Comments
ERIC PREVEN’S NOTEBOOK - This meeting’s a buffet: pets, prayers, proclamations, and perfectly timed parking forgiveness. They’re terminating two emergencies, continuing ten, hosting a $490,000 mental-health gala, and shifting “Care First” funds to jail architects. Democracy’s tasting menu, served before lunch. No wonder they canceled November 12 — the Board’s booked.
Kenneth Hahn Hall, Tuesday, October 21, 2025 — 9:30 a.m. (ish).
Pastor David Laird’s invocation kicks things off, followed by Supervisor Barger’s pet parade — think golden retrievers, applause, and a faint smell of Lysol in the rotunda.
Then comes the Budget Report. With Acting CEO Fesia Davenport out, expect Jeramy Gray or Joe Nicchita to deliver the familiar PowerPoint: “Federal and State policy changes” still shock, reimbursements lag, providers strain, and “equity” gets its contractual cameo. In County-speak: urgent but unfunded.
The Vanishing Meeting
November 12’s Board meeting is canceled — no reason, just a neat suspension of their own rules. Consider it a pre-holiday cleanse for accountability. Less governing, more gratitude.
Awww, where is Julia Wick of the Times going?
Emergencies, Forever Edition
Two emergencies end — Frigid Winter Storms and Tropical Storm Hilary finally melt away.
But ten others persist like a franchise that won’t die: Homelessness, Fruit Fly, the endless Winter Storms, Bridge and Franklin Fires, Los Padrinos, Windstorm & Critical Fire Events, the February 2025 Storm, and the Canyon Fire.
If everything’s an emergency forever, nothing is. Where’s the exit strategy?
The $490K Prevention Party
DMH’s two-day mental-health conference at the InterContinental DTLA, funded by MHSA-PEI, neatly skips the County’s expense cap. That’s ballroom rental, A/V, lighting, scenic design, and catering — the full convention-center diet.
If this is prevention, show prevention metrics tied to every catered canapé.
The $16.5 Million Outreach Mystery
Public Works’ new “On-Call Community-Based Organization Services Program” grants three vendors — Mozaic Media, Modern Times Inc., and the Santa Monica Mountains Fund — up to $16.5 million over 66 months, with room for new contractors and a 10 percent bump.
The supplemental quietly fixes a typo from “401(c)(3)” to “501(c)(3)” — because even if the deliverables are fuzzy, the tax code should be sharp.
No public list of task orders, no outcome metrics, just a long runway of “community engagement.”
Translation: press releases with snacks.
Jails First, Care Later
Ten million dollars migrate out of Care First, Jails Last and into pre-construction for the Pitchess Detention Center South renovation. Another five million goes to architects.
So the slogan flips: Jails First, Care Later — a capital project disguised as reform.
Settlements & Side Notes
Inside the consent calendar: a $3.2 million settlement for construction delays (Baker Electric v. CannonDesign), a $300,000 auto case (Flores), and a $237,500 DMH vehicle payout.
All tucked neatly behind the magic words “no reportable action.”
Supplemental Festivities
Supervisor Mitchell’s Black Surfers Collective High Tide Gala fee waiver: $455 for facilities, $720 for parking, $3,825 in receipts — all washed away retroactively.
Supervisor Horvath’s Games for All waiver: $600 in parking for inclusion.
Supervisor Solis adds a Family Caregivers Month proclamation and a Vote Center Parking Waiver ($20 per car, October 30 – November 6).
Horvath and Solis co-sponsor a motion to alert Medi-Cal recipients about asset-test changes — proof that while celebrating caregivers, someone is still checking your bank balance.
City Council Special 1: Disappearing Act
Transcript Excerpt — October 17, 2025, Los Angeles City Council
Adrin Nazarian multi-media slideshow.
Clerk: Special One motion by Councilmember Hernandez, seconded by Soto-Martínez, Rodriguez, and Jurado. A vote is needed to justify immediate action post-agenda.
Council President Harris-Dawson: We’ll vote on the findings, then hear from Hernandez. City Attorney?
City Attorney Faubl: The motion’s distributed. Unless anyone needs time, we can vote.
Council President: Roll open, vote tabulated.
City Clerk: Twelve ayes.
Council President: Public comment? [None.] Public comment closed. Hernandez?
Councilmember Hernandez:
Thank you, Council President. There have been moments that we have been confronted with a few times where decisions have felt that they’ve been made without conferring with this body. So this motion is just calling out an opportunity and a request and a direction for action not to be taken on the injunction around the September 2025 protest until we can confer with this body. And the motion has been passed around, so I don’t know if there are any questions, but thank you.
Council President:
All right, any discussion on this item, members?
"This ain't Texas..."
Council President:
I want to thank Councilmember Hernandez and the folks who signed on to this motion for bringing it to us. This is a tricky situation regarding the safety of the city, especially with this weekend coming and a big “No Kings” march that is expected. There are always lots of concerns when we have a big march in downtown LA or anywhere in the city and how law enforcement relates to that. I think the City Attorney’s offices are trying to respond to that, but as the member said, it’s appropriate for the City Attorney’s office to confer with this body — either as a whole, or with our Public Safety Committee, our Public Safety Chair, our Pro Tem, our Council President, or individual members — somebody.
And so this motion seeks to press that point to the City Attorney in a way that’s public and on the record. This does not bind our city in any way. It simply says the City Attorney needs to confer with the governing body of the city, which is the Los Angeles City Council.
