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ERIC PREVEN'S NOTEBOOK -
City Hall’s Democracy Tollbooth
Picture this: you’re stuck in LA’s soul-sucking traffic, late for your call time, sweating over a $2,500 rent Venmo, while City Hall demands you ditch work, pay $20 to park, and grovel in person for a shred of democracy. No Zoom, no call-ins—just a council gatekeeping your voice.
Under Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson’s new rules, public comment is an in-person-only affair. In a city of four million, that’s not engagement—it’s a middle finger to anyone who can’t schlep to Spring Street. Democracy now requires a parking stub.
And while you’re circling for a spot, City Hall’s stage-managing its weekly show: photo-op presentations that choke out real debate. Faith Leader Bollard day was a doozy. Both sides call it what it is—democracy’s slow bleed.
Your time? Not yet expired. God Bless and Thank you so much!
Tuesday’s Bureaucratic Circus (Full Council, 10:00 a.m.)
Agenda: City Council Calendar
Briefly: Fees up, rights down, pass the cash.
Landlords must file eviction notices with the City (Item 3). Sounds cute, but it’s a Post-it on a broken dam when you’re refreshing Zillow for a cheaper closet. City Hall loves paperwork over policy. #CityHallFail.
The “Comprehensive Fee Update” jacks up planning and permit costs—more red tape for your crumbling apartment. And the $2.4 million Justice Assistance Grant? Ironic when LA’s brawling with Homeland Security and ICE over civil rights. Grab the cash, dodge the mission. That’s LA’s hustle.
Tuesday’s Hollywood Flop (Arts, Parks, Libraries & Community Enrichment, 8:45 a.m.)
Briefly: Lights, camera, budget cuts.
FilmLA’s report is grim: LA’s losing shoots faster than studios and streamers can lay off workers. Santa Monica bailed on FilmLA, and the industry cries “too expensive” while funneling campaign cash to councilmembers. #HollywoodLies. #Bulgaria
Let's leave it to Ellison, he'll know what to do. #VeryBad
The Native American Indian Commission reappointments better be more than a heritage-month checkbox, and the immigration-enforcement chat is a warm-up for the Council’s performative outrage—condemn publicly, coordinate privately.
Then, the Zoo Vision Plan update, tied to a Griffith Trust settlement: will it stop philanthropists from running our zoo like a VIP club, or are we stuck in the bad old days?
Tuesday’s Tax-Break Tango (Planning and Land Use Management, 2:00 p.m.)
Briefly: Historic homes, elite perks.
Brentwood’s Gelb, Grant, and Siegel homes chase Historic-Cultural Monument status. People now know that I personally adore historic architecture - Being Schindler - but personally passed on the lucrative tax break.
Make no mistake these are tax breaks for the people who don’t necessarily need them. “But they do feel obliged to take a 50% property tax reduction for ten years.” "Get him out of here." The Mills Act is terrific. #RichPeopleProblems.
Tuesday’s Airport Ripoff (Trade, Travel & Tourism, 2:00 p.m.)
Briefly: $19 sandwiches, zero flavor.
Traci Park’s committee dives into (moves quickly past) LAX’s food-concession handoff. Airport gospel: charge more, deliver less. Those $19 sandwiches—overpriced and sad. Money flows up while travelers get stale food and shadier contracts. #AirportScam. Bon appétit, LA.
Wednesday’s Olympic Mirage (Ad Hoc Olympics Committee, 8:30 a.m.)
Briefly: Smiles, secrets, surveillance.
Harris-Dawson’s LA28 showcase brings “verbal updates” from the Bureau of Contract Administration—aka no paper trail for plebs. Will Casey Wasserman update on his Trump-kissing, NBA bestie Adam Silver, or the sports-gambling cloud? No.
The city’s building an Olympic security net—license-plate scanners, data tracking, crowd control that’ll trace your late-night Del Taco run post-Games. Sold as safety, let's call it #BigBrotherOlympics.
A motion to move the Closing Ceremony to the Coliseum screams “inclusion,” but a locked-down city feels like exclusion. "Why can't we have the the Closing Ceremony in San Pedro? And let one-fiver Joe Buscaino light the damn torch!"
Humbly, the branded resistance needs help. Sticker pack?
Wednesday’s Sneaky Cash Dash (Full Council, 10:00 a.m.)
Briefly: Move money, not people.
