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ERIC PREVEN’S NOTEBOOK - Jonathan Groat, Deputy City Attorney: Okay, good afternoon. You have three minutes for the items and one minute for general. Please begin with the items. Go ahead.
Smart Speaker: Okay, well, the closed session stuff was like $8 million, and it was rammed right through all those settlements, including one for $3 million. I just wish the public had a chance to—
Jonathan Groat, Deputy City Attorney: Mr. Preven, you're welcome to talk about this during general public comment, but the settlements are not open for public comment. That hearing was held at BFI.
Smart Speaker: All right, why don't you clarify which items are open, because it was extremely confusing. Which ones are open for today? You had like nine amendments to Item 23.
Jonathan Groat, Deputy City Attorney: This is—we've said this repeatedly. The items that are open for public comment are 25 through 29 and 31 through 36.
Smart Speaker: Okay, well, certainly, we see the Jedi zones in Item 36. I'm happy to talk about the American Rescue Plan and how that went. It was so helpful at the time. But Blumenfield got a little frothy with getting folks out of city government. So we had to struggle with getting people back, retention—you know, we were laying out very exciting Separation Incentive Programs (SIP) to get people out.
And I want to say thanks to the Transit Occupancy Tax team (TOT), including PJ Shemtoob, for noting that, yes, we actually collected more this year than last year despite the spin. We didn't reach our frothy, irrational expectations for the TOT, but the cash register is working.
But for those who live in the districts—CD2, CD4, downtown, and all over—hotels charge guests a transit occupancy tax, and they are supposed to pay it to the city.
Jonathan Groat, Deputy City Attorney: Mr. Preven, we've been as polite as possible. This is your only warning. Please stick to the agenda items. Item 23 is not open for public comment. You can speak to it in general if you'd like.
Smart Speaker: Thank you, Groat. I'm talking about economic development in Item 36. I'm talking about Item 36 and economic development, sir.
Jonathan Groat, Deputy City Attorney: Please tie it to Item 36. Go ahead.
Smart Speaker: Point of order. Council President, would you please restrain Mr. Groat during my public comments? I know you guys go out of your way to block sharp critics from speaking. It's well after noon, for the record. I have been waiting patiently for a long time. Groat and Ysaguiree simply have to stay silent during the speakers' time. You've been warned already.
Jonathan Groat, Deputy City Attorney: You're now in general public comment. Can you please start his time for one minute?
Smart Speaker: Yeah, I'm going to general public comment and continue to tell the story about how the transit occupancy tax is a great tool until a council member from the district settles a whopping TOT lawsuit. Why? Because Richard Weintraub REW LLC at the Sportsman's Lodge had to be sued. If the city doesn't go after him for not paying, Krekorian can't cut his bill by nearly half a million.
Now, a few years later, 190 hotel rooms are going to disappear to make expensive market-rate luxury housing. Huh? That's exactly what we don't need—the opposite of Wednesday's apparently hollow presentation.
A massive luxury apartment complex with 520 rentals, 78 of which are very low income affordable is planned on the site of a charming 190 room mid century modern hotel. Shame!
Councilmember Nithya Raman and Hugo Soto-Martinez, you fought alongside Unite Here 1... so why?
As a city, we are leading the country in public interruptions, but when it comes to sticking up for Angelenos and hotel workers...?
A Legacy of Kicking the Can:
On Wednesday, the Los Angeles City Council convened for another exercise in obfuscation and delay, this time centered on Item 23, the proposed wage increases for hotel and airport workers. Once again, the council's Kabuki theater was on full display, with members quibbling over consultants, procedural delays, and incomplete data, instead of addressing the core issue. What’s clear is this: the council isn’t ready to take a definitive stance, and the usual suspects—Bob Blumenfield, John Lee, and Tracy Park—led the chorus of doom, warning of economic fallout, while worker advocates like Hugo Soto-Martinez and Nithya Raman tried to hold their ground.
The Berkeley Economic Advising and Research (BEAR) analysis didn’t show up in person, handing critics like Park and Lee a golden opportunity to slam their work as "shoddy." City staff were grilled over TOT revenue, inflated numbers from city-funded programs, and the broader economic impact of the wage hike, but clarity was elusive. Doane Liu from the Tourism Department and Sharon Tso from the CLA also bore the brunt of council members’ frustrations.
Meanwhile, the ghost of Sportsman’s Lodge hovered ominously over Studio City, a reminder of past TOT shenanigans and the council’s tendency to prioritize developer profits over community needs. It’s a pattern as predictable as it is infuriating.
