Going, Going, Gone

ERIC PREVEN’S NOTEBOOK - During the early committee meeting, public comment began with Dan Guss, who spoke about an injury he sustained at a park. He also offered suggestions for the animal welfare commission appointee, Alex Kassendorf. Kassendorf, an attorney, has had long-standing connections with Staffer B John Lee and, presumably, Mitchell Englander (a potential red flag).

Gus issued a reminder to challenge departmental assertions. He highlighted the city’s mismanagement of park funds, linking it to his recent foot injury, and criticized the current animal control policies, pointing out the lack of accountability.

The General Manager of Cultural Affairs, Daniel Tarica, and the assistant general manager, Chris Concepcion, revealed staffing shortages at DCA (15 vacancies) and funding challenges, with a budget reduction from $20 million to $18.6 million year over year. Still, there are over 100 DCA staff, and despite everyone adoring Chris Concepcion, they claim they need two assistant managers!

Smart Speaker: What the hell is the cultural olympiad?

Heather Hutt asked if DCA had a dedicated philanthropy position. Response: Yes, of course. But you are busy running for election, so stay out of it!

John Lee (CD12) chimed in, boasting about his work identifying the "needs" of well-funded movie studios eager to do the bare minimum by bankrolling his small West Valley film festival — a brilliant scheme for helping studios dodge real community engagement while helping out west. Mr. Lee invited all to the big gala film festival out at The Soraya which he touted as the largest in California.

Attention then shifted to the "Simplified Digest" prepared by the Ballot Simplification Committee (they should be fired) for the six proposed ballot measures on the November 5, 2024, election. Measures under review included amendments on redistricting, ethics commission authority, pension plans, governance, appointments, and city operations. Nobody said a word!

Why? Because Paul Krekorian does not allow call-in testimony during committee meetings; and then won't allow comments on the item in council either, because he claims it was already opened in committee, silly.

Caution on Political Activity by Incumbents on Ballot Measures

County Counsel's Role: On Politics and how the county counsel is the one who decides what is factual and balanced. Pffft!

SUP. RIDLEY-THOMAS: "Madame Chair, I think I'm hearing different things, in terms of response to the range of questions, and I do not think that it's advisable to do that and create such a record."

Watch here

The Big Boys and Girls Chamber:

Smart Speaker: Yeah, it's Eric Preven. I'd like to speak on the available items and I'd like to give a general public comment.

Jonathan Groat, Deputy City Attorney: Okay, you'll have three minutes for the items and one minute for public comment. Please begin with the items.

Smart Speaker: Sure, I just want to stipulate that there will be no interruptions, and that's the last warning. Okay. On Item 21, you have to ask yourself, first of all, Heather Hutt (CD10) was very participatory in Eunisses Hernandez's (CD1) committee meeting this morning. She gets credit for that, but name-changing from Diane Watson Way to Diane Watson Corridor is a lovely community benefit, I suppose. Let's make sure Hutt gets handsomely remunerated for this... offline for this expansion. Hutt has been fastidiously cleaning up donations from cheerful and grateful helpers and helpees who want the Hutt/Wesson gravy train to continue.

Where is Karly Katona of the Coro Foundation and Mark Ridley-Thomas Corruption Complex?

Paul Krekorian, the next great Megaevent Lobbyist: Train, Support, Connect.

Item 23 you've got an $18,950 in-kind donation that Katy Yaroslavsky (CD5) whipped together from the Women's March Foundation. Here we go, I know they are going to help build a stage at a fundraiser event, but that's politics. So, I'm not clear why we the city are taking money from a not-for-profit that you are frequently canoodling with...? Correct me if I'm wrong, but we give money to not-for-profits. We should refer this to the Ethics Commission along with the "it's perfectly okay for lobbyist spouses to grease up Councilmember Krekorian, Harris-Dawson (CD8), and frankly all members, when the spouses have high-paying lobbyist clients, etc."

Item 24 is Paul Krekorian (CD2), who has done more to create dry patches of self-serving dirt in what was green CD2 and is now CD4 by greenlighting a historic number of high school regulation basketball courts within a quarter-mile... in precious open space. It is unbelievable how the lunatic sycophant took dozens of max contributions from the craven Westside Harvard Westlake Trustees and the rich bro megaevent guys who Garcetti introduced him to.