Just a dusting of stuff: a franchise renewal for PS Southern California One LLC, a Heliotrope Drive land deal, and a Watts Towers Arts Center use agreement. No drama, but it shows a Council that moves cash and property smoother than people. Where are the city staffers leaking the public information about back-patting commendations before real work? #Priorities.
Between all this, expect a parade of commendations, awards, and plaques—a civic confetti shower that buries public time under impressive nonsense while the city’s infrastructure collapses. The ritual is familiar: applause first, accountability later...
"You mean, when you're termed out?" Yes obv.
The Big Picture: Crash the Show
City Hall’s “public” meetings are like the Kennedy Center for the elite. You’re welcome to watch—if you can swing the commute, sit through the self-congratulation, and don't wind up in the overflow room.
It’s not dysfunction; it’s production managment. But you can hijack the spotlight—storm City Hall, grab the mic, and say it like it is. Your time’s not expired yet.
City Council meetings are broadcast live on Channel 35 and YouTube. Written comments may be submitted at LACouncilComment.com, but unlike jurisdictions all over the state and world public testimony must be delivered in person.
All official agendas can be found at clerk.lacity.gov/calendar.
County Corner: Scrolls, Settlements, and Herbalife Hangovers
This is more colorful branding, though it fell on a Sunday. (Intersex is an umbrella term for people born with a wide range of sex characteristics that don't fit typical definitions of male or female.)
Tuesday, 9:30 a.m. at the Hall of Administration: you’re dodging $2,000 rent hikes while five Supervisors drown democracy in a flood of honorary scrolls, plaques, and 12-hour agendas. Every meeting starts with a long goodbye—and ends in a locked room.
The spotlight falls on Maria Chong-Castillo, the ultimate insider who outlasted Zev, Sheila, and a thousand brown-bag lunches. She was a stone cold player who would shut you down before you’d even finished asking the question
Zev Yaroslavsky, meets with top aide for decades, Maria Chong-Castillo (Hello, Newman!)
She fought me for years—over Herbalife’s “community partnerships”, over triathlons bankrolled by public dollars, over why millions flow to companies (Studios) that fire their crews and sponsor stationary-bike teams for the well-hydrated elite.
“What’s wrong with that, Mr. Preven, you asshole?”
Nothing, See Supervisor Yaroslavsky in a windbreaker posing with a large check to Children’s Hospital*
Same team, new branding during Horvath's reign. FYI - High Fire Severity (parking waivers) are zeitgeisty!
Tuesday’s Scroll-a-Palooza (9:30 a.m.)
Agenda: bos.lacounty.gov
Briefly: Applause over answers.
The Supervisors kick off with seven presentations: Fire Captain Sheila Kelliher-Berkoh gets roses, SEIU 2015 caregivers get applause, lifeguards get medals, and Maria Chong-Castillo snags the lifetime-achievement scroll. It’s a civic glitter-fest, but accountability? Not on the podium. #CountyClaptrap.
By 10:45, the room smells of flowers, cookies, and hubris. Then:
“Madam Chair, the Board will now recess into Closed Session.”
Closed Session: Secrets and Settlements
Briefly: What happens in the room stays in the room.
Behind soundproof glass, the Supervisors huddle with County Counsel over “anticipated litigation – one case” (code for “expensive mess we won’t explain”). They’ll strategize on labor, property, and the Probation Department’s endless liability.
Hours later, the same line:
“In Closed Session, no reportable action.” #CountySecrets
The $828M Moral Debt (Item 6)
Briefly: Payouts, not prevention.
The big ticket: an $828 million settlement for 414 childhood sexual-abuse claims. Add it to the $4 billion countywide payout, and you’re at $5 billion in moral debt.
While constituents are scraping by doing verticals, that’s cash for lawyers’ yachts, not schools or shelters. If someone rounded it down to $1 billion and spent the rest on prevention, we’d all breathe easier.
Smart Speaker: Davenport, get in here!
Executive Officer: Davenport is out on leave. Jeramy Gray is the big boss.
Smart Speaker: Excellent
The big boss pops in to Supervise at Kenn Hahn Hall (cringe) before the county completely implodes.
Pestrella’s Water-Meter Scam (Public Works)
Briefly: Bureaucracy screws seniors.