The Sportsman’s Lodge Scandal – The Bait-and-Switch Edition:
Smart Speaker: Gather 'round, kids, under the shade of Studio City's grandest old tree—
CD4 (formerly CD2) Child: The trees have been cut down, sir.
Smart Speaker: Of course, they have. There, there. That’s okay... Kids, just around the corner from Beeman Park and the Weddington Golf and Tennis center—currently being decimated by the elite Harvard Westlake School—stood the nicest hotel in the valley, maybe the world. Ronald Reagan once had a burger by its pool. Wiped out now—alongside every shred of community trust—thanks to the gargantuan Sportsman’s Lodge redevelopment project.
What started as a glowing promise of local revitalization has become a towering monument to greed. That historic hotel—a supposed critical piece of TOT (Transient Occupancy Tax) revenue—is heading for a landfill, buried under layers of political deceit spun by Paul Krekorian, Eric Garcetti, Adrin Nazarian, and a supporting cast of swindlers worthy of Zhang Yingyu’s Book of Swindles.
TOT Forgiveness and the Firehouse Fire Sale
Remember how LA officials swore up and down about the city's dire need for hotel rooms to keep up with soaring demand and to boost TOT revenue? Apparently, that need evaporated during the TOT forgiveness spree, where developers were given carte blanche to destroy Studio City’s cherished institutions. Under Paul Krekorian’s leadership, the city granted Sportsmen’s Hotel REW, LLC significant tax breaks, settling $1.1 million in unpaid Transient Occupancy Taxes, Parking Occupancy Taxes, and Business Taxes in 2013 while waiving over $400,000 in penalties. Then, the firehouse, sold for pennies to Richard Weintraub, who promptly laundered it to Midwood. Adrin Nazarian—the new CD2 rep—deserves credit for his silent facilitation. Obviously, his wife running Office of Finance has nothing to do with anything. "Right, but why was he at the ribbon cutting?" Get him out of hiere. Meanwhile, Nithya Raman threw up her hands and did nothing.
Project Roomkey and the $500K Renovationless Renovation
Sportsman’s Lodge also scored nearly $500,000 in so-called renovation monies after its stint in the city’s Project Roomkey program. Where did the money go? Nowhere near renovations. Instead, Studio City got the Bait-and-Switch special: funds vanished alongside Midwood’s promises of a community-minded hotel project. This wasn’t just about nixing a beloved hotel with hundreds of Unite Here workers. It’s also an upper-level seminar in faux-environmental reviews and bogus Conditional Use permits. Thanks to Tina Choi, Dave Rand, Brad Rosenheim...and so many others.
Ventura Boulevard: Widened, Eyes Narrowing
The public benefit? Ventura Boulevard was to be widened. But poof! That requirement disappeared, along with $100,000 in “fees” that wafted into the hands of Englander Knabe & Allen. Tina Choi, Midwood’s fixer extraordinaire, deserves a lifetime achievement award in disappearing conditions. Where Were Studio City’s Protectors? Paul Krekorian? MIA when it mattered most, both figuratively and literally. Adrin Nazarian? Smiling at ribbon cuttings while quietly calculating TOT manipulations. Nithya Raman? Voting yes while glancing off wistfully. Meanwhile, Eric Garcetti, Richard Weintraub, and the city’s "worst" finest (Steve Afriat RIP) laughed their way to the bank. Even Erewhon—the overpriced kale king—is suing Midwood over this fiasco. When Erewhon has had enough, you know something’s rotten in Studio City.
Midwood’s Legacy: Deception and Disdain
Midwood CEO John Usdan turned his grandfather’s Manhattan dreams into a lesson in monetizing deceit. The bait-and-switch may be an old trick, but Usdan’s version is optimized for maximum ROI. Kudos, John. Grandpa must be spinning in his grave.
Bottomline, City Council of Los Angeles Cannot Be Trusted. The Sportsman’s Lodge saga is a cautionary tale. Every objection raised by Studio City’s so-called “most annoying people” (a title bestowed by Weintraub himself) was dismissed under false pretenses. Every promise? A mirage. Paul Krekorian, whose legacy of blocking public comments rivals the number of bad Yelp reviews for this project, now heads for the exit, leaving behind a tanker in flames.
Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson, meanwhile, has developed citywide respect—from all the wrong people—by shoving items through PLUM ignorantly and arrogantly. And small fry Jonathan Groat? He’s continuously mumbling about “eligibility for defenestration” from a precarious window sill.
Controller Kenneth Mejia would or should investigate, but he's busy staffing up and noting Mayor Bass's unspent half a billion on homelessness.
(Eric Preven is a longtime community activist and is a contributor to CityWatch.)
