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ERIC PREVEN'S NOTEBOOK -
Trauma, Inc. — The Compassionistas Bottle Pain and Sell It Back to Us
Back in 2017, my brother and I called out Los Angeles City Hall for having zero compassion. Angelenos skipped work or rode three buses to get one minute at the mic. Their reward? A shrug or a gavel. Gone.
Eight years later, that shrug has moved up Temple Street. At the County Hall of Administration, compassion isn’t missing; it’s on the meter.
The Compassionistas open every meeting with awards and applause. It feels warm, like air freshener over rot. Then the real show begins: twelve-hour agendas, closed-door sessions, and billion-dollar settlements, all “for the suffering.”
Maria Chong-Castillo, "one of the great finds of all time."
Supervisor Holly Mitchell means it when she talks about victims. She helped pass AB 218, the 2019 Lorena Gonzalez law that reopened the window for survivors of childhood sexual abuse to sue years later. It passed with zero “no” votes. A moral slam-dunk.
Then the lawyers smelled blood.
Late-night TV ads: “Hurt as a kid? Call now!” Recruiters worked shelters and AA rooms. Thousands of claims poured in — some ironclad, some paper-thin. All billable. Justice became a spreadsheet. Pain got a payment plan.
The County already wrote a $4 billion check for abuse in its juvenile camps, covering over 11,000 claims. Still thirsty, it added another $828 million for 400 more. Law firms pocket nearly half. Private investors, the Wall Street kind, bankroll the firms and run the math: How much trauma can L.A.’s treasury bleed before it taps out?
When questions finally got loud, County Counsel didn’t just blink — they volunteered the blindfold. The Board stipulated to a stay of discovery and later framed it as the judge’s call. It wasn’t; it was a back-room deal to keep evidence dark while the checks kept moving. Put this in front of the public and no one signs off on million-dollar payouts built on paperwork alone.
And if you’re wondering how far the “trust the lawyers” model can go, remember Tom Girardi — convicted and sentenced this year after siphoning client settlements — the cautionary tale our leaders pretend not to know. Recent investigations have shown how aggressive recruiting, fake plaintiffs, and billion-dollar billings have turned compassion into a marketplace. Oversight agencies like the State Bar looked away for decades, and local officials still treat their signatures as audits. In 2015, City Hall even honored Girardi with a glowing resolution for his “tremendous contributions to justice” — a framed souvenir of Los Angeles at its most gullible.
Privacy for victims? Absolutely.
Blackout for the public? No.
Inside the machine, the script never changes. 167 investigations opened. 137 still crawling. 18 staff on paid vacation. 12 cases in limbo. Five accused still clocking in. Supervisors ask, “Any deadline on this?” County lawyers mumble. Probation and DCFS call it “very serious.” Unions warn, “Add real punishment and the deal dies.”
Compassion used to be human. Now it’s a bargaining chip.
Meanwhile, real survivors wait on hold. Their lawyers juggle a thousand clients like take-out orders. The County mails “closure” checks but won’t name the predators still collecting pensions. Even the former CEO walked away with $2 million in taxpayer money for her “emotional distress” when her job became elective.
That was the warm-up. Now the same playbook is rolling out for something bigger — the wildfires.
The Next Industry: Fire
Outside their marble bunker, Los Angeles is still burning. The Palisades Fire scorched 23,000 acres, killed 12 people, and destroyed 6,800 homes. The Eaton Fire in Altadena took 19 more lives and 9,000 structures. Thirty-one dead, neighborhoods erased, billions in ash.
Janice Hahn in open Dodger jersey honoring Sheila...
And here they come again. Late-night ads: “Home burned? Sue now!” Recruiters working FEMA lines and recovery centers. Thousands of claims already filed. The same contingency fees — 25 to 40 percent. The same Wall Street financiers, Jefferies and Oppenheimer, bankrolling the firms for a cut of the haul. Venture capitalists aren’t analyzing abuse spreadsheets anymore; they’re liquidity-testing the County’s fire payouts.
Settlements could top $20 billion, with half siphoned to middlemen. Justice, or another grief machine?
We’ve seen this movie. AB 218 promised healing; it delivered fraud hotlines and sealed truths. Don’t let fire victims — people who lost everything — get the John Doe treatment: anonymous payouts, hidden evidence, executives skating off with “distress” bonuses.
If AB 218 ever meant anything, here’s what compassion should look like: open the files. Post every payout over $100,000 in plain English. Give the public 72 hours to review before approval. Name the abusers still on salary. Audit every dime.
And for the fires, preempt the sequel. Mandate transparency in wildfire suits: public claim registries, fee caps for funders, and independent fraud checks from day one. No blackouts. No VC vultures. Sunlight, not smoke.
Right now, the Compassionistas do empathy like this: “Our hearts go out…” followed by silence. Pity is a line item. The system that broke the kids now protects itself, and eyes the next disaster.
City Hall gives you one minute. The County gives you zero truth.
Los Angeles loves to talk healing. Its leaders love the machine more. Compassion isn’t rare; it’s bottled, branded, and billed by the hour. The County doesn’t run on empathy; it runs on invoices. They call it Enriching Lives. Look closer: it’s Enriching Lawyers. Until someone pulls back the curtain and breaks the seal, the only duty they honor is the one they believe in most — the County duty to cover up.
