CommentsERIC PREVEN"S NOTEBOOK - Holiday: The Board has shamefully cancelled more meetings for Aug. 17 & 24; the next public board meeting will be on Aug. 31, 2021 (Pls check the fine print.)
The reason why public comment even exists is so a person can bring up items that the supervisors don't necessarily want to be confronted with. Especially in front of everyone including various honorees and esteemed journalists like David Goldstein snooping around.
One example, this week... the BOS made it possible to be hired by the county of Los Angeles without being asked the citizenship question. Reasonable, I'm not an immigration attorney.
The lawyers wrote a report on the issue and refused to make that report available to the Los Angeles Times, citing the attorney-client privilege. The Attorney client privilege, and I should know, is not a privilege to take bad advice in a back room. Is it?
If a public agency is getting bad legal advice and following that advice the public has a right to at least see the parameters of the discussion. No?
If you disagree, you may be excused at this point in today's lecture. RED FLAG
Say it and spray it!
Sachi Hamai, the former County CEO diligently refused to admit she was getting email, but she was. Some people expect the public to be outspoken about various types of truths... to power.
But practical issues do arise.
Like if you ask, why is the county not sharing what Skip Miller's been paid for his work on the LA Alliance lawsuit and recommending that the board of supervisors award the CEO over his payouts, Sachi Hamai, a payout of $1.5 million of her own, without even filing a legal claim against the county, you get a dial tone. Carl Warren, one of the county's third-party administrator/nasty claim rejectors would post a disbelief emoji, if they posted emojis.
Why is the county not sharing a report on legal issues re: non citizens and county employment?
Blocked.
And why are they not sharing the meta data from AT&T to clarify understand the process of deselection?
Blocked.
When you ask to speak to the boss at the city or the county, you get a deputy.
Jeramy Gray, an ordinary bloke engaged in a different kind of pay to play activity. He makes nearly $300,000 a year to play games about the reduction of public comment. He's recently moved over to the Registrar Recorder County Clerk to take a big job at $277,000 / year.
Staffers, Lawyers: can be avoidant:
Gail Grant Tinker, the NBC chief answered his own telephone. Not Jeffrey Ebenstein of Paul Koretz's team at CD5, one of the wealthiest districts.
At City Hall they do not necessarily respond to email which is crazy. If they don't, we check with Ted Ross - lovely ITA topper who is complicit - to determine if an email address is active. It almost always is. And when it's not we take note that someone has ankled their post.
Jeffrey Ebenstein's email is active but he's been super unresponsive. It's a shame because he's RAISING a lot of MONEY.
"It's easy to raise $25,000." if your Gail Koretz, who is no longer getting city email because she's on direct deposit from Koretz's fancy campaign to replace Ron Galperin who is running to replace Sheila Kuehl. Money, money everywhere. But nobody calls you back.
Both city and county employees should respond to email from the public.
Take it up the ladder:
The point of bringing something up the ladder to the big boss is because you have to believe... and you do believe... and you need them to know something is very wrong in their organization.
The standing, so to speak, to bring a complaint all the way to Wayne Peacock the CEO of USAA is the idea that if it were you in the position of power, you would want to know. The old adage from the Godfather, "Mr. Corleone is a man who insists on hearing bad news immediately."
Mr. Peacock, (insert compliment) "If I were you, I would want to know..."
Whistle blowing is not necessarily a popular activity and traditionally WBs do not get away unscathed. And there is no glamor in speaking truth to power if power is otherwise engaged.
Power is generally, rather busy.
Watchdogs play an important role, barking when something is awry. But barking does not automatically result in relief or reward in fact often, folks who appreciate that something is being raised, are unwilling to compromise 'proximity to power' to join the rantings of an officious intermeddler who has spotted something wrong and happens to be right.
Bark when you see something wrong and if they ignore it, bark a little louder and if they ignore it again bark a little louder still, and when they finally acknowledge, which gets the barking to stop, wait a bit and provide an entertaining recap of all the barking and corrected wrongdoing with 1 teaspoon of gratitude and five cups of "don't do it again."
Apple:
In September of 2019 I attended an Investigative Reporters and Editors IRE conference for the first time in Houston, Texas. I learned a lot and was able to trot out a big concern that I had had with getting imperious corporations, like Apple, to respond to inquiries from customers or reporters.
The problem arose over that summer on the Eastern Fork of Long Island where my mother's iPhone had briefly caught on fire burning her hand. We needed a replacement and Apple behaved in the most appalling greed-based manner and would not help.
