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ERIC PREVEN’S NOTEBOOK - Picture this: Los Angeles County tees up a golden chance on Item 19—three public golf assets that could be run with labor fairness, open books, and real competition. Instead, we yank it into the weeds, gifting American Golf Corporation a 15-year runway that looks less like a public win than a private layup. I’m your caddie through the fairways of folly; let’s unpack why this stings and how we fix the swing.
The main event was a long lease letting American Golf—backed in the Drive Shack orbit—keep running El Cariso, Victoria, and Lakewood Country Club & Tennis. This wasn’t “no competition,” it was worse: a bundled package that all but guaranteed the incumbent an inside track. Scale is the moat. When one operator controls tee sheets, carts, ranges, banquets, and a slick “Players Club” that juices discounts and comps, mid-sized bidders don’t show. The County gets a slice, sure—but without course-by-course gross receipts (greens, carts, range, banquets, comps/memberships) published annually, we’re trusting a fox to guard the henhouse. Long Beach has waved red flags on this model for years. Why are we still playing blind?
Supervisor Lindsey P. Horvath investing $10M tk. CPRA lodged for how Supervisors' spend year-to-year.
Supervisor Janice Hahn took the right swing: enforce Policy 5.290 and require a Labor Peace Agreement. An LPA is not a union mandate; it’s a stability pact—no strikes, no lockouts—on public land. Parks Director Norma García-González told the Board that American Golf “will not accept” an LPA and that adding it after 18 months of talks might spook their banquet-hall math. Translation: the operator wants certainty for itself and wiggle room on labor. Four colleagues—Solis, Mitchell, Horvath, Barger—abstained on the LPA attempt. Then the base lease sailed through, 4–1, Hahn the lone “no.” That’s not policy; that’s a whiff.
Why can American Golf say no and skate? Because this is choreography, not competition. Drive Shack’s Wes Edens built a career blending private ambition with public leverage—see Brightline West and its love of public finance tools. None of that is illegal; it’s simply a reminder that sophisticated operators never leave money—or leverage—on the table. They don’t answer to LA County voters. You do.
Link to How Private Equity Found Power and Profit in State Capitols.
So let’s stop pretending the banquet halls are too “fragile” for basic public protections. If margins are thin, that’s the moment to hard-wire public benefit: floor rents, clear revenue-share definitions, caps on comps without pre-approval, and audits with teeth. If labor peace is County policy in 2021, it’s County policy now—bake it into the next RFP as pass/fail, don’t try last-minute heroics. Unbundle where practical so real competitors can bid one site at a time. Set a mid-term gate—year eight—before options kick in, and hold a public check on fees, course conditions, actual cap-ex, water use, youth programs, and worker protections. And publish the numbers, line by line, every year. If an operator won’t play ball on labor or transparency, rebid the thing.
Public land isn’t a gift to private equity; it’s ours. The Board’s message today—four abstentions on labor peace, then a green light for the lease—was par for the County course: almost right. Almost doesn’t pay the public. Keep your head down, finish the swing, and next time hit the green.
Who’s to Blame? (Sanitation edition)
Adrin Nazarian (CD2) replaced Paul Krekorian, who is upstairs.
Former Council President Paul Krekorian likes to style himself as Los Angeles’ Olympic steward, collecting nearly $300,000 a year to polish the city for 2028. But remember the résumé behind the title. On January 12, 2011, then-Council President Eric Garcetti appointed Krekorian chair of Budget & Finance—a perch he held for more than a decade. From that chair he signed off on the very cuts and deals that left our streets filthy and our balance sheet bleeding. He presided over the slow-motion gutting of Los Angeles Sanitation, the outsourcing of commercial waste to Waste Management, Republic, and Athens under the RecycLA franchise—locking in profits for private haulers while illegal dumping complaints exploded—and the buildup of the city’s festering liabilities, from police settlements to infrastructure lawsuits.
Crosstown’s data dives and Jaime Paige’s reporting have been ringing the bell; even Westside Current’s sanitation coverage keeps asking the obvious: who’s accountable? Now the architect of those budgets is the self-described Olympics czar, promising a spotless showcase for international fans while whole neighborhoods wade through trash. Thank you, Mr. Krekorian, for your “stewardship.” The fan zones may gleam in 2028, but the rest of Los Angeles is still paying the price for the budgets you balanced on our backs.
MICLA on a Prayer
Across the hall, Budget & Finance took up the Convention Center expansion and the bonds to float it. Staff admitted the big wobbles: signage revenue haircut, DWP power-cost shock, and a razor-thin Olympic timeline. AEG’s name is on the brochure but steps back at contract time RED FLAG; the city steps forward with MICLA and decades of General Fund payments. The official refrain—“we wait, the price goes up”—is a pressure tactic, not a pro forma. If this pencils, show audited revenues without miracle billboards, real contingency for real risks, and a schedule buffer you could drive a Zamboni through.
City Clerk: Next Speaker.
Nella McOsker: Good afternoon. Nella Mcosker, Central City Association. We’re here today in strong support of one of the most important investments in the future of our city: the Convention Center. It’s a project that will put people to work and boost our restaurants, hotels, and small businesses. The need is clear. The alignment is exceptional at this moment—business, labor, residents, community. The concept is uncontested and unopposed. But we’ve been going round and round for years without a groundbreaking. We’re mired in process instead of results. The action of inaction has become too common.
