CommentsERIC PREVEN’S NOTEBOOK - Pocket Full of Posers: The Chief Legislative Analyst's (CLA) report on what to do about Public Comment was simply not harsh enough for Paul Krekorian.
Under no circumstances, Krekorian pontificated, should the City Council be told by the State legislature, who does not take public comments, to take virtual public comments going forward. Funded or unfunded, a mandate on public speaking, he felt was inappropriate. The City should be able to decide what to do about public comment.
Krekorian, wasn't necessarily ruling out taking virtual public comments because for "All I know,” he said, "it may be easier to block speakers," in a virtual environment. "Sir,..."
Paul Krekorian has represented CD2 for nearly a decade (after a stint in Sacramento) including the plots 700 feet to the west of Whitsett Blvd on Ventura Boulevard in Studio City.
This week, residents who live nearby (disclosure, I live a mile away) received a weird mailer from Sunswept in Peril, LLC entitled, "Sunswept Will All Fall Down!!" The implication was that such a hillside development might be unsafe.
During my term as the local government affairs committee chair in Studio City we had detected activity at this hillside location. It sits next to a low-rise development, that bends along Ventura Blvd and was designed in the forties: The Coldwater Curve shops.
I used to hit Bellwood Bakery every morning when I swam at the Sportsmen's Lodge Pool back in the day. Ken Bernstein himself, before he became a macher, wrote the brilliant essay capturing why Sportsmen's lodge should have been designated as a cultural historic landmark.
This week, young Roger Vincent of the LA Times reported that the hotel will finally be shuddered and 1385 underground parking spaces added to the luxury mall to accommodate 520 rental apartments, 78 affordable.
That will be 78 more than we have in Studio City, at present.
But the simple question about why we were giving away valuable city property resulted in a Kafkaesque runaround and eventual defenestration from my chairmanship of the government affairs committee.
I've always believed that a vacation of city property without explanation deserves one.
When I asked, Karo Torossian, the chief of staff for Paul Krekorian, said he had no clue what was going on. RED FLAG
I poked around and discovered that Karo Torossian took $700 from Peter D. Austin on April 28, 2017 while running for office in CD7 and $500 from Kimberlina Whettam, an expediter working on the Studio City project.
I raised a red flag as to how a chap could take money for his failed CD7 campaign from the developer of the project in the district where he actively works! Those who appreciate Torossian's work, know of his long history of wanting to take a dip in the pool at "Harvard-Westlake," who recently acquired the Golf and Tennis on Whitsett.
The thrust of the letter we received this week was that Peter D. Austin and Austin Family Development LLC authored a book last year called Some Civil Disobedience Required, and, as the sole employee of First Capital Benefit Advisors...the Sunswept, LLC claims that Austin is connected to 20 ventures at 20 different addresses, "all of them money-grabbing failures." Austin is also an alleged Trumper, they claim.
Maybe Karo Torossian just took donations from Austin out of his intense drive to do public service and swim in new fancy pools.
Maybe he really had no clue.
Ron Galperin's Property Panel: A guide to publicly-owned properties in the City of Los Angeles is a tool that does not have an ethical feature yet. If Galperin has a current updated policy on how to handle city surplus property, I felt I saw one, but couldn't find it on his site, I'd love to see it.
The City of Los Angeles has at least 792,000 publicly- and privately-owned properties within its boundaries. Galperin's Property Panel looks at nearly 14,000 properties in the City owned by six major public entities, including 7,508 properties owned by the City itself.
HIs technology and innovation team developed the interactive tool using Esri mapping software. Cool.
Pro tip: Don't give away city property to a campaign donor while evincing no knowledge without explaining it to the public and Blumenfield!
Go get 'em Alex Lee!
It's hard to make the cut for City Council public comment on Tuesdays. You need an edge.
Item 37 was all about what to do about call in virtual public comments going forward. I wrote about it recently, so I had a whole thingy planned with jokes, an clever opener...
Fauble refused to call me. Today was a day to attack the public comment and no bullies focused on protecting the right to deliver withering broadsides to local officials were invited.
The city council saw a moment to shake their heads in disbelief at Sacramento and in particular, Alex Lee," (李天明) the State Assembly member representing the 25th District in northern California which includes Santa Clara and San Jose .
He wrote a bill to make virtual public comments the norm.
There's a friendly rivalry between the "local government" representatives on the LA City Council like Mike Bonin, John Lee, Nury Martinez, Mitch O'Farrell, Marqueece Harris Dawson, Joe Buscaino, Monica Rodriguez, Nithya Raman and the old war horses who've had experience up in Sacramento, namely Paul Koretz, Gil Cedillo, Paul Krekorian, Kevin DeLeon, Curren Price, Bob Blumenfield and Mark Ridley-Thomas.
