trodden route to a middle school and elementary in Studio City. The billboard showed a Glock shaped chemical irritant launcher and I said, how about an advertisement with some kind of poem up there.
A reader, quipped, "Eric, have you ever tried to use a poem against an attacker? It doesn't work."
Poetry, is language at its most distilled and powerful, I thought. I wrote a poem to the reader:
A Rams Odyssey
Horns up!
Charging hard.
Standing our ground.
Protecting the herd.
The sky is the limit,
When community works together.
Horns up!
And then, to ensure that it was received as intended, I wrote, "A billboard promoting a CO2-powered pepper spray launcher in the shape of a Glock firearm on the walk to local schools... is super uncool."
The immediate reply, "Yeah so are all the armed and violent criminals ready to kill you while you read them a poem about how bad self-defense is."
Not one to shirk away, "I was not proposing reading a poem in a street fight but teaching kids poetry on the walk to school can be empowering. A Glock-shaped billboard?"
The reader must live in a tough part of town, "Walking through the crime filled streets while stepping over needles and baggies is much less cool than the billboard advertising a non-lethal way of defending yourself against these losers. Maybe you should be opposing releasing monsters back onto the streets instead."
Got it, thx.
County Circus:
Max Huntsman came on to explain how the Sheriff had not been following the law. "A county leader won't follow state law."
"The sheriff no longer provides to county lawyers, myself included…information about deputies who have had issues."
Sheila tried to examine cutting Sheriff Villanueva's staff, but the CEO was forced to admit "We can't control that... what the Sheriff's department has it's people do."
"Thank you." Sheila said.
Hilda Solis, implied, "If we can’t get information with the California public records act and even accountability. The ACLU and the Los Angels Times can't get it."
The board decided that the County Counsel, in consultation with the Inspector General, the Sheriff, and other relevant stakeholders, should report back to the Board in writing in 90 days with a plan to ensure that the offices of County Counsel and the Inspector General have access to LASD’s records--
What about the public?
I was not allowed to comment, despite being the chap who sued the board over their failure to comply with the CPRA and won alongside the ACLU, who finked out, and ... see Andres Kwon of the ACLU's remarks.
Central Huddle Space:
Sheila, said, "I'm just a regular person, except that I get to sit in this box once a month." She was talking about some wonky therapeutic drug that even Ferrer was downplaying because so rare. Solis chimed in, and told Dr. Ferrer and Dr. Ghaly after all the frustration, that "
"I just hope that you two, who are 'so smart’, and I applaud you for all of that, so let's get a head start on VA point 2, a sub variant."
The board spent no time - zero - discussing the plan for the greater North Hollywood area, where, they've identified a community of “high need” due to the lack of primary care facilities and clinics.
The design-build request for proposals is now ready to be issued to interested proposers. The preliminary estimate for the project is approximately $117,000,000.
The proposed building’s highly efficient layout will allow the facility to incorporate the new “On-Stage /Off-Stage” medical planning concept, where all medical staff circulation paths are separated from the public. As a result, medical staff would focus on patients at scheduled time slots and return to a central huddle space, to prepare for the next appointment without reentering the public corridors. I have questions...
With this new layout concept, the building promotes higher efficiency in work-flow and a higher level of attention on patient interaction. Additionally, this new building will be equipped with the appropriate infection control measures necessary to see infectious clients. It will also be used as a command center for incident command response needs.
The biggest bummer for me, now that Holly J Mitchell and the board have made their disdain for public input a reality, is that the public no longer gets to address the far-fetched comments by departments, including the Sheriff's department and Probation.
This week, the Chief of Probation popped by for an oral report in connection with an ongoing Probation Oversight Commission probe into the young women's undies drawer at Barry J. Niedorf and Campus Kilpatrick.
Sheila Kuehl took the lead and applauded the Chief for going there.
The food, he said, was served in very small portions and it was "bland."
The chief said he had been led to believe that girl's were given paper style undies. But was pleased to see that they were in fact, cotton.
Robert Smyth, a legendary county auditor had done a review of the girls undergarments.
The Chief downplayed the use of shackles, and elevated the "Put down" room and the "Hope Center."
Room confinement, he said, was a work in progress. Sheila asked about 'sanitary equipment.'
Everyone agreed more and better programming was necessary for the probation youth.
The Chief closed by saying he met a kid who had autism and seizures and used her bed as table so put the mattress on the floor, where she preferred sleeping. She had a paper bag with all her stuff. It did not sound great, to the public.
"The kids wanted to know why I wasn't at the Rams game." the Chief said, "I told 'em. I'm a Baltimore fan."
Hard to chuckle along.
The Chief seemed pleased that the report of Black mold was found NOT to be black mold. "So, that's good. "
It's a very old facility.
The Board complimented the Chief on 'eyeballing' everything himself. Sheila tried to express concern, " Particularly, for the serious issues... they're all serious."
The conclusion of one of the probation commissioners who was there to guide things along was that the biggest problem is the way the probation department communicates with ... "everyone."
When the chief was asked about "the compound," a facility in the center of Barry J with razor wire around it, Sheila, said, "We don't want ... I don't know... a state prison environment."
Sheila tried to ask if clients were denied access to their children unless they earned points, but the chief avoided a straight answer.
Solis said, "We have a long way to go."
(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)
