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ERIC PREVEN’S NOTEBOOK - Two of presumably more Fiscal Year 2025-26 budget presentations will take place on Tuesday and Wednesday, with department heads presenting their requests to the Board of Supervisors as required by Measure G (approved in Nov. 2024).
Each day’s presentations have been lumped into a single item, meaning seven departments will share one public comment period—allowing roughly one or mayble two minutes per department.
Tuesday: Beaches and Harbors, Child Support Services, Military and Veterans Affairs, Agricultural Commission/Weights and Measures, Museum of Art, and Natural History Museum.
Wednesday: Fire, Consumer and Business Affairs, Aging and Disabilities, Animal Care and Control, Medical Examiner, Arts and Culture, and Human Resources.
Seven departments, one minute? Meaningful oversight or -- "Your time has expired."
Out In The Field:
The city council claims they don’t want long public meetings because they need to be "out in the field." So, we filed a Public Records Act request for their schedules. Only six members complied: Monica Rodriguez, John Lee, Tim McOsker, Katy Yaroslavsky, Adrin Nazarian, and Nithya Raman. Their calendars reveal plenty of off-the-record activity—mostly with campaign donors and treasured partners.
Four members—Bob Blumenfield, Traci Park, Isabel Jurado, and Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson—asked for more time.
And then there are the no-shows: Eunisses Hernandez, Hugo Soto-Martinez, Heather Hutt, Curren Price, and Imelda Padilla. Not even a response. Shameful, really.
Raman managed to attend an SCAQMD meeting virtually, so why not virtual public comment at city committees and meetings? Ok for me, not for thee. Her January 16th park meeting? No mention of which park. Her January 30th helicopter tour? Also off the books. She met HR&A Advisors (twice!), first solo, then with City Hall "mesmerizer" John Wickham—a key player in the Englander-era TOT giveaway program. A cozy chat with Matt Szabo and a Wall Street Journal interview round out her calendar.
Nazarian’s calendar? A meeting with big donor Grand Oganesyan, a 90-minute lunch with Michael Weinstein of AIDS Healthcare Foundation (or was it another Weinstein?), and a New York trip from January 20-24.
John Lee? A $900 donor surprise call and an LA Leader cocktail hour with the Jewish Federation.
McOsker? The man never stops. Meetings with Dan & Jason Ironi, Phillips 66, MLK Shabbat, port PD roll call, LAW 360 Pulse, Sneaker Ball, Lunar New Year Festival, Toast & Roast for Mike Lansing, Celebration of Life for Lynn Soto. On January 29, he met TraPac Inc. and whistleblower John Vidovich. Get some rest, Sir.
Rodriguez? The McDonald's mobile truck (easy), media interviews with La Nueva, Univision, Rolling Stone, NYT, Spanish media engagement, a Korean American Federation visit, and a €11,000 hotel bill from Paris. Wow!
Yaroslavsky? Giddy over a Gidi Cohen meeting. January 30th, she pioneered “busy blocks” on her calendar—redaction-proof. Meetings with big Bass donor Linda May, a two-hour full staff retreat, and virtual chats with Trutanich allies. Plus, a full hour with "Organizers." Which ones?
Public comment was canceled so they could be “out in the field.” The question is: whose field are they really in?
“We Didn’t Read Your Comment”
To the tune of "We didn't start the Fires"
Opinion Desk in Disarray:
A question has arisen: Has the Los Angeles Times Opinion Desk replaced Linda, the longtime office manager? Does anyone read Oped submissions?
I submitted a time-sensitive article last Thursday regarding the prior week’s City Council agenda and requested a quick rejection if it wasn’t of interest. Silence.
I tried multiple channels—email, phone, direct outreach. Nothing. Not even a confirmation of receipt.
Does the Op-Ed page no longer acknowledge submissions? Is this new policy or just neglect?
Terry Tang and Susan Brenneman are terrific, obviously, but what is the secret code?
G is For Get Them Out of Here:
G is also for Groat.
An Angeleno concerned about fires or housing or the immigration crackdown checks the City Council’s website to comment—only to find the Regular Meeting canceled. Disappointed but assuming the council will be out in the district doing God's work, they accidentally discover a Special Meeting agenda. At first glance, it seems like a mere glitch in the system—you see the cancellation, but not the special meeting that replaces it. As Jim Newton once observed, when government stumbles, it’s usually incompetence rather than malice. An innocent, if slightly repressive, oversight? That’s what an ordinary Angeleno might think.
Hardly. This is a feature, not a bug. It's all by design. I’ve spent too many years tracking local government, and I can confirm that this is fully intentional and an integral part of the public deflavorization playbook. I won a court case ensuring that Special Meeting items must be open for public comment, but agencies aren’t required to take general comments. Bingo. That’s the loophole they exploit.