Council President Martinez, quipped "Seven of you have come right from Sacramento... you should have fixed it when you were there!"
Gil Cedillo, who is the consummate suck-up to any Council President, and frequently had to be pried off Herb Wesson's arse, said he wanted to take leadership on public comment from "You, madame president, not Alex Lee."
Martinez blushed.
Mr. Lee, born July 11, 1995, is a progressive Democrat who serves on the Assembly Committees on Budget, Education, Privacy & Consumer Protections, Public Safety and Transportation. Cedillo denigrated the youngster, “Mr. Lee has a bright future, has an illustrious career as an intern, and has won one election."
Titters from Koretz. If only Buscaino had been there to call someone a knucklehead it would have been a perfectly executed dismissal.
But Mr. Lee fired back on twitter, "I’ve never met/spoke and I only just discovered who you (Gil Cedillo) are today, but very rude. Disagree with the public’s right to comment virtually but we don’t need your ageism "
The Brown Act, according to Kevin DeLeon is long overdue for an overhaul; the absurdity of not being able to engage... or caucus... or "go into more detail with colleagues" (behind closed doors.)
And he said, "The very fact that we have no clue what's going to be sprung on us at the last minute during a meeting is, unusual... bizarre...not helpful and makes for bad policy."
"What's good for the goose is good for the gander and this is not good for the goose or the gander," he said.
The reason the Brown Act was created by the State Legislature was to prevent Paul Krekorian and the City Attorney Michael Feuer from engaging in a pattern of conduct in violation of the Brown Act.
Don't take it from me and do not get mesmerized by Paul Krekorian's fantasy that the city budget is one item, and thus deserves sixty seconds of comment en toto, is devious, take it from the Court of Appeals Second Appellate District.
Asserting the City of Los Angeles’s (City) refusal to let him address the special city council meeting was part of a larger pattern of Brown Act violations, Preven sent a cease and desist demand letter to the City. When the City failed to respond to that letter, he filed a petition for a writ of mandate and complaint for declaratory relief to enforce the Brown Act.
There is a committee exception for regular meetings, and no committee exception for special meeting. To the extent the Brown Act’s public comment rules are incongruous as between regular and special meetings preceded by a committee meeting, it is the province of the Legislature, and not this court, to bring them more in harmony.
Given the plain language of the statute, and its legislative history, we find the Brown Act does not permit limiting comment at special city council meetings based on comments at prior, distinct committee meetings. Preven adequately alleged a claim that he was improperly denied the opportunity to comment on the agenda item at a special meeting. Preven also adequately alleged a pattern of conduct by the City at special city council meetings in violation of the Brown Act. He therefore stated a claim in his amended petition for a writ of mandate and complaint for declaratory relief under the Brown Act.
Even though the City paid off an unscrupulous attorney nearly $100,000 for helping me to clean their clock, the City continues to violate the act with wild abandon and to violate the rights of public speakers in the process and it's getting old. Ageism notwithstanding.
CAO report:
In Matt Szabo's exciting report, he promised to continue assessing a few of Mike Bonin of CD11, the wealthiest of district's suggested locations to put the homeless — like an RV parking lot next to the State Beach at Dockweiler, a parking lot near a Marina del Rey boat ramp + property owned by @flyLAXairport
But the great news was that according to Szabo, putting a tent city in the beach parking lots would impact recreational activities. No go.
Fair enough. It could cause a surge in wipies, which O'Farrell had been worried about... in the stunning five-star Hyperion update. 17 million gallons into the ocean, whoops... thank god for the city heroes, item.
Bonin, must have been thrilled because the boat ramp at Dock 52, is very likely off limits. There was a massive outpouring of public outrage over that one-- though, there is a better than average chance it was all a distraction by the Knabe consortium to direct attention away from the ordinarily "pattern and practice" of harvesting money off of the public land in the Marina.
The property near LAX will require sign-off from the FAA, so that means... good luck!
Well played!
Round up the usual Suspects
Sheriff Alex Villanueva was given three minutes at the top of the show on Tuesday. As I've repeatedly stated, his appearance should be agendized. The LA Times Editorial Board won a Pulitzer prize.
The Sheriff called the Board meeting and in particular item 16, a "bureaucratic orgy of wokeness" and wondered if the "county counsel" had seen item 16, as a way of diminishing the board. He repeated that Measure J had been found unconstitutional by a Judge.