Councilmember Rodriguez:
Thank you, and thank you, Ms. Hernandez, for this. I think it’s important for us to remind every elected official in this building procedurally how we need to be consulted as a legislative body that is independently elected by the people. Unfortunately, this isn’t the only level in the branch of government that has breached that responsibility. And so what I hope is that this becomes a more permanent act of this body to exercise its role in oversight — in exacting all of our responsibilities collectively to help represent this city in the best manner possible. But again, this is not the only example. This is not an isolated situation. This is a behavior that has not just been exemplified by the City Attorney, but by other executive branch activities as well. So I really hope that this is a body that will continue to now forge a path forward to exercising its authority in this role. Thank you.
Council President:
All right, seeing no other speakers on the queue, let’s open the roll on this item. Close the roll, tabulate the vote.
Smart Speaker: The motion was never read aloud — just “distributed.” Posted on a bulletin board, it dodged public scrutiny. The “emergency” was political: a Special 1 shield to chastise Hydee Feldstein Soto for siding with LAPD before Mayor Bass and Rep. Garcia’s law-and-order press conference.
Optics trumped transparency. I requested a PDF. None provided.
A vote about transparency conducted in near secrecy.
Lights, Action, Camera...
Sunshine Canyon & the Snack Economy
Smart Speaker: Item nine — the Sunshine Canyon CD12 discretionary fund giveaway.
Item ten — Public Safety Committee moves to second and fourth Wednesdays at 2:30 p.m., ensuring working people can’t attend.
Sunshine Canyon’s $117,000 Community Amenities Trust Fund splits like Halloween candy:
$10,000 to Granada Hills Community Foundation, $7,000 to the Rotary, $25,000 each to Friends of Van Gogh, Granada Hills Woman’s Club, Northridge Woman’s Club, and the LAFD Foundation.
Keep receipts — sanitation crews are cut but the paper trail had better be thick.
Item one in Economic Development — the Vocational Film Academy — should teach kids how City Council really works.
Suggested documentary: Indictments & Indians: The John Lee Story.
A cautionary tale for civic-minded filmmakers.
To be continued… in closed session.
Fesia’s Feelings Fund & the Case of the Missing Vertebrae
Jeramy Gray is well suited to stand-in (and prep his own threat for settlement.)
Paging Dr. Ghaly — the County’s spine is still missing.
Former CEO Fesia Davenport, stung by Measure G’s vote to make her job elective in 2028, exits with a $2-million settlement for “emotional harm.”
No firing, no misconduct — just feelings. Approved quietly in July; taxpayers foot the therapy.
Supervisors call it “humane.” For whom?
Jeramy Gray, Acting Chief Deputy CEO, steps in as stabilizer-in-chief. His résumé reads like a County survival manual: Chief Deputy to Mark Ridley-Thomas during the USC chapter, transferred to the Registrar after the indictment, now back at the helm.
Stability, in County speak, means continuity of contract counsel and selective memory on audits.
Flash back to 2018: County Counsel Mark Saladino, pushed out for questioning a Knabe-era memo on “leaving-vacation” benefits, sued and then apologized for being “extremely upset.” He even paid $50,000 to the County for the privilege of contrition.
That letter — an artifact of pure bureaucratic pathology — should be displayed in a glass case beside the saber-tooth cat.
Spinelessness syndrome is endemic now. By 2025, Covington’s audit found no corruption, just “sloppy oversight.” The County’s favorite diagnosis.
Sloppy oversight isn’t a bug; it’s a business model.
Davenport’s “closure mechanism” settlement fits perfectly in the pattern. Supervisors lament “settlement fatigue” as they sign another check. Residents get cuts; insiders get counseling.
Public money is not a sedative. Emotional harm shouldn’t trigger seven-figure payouts while shelter vouchers languish.
For the X-ray, file a CPRA for Davenport’s agreement and Covington’s report. Read the timestamps and invoices — the fractures are all visible.
Measure G may elect a CEO someday, but for now the County is still a therapy group with a budget.
Spoof Email: Unverified but On Brand
Smart Speaker: We intercepted an email thread that cannot be verified. Readers should treat it as satire until proven official. Context: “Botched Reform, Broken Trust,” Daily News, July 14, 2025.
NOT VERIFIED
From: [email protected]
To: Board of Supervisors
Date: Mon, Oct 20, 2025 9:30 AM PDT
Subject: My $3M Claim for Preven Trauma and MRT Cleanup
Dear Supervisors,
After 29 years — IT, elections, MRT’s Second District — I’m due $3 million for surviving Eric Preven’s CPRAs and Ridley-Thomas’s USC meltdown. Preven’s 2024 “henchman” jab and requests for AT&T metadata traumatized my inbox. I stabilized MRT’s office, kept ballots clean at the Registrar, and now mop up Davenport’s $2 million Feelings Fund. That’s $3 million in emotional harm, plus hazard pay for dodging Preven’s “spinelessness” diagnosis.
Preven’s July Daily News piece nailed it: insiders get therapy, taxpayers get bills. Approve my $3 million in closed session. No trial — discovery would expose too many skeletons. Miller Barondess can draft the check.
Best,
Jeramy Gray
Acting Chief Deputy CEO
CC: Dawyn Harrison, Jeff Levinson, Nicole Davis Tinkham, County Counsel
(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.)
