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ERIC PREVEN’S NOTEBOOK - Kudos to the lunatic CLA, Avak Keohtian, who cobbled together the City's first meeting agenda back after the extra-long recess.
A Business Improvement District BID approval, a determination of public convenience or necessity for the sale of alcohol both onsite and offsite at 12015 Wilshire in Traci Park's CD11 and just onsite at 428 East 2nd Street and 200 South Central Avenue in Kevin De Leon's CD14. Bottoms up!
The other 21 items taking up pages of a complex agenda were in the section marked items for which public hearings have (already) been held. This means a hearing was held in committee, but as we know, Kommandant Krekorian has refused to take public testimony by telephone in committee --
Smart Speaker: What a POS, where is George Gascon? A glance at the items Avak and Krekorian don't want you to hear: Hugo Soto Martinez CD13 is following Katy Yaroslavsky's CD5 lead by signing a similar $45,000 dollarish contract with Indigov Corporation a company that handles... messaging. She signed one for her district last year. "We have questions."
Sorry, we satisfied ourselves in committee. [The actual CLA is Sharon Tso.]
The other 20-plus items most of which are dense Housing and Homelessness Committee and also Transportation Committee reports, have Nithya Raman of CD4 calling for the installation of sensors and/or other technologies capable of counting pedestrians and vehicles in the vicinity of Lake Hollywood Park... including both the east and west trail entrances. "We have questions."
And a report on LAPD's response to domestic violence incidents... anything to say? "We have questions." Note and File!
Mayor Karen Bass and City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto certainly do not want to discuss putting people in hotels in detail. Feldstein-Soto who is the new City Attorney claims that the details should be exempt as they relate to the hotel information where the victims are housed... Pffft.
Feldstein Soto wants to block information about hotel locations for the homeless program due to the worry that a predator who has done domestic violence might do a PRA to track down his or her victim. This is a weak argument.
First of all, the city is routinely late to very very late with providing records. And secondly, the damage of not knowing where all the money is going, and to which hotels, will trigger the chronic public anxiety related to the Transit Occupancy Taxes ripoff.
Say what? For those who are not up on the history of Mayor Eric Garcetti’s local hotel initiatives, Studio City is an excellent test case. The transit occupancy collection program and various offsets are set by the mayor’s office. Fortunately, Karen Bass —
Well, Mayor Garcetti ran up a huge tab of freebies for hotel companies willing to put up hotel rooms. Many of those deals forgave massive amounts of TOT… already owed. The little yell king for working cooperatively with hoteliers was Harvey Englander’s little Bubela, Mitch Englander. Pre-indictment.
This is why John Wickham of the CLA is so popular with City insiders. He knows exactly how to kick back TOT revenue neatly.
One of my first explorations into the dark side found an email from Mayor Garcetti asking for an update on Richard Weintraub’s project in Studio City. Then Paul Krekorian was head of the Budget Committee and had to do the only thing… he could do, with the city’s best interest in mind of course - settle a TOT collection lawsuit, by cutting Weintraub’s bill in half. Yikes. Over $500,000 off!
PJ Shemtoob is well aware of the festival of graft corruption and greed in the refund space, and so is the Office of Finance under Adrin Nazarian’s wife’s leadership, Diana Mangioglu.
The hotel room kickback is fabulous!
And were and are numerous dimensions to the Eric Garcetti hotel grab bag game in Studio City: the fire sale pricing on the firehouse, the Project Room Key fake damage reimbursement, the OG Cultural Historical manipulation by Steve “Zev’s era” Afriat RIP, all despite Ken Bernstein’s deeply moving call for designation.
The NCAA Championship: Go Huskies:
No pregame handshake.
I heard that was a thing as Michigan took the field before winning the Rose Bowl. The TV coverage cut to Harbaugh as he stumbled out onto the field to git r done. No pregame handshake. What a POS.
The strength man for the University of Michigan is a guy named, Ben Herbert, who trains the Wolverines on weights and conditioning. He was fairly described by an MGo Blue player as a "trained assassin.” Coach Jim Harbaugh seconded that characterization.
Coach Herbert is a super intense guy with a creepy footwear fetish, wherein he requires all of the team players to line up their shoes, very precisely, and neatly in a row. Reminded me...
“In an old house in Paris that was covered with vines
Lived twelve little girls in two straight lines
In two straight lines they broke their bread
And brushed their teeth and went to bed.
They left the house at half past nine
In two straight lines in rain or shine-
The smallest one was Madeline.”
― Ludwig Bemelmans, Madeline
I read in The Athletic, that Coach Herbert periodically runs his finger along the edges of the players’ lockers, looking for dust —
Smart Speaker: Jeez. Why is a weightlifting coach making more than $1,000,000 annually? Precisely because of his unnaturally intense ability to focus and get the entire team pulling in the same ‘trained assassin’ direction. No pregame handshake. Oooof. That's bad sportsmanship in any book.
By the way, The Athletic is a subsidiary of the New York Times that has managed to negotiate a weird byline on every single sports article (which oddly is all of them that appear in the paper.)
Not this next nugget.
J. McCarthy, Michigan’s quarterback was a hockey player as a kid.
Smart Speaker: You don’t say?
Hockey, ”…was actually my first love,” McCarthy said of growing up playing in La Grange Park, Illinois. "I started when I was like 5 years old and yeah I had to make a really big decision on if I was going to stick with the hockey route or the football route. I kind of made that decision around freshman year of high school and it was one of the hardest decisions I ever had to make.”
