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Los Angeles Times
02-08-2025
- Politics
- Los Angeles Times
How a fizzled recall attempt actually helped Mayor Karen Bass
Good morning, and welcome to L.A. on the Record — our City Hall newsletter. It's Julia Wick, with an assist from David Zahniser, giving you the latest on city and county government. Several millennia ago during the Trojan War, an army of Greeks built a massive wooden horse, feigned departure and left it as a 'gift' outside the walled city of Troy. The Trojans brought the offering — filled, unbeknownst to them, with Greek soldiers — into their fortified city and unwittingly wrought their own downfall. At least that's how the legend goes. So if an attack disguised as a gift is a Trojan horse, what do you call a gift disguised as an attack? One could argue that the attempted recall of Mayor Karen Bass inadvertently fits the bill. Back in early March, Silicon Valley philanthropist and former Robert F. Kennedy Jr. running mate Nicole Shanahan launched an effort to recall Bass. At the time, Bass was still on her back foot — an incumbent, first-term mayor who'd become a national target for her initial response to the Palisades fire. It's notoriously difficult to gather enough signatures to trigger a recall. But Shanahan's extremely deep pockets (her ex-husband co-founded Google) made anything possible. With the mayor already wounded and Angelenos feeling angry and frustrated, a well-funded recall effort could have been the spark that torched Bass' reelection chances. That did not come to pass. Proponents didn't even finish the paperwork necessary to begin gathering signatures, then tweeted in June that a recall would 'no longer be our vehicle for change' and that they would instead focus on holding elected officials accountable at the ballot box in 2026. Their spokesperson has not responded to several emails from The Times. But the short-lived recall effort had one effect its proponents likely did not anticipate. During a tenuous moment for Bass, they may have unintentionally handed her an extremely useful tool: the ability to form an opposition committee unencumbered by limits on the size of the donations she collects. The threat from Shanahan's group allowed Bass to form her own anti-recall campaign committee — separate from her general reelection account, which cannot collect more than $1,800 from each donor. Now, she could raise more money from her existing supporters, in far larger amounts. Flash forward to this week, when the latest tranche of campaign finance numbers were released, revealing how much was raised and spent from the beginning of the year through the end of June. While Bass' official reelection campaign took in an anemic $179,589, her anti-recall coffers hoovered up more than four times that amount. The nearly $750,000 collected by the anti-recall campaign included two major donations at the end of March that we previously reported on: $250,000 from the Bass-affiliated Sea Change PAC and $200,000 from former assembly speaker and Actum managing partner Fabian Núñez's leftover campaign cash. Along with Núñez and Sea Change, the largest donors were philanthropists Jon Croel and William Resnick ($25,000 each), businessman Baron Farwell ($25,000) and former City Councilmember Cindy Miscikowski ($15,000). Several others gave $10,000 a piece, including pomegranate billionaire and power donor Lynda Resnick. It's far easier to rally donations when you're dealing with an impending threat. ('Save the mayor from a right-wing recall!' is much catchier than asking for reelection dollars when a serious challenger has yet to jump into the race.) And it's infinitely faster to stockpile cash when you aren't limited to $1,800 increments. 'After the fires and what had happened, anything was possible, and we had to mobilize, and that's what the mayor did,' said Bass campaign strategist Doug Herman. 