Los Angeles lost one of its most vocal watchdogs last week.
Eric Preven, a Hollywood writer and producer turned local government activist, died of an apparent heart attack at his Studio City home on Saturday Nov. 8 at the age of 62.
As noted by Jim Hampton, publisher of CityWatch LA where much of Preven’s work was published, Preven’s signature accomplishments were two government accountability cases he was a part of.
First was a years-long legal battle he brought with the American Civil Liberties Union to get Los Angeles County to publicly release invoices revealing how much the county was paying outside law firms related to the county’s many lawsuits alleging excessive force in the county jail system.
Second was his 2019 case successfully challenging the city of Los Angeles’s blocking of public comment during certain meetings. “It’s not a single incident,” he said at the time. “The city has been engaged in a pattern of abuse on the Brown Act.”
Preven’s civic engagement took many forms, from writing to litigation to his own bids for local office. In his last run for office in 2018, he received 36,618 votes in his challenge to Sheila Kuehl on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.
Preven understood well that corruption thrives in darkness and that public engagement was critical to checking the worst instincts of those in power.
I got to publish six commentaries from Preven this year in our papers and wish I could’ve run more.
His most recent piece, published last month, effectively ripped into the city of Los Angeles’ secretive and wasteful approach to litigation: “Los Angeles will spend roughly $320 million this year settling lawsuits — from police shootings to sidewalk injuries — without a single trial or moment of public scrutiny. City Hall handles it all behind closed doors. Councilmembers vote in secret, the city attorney announces the amounts after the fact, and by the time the public hears about it, the checks are already in the mail.”
This system, he understood, mainly benefits lawyers (who get much of this money) and politicians (who can avoid accountability).
He likewise pulled no punches on Los Angeles County’s handling of a $4 billion payout this year. “I’m not outraged that survivors are receiving compensation,” he said. “I’m outraged that the system that failed them for decades is now failing the public, again, by hiding behind settlements instead of seeking justice. What’s being built here isn’t healing. It’s a legal mill enriching attorneys while accountability and reform are quietly buried.”
His penultimate commentary published by me was true to form. He rightly called out the federal government’s trampling of free speech, but brought the point back home. “Pam Bondi, the conservative U.S. attorney general, and Marqueece Harris-Dawson, the liberal president of the Los Angeles City Council, share a dirty secret: they both want speech that’s easy to manage—and they’re willing to treat the Constitution like a dimmer switch to get there,” he wrote. “Different jerseys, same play: manage the message.”
Preven’s death is a blow to the already weak and honestly quite pathetic civic culture of Los Angeles. Fewer watchdogs mean more politicians will get away with horrendous choices and governments will have even less incentive to respond to public pressure. Hopefully, others can step up and take up his mantle.
Sal Rodriguez can be reached at salrodriguez@scng.com