Eric Preven, one of L.A. County\u2019s most prominent citizen watchdogs, has died at 63, according to his family.<\/p>\n
Preven, a well-known government transparency advocate, garnered a reputation as an eagle-eyed observer of local meetings, a savvy wielder of the state\u2019s public records act, and a reliable thorn in the sides of his government.<\/p>\n
Relatives said Preven died Saturday in his Studio City home of a suspected heart attack.<\/p>\n
The term \u201cgadfly\u201d often is bandied about local government to describe those who never miss a public meeting. But politicians and his family say the term doesn\u2019t quite do Preven justice.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou may not agree with him, but it wasn\u2019t just like [he was] shooting from the hip. He would do his research,\u201d said Supervisor Kathryn Barger, who watched Preven testify for more than a decade. \u201cHe would let the facts speak for themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 2016, Preven and the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California took a lawsuit all the way to the California Supreme Court, which ruled in his favor,<\/a> finding the public had a right to know how much the county was paying outside lawyers in closed cases. Three years later he successfully forced the city to expand its rules<\/a> around public testimony after he argued he\u2019d been unlawfully barred from weighing in on a Studio City development.<\/p>\n Many attendees of local public meetings tend to drift into offensive diatribes<\/a> that have little to do with the matter at hand. Preven never did.<\/p>\n Instead he fine-tuned the art of presenting minute-long, logical arguments on everything from budget shortfalls to seemingly excessive settlements. He could be cutting but he always had a point to make. <\/p>\n And he never missed a meeting.<\/p>\n \u201cThank you for this exhausting dressing down of the probation department,\u201d Preven said last Tuesday after the supervisors wrapped up rebuking officials for paltry programming inside juvenile halls. \u201cThe idea that we\u2019re paying for these programs, these programs are scheduled, and nothing is happening is terrible.\u201d<\/p>\n A New York native, Preven moved to Los Angeles to work in Hollywood, landing TV writing gigs<\/a> on shows including \u201cPopular\u201d and \u201cReba.\u201d His path into local activism began 15 years ago after his mother\u2019s two chocolate labs were removed by the county\u2019s animal control department following a fight with an off-leash dog, according to his family.<\/p>\n Preven, a canine lover known to throw parties with members of his local dog park, found the removal of the labs unjustifiable. He went to the Board of Supervisors meeting to tell them so. Then he went again. And again. And again.<\/p>\n Long after the dogs were returned, Preven kept going back.<\/p>\n \u201cHe started listening to the meeting and looking at the agenda, and he became just appalled at so many things that he saw,\u201d said his brother, Joshua Preven. \u201cHe became so incensed by it.\u201d<\/p>\n Preven became a fierce advocate for the public\u2019s right to know what was happening in local meetings and kept close track of staff changes at City Hall. He was known to text local government reporters early on weekend mornings to ask why someone had stepped down from a city agency, or self-deprecatingly share his latest blog post on CityWatch, a local news site<\/a>.<\/p>\n