Villanueva said the entire motion was a giveaway of taxpayer funds to 501c3's ... that "you control and are your friends." He said it was a lot of money with no accountability... or oversight. He said there was a backlog on homicide investigations and that he needed more investigators. He said, "You can start re-imagining things, once we are safe."
He asked the Board to rethink their plan.
Solis who voted for the Blue Ribbon commission alongside Kathryn Barger and Janice Hahn, said, "I respectfully disagree with you."
Sheila Kuehl and Holly J Mitchell who voted against the Blue Ribbon Commission, still agreed to roll out their Blue Ribbon Commissioners: Professionalism.
Supervisor Solis Sarah Dusseault, Blue Ribbon Commission on Homelessness
Supervisor Mitchell LaCheryl Porter, Blue Ribbon Commission on Homelessness
Supervisor Kuehl Wendy Greuel, Blue Ribbon Commission on Homelessness
Supervisor Hahn Vanessa Sedano, Blue Ribbon Commission on Homelessness
Supervisor Barger Scott Street, Blue Ribbon Commission on Homelessness
Contract Cities Association Marcel Rodarte, Blue Ribbon Commission on Homelessness
Councils of Government Christian A. Horvath and Becky A. Shevlin, Blue Ribbon Commission on Homelessness
Wendy Greuel? Sarah Dusseault??
The pilot VO over El Segundo...
Ladies and gentlemen, as we gain altitude... a little background. El Segundo, just below, was a Chevron town. Now, our oil, here in Los Angeles is real estate.
Real estate covenants prohibited property ownership in El Segundo by “any person whose blood is not entirely that of the white race,” according to a Depression-era deed. It stipulated that no one of “African, Asiatic, Mongolian or Mexican descent” would be allowed — unless they were “bona fide domestic servants.”
Biotech entrepreneur Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong purchased the Los Angeles Times and the San Diego Union-Tribune in 2018 for $500 million.
Developer and landlord Atlas Capital, which has offices in New York and Los Angeles, bought the 26-acre printing facility for more than $240 million in 2019.
The Times’ lease on the printing plant expires at the end of 2023, according to real estate data provider CoStar, but The Times has the option to renew its lease at prevailing market rates for at least a decade.
“We appreciate the consideration that Atlas Capital has given to the Los Angeles Times and our print production facility ... and that we have the opportunity to remain in that location without any disruption to our operations well into the future,” Times spokeswoman Hillary Manning said.
Atlas, run by Jeffrey Goldberger, was inside-baseball ahead of the Huizar FBI indictment. Were, the Goldbergers in cahoots with the FBI? We know about the excellent working relationship with county supervisor Hilda Solis.
Not sure how Atlas knew to buy the parking lot in Solis's district near men's central, but Solis reached into her Supervisorial pocketbook and bought it for $24M. And now she's going to send a huge Cares Act bill to the feds to establish her care first village.
Naming and gaming has always been the name of the game.
Still, I'd asked the Ethics commission in writing out of concern about whether Marqueece Harris-Dawson, as the new Land Use Chair, should have batted away or rejected an $800 contribution from Jeffrey Goldberger of Atlas and $800 from his wife in December, as MHD was taking over Land Use subsequent to the defenestration of Huizar.
Subject: REFUND -- INQUIRY -- Jeffrey Goldberger, Atlas Capital Group LLC // Kyndra Casper, DLA Piper LLC
No response in 14 days. This may have something to do with the fascinating statistic that Paul Krekorian proudly released at this year's illegal Special Meetings on the budget sans public comment: every Ethics Commission budget request for over the last decade had been approved ... by Krekorian! [Hi, Heather!]
From and including: Wednesday, October 24, 2018 To, but not including Wednesday, November 7, 2018 Result: 14 days
How is a developer agreeing to a 'term' like providing a $500,000 community benefit (as conveyed by DL Piper for Atlas) as one of the conditions to moving forward (pay to play) for a city council vote!
October 11, $800 contribution to RICHELLE HUIZAR from Jeffrey Goldberger of Atlas
+ $800 from Laurie Goldberger
October 24, REFUND $800 contribution to RICHELLE HUIZAR from Jeffrey Goldberger of Atlas
+ $800 from Laurie Goldberger
November 7, FBI raids the councilman's fourth floor City Hall office and the HUIZAR's home
as well as a Boyle Heights field office.
November 15, HUIZAR stripped of committee assignments including PLUM
December 26, $800 contribution to Marqueece Harris-Dawson from Jeffrey Goldberger of Atlas
+ $800 from Laurie Goldberger
March 19, Marqueece Harris-Dawson votes on project
No interrupting.
(Eric Preven is a longtime community activist and is a contributor to CityWatch.)