'But the people of the city didn't want to have a recall in the midst of what they thought were more serious problems.' Shanahan declined to comment. When the recall effort officially times out on Aug. 4, the Bass camp will no longer be able to raise unlimited sums to fight it (with a few exceptions, such as expenses related to winding down the committee or settling debt). But the anti-recall committee will still have quite the extra arsenal to fire off in her favor. Sometimes your loudest enemies are really friends in disguise. —WHITHER CARUSO? Brentwood resident and former Vice President Kamala Harris announced this week that she would not be running for governor, intensifying questions about whether former mayoral candidate Rick Caruso might jump into the gubernatorial race ... or potentially challenge Bass again for mayor. Through a spokesperson, Caruso declined to comment. — RACE FOR THE 8TH FLOOR: City Attorney candidate Marissa Roy outraised incumbent Hydee Feldstein Soto during the latest fundraising period, delivering a major warning shot about the seriousness of her campaign. For now, Feldstein Soto still has more cash on hand than Roy, who is challenging her from the left. — COASTAL CASH: In the race for a Westside council district, public interest lawyer Faizah Malik raised a hefty $127,360, but her stash pales in comparison to the $343,020 that incumbent Councilmember Traci Park brought in during the most recent filing period. That's far more than any other city candidate running in the June 2026 election. — AHEAD OF THE PACK: Council staffer Jose Ugarte, who's hoping to succeed his boss, termed out Councilmember Curren Price, in a crowded South L.A. race, raised a whopping $211,206, far outpacing his rivals. — VIEW FROM THE VALLEY: During this filing cycle, Tim Gaspar and Barri Worth Girvan both brought in real money in the race to succeed outgoing Councilmember Bob Blumenfield in the West Valley. Girvan outraised Gaspar during the past half-year, but Gaspar entered the race earlier and still has substantially more cash on hand. — WHERE'S MONICA? One incumbent who didn't report any fundraising is Valley Councilmember Monica Rodriguez. When reached Friday, Rodriguez said she is still planning to run for reelection and was in the process of changing treasurers. She did not answer when asked whether she was also considering a potential mayoral bid, as has been rumored. — WHAT ABOUT KENNETH? City Controller Kenneth Mejia does not have any campaign finance numbers listed because he qualified his reelection committee after the June 30 fundraising deadline. He'll be required to share fundraising numbers for the next filing period. — LOWER LAYOFFS: The number of employee layoffs planned for the 2025-26 fiscal year continued to decline this week, falling to 394, according to a report released Friday by City Administrative Officer Matt Szabo. Bass' budget had proposed 1,600 earlier this year. Szabo attributed much of the decrease to the transfer of employees to vacant positions that are not targeted for layoff. — TOKENS OF APPRECIATION: According to her disclosure forms, Bass' reelection committee spent more than $1,100 on gifts 'of appreciation,' including flowers sent to Mayer Brown lawyers Edgar Khalatian, Dario Frommer and Phil Recht; Fabian Núñez; lawyer Byron McLain; longtime supporters Wendy and Barry Meyer; author Gil Robertson; former Amazon exec Latasha Gillespie; L.A. Labor Fed head honcho Yvonne Wheeler; lobbyist Arnie Berghoff; Faye Geyen; and LA Women's Collective co-founder Hannah Linkenhoker. The most expensive bouquet ($163.17, from Ode à la Rose) went to Lynda Resnick. — PIZZA INTEL: Bass has not, to my knowledge, publicly shared the names of her reelection finance committee. But her forms list a $198.37 charge at Triple Beam Pizza for food for a 'finance committee meeting' with Cathy Unger, Victoria Moran, Ron Stone, Kellie Hawkins, Todd Hawkins, Cookie Parker, Stephanie Graves, Leslie Gilbert-Lurie, George Pla, Wendy Greuel, Byron McLain, Chris Pak, Travis Kiyota, Areva Martin and Kevin Pickett. Bass' consultant did not immediately respond when asked if that list constituted her finance committee, and if anyone was missing. — FAMILY-FRIENDLY PROGRAMMING? Speakers at Los Angeles City Council meetings will be banned from using the N-word and the C-word, the council decided Wednesday. But my colleague Noah Goldberg reports that the council's decision to ban the words could be challenged in court, with some legal scholars saying it could violate speakers' 1st Amendment free speech rights to curse out their elected officials. — ZINE O' THE TIMES: City Councilmember Bob Blumenfield finally named his pick for the city's Charter Reform Commission: Dennis Zine, who served on the council for 12 years, representing the same West Valley district as Blumenfield. Zine spent more than three decades as an officer with the LAPD while also serving on the board of the Police Protective League, the union that represents rank-and-file officers, and should not be confused with progressive former Santa Monica mayor Denny Zane. That's it for this week! Send your questions, comments and gossip to LAontheRecord@ Did a friend forