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ERIC PREVEN’S NOTEBOOK - This week, Bob’s little black book rises up from the ashes.
It’s nearly time for the annual budget matryoshka—that special ritual where one monolithic item quietly swallows 38 departments, 800 amendments, a police helicopter, and a zoo monkey with a pension.
Paul Krekorian may be gone, but his ghost still hovers over the horseshoe, whispering, “Let’s receive and file.”
Welcome to another episode of Los Angeles County: The Greatest Show On Earth—where Supervisors smile, applaud one another’s leadership, dodge inconvenient truths with practiced charm, and kick the biggest cans down the longest roads.
Tuesday's meeting on April 15 was a doozy whopper. And lucky for you, there's no meeting next week because apparently governance needs a short break from itself. So settle in.
Let’s start where it hurts most: the jails.
Item 37: Rosas Monitor Report — Or, "Why Are We Still Hitting People in the Head?" The Supervisors spent over an hour talking about how use-of-force in our jails has gotten slightly less brutal but is still deeply problematic. The monitors told us the department found zero cases out of policy among 12 involving head strikes. Monitors found six. So, who do we believe: the people hired to hold us accountable or the people holding the tasers?
Yes, tasers — still in use inside County custody. Do we not remember Cyril Dupree? A man was tased into paralysis in a Lakewood jail. The County paid $4.5 million to settle that lawsuit, and yet here we are, still handing out electronic cattle prods like it's a team-building exercise.
I only spoke twice during a very long meeting.
"The Men's Central Jail is a big old facility and the culture is wrong. We should definitely take it down... You can't make an iPad work yet? I mean, it hurts."
The ACLU chimed in with some truthiness:
"It's been ten years since Rosas. Twenty percent of the provisions still aren’t in compliance. And they're the most important ones."
One ACLU speaker warned that if the Sheriff holds the keys, it’s still a jail, no matter how many "Care Campus" signs you put up.
And one anonymous truth-talker pointed out that a lot of force incidents stem from bad plumbing. Seriously: no hot water, broken toilets, and a refusal to move an inmate out of the "noisy room" leads to violence. A kind of dystopian Yelp review: "Let me speak to the manager!"— BAM. Head strike.
Supervisor Horvath was deep in her Goldilocks zone again: not too critical, not too defensive. She praised the department’s progress, worried about the discrepancies, and spit out the word "standard-setting" with the sincerity of a GPS that knows you’re lost.
"We want to be a standard-setting department."
Cue my spit-take. We can't even close Men's Central Jail. We have a festering sore in youth probation, a $4 billion settlement hanging over our heads, and we paid $40 million to Kobe Bryant's widow for no public benefit. But sure, let’s set standards.
If nothing else, maybe we should just formalize it: introduce a motion to create a Department of Head Strikes — fully staffed, lightly regulated, and operating out of the basement next to where they store the obsolete body cams.
Item 48: Home Care and Homelessness More than 60 public commenters — many in Spanish — came to say what the County already knows: Home care workers are criminally underpaid, and the County keeps pretending it can fund homelessness prevention with expired coupons and vague promises.
Horvath, in a passionate speech, called to fully fund Transitional Age Youth (TAY) services, homelessness prevention, and employment programs like L.A. RISE:
"It won’t happen just because we say we believe in it."
Amen.
Celebrating Spring meeting cancellation.
Supervisor Mitchell agreed on the goals but scolded the process: stop playing budgetary whack-a-mole. She and Barger pushed for a scaled-back version of Horvath’s plan. LAHSA's Cheri Todoroff popped in to explain why $5.6 million (not $7M) was "more accurate."
Meanwhile, formerly unhoused graduates of L.A. RISE told stories that made the room blink. One had lived in a car. Another survived addiction and jail. Now they help others. All they asked? Don’t gut the one program that helped them stand up.
Davenport's Budget Blues:
Fesia Davenport, our indefatigable CEO, laid out what she politely called a "recommended budget" — but what felt more like a cut-by-numbers nightmare.
We’re talking:
- A $4 billion settlement over decades of child abuse in probation facilities.
- Nearly $2 billion in wildfire recovery costs from the January blazes.
- A projected loss of federal support, just as homelessness numbers climb.
Her $47.9 billion proposal includes $89 million in cuts, wiping out 310 unfilled positions. No layoffs — yet. And oh, the federal strings? More work requirements, fewer lifelines.
Davenport warned: "Any of these alone would be daunting. Taken together, they are cause for great concern." Translation: We're broke and on fire, and the fire department is downsizing.
Item 11: Marina del Quiet Only Smart Speaker Eric Preven dared to mention this one. The County handed a nice lease amendment to Crescendo Pacific Marina LLC — a yacht club deal involving public land and a quiet real estate swap. No Supervisor said a word. The elite clientele will be very pleased.
Also, Supervisor Horvath recused herself from voting on this item, citing a campaign contribution in excess of $500 from Crescendo Pacific Marina, LLC. The amendment quietly handed over intellectual property rights to the County — rights that arguably already belonged to the public. So, did we just pay extra to affirm something we already owned?