Dissolve: "Children, many years ago the Wolverines knew they wanted to expand their athletic program...." They schemed about a practice court in a public park... but paid for by... the local taxpayers.

Studio City: Going Going Gone. Nithya Raman building in Open Space.

The beauty, the taxpayer money was approved in 1996. YayI Paul Krekorian set out to make a few lil revisioniones... like Boom it's - High School Regulation Basketball Court, instead of renovating the existing small footprint rec center. This was years before Charlie Munger RIP bought the Golf and Tennis for $43 million with a commitment from Anthony "Yes, I own a 50,000 sq ft home" Pritzker's $140 million to erect a giant Sports Complex containing 3 high school regulation basketball courts. tk.

Jonathan Groat, Deputy City Attorney: Mr. Preven, Item 24 is about swimming pools.

Smart Speaker: Yeah, but there are no plans for a pool at Beeman, just an unwanted 30 million dollar eyesore high school regulation basketball court. My point is that this all falls under the Recreation and Parks umbrella, and for just $7,500, the pools will be kept open for a few weeks. Excellent. But where is the $160 million from LA28?

Nice try, Mr. Krekorian… but not so fast! While Nithya Raman (CD4) was busy announcing the "great news" in Studio City to a twitter audience of 11 souls, three were dogs, you were in Paris. The locals remain firmly against this Prop K project in the open space, and this is the third of three unwanted expansions and takings that you guided along sneakily before handing them off to Raman, following a shifty redistricting move. Time to rebrand The Rec Center as: “The Nithya Raman Center for Destroying Vital Open Space.”

Paul Krekorian, Council District 2: Okay, sorry this is not on our agenda and it is unintelligible so go ahead and move on to general public comment.

Smart Speaker: Sure, I'll do that. If it were not intelligible you wouldn't be trying to interrupt me. You know it is completely intelligible, I'm talking about the Prop K project that your previous chief of staff Adrin Nazarian and Areen Ibranossian put in play...

Paul Krekorian, Council District 2: General comment.

Smart Speaker: Stop putting your finger on the button. I am talking. Thank you. As I was saying, this Prop K project was put into the sneaky planning stages... a hundred years ago. What it has become is an odious project porked together by you and Brad Sherman and others and then left on Nithya Raman's nose. $29 million? Council, I submit this is a disgusting project. The picnic tables were unceremoniously scraped out so all of the Labor Day picnic people had their plans destroyed. Shame. Meanwhile, down by the river, Harvard Westlake School has been scraping the little animal critters out of their natural habitat and playing dumb. Shame.

And today we learned at the early bird buffet with Eunisses Hernandez (CD1) that Transit Occupancy Taxes, following the pandemic, will be up up up! That said, The Department of Cultural Affairs (DCA) has a nearly 2 million dollar shortfall and has 15 vacancies.

Masterfully done. Let's give the Tag to the council president's best boy, Karo Torossian, who famously wrote to John Amato of Harvard-Westlake via email that he was eager to "take a dip" in the new swimming pool when it arrived from Italy via the Panama Canal.

"Everybody in the pool." The folks who would know because they were copied on the Prop K is not for Krekorian scandal are:

Zachia Nazarzai, Mayor’s Office; Cheryl Banares Soriano, City Attorney; Bernyce Hollins, CAO; Jennifer Shiatsu, CAO; Cathie Santo Domingo, RAP; Sean Phan, RAP; Xochitl Ramirez, CLA.

But the big dog Neil Drucker did the real heavy lifting! Smoove. Real smoove.

Outreach-eous!

On September 4th at 5:03 pm, I got a nice note from President Paul Krekorian asking if I would like to help make Los Angeles a better place to live and work while learning more about the workings of city government.

Yes.

“You might consider serving on one of the 54 citizen boards and commissions that oversee many of the City's functions and services,” he wrote. The LVNOC met just three times for a grand total of 200 minutes over a decade. There was no advertisement to get the members of the Prop K commission, because it's for the Kids, silly! Who would allow children to be harmed in any way?