Smart Speaker: Point of Order: Public Works Director Mark Pestrella’s latest act or omission: a Malibu water-meter fiasco fit for the Comedy Store. Two units, one meter. My mother’s unit eats the whole bill.
They call it a civil matter. I call it an abomination.
You’d think a County engineer would help an older woman stuck in bureaucratic quicksand. Nope—they block the records by rejecting a CPRA request.... for our own water bill! A premium service. #CountyCoverup
The Plumbing Chronicles (Set Matters)
Briefly: Sewers and symbolism.
Between scandals, it’s public hearings: sewer annexations, alley vacations, library fees, drainage ditches. Plus, a Calabasas dream house with its own waste-treatment plant—a metaphor for government if ever there was one. #CountyBS
The Big Picture: Flip the Script
LA City does theater; the County does paperwork. Twelve-hour agendas, fifty items, a staff report for every failure.
Maria Chong-Castillo gets her long overdue ovation, her legacy written in disappearing ink: polished, procedural, untouchable. Malibu’s water runs one-way, Herbalife fleeced the little guys, and the County’s moral debt ... off the chart.
But you can flip the script—crash the meeting, call in—and ask yourself if you can call in to the county why not the city?
Smart Speaker: Mr. Harris-Dawson?
Sorry he's not in this meeting
County Board meetings start Tuesdays at 9:30 a.m. at Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration, 500 W. Temple St. Join via bos.lacounty.gov or call (213) 306-3065, Access Code 2536 417 0510. Written comments: publiccomment.bos.lacounty.gov.
The People’s House, Rented by the Hour (Condensed)
Smart Speaker: Why are the public tiny specs in the taxpayer telecast?" "Thank you so much."
City Hall once stood for public ritual — a space where citizens spoke before power applauded itself. Not anymore. Last Friday’s “faith leader day” turned the chamber into a velvet-rope gala. Clergy and nonprofits lined up for photo ops while a single mother clutching her remarks on potholes waited for a voice she’d never get. Councilmember Bob Blumenfield called us “lucky” to witness it. Lucky? Only if democracy now means watching others take your seat.
The spectacle mirrors Rick Wilson’s lament for the Trump-era White House — the People’s House reduced to a private club. Los Angeles has perfected that rot: ceremonies masking corruption, endless applause smothering scrutiny. “Thank you so much” echoes like incense, sanctifying insiders and silencing dissent.
Ceremony isn’t evil; emptiness is. Civic ritual should honor service and then govern, not erase debate. The fix is simple: let the public speak first, cap the self-congratulation, disclose ties before handing out awards, and hold big celebrations separately. Democracy breathes when people, not presenters, open the meeting.
This isn’t about etiquette; it’s about ownership. When City Hall trades testimony for flattery, it converts a civic house into a rented stage. The cure costs nothing but courage: open the floor, shorten the show, and remember who owns the building. The People’s House doesn’t need another standing ovation. It needs its citizens back.
L.A. County’s $4 Billion Fraud Factory — Now with an $828 Million Sequel (Condensed)
Los Angeles County has turned compensation into an industry. What began as justice for survivors of juvenile-facility abuse has metastasized into a $4 billion payout machine — and now an $828 million sequel. Recruiters lured the desperate into scripted lawsuits, law firms skimmed nearly half, and county officials keep signing checks labeled “closure.”
Even the top brass cashed in. CEO Fesia Davenport pocketed $2 million for “emotional distress” after voters decided her post would become elected in 2028. The Board of Supervisors approved it in secret. Her settlement — sealed, undisclosed, and taxpayer-funded — symbolizes the County’s pathology: pay, conceal, move on.
Meanwhile, true victims like Jimmy Vigil and Trinidad Peña wait. Their pain funded a bureaucracy of hush money while officials hid behind attorney-client privilege. City Hall acts no better, waving through multimillion-dollar settlements with no public debate.
I sued once to force them into daylight; they’ve slithered back into the dark. The County’s “necessary closure” is really fatigue — the price of fighting transparency.
The remedy is daylight: post every settlement over $100,000 with plain-language summaries; give the public 72 hours before approval; expedite verified survivors’ payments and claw back fees from predatory firms; audit Davenport’s deal line by line.
Los Angeles doesn’t solve crises — it buries them under checks. Until taxpayers demand receipts for every dollar of hush money, the Fraud Factory will keep humming, powered by secrecy and our silence.
(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.)