And finally... the Great Probation Vanishing Act Supervisor Barger asked County Counsel if they even had to vote to punt the Probation item to May 20. Counsel nodded. Barger grinned. Horvath seconded. Roll call. Boom — gone.
Accountability adjourned until further notice.
And now, a word about who wasn’t there... Supervisor Janice Hahn was notably absent from the Rosas discussion. Not on mute — not recused — just not there. Did she swoop in later to vote on other items?
Final Word: There were some bright spots: powerful voices from the public, righteous calls for funding what's needed...
But still, the County's two-step continues: gesture, delay, announce, and duck. Just enough movement to feel like progress. Not enough to fix what’s broken.
See you after recess. Maybe.
One Item, One Investigation: The Budget Hearings Are Back, Baby!
It’s not Día de los Muertos yet, but it sure looks like it inside Council Chambers these days. The sweet smell of austerity. The haunting echoes of liability payouts. The slow procession of departments praying their budget memos don’t get tossed into Exhibit H with the others.
The Los Angeles City Council's annual budget bacchanal is here — and this year, it’s under the loving care of Katy Yaroslavsky, daughter-in-law of Zev, the man who once ran this circus with calculator-in-hand and moral clarity in his voice. Last week, he made a misty-eyed cameo in the Temple of Hypocrisy -
The Great One ZevYaroslavsky keeps his hands in his pockets in the Chambers.
Now Katy’s in the chair, and Zev’s on KCAL, offering commentary in between suspiciously long pauses. Because, let’s be honest, this year’s process is enough to leave even a seasoned pundit slack-jawed.
The entire $13-billion behemoth is cloaked in a single agenda item — just one — Item No. (1). That’s 38 departments, two pension systems, one MICLA, zero accountability. Public comment is limited to two days only — April 25 in Van Nuys and April 28 at City Hall. One minute per speaker. If you blink, you’ll miss your chance to speak up about both potholes and pension liabilities.
Who’s not on the committee this year? Paul Krekorian — the godfather of budget compression — who’s allegedly consulting with the Mayor’s legal team, including none other than David “Don’t Ask, Don’t Disclose” Michaelson, about whether his own robust post-presidency salary as head of the city’s megaevent department (yes, megaevent) should be shared with the public. Spoiler alert: he’s leaning toward no.
Meanwhile, the committee soldiers on. Chair Yaroslavsky will be flanked by Bob Blumenfield, Heather Hutt, Tim McOsker, and Eunisses Hernandez — a crew ready to ask the hard questions. Maybe.
But while the official calendar shows budget hearings from April 25 through May 16, don’t be fooled. There’s a mysterious “recess” from May 9 to May 15. Not spring break. Not a holiday. Just... recess. A week of civic shrugging while lobbyists descend with red pens and freshly printed amendments. Zev might call it “deliberation.” The rest of us call it what it is — a Black Hole of public oversight.
Let’s remember: there’s pride in passing a city budget. And horror in how we often do it. It’s not just the $220 million in liability payouts last year, or the $350 million overspent in the Inside Safe initiative. It’s the way the whole thing is stacked like a Russian doll, forcing the public to sprint through their grievances in sixty seconds while councilmembers duck out for catered lunches.
So, as we careen toward the May 16 finale — where the Chief Legislative Analyst emerges like a magician with a new set of numbers — let’s raise a toast to One Item, One Investigation. Because if we don’t investigate how we got here, we’re destined to keep circling the same fiscal drain.
One minute. One budget. One very concerned Zev.
The quasi-Mount Rushmore of politicians desperate to block public comment.
Blumenfield’s January Calendar: Very late. "Tase him!"
Transparency Level: Surprisingly decent. Unlike colleagues with redacted-to-hell calendars or walls of “Busy,” Blumenfield’s schedule is detailed and readable. Most days include names, locations, or Zoom info.
Redactions? Very few. Just the occasional “Busy” or placeholders like “H:” or “INTERNAL.” Some entries labeled “briefing” may be vague by design, but compared to others, this is practically a tell-all.
Patterns: Pre-Council briefings are clockwork. Virtual meetings stack around in-person ones, and drive time is protected—sometimes wedged between back-to-back sessions. Evenings often go to community events: Reimagine Ventura, IAC Shabbat, YMCA hearings, etc. The “Busy” blocks tend to fall on late afternoons or weekends—likely personal.
Power Players: Frequent collabs with Traci Park, Marqueece Harris-Dawson, Yaroslavsky, CAO Matt Szabo, and DMH’s Agonafer and Hovaspian. Reva Feldman (ex-Malibu City Manager) pops up more than once. Heavy involvement in PLUM, Budget & Finance, and Housing & Homelessness.
Scheduling Gymnastics: Some double-booked entries—like “Internal check-in” overlapping with “Busy”—and a few eyebrow-raisers like meetings with Reyes Coca-Cola tucked right before or after committee hearings.
Final Grade: B+ for calendar transparency. Better than most, but we still don’t know what gets said—or why some meetings are cloaked in vagueness. It's a decent map, just missing the legend.
So, Bob Blumenfield did not go to Paris at all? Or Chicago? Please confirm.
(Eric Preven is a Studio City-based TV writer-producer, award-winning journalist, and longtime community activist who won two landmark open government cases in California.)