Let’s roll back the clock on this very specific project:
2010: Farmers Field + new Convention Center — $1.4B. Abandoned.
2016: Scaled-down modernization — $720M. Didn’t happen.
2019: An even better project than the one we’re looking at now, with all the elements the city wanted — $1.1B.
2024: $2.2B.
Today: $2.5B.
The increases are largely on the City side. The price tag will not go down. If we continue to wait, we shortchange ourselves.
Let’s put thousands of people to work during construction—and permanently—through the massive influx of conventions we will finally be able to host. Let’s signal that the City of Los Angeles can manage and maintain its assets and leverage their potential for workers, residents, small businesses, and our tax base. Let’s turn inaction into action.
Thank you.
Speed Camera Slow Down
Katy Yaroskavsky (CD5) and Marqueece Harris-Dawson (CD8).
Transportation (Hutt, Park, Hernandez) hosted the politest hostility session in city history. Two years after AB 645 created a six-city speed-camera pilot, LADOT is… kicking off a consultant, maybe piggybacking Oakland’s contract, or else doing a full RFP. Map ~200 sites, narrow to ~125, hold meetings, publish the use policy, 60-day warning period, then real tickets—maybe late 2026 if everything breaks right. Meanwhile, collections are down because L.A. isn’t booting/towing like the “good old days,” and the backlog is ballooning. Hernandez drilled privacy (tight retention, narrow access). Park asked the obvious: why are we still talking procurement after two years? Smiles on the dais, steam from the ears. Tick, tock—pilot sunsets in 2032.
CEQA Sermon
Olympic Sailing Events enthusiast Tim McOsker of CD15, with former Joe Buscaino beaming in the pews.
Tim McOsker went full prosecutor on UNITE HERE over their appeal: “This is Exhibit A for what CEQA abuse looks like. You ought to be ashamed of yourselves. It stops right here.” Cut to Joe Buscaino grinning in the pews.
Split-Screen, Harbor Edition. Janice Hahn moves to help UNITE HERE with a labor-peace requirement; Tim McOsker scolds UNITE HERE over a CEQA appeal. Longtime allies, opposite ends of the same union fight.
What’s the project? A mid-size live-music/event venue on the LA Waterfront at West Harbor (San Pedro)—community concerts and summer shows—not a stadium-act factory. So no, it’s not “Beyoncé big”; it’s “San Pedro big,” and more than big enough for McOsker’s festive LA28-adjacent sail-week tie-ins and waterfront programming.
The surreal juxtaposition: earlier the same day, McOsker cheered a Convention Center financing hail-mary; by afternoon, he was blasting workers for using CEQA. Sermons about “delay” are a lot easier than numbers about debt.
So...
Transportation is slow-walking a life-saving pilot. Budget & Finance is flirting with a generational debt bet on a ticking clock. And the CEQA homily tries to hush the workers who asked for better. If you want a north star, it’s simple: fewer deaths, fewer payouts, fewer fairy-tale revenue streams. Build what pencils now. Park where it’s fair now. Save the sermons for Sunday. And maybe don’t clap from the pews while the collection plate is the General Fund.
Harvard-Westlake Update: I’m (possibly)switching sides.
In early September 2025, the Wolverines started 1–2—edged by Palisades 37–34, then handled by Venice 17–3. And as a proud Studio City resident, I can’t allow this humiliating defeat. Therefore, effective immediately, I’m pro-bulldozer, pro-$160 million sports complex, pro-whatever-it-takes. Fell the trees, erect the colossus, measure the sprint times in nanoseconds—if it turns Ls into Ws, I’m probably a booster now.
Do I oppose private-equity pillaging of Studio City by our Harvard-Westlake overlords? Historically, yes. But after back-to-back gut punches, I’m embracing a new philosophy: if you can’t beat ’em, let them build a performance lab with a zip code. If Rick Commons can’t deliver wins, then get him out of here. The Wolverines’ GDP, by the way, now ranks right behind the United States, China, and—breaking news—Harvard-Westlake and subsidiary LLCs are at #5 on the global wealth table.
Not in Studio City, you say? Exactly—in Studio City. We are allergic to losing. So congratulations, Harvard-Westlake: I’m (possibly) officially flipping. Hand me a foam finger and point me toward the ribbon cutting.
Keepers of Memory, Keepers of Peace
Every culture has a keeper of memory—the griot in West Africa, the elder or political activist in the American West. When that voice is silenced, the bridge between past and future trembles, and a divided community may struggle to carry its own story. Yet we must rise beyond anger, ending gun violence and rejecting political violence in every form. As Robert F. Kennedy said after Dr. King’s assassination: “Let us replace the violence and the stain of bloodshed that has spread across our land, with an effort to understand with compassion and love.” May we answer loss with that compassion, so all of our stories endure.
(Eric Preven is a Studio City-based television writer-producer, award-winning journalist, and longtime community activist. He is known for his sharp commentary on transparency and accountability in local government. Eric successfully brought and won two landmark open government cases in California, reinforcing the public’s right to know. A regular contributor to CityWatch, he combines investigative insight with grassroots advocacy to shine a light on civic issues across Los Angeles.)