This Friday’s Special Meeting of the LA City Council is a textbook example of procedural manipulation—bureaucratic sleight of hand that will be recognized as overt acts by Marqueece Harris-Dawson. Without public scrutiny, the Council will keep pulling these stunts and the Smart Speakers who call them out? They’re muted. G is for Get Them Out of Here Quickly.
The Council canceled its Regular Meeting, ensuring no general public comment could be made, and then posted a Special Meeting just this morning—concealing its true intent through a deceptive scheduling trick. This is how an ordinary Angeleno, even a highly engaged one, is likely to miss it. Here’s a screen recording demonstrating exactly how it happens.
Thinning the crowd at city hall...
And it’s not just the city. Next Wednesday, the LA County Board of Supervisors will hold its own Special Meeting as a requirement of Measure G that passed by a slim margin, where seven departments—Fire, Consumer and Business Affairs, Aging and Disabilities, Animal Care and Control, Medical Examiner, Arts and Culture, and Human Resources—will be lumped into a single item. One comment period for seven agencies? Will they allow more than one minute per speaker, or will this be yet another exercise in performative governance, where input is reduced to background noise?
Despite this meeting being a week away, no presentations have been submitted. Supervisors like Holly Mitchell perform accountability while deliberately sowing confusion and promoting iykyk backchannels. Transparency? Not really.
This all comes as Measure G—better dubbed "Get Them Out of Here" rather than "Good Government"—takes effect. Its true impact remains to be seen, but if the current trajectory is any indication, it will serve as yet another tool for the Board to consolidate power and stifle opposition.
Let’s be clear: this isn’t governance—it’s political theater, scripted to look like accountability but staged to avoid it. A spectacle designed to pacify, distract, and ultimately silence the people these officials claim to serve. Public participation is not a privilege to be rationed; it is a fundamental right. Whether it’s through canceling meetings, obscuring agendas, or limiting comment periods, these so-called progressives are proving to be anything but.
And this assault on public participation couldn’t come at a worse time. With real concerns about opportunism and equity, even Rick Caruso has been railing against dysfunction. His latest screed exposes how private sector intervention is now seen as the only way forward, given the bureaucratic chokehold on crisis response. Even Caruso—who profits from the idea that the private sector can fix government failures—can’t ignore the mess. When billionaires and watchdogs agree, you know it’s bad.
Some might think this is all an innocent mistake. Government employees are public servants, not aerospace engineers. But remember: the city farms this out to private software helpers who follow the City Clerk’s lead. This isn’t just bureaucratic incompetence—it’s a calculated page from the national political playbook: obfuscate, restrict, and silence under the guise of regular order.
Angelenos have a choice: let their voices be erased, or force their way back into the conversation.
History rewards those who resist. Angelenos must decide: will they be spectators to their own silencing, or will they force their way back into the conversation?
SoCal Edison’s Customer Service Failure and the $10,000 Power Scam
Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors Meeting 2/4/25
Neither protector Lindsey Horvath nor Mark Pestrella's County Waterworks have been able to assist an elderly resident in need.
Southern California Edison has its hands full—wildfires, infrastructure failures, and now, a massive customer service failure that let an elderly woman be billed over $5,000 for electricity she never used.
The only way to reach an actual human at Edison? Declare an emergency. Turns out, we were right to do so.
What we uncovered was fraud hiding in plain sight: Joseph Campion and his Trust's conflicted attorney Marsha Madorsky at Duane Morris LLP in Florida had installed a new air conditioner for a condo owned by a Trust—but instead of wiring it to his own meter, he had it hooked up to my elderly mother’s meter. For 22 months, Edison kept sending letters about her "high usage compared to neighbors." In reality, she was subsidizing Campion’s cooling bill.
A rare, competent SoCal Edison technician came out, confirmed what we suspected, and told us we had the right to demand a correction—though it would require an electrician and more out-of-pocket costs. $700 later, order was restored.
Campion, however, refused to take responsibility. Instead of simply paying what he owed, he hired an incompetent attorney to deny everything, offering a bizarre distraction about a gas water heater. And where was Duane Morris LLP, a national law firm smart enough to know better?
Exploiting the wealth of someone who, in the kindest terms, has demonstrated very poor judgment.
Meanwhile, Edison has gone radio silent. The technician who originally helped? Nowhere to be found. Repeated calls have been ignored.
As if this weren’t bad enough, the LA County Waterworks system—run by the “brilliant” Mark Pestrella—is also failing. Because of Campion’s ongoing nonpayment issues, my mother’s water is repeatedly shut off, forcing us to pay reinstatement fees for a bill that isn’t ours.
Enough is enough. Southern California Edison ought to step up and intervene. There is no excuse for letting an elderly woman be exploited for nearly two years. Fix the billing, enforce accountability, and stop protecting abusers of the system. If they don’t, it may be time to involve the Justice Integrity Division of the "greatest District Attorney’s office in America."
Well…
Let’s see if they care more than Edison does.