So, I rolled out the question at the conference of journalists, how do you get Apple management to come to the phone?
Karen Weise from the New York Times another guy from the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal ... all shrugged, well, "you can't."
I was in disbelief, "everybody is accountable to somebody", I thought."
The communications team had done a very good job of isolating the top management from the complainants. The so-called sausage factory.
All we had asked was to issue a replacement phone at the site of purchase but instead Apple made a senior citizen wait more than forty-eight hours, without a phone.
The new phone malfunctioned after just 39 days, and practically blew up in her hand. We were outraged at the cold calculating ... elder abuse?
So what happens when good companies are behaving badly?
How do you get the big boss to come to the phone to hear about the problems?
Alan C. Hostrup: Sir, we're at 7% pool capacity:
On Charity Navigator, a site that reports on not for profits and their various business practices the "Constituent Feedback and Listening Practice data" button is disabled for the YMCA of Metropolitan Los Angeles.
It's not an accident. Nonprofit organizations that engage in inclusive practices, such as collecting feedback from the people and communities they serve, may be more effective, but it's a pain in the ass.
Ask Alan C. Hostrup President & CEO he’s consistently refused to take my call.
And his Vice Chair is Wendy Greuel and the Anderson Munger Family (who have a Y named after them) and Kelly Cheeseman the Chief Operating Officer L.A. Kings / AEG Sports (who got a huge tax break from Englander) are on the board of the YMCA which is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit social services organization.
I've been trying to make them aware of the current policy re: swimming pool capacity and the 'hand in the water' absurdity at play.
YMCA introduced a reservations APP to book lanes or other equipment.
Though the outdoor pool has a 114-person occupancy with 270 degrees of openable windows and a fully retractable roof, management has restricted it's usage to 7% of capacity, or 8 persons.
And the pool has also been inexplicably closed from 11am to 4pm daily and has caused other problems that are in conflict with the YMCA pillars of character. At the East Valley YMCA, a local group of renegade seniors, who have been unfairly blocked from their usual float around session mid-morning have reserved all the early morning lanes from 7:00am - 9:00am. A real naval battle is underway....
There's been a shortage of chlorine nationally but there's a shortage of integrity at the YMCA.
Swimming pools are hostile to the virus. So why have members been subjected to massive closures and imposed restrictions.
The YMCA claims financial hardship but a single lifeguard during the mid part of the day would cost approximately $75/ day.
To do that six days a week would be less than $25,000 for an entire year. It should be more money but despite the six pillars of character the YMCA does not cover the cost of benefits for lifeguards.
The YMCA can afford it.... In 2019 YMCA LA Revenue was $119,172,763, expenses were $103,269,635
Mayor Garcetti announced last April that funding for the YMCA to the tune of $180,000 / month would be made available to provide showers for the unhoused at just nine of its twenty-six locations.
Mackenzie Scott, bless her heart, gave the Metropolitan YMCA of Detroit $10 million, who knows why Mr. Hostrup won't say how much she gave the LA YMCAs. But, thank you.
Charlie Munger, who bought the Harvard-Westlake students the last publicly accessible facility in Studio City (and so in effect is privatizing), had a good quarter, maybe he can help.
His Daily Journal, a newspaper publisher and legal-software provider, reported its third-quarter earnings this week. They revealed that its stock portfolio, which has a $80 million cost base, soared in value by 60% to $350 million in the nine months to June 30. Advertising sales soared 69% to $2.2 million as courts ordered businesses to publish legal notices of their trading names.
We can do better:
The Anderson Munger Family YMCA
6:30am-11:00am & 3:00pm-8:00pm
8:00am-12:00pm Saturday
East Valley:
7:00am -11:00am & 4:00pm-8:00pm
8:00am-1:00pm Saturday
Corcoran Group is a massive real estate company sent an agent, who signed off and then reneged and pointed the seniors who were being misled toward an unscrupulous lawyer. When we brought it up the chain to the top: Barbara Corcoran, herself who stars on Shark Tank and sold her brand leaving Pamela Liebman and her boy Friday Andrew R. Levinson, a very smart lawyer who went to Yale in charge, zilch.
Will they take notice and assist a couple who have been members of the local community for 50 years, as they're held hostage in an improper breach of contract rental extortion scheme.
Levinson, shrugs and points at the unscrupulous lawyer who’s in business with Corcoran in the city.
If you know, you know or IFYKYK.
(Eric Preven is a longtime community activist and is a contributor to CityWatch.)