The County Caller — Transcription
Set Matter 1 / Early Segment
Smart Speaker: Thank you. I share the Board's moral outrage about the feds cutting back on food help for Angelenos — I thought I heard two million kids across the region, but maybe somebody said one million families. It is terrible. And that was a very nice and lengthy series of presentations today. I think the Board of Supervisors deserves credit for remembering that the public sometimes just needs to appreciate Maria Chong-Castillo and other county insiders — great to see Zev Yaroslavsky down here, the big boss. This was such a wonderful homecoming.
Zev Yaroslavsky, the big boss, touts Maria Chong-Castillo's no-nonsense approach.
Pity we couldn’t get Joel Bellman out and Randy Tahara from the good old days — Tony Bell! But seriously, I really do appreciate the endless self-commemoration for hours while we cannot face up to the real story, which is painful. It is very painful. That said, County workers have great jobs. And one thing I remembered, there is no law preventing — you can check with County Counsel — a county worker from putting in a few extra hours... to reflect.
Item 6 – Settlement
Smart Speaker: Eric Preven from Studio City. Lorena Gonzalez’s bill was funded by those trial lawyers. It is being exploited. When I heard Nicchita explaining about how venture capitalists are funding additional litigations, this is like my article that appeared in the Daily News about additional paperwork. The sad thing — Zev Yaroslavsky was in this hall at that time, very touching — but the problems have been metastasizing for a very long time.
Lindsey P. Horvath the little boss has established residency in City of LA, wears a Dodger hat!
It's shameful. The County and County Counsel are experts at doing stuff that could be fairly described as covering up. These very brave private counsel sitting to the left and right of Harrison helped negotiate with the DTLA lawyers across the table. This just in: they made a terrible, terrible deal. It is absolutely inaccessible to the public, and the idea that the victims will get these payouts without even facing an interview, refusing to speak about the incident — it’s a nonstarter. So, you're saying... it’s all just paperwork. This is an absolute travesty. No disrespect to victims; there are victims ongoing, Probation saying these allegations are a decade old... like he's up for the peace prize! That was infuriating.
Item 2 – Public Works / Malibu Water Service
Smart Speaker: Thank you. It is Eric Preven from Studio City and I would like to thank Public Works for overseeing a fairly large group of important infrastructure projects. Included in that group is the Los Virgenes Municipal Water Group out in the Malibu area, and thank you to Lindsey Horvath and all of the Third District workers who tried to help restore service when it was shut off and the County did nothing. Out in Malibu there are a couple of older legacy properties where the water lines aren’t split. It caused great harm to an older person. Funny because we raised it up and had the impression that Pestrella heard our cry. “Let’s take care of it,” kind of thing. I guess we were wrong. Instead, it is the same old story. Now we can’t even get access to our own water bill and we have a bad actor involved. It’s super strange and I was hoping Public Works was going to help. I guess at the end of the day, there is a limit to what folks are willing to do. They just want to tow the County line.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE — Harris-Dawson “Tone-Deaf Trophy”
The Day After Faith Leader Day... Paul Krekorian (Angel) and others graced council with a visit.
October 31, 2025
BREAKING: Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson Crowned King of Civic Ghosting with First-Ever Eric Preven “Tone-Deaf Trophy”
Council president recognized for unparalleled commitment to conducting public business without the public.
VAN NUYS, CA — In a ceremony that somehow managed to be both over-the-top and completely invisible to the public, Los Angeles City Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson was awarded the inaugural Eric Preven Award for Galactic-Level Civic Tone-Deafness following today’s Halloween séance—er, meeting—at Van Nuys City Hall, where the agenda was so Valley-free it might as well have been held in Santa Monica. [Catch Schindler Space Architect at Laemmle Monica Nov 7–13.]
“This man didn’t just forget the Valley — he exorcised it on Halloween,” declared Eric Preven, a self-appointed watchdog and the award’s namesake. “Fifteen councilmembers, zero local items. That’s not a meeting; it’s a field trip to nowhere. Herb Wesson is somewhere clapping with one hand.”
The honor celebrates Harris-Dawson’s black-belt mastery in choreographed civic exclusion, highlighted by four agenda items, all pre-cooked, pre-voted, and pre-digested in prior hearings; public comment limited to one minute, after the Council had already hit “approve” on everything.
“Harris-Dawson brought the whole circus to Van Nuys and forgot the tent, the clowns, and the audience,” said one shell-shocked attendee clutching a limited-edition “I Survived Council President MHD” sticker. “I came for democracy. I left with emotional whiplash.”
Another taxpayer, speaking through a megaphone that was promptly muted, added, “I’ve seen tone-deaf. I’ve seen legally blind to public input. But this? This is tone-deaf in 8K with Dolby Surround Suppression.”
"We are nothing without the people."
Future award categories are already under discussion: Most Creative Use of the Mute Button in a Public Forum, Best Co-conspirator in a Non-Valley Agenda, and Lifetime Achievement in Pretending Public Comment Has Been Satisfied.
As the Council slipped out the back, one lone voice echoed through the empty hall: “L.A. is hosting the world in 2028… but today, it couldn’t even host Valley residents without a permission slip.”
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Smart Speaker
(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.)
