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ERIC PREVEN'S NOTEBOOK - The idea is that it would have been smarter to show compassion to those in more vulnerable situations while taking a tougher stance with those in positions of power—better optics all around. If I were Donald Trump, I’d have flown to Burbank and gone straight to the Eaton Fire.
Burbank is terrific and the FAA are fantastic!
Imagine: berating Mayor Karen Bass and Congressman Brad Sherman for their failures, after holding the hands of those experiencing the real human tragedy faced by those without a financial safety net. For the affluent, this disaster, though deeply personal, is ultimately manageable. For everyone else, it’s a catastrophe.
And no, Soberoff/Trump Demo & Cleanup LLC? Not even close to kosher.
A town hall to discuss recovery efforts after the Palisades and Eaton Fires? Good idea. But anyone expecting real accountability got the usual government choreography—cautious optimism, bureaucratic jargon, and a tight grip on the narrative. Officials from the EPA, Army Corps, FEMA, and LA County laid out debris removal timelines, infrastructure fixes, and, critically, when residents—especially in the Palisades—might return home.
Yes, it was livestreamed. Yes, they took questions—typed, of course. A gesture toward engagement, not transparency. Because City Hall, despite all its "listening" rhetoric, still refuses to restore call-in public comments. That suppression, not recovery, is the real crisis.
The cast of characters was predictable. Colonel Eric Swenson played the capable technocrat, explaining the complexities of government-run cleanup. Disaster-response dogs got their moment—because nothing says "trust us" like a well-timed PR boost. But behind the reassuring tones lurked the real questions:
Who gets back first? Who gets left behind? And more importantly—who decides?
Mayor Karen Bass and Councilmember Traci Park vowed to fight for residents’ return while simultaneously endorsing the most draconian rollback of public input in recent memory. If they really cared about giving and getting information, why are they still blocking remote public comments at City Hall?
Bass and Park should take their speeches back to council chambers and fix Harris-Dawson’s blunder. Reinstate public call-ins. The public is the first line of defense against fraud—and silencing them only serves those looking to cash in on disaster.
Speaking of fraud: Brad Sherman said private cleanup costs could run $170,000 per property. In LA, that’s an invitation for mega fraud. History proves it—Hurricane Katrina saw $2 billion in fraudulent claims. Hurricane Sandy? 5% fraud, including NYC falsely claiming damages for 132 vehicles. And Los Angeles? A city where insider deals are an art form? Without oversight, disaster recovery turns into a feeding frenzy.
This brings us to the Covington & Burling report on county contracting fraud. Where is it? Supervisors Lindsey Horvath and Kathryn Barger should invoke emergency authority and release it, stat—before LA embarks on yet another boondoggle of unchecked spending and sweetheart deals.
This town hall made one thing clear: Recovery isn’t just about rebuilding homes—it’s about rebuilding trust. Angelenos should be watching for line-cutters with deep pockets, backroom dealers, and the usual suspects who treat disaster as a payday.
Until oversight is restored—both in contracting and public meetings—every promise should be taken with the skepticism of a resident who’s seen this movie before.
Mayor Bass, if you want to help, start by listening.
How Dare She? The Musical
The curtain rises on the John Ferraro Council Chamber, Room 340, a place where the performances are endless, the scripts are ever-changing, and the audience—well, the audience is usually disrupting the meeting.
Enter Holly Wolcott, our leading lady, the City Clerk who never met a tough decision she couldn’t punt upstairs, a procedural roadblock she couldn’t polish into something palatable, or a moment of public outrage she couldn’t dismiss with a well-timed smirk.
The City Council will take public comment from members of the public in the Council chamber and also by teleconference.
She played her role with precision—a cordial bureaucrat, never raising her voice ("objection, your honor!"), never making a scene ("objection, your honor!"), yet somehow managing to undercut transparency at every turn. "Not my job," she’d say with a practiced shrug, "Talk to Council President Wesson. Or Krekorian." Always the dutiful ensemble member, never the protagonist. A performer who perfected the art of following stage directions, as long as those directions came from people with more power than she had.