His next big decision will be whether or not to enter the NFL draft. The deadline is January 15th.
In the meantime, Go Blue!
But I am very close to rooting for Michael Penix, the precision passing QB for the Huskies, because I am so disgusted that the Pac-12 was destroyed by UCLA and USC's appalling greed and need for TV money.
Survey Says:
Long Beach surveyed its residents about what the city should be doing. It’s a good idea, that’s why we were so disappointed that Lindsey P. Horvath never thought to have an agenda item on the subject of public comment and the scheduling thereof. It’s not too late.
In the meantime, Supervisor Horvath was seen weighing in on the "drag hour" dispute at the library. I was not clear why she was inserting herself in that space. I wonder if she considered staying out of it. Some religious families were not excited about “drag hour” at the local library. Why not?
Why should anyone care if people are dressing up in drag? Some people care.
Well, they don't have to attend.
Is it necessary to have controversial programming at the county library?
That's a fair question. Why not do it at the local YMCA or Church, or Temple or Mosque?
It would be very supportive to do it at Supervisor Horvath's church.
One great idea: How about during a public meeting? Instead of public comment.
Character Hardly Counts: Picking Winners!
Thomas Girardi, a judge found last week, was cunning and ultimately not so demented that he could avoid standing trial for being a totally depraved lunatic criminal who embezzled his own clients' money.
Paul Krekorian spotted Girardi's talent early on and in 2015, he and master blaster Herb Wesson conspired to honor Girardi with a City Council Resolution. It's a pre-indictment collectors' item.
After Girardi was disbarred two years ago, the State Bar of California reported it had received 205 complaints against him alleging that he misappropriated settlement money, abandoned clients, and committed other serious ethical violations over the course of his four-decade career.
Girardi Keese, famous for representing plaintiffs in large-scale civil litigation against major corporations, collapsed in late 2020 after Girardi was accused in a Chicago lawsuit of embezzling money meant for clients the firm was representing in litigation over an airline crash in Indonesia.
Starbuckies Museum of Narrative Art™
More than two years into a campaign that has unionized more than 350 Starbucks stores, the struggle continues.
Starbucks has taken steps to address workers' complaints about being overstretched in stores.
The company told workers two weeks after the strike that shift supervisors, who are union members, and managers would soon be able to pause mobile orders using an iPad app. Starbucks said that it hadn’t altered its policy on pausing mobile orders, a significant source of revenue, and that shift supervisors continued to need manager approval to do so. The company said that it was simply adding technology to help stores pause orders more efficiently and that the change had been in the works for months.
After a plea from union members, a nonprofit group rescinded an award naming Mellody Hobson, the Starbucks chairwoman, one of its "25 Mentors of the Year."
Hobson may be on the hot seat, but the folks in LA County are going to insist that the first museum to focus exclusively on visual storytelling through images that will connect us and help shape a more just society, be open to the public for FREE.
The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art™ should have a ZERO admittance fee, like The Hammer that remains FREE for good.
Ring Size Matters:
I have consistently applauded the LA Times On The Record newsletter. Because ...
OK, I have been both critical and supportive...
There was a piece on Saturday that had UFLAC, the Fire union that represents L.A. city firefighters pumping more than $400,000 in campaign materials to promote its favored candidates.
I couldn't understand how the Times managed to leave out that Ethan Weaver a challenger has an UFLAC endorsement.
Why would they do that? Only mention the incumbents?
I haven't studied his CD4 candidacy of Mr. Weaver closely but he claims to be the guy who will “...fight to eliminate red tape.”
I thought I received a magnet or maybe a sticker from UFLAC about Weaver, in the shape of a yellow fire hat.
Before running for CD4 Weaver worked as a Deputy City Attorney and neighborhood prosecutor. I assume he still does.
"Ethan recognizes the homelessness crisis and public safety emergencies our city confronts every day (are Nithya Raman's fault.)" He says he will demand real accountability and get actual results while fully funding public safety to improve emergency response, reduce crime and improve neighborhood security.
Oy.
This is why nearly 3,400 dedicated firefighters and paramedics of United Firefighters Los Angeles City Local 112 are proud to endorse Ethan Weaver for LA City Council District 4.
The Times buried the lead. The video that they made for Heather Hutt wasn't authorized by or coordinated with her candidacy or any committee controlled by her, but she must have been very happy.
In other UFLAC news, thanks to resident Matt McNicholas (and workplace attorney). Last week, he announced the formation of the UFLAC - McNicholas & McNicholas, LLP Education Scholarship Fund which will distribute $50,000 to support higher education efforts of UFLAC children.
Smart Speaker: Isn't he the attorney who keeps suing the city over and over again re LAPD and LAFD harassment, discrimination, and retaliation but nothing ever changes? And doesn't Krekorian take donations from him and does he still have a commemorative fire-axe on his waiting room wall?
Incidentally, any members of the LAFD thinking about retirement. TAKE NOTE: UFLAC gives all retirees either a retirement ring or a retirement axe. You can choose which one you’d like to receive as a gift. If you choose to receive both, you will be responsible to pay for $225 for the ring. Ring size matters.
(Eric Preven is a longtime community activist and is a contributor to CityWatch. The opinions are of Mr. Preven and not necessarily those of CityWatchLA.com.)