“The time frame to apply for these positions is very brief, so if you are interested, please respond immediately,” he wrote. The very next day at 9:25 am, I telephoned the City Hall office of Council President Paul Krekorian at the number provided: 213 473 7002.

“Our mailbox is full!” The recording said.

Smart Speaker: I can only imagine. When I first detected serious malfeasance and sneakery in the best little town in America, Studio City, 91604, and decided to run for CD2, I did a PRA for all messages emailed to the email Krekorian provided. The so-called complaint box scandal.

This is a PRA 6250 et seq. for a PDF copy of ALL emails sent to the Council District 2 office via the general question email address [email protected] between the periods below. a) May 21, 2014, and August 27, 2014 [99 days] b) August 28, 2014, and December 5, 2014 [99 days] Thank you for your interest in city government.

Eric Preven

----- Forwarded Message -----

From: Areen Ibranossian [email protected]

To: Eric Preven

Sent: Wed, Sep 4, 2024, 5:03 pm

Subject: Outreach Opportunity "Mr. Preven,"

Thank you for your request for records. As we have a request for over 22,000 pages of email, we will provide you with the cost breakdown for copying the documents at the rate of $0.10 per page. Should you need further assistance, please do not hesitate to reach out to us again.

Regards,

Areen Ibranossian,

Chief of Staff

City of Los Angeles

On Mon, Dec 15, 2014 at 11:15 AM, [email protected] wrote: Thank you for the speedy response. I will consider and respond in more detail shortly. One quick question: In connection with the county's green initiative (and presumably the city's similar initiative) would it be possible to access these records in a digital format (PDF copy) as requested? They are emails, after all, and it would lower the cost to almost nothing in comparison to the $2,128 quote. I could drop a hard drive by the office at lunch...? I will never forget the feeling of elation when I read for the first time... "So when I became Controller, my first priority was to make all of that information available online and accessible to everyone. My goal is to also foster a culture of accountability, openness, and innovation within City Hall —"

Eric Preven

----- Forwarded Message -----

From: Areen Ibranossian [email protected]

To: esp3800 [email protected]

Sent: Monday, December 15, 2014 at 11:22:49 AM PST

Subject: Re: Cal. PRA 6250 et seq. -- Records Request --

Mr. Preven, Your initial request did not indicate your desire for PDF or electronic copies. As such, since these e-mails contain personal contact information for private citizens, we must print each page, review each document, and redact ALL personal information (such as addresses, e-mail, phone number). I'm sure you will understand that private citizens contacting their council office are not consenting to have their personal information released to anyone who makes a PRA request. While the contents of their e-mail are certainly pertinent, their personal information is not, so we must redact it before providing it to you. Areen

Missed Calls:

Dear Adam and Stephanie,

Congratulations on the completion of your new gym. I understand it has been a long journey. Could you please provide links to all final documents related to the gym project, including artist renderings, construction details, and the timeline? It seems that the Studio City Neighborhood Council is not fully informed about your project, as it is rarely mentioned in meetings. Have you been in contact with anyone at the Neighborhood Council since Lisa Karadjian left the board?

Areen Ibranossian and Ari Engelberg and Senator Alex Padilla all the Coro Foundation.

For context, Lisa Karadjian, who was closely aligned with Paul Krekorian (and Richard Weintraub) and served on the LVNOC, circumvented the Chair—who lived next door to the facility—to push through a project that was viewed as an overreach and expansion benefiting interests other than the local community.

Thank you for your attention to these matters. Brad Sherman should be arrested!

Going, Going, Gone…

As for the LVNOC and Prop K, there has been insufficient notice to the public in 2014, 2017, 2019, and 2021 and still ongoing, despite ongoing opposition. This morning September 5, 2024, a demolition truck was spotted scoping out the park.

In August 2024, the city is set to begin a two-year project, yet we've had almost no notice. The only reason I found out was from a woman who lives within 500 feet of the facility. Despite written requests to the local recreation center and the council district office, there is still no posted information regarding the stages of construction, the number and types of vehicles involved, or the expected impact on traffic. Ingress and egress will likely use Moorpark Street, which is already on the Harvard Westlake Haul Route.