Her final act was vintage Wolcott. As the lights dimmed on her 37-year career, she took a moment to address the audience—those pesky members of the public who had dared to challenge the integrity of her office—and delivered her farewell zinger:
"Gosh, I’m so tempted to flip them off."
Ah, the mark of a true public servant.
She leaves behind a legacy of impeccable timing—timing signatures for invalidation, timing agenda items so the public couldn’t weigh in, and, of course, perfectly timing her own exit before the final reviews came in.
Consider, for example, her grand number on initiative signature verification, where she helped usher in a $600,000 production budget to hire "checkers" whose role, conveniently, would be to invalidate as many petition signatures as possible—without transparency, without oversight. The City Clerk’s office is tasked with reviewing signatures for ballot measures.
So, does the Clerk’s office welcome observers to this critical process? Do they allow the public to see firsthand how the wheels turn?
Of course not.
That’s a backstage operation, and you? You’re just the audience. "This is your first and final warning."
But let’s not forget her show-stopping performance in "The War on Paper Agendas." Across California, municipal clerks routinely provide physical copies of meeting agendas, ensuring the public can see and follow the proceedings. It’s not controversial. It’s standard.
But not in Holly’s Los Angeles.
She followed the cues of Herb Wesson, Mitchell Englander, and Nury Martinez, stripping public meetings of paper agendas and leaving the public scrambling to keep up. She fought hard to ensure that something as basic as knowing what was on the agenda became a battle.
The critics weighed in—twelve out of twelve municipal clerks across the state confirmed that paper agendas were standard in their jurisdictions.
"Yes, they are on public racks at the entrance to the Council Chamber."
"Correct, paper agendas are available at the meeting and electronic agendas are available online."
"Yes, we have a table in the front of the Council Chamber that has agendas and the staff reports."
But in Los Angeles? The show had different rules.
In the end, Holly was nothing if not a consummate professional. She never questioned the script, never went off-book, always took direction. And while she never quite landed a starring role, she was always there, a steady supporting player in the City Hall ensemble.
And now, she takes her final bow, pension in hand, slipping quietly into retirement.
Did she ever stand up for what was right? Did she ever challenge the real power players? Did she ever use her position to make the show a little better?
No. But she did deliver every line with precision.
And for Holly, that was enough.
The show must go on.
How dare she?
Metro Restroom Inquisition:
Smart Speaker: Thank you. It’s Eric Preven from Studio City, and I want to thank the first speaker for their passion.
Now, I want to make sure that Directors Yaroslavsky and Horvath go back and tell Harris-Dawson that cutting public comment and eliminating call-in testimony? Not cool. That has to be changed.
I do appreciate that Stefanie Wiggins came up with the idea to lift fares for a period of time. Of course, that might have something to do with the fact that officers were otherwise engaged. And I also enjoyed the discussion led by Horvath about armed librarians—right in line with Hahn’s pledge to put a psychiatrist on every bus.
But let’s talk about priorities. With nearly $25 million going to community intervention specialists today, can we at least get a couple of restrooms?
Better yet, I’d like to propose that Mayor Butts be put in charge of Metro’s restroom committee—since Intuit Dome, in his territory, has managed to install a restroom every fifteen feet while raking in billions of dollars in alcohol-related revenue. This could be a great program. After all, if the Intuit Dome has 1,400 restrooms and the entire Metro system has… six, maybe there’s a lesson to be learned here.
So instead of spending $17.39 million on advertising and $24.92 million on consultants, what if we banked that money and provided some basic human necessities? Metro riders shouldn’t have to cross their fingers and hope for a terminal station just to find a restroom.
And before we hear the usual excuses—operating and maintenance costs, security concerns, the same tired arguments—let’s be real. People need restrooms. Riders, workers, everyone. And if Intuit Dome can figure it out, Metro can too.
