ERIC PREVEN'S NOTEBOOK

ERIC PREVEN'S NOTEBOOK - We were discussing the benefits of a chiropractor -- a cousin told a story of a friend who went in for an adjustment and had her neck broken.  I told her straight up, in that case, "I'd hire a lawyer." 

ERIC PREVEN'S NOTEBOOK - The City Council heard from Fred Ali (Chair) and Frank Cardenas (Exec Director), the virtual masterminds behind the new redistricting recommendations that arrived Tuesday after months of mounting testimony and a contentious 2020 census.  

ERIC PREVEN’S NOTEBOOK - At Thursday's pre-Halloween Metro meeting there was a slight chill in the air following the indictment of treasured colleague and co-conspirator, Mark Ridley-Thomas. 

ERIC PREVEN'S NOTEBOOK - The Queen was apparently hunkered down at her desk doing royal paperwork after her small bout of over exhaustion.

ERIC PREVEN'S NOTEBOOK - District Dirt. Ruth Galanter reportedly said this week, "The value system that does seem to operate is 'Where can I raise the most money for whatever it is I want to raise it for, or wherever it is I want to have influence?"

ERIC PREVEN'S NOTEBOOK - Not exactly sure what to say about how to fill the very large shoes of Mark Ridley-Thomas.

ERIC PREVEN’S NOTEBOOK - One of the permissible "I told you so" moments in life comes when a public official who you've been blowing the whistle on for years finally faces some music.  Any music.  

ERIC PREVEN’S NOTEBOOK - Paul Krekorian, who is reportedly moving out of what was once a modest house in North Hollywood, but now a $2.6 million dollar McMansion, should consider holding a request for proposals RFP for something to shut his dog up during city work meetings.

ERIC PREVEN'S NOTEBOOK - Squid Games, the hit on Netflix, has tapped a sense familiar to people in the USA, Western Europe and other places, that prosperity in nominally rich countries has become increasingly difficult to achieve, as wealth disparities widen and home prices soar upwards past affordable levels. 

ERIC PREVEN’S NOTEBOOK - On Tuesday, the board lumped the entire Supplemental Budget Meeting into its regularly scheduled board meeting agenda, so it was virtually impossible for the public to speak before or during consideration of those items. 

ERIC PREVEN’S NOTEBOOK - It's hard to know what to think sometimes out in Studio City, as people from all over the city come to town, play golf on the local par nine golf course at Weddington on Whitsett and then try to adjust our community's narrative.  

ERIC PREVEN'S NOTEBOOK - The Inboxes are blowing up at the California League of Cities offices.

Drought Dogs:  The dogs, a large black lab named Montana and a medium sized tan mutt named Winston, make several sorties a day up to the top of the hill behind our house at full speed; they never catch anything.

ERIC PREVEN'S NOTEBOOK - Off Agenda:  RIP Norm Macdonald:

ERIC PREVEN'S NOTEBOOK - Homelessness*  (Us v. Them)

LIVE, WORK, PAY-TO-PLAY - In the next week, the big tech companies are expected to report earnings that will eclipse all previous windfalls.

MAKING POINTS-As a shorthand way to address the LA Times’ dismissal of Eric Preven’s candidacy for Mayor of Los Angeles, the Preven campaign invites the public to view this brief video showcasing some of his beliefs, abilities and credentials. We also urge you to visit www.ericpreven.com to read the numerous articles we’ve written about the fiscal and social challenges facing Los Angeles. 

Regarding the Times’ calling into question Eric Preven’s ability to run a city the size of Los Angeles, we would note first of all that the incumbent was a legislator, not an executive, when he took office. Eric Preven has had extensive experience managing multi-million dollar TV production budgets. 

What’s important in a mayor is judgement. Our campaign is happy to be compared to the incumbent in this regard. 

For instance, we think it is imprudent that the incumbent’s Metro plan would have LAPD officers, all working overtime, take over the lion’s share of security for the Metro. While having the highest regard for law enforcement, we believe that such a plan not only endangers the residents of Los Angeles by turning its police force into an overworked group (a situation known to increase accidents such as police shootings) but this plan opens the city to catastrophic liability. We call on the incumbent to withdraw his proposal, which is scheduled to be voted on February 23 at the next MTA Board meeting. 

We believe it showed poor judgment for the incumbent to earmark City revenues for a legal defense fund for undocumented immigrants, when it was obvious that such an action would have the inadvertent effect of arousing resentment from a significant portion of LA’s population and thereby, in effect, put a target on the back of undocumented immigrants. There was no shortage of willing private donors to fund that very worthy project. Everyone deserves legal representation, and our commitment to the welfare of undocumented families is unbreakable. 

At the same time, we consider unconscionable the extent to which the incumbent has ignored -- and so delegitimized -- the real and understandable concerns of an important segment of LA’s population which feels that, as U.S. citizens, they are getting less attention than those who are not documented.  

The incumbent recently stated on network television that he believes Donald Trump is “very open minded” when it comes to the deportation of undocumented immigrant families. We consider his assessment to be naive, and believe that while it is important to cooperate with the President regarding issues of infrastructure and other economic concerns, on the particular issue of LA ever taking part in a round up its residents, we should be as adamant as Churchill was against WWII Germany. 

We’re proud of Eric Preven's partnership over the past four years with the ACLU with whom he recently won a landmark case in the California Supreme Court -- a case which helps preserve the liberty of all Californians. 

We consider imprudent -- and unethical -- the incumbent's current policy of making up for lost revenues by imposing exorbitant fines on Angelenos based on minor code infractions that, in many cases, occurred as much as a decade ago.  

We think it questionable that the incumbent has spent nearly a quarter a million dollars on a particular company named Daily Consulting, LLC which shows no evidence of being registered to do business in this state despite what the LA Times was told.  

Since September of 2016 (as we have written about before), the incumbent has systematically blocked Council District 7 from having any of its residents be appointed as a voting member of the City Council to temporarily replace Felipe Fuentes, who went to work for a lobbyist firm in Sacramento. This happened long before the CD7 primary election that is taking place on March 7. Also in violation of the law, is the incumbent’s recent flouting of the California Public Records Act. He is fifty days out of compliance with a recent request but offers no explanation. 

All this is just a sample of why we consider false the Times' contention that the incumbent is the only viable candidate on the ballot for Mayor of Los Angeles.

(Eric Preven and Joshua Preven are public advocates for better transparency in local government. Eric is a Studio City based writer-producer and a candidate for Los Angeles mayor. Joshua is a teacher.) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.