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ERIC PREVEN’S NOTEBOOK - Mayor Eric Garcetti said, “Representative Sherman has always been the tip of the spear when it comes to fighting for federal funding that invests in our communities directly.”
By directly, they mean without the inconvenient public. The plan that the congressman is attempting to pour money into is allegedly for "much-needed improvements … enhancing the quality of people’s lives, promoting healthier futures, and creating new opportunities."
Opportunities for whom?
The plan to knock down our small Rec Center and put up an enormous high school regulation basketball court in a grassy field, as I explained to the new Council member Nithya Raman and Representative Brad Sherman, is a terrible idea.
Sunday, December 25, 2022
Dear Mr. Macdonald, [Brad Sherman's Chief of Staff]
I saw the sneaky December 23rd eblast about all the exciting valley projects and the $20 million in funding.
For the Studio City Recreation Center – City of Los Angeles. Amount Secured: $3,000,000. The project would be used to construct a new gymnasium and community center in Studio City CA.
Please share if there were any public hearings on this Studio City plan before requesting this funding.
The plan that Studio City Slickers saw several years ago - barely as the outreach was severely defective - put a charming Rec center building that could be easily fixed up into a landfill, and called for a very tall new city building in our open space.
What are the rules about this funding? Do you know the full budget?
Can the $3m secured be added to another project that needs it, if the people of Studio City reject a big expensive gym? As you know, people have NOT been informed.
What are the alternatives?
Thanks
Eric Preven
360 Degree Views:
"This is not a photo op," said Karen Bass on Thursday from the Mayor Tom Bradley Room and Observation Tower, famous for its 360-degree view of Los Angeles.
"This is work."
KNX reported that it was a closed-door meeting with officials from several jurisdictions including the state.
Exciting.
Just two days earlier, the mayor had attended a county board meeting. "It took a woman" said Janice Hahn, the chairwoman. Another Supervisor chimed in "We are the ones we've been waiting for."
Can you say, "sixth supervisor?"
Mayor Bass said she was looking forward to working with Joe Biden and was already sketching out a plan for a wild ROAD TRIP to Washington to make a joint presentation.
Bass reasoned that if Biden wants a 25% reduction...in homelessness, LA could help make a huge dent in that number. "We want him to succeed ..." she said.
The Alliance lawsuit between the city and the county seemed like a different era. A choppy black and white film starring Eric Garcetti, Sheila Kuehl, and her trusty sidekick Giggans.
"It'll be alright" now that Nury Martinez and the feisty Kevin DeLeon, who was plotting an escape from LAHSA have been sidelined.
Everyone is working together. All is forgiven, even Nury's FU to the County Board by refusing to appoint someone to Mary Wickham's Blue Ribbon Commission on Homelessness. Safer Inside. Sorry, Inside Safe... or is it "get inside!"
Let's not bog down.
At one point Mayor Bass called Janice Hahn, "Madame President," even though the Supervisors operate under a rotating chair system, and do not typically use the term, President.
Still, JHahn said about being called President, "I kind of like the sound of that."
Mike Antonovich aficionados will remember how he used to like to be called the Mayor of LA County. This was an obvious ploy to gently piss off Antonio Villaraigosa, a Former Mayor of Los Angeles.
Antonovich's other major contribution was his willingness to conduct weekly pet adoptions in the board room on KLCS. One can only imagine which Red blazer Antonovich would wear the following Tuesday, if he'd heard the painful testimony about the kill rate at LA County Animal Shelters.
Apparently, a third of all the animals that wind up in the county's shelters are euthanized.
I hate to boss people around, and it's possible they already do this, but the Los Angeles Times might consider dedicating a beat reporter to cover ANIMALS across all of our fuzzy wuzzy jurisdictions, especially the city and the county.
Controller:
The new electeds are jumping into the fray... sort of.
Kenneth Mejia the new City Controller of Los Angeles popped on Twitter to give a little update wearing a T-shirt, which reminded me to get cracking on my own untitled T-shirt project. Coming soon.
"First week in office done!" Mejia tweeted. "Lots of good stuff to come around financial transparency/accountability and creating data/resources for the people! Stay tuned! #losangeles #lacontroller #controllermejia"
Exciting.
When I caught a tweet from Mejia's chief of staff "that the application for housing is 36 pages. The application to run for mayor is 3 pages," I jumped in to retweet it but was blocked from doing so.
Huh? I vaguely recalled someone telling me that Mark Ridley-Thomas, as a public official, was not supposed to block me, so what up?
I couldn't share, so I commented on the chief of staff's tweet instead, "Nice, for some reason I cannot share tweets from @theglowingstars is that a thing?"
I nudged, "I think as we roll out the new transparency initiatives we should allow me to share stuff! Or would someone like to politely shuffle me off… Stay tuned! :)"
A comrade of Jane Nguyen's responded quickly, "when people are on private/locked that you follow (little lock thing next to their name), you can’t share/RT their tweets because that would defeat the purpose of being on private/locked :)"
I replied, with the last line from the LA Times article about the county contracting fraud and the law firm Covington Burling "🔂This harm is ongoing."
I was jesting, but the comrade was not amused, he wrote "And to be clear, whatever “this” is referring to, is not harm. It’s privacy, and is worth respecting"
Don't lecture me, I thought and wrote, "Yeah, it’s super cool. Only the tweeter and her peeps can share. As for the general public (that’s me homes), we be read-only. lol They were bragging about transparency, not privacy.
Maybe it was advice from their counsel Sergio Perez." And I linked to "The Collar Flap incident" a stinging article from CityWatch featuring Sergio Perez in action.
Controller Mejia recently hired Mr. Perez away from the "book-cooking" department at LADWP.
The article about Perez got under the comrade's skin, "You follow her, or else you wouldn’t be able to see her tweets," he lectured. "She has posted from that account for years, long before she worked for an elected official and probably before she even founded KTown4All."
He wanted to add more, "I follow her too, on this, her personal acct, and can’t share anything either, though, as it’s obviously her decision to make her tweets (from her personal account) private, and I can’t imagine why I’d want to, and I’m having trouble following along with why ur so upset about it"
I demurred, "Yeah, whatever… They were bragging about transparency, not privacy.”
Then, he attempted a high degree of difficulty move, "Nobody can share tweets from locked accounts, this isn’t anything having to do with you... man."
He called me "man." Holy shit.
When guys are tagging their tweets with 'man' it's a sign they are getting on one another's nerves.
"Why is her account locked?" I wrote pointedly, "I’m assuming only she could answer that, but if you know… go for it. Thanks, man."
Ouch. I let the quipster have the last word.
"Lol," he tweeted, "I wouldn’t know why anyone on here (and there around 100s of thousands of accounts I imagine) is locked, you’d have to ask them. A lot of the times it’s because people don’t want to be harassed and quote tweeted by trolls".
(Eric Preven is a longtime community activist and is a contributor to CityWatch. The opinions expressed by Eric Preven are solely his and not the opinions of CityWatch)