Lindsey Horvath, SD3 – Item 13: Beverly Hills North Portal Project
If City of Beverly Hills and Metro agree not to pursue the North Portal Project, both parties must evenly share the cost incurred to date per the settlement agreement. The total cost incurred to date by both parties is approximately $10,370,000 (Attachment 3) and the City would pay Metro approximately $2,554,000 (the difference between the 50% cost and what the City has expended so far on the EIR and design).
Supervisor Lindsey Horvath: Based on the report and the conversations I’ve been having with my staff, the $29.2 million will be returned to PLE 2 (Purple Line Extension Phase 2) contingency, and the remaining $10 million or so will be used to finish the work inside the stations. Is that the right apportionment of funding?
Staffer: Yes.
Horvath: Okay. And the City of Beverly Hills will be billed for half of the cost pursuant to the settlement agreement?
Staffer: Correct.
Horvath: And the settlement agreement stipulates that Metro will construct and then make available public restrooms to serve this station’s customers. So, is that work still proceeding?
Staffer: Ehhhh, following Metro policy in the washroom, so it’s not in the policy…
Horvath: So, you are waiting for the policy to apply?
Staffer: Yes.
Horvath: Which means—are there or are there not restrooms?
Staffer: Not yet.
Staffer 2: I could add a little more on that. The settlement agreement stipulated that restrooms would be provided pursuant to or conditioned upon systemwide restroom policy… The current policy framework, which has been in existence for many, many years, is that public restrooms in the stations are discouraged, with the exception of terminal locations and areas that have conditions… There are conditions where we do have them, but in this case we do not have them. So the settlement agreement does describe what could happen in the future if the Board were to decide to provide public restrooms specifically.
Horvath: Okay, I want to make sure that in those conversations, that the understanding of the other side as well—that everybody is on the same page about the status of the restrooms and how they will or won’t proceed.
Staffer: Yeah, we’re all on the same page.
Horvath: Okay. And then there was also mention made in the staff report that the Beverly Hills City Council would be potentially using funding from the portal project for a series of transit, pedestrian, and—you know—bike, all kinds of improvements!
To the Editors of the Los Angeles Times,
It is beyond unacceptable that yet again, the Los Angeles Times has deliberately gutted my point of view in a critical public discourse. The online version of the article in question quoted me directly:
"Marqueece Harris-Dawson is waging an all-out assault on public participation."
A factual and justified statement. Yet, in the print edition, my strongest quote was conveniently removed, leaving only a neutered reference to my reaction as "outrageous." This is not an accident. This is not an oversight. This is editorial malpractice.
Let’s be clear: I live in Nithya Raman’s district, and she—one of the few council members who supported restoring remote public comment—was also minimized in the print version. This was an article ostensibly about shutting out public participation, and the Times chose to mute the voices of those advocating against it.
Most egregiously, the print article describes me simply as a "regular" at City Council meetings—an intentional choice of words that aligns with the paper’s bizarre framing of public comment as a forum dominated by “people who regularly attend and deliver bigoted remarks.”
Let me make this unequivocally clear: I do not engage in bigoted remarks. The Times, by stripping my full quote and reducing my presence to a vague “regular attendee,” is playing a dangerous game—one that smears, distorts, and weakens legitimate watchdog efforts. The Times should know better.
And this is not the first time this has happened. In a particularly egregious case, the LA Times covered a landmark lawsuit that I initiated and won at the California Supreme Court—and somehow failed to mention my name. After public pressure, this was corrected. But this is a pattern. The editors at the Times have long sought to soften my impact, minimize my role, and selectively edit the public’s right to know. [Intercept]
This latest offense comes on the heels of a new (old) Times writer publishing a bizarre piece about the city’s archaic bulletin board system, conveniently failing to mention the serious rollback on public participation. The editorial choices being made are not about space constraints. They are about suppressing voices that challenge City Hall’s power.
This is super, super bad. And frankly, it is time to clean house.
The Los Angeles Times must be held accountable. I expect a response—and a correction.
Warm regards,
Eric Preven
(Eric Preven is a Studio City-based TV writer-producer, award-winning journalist, and longtime community activist who won two landmark open government cases in California.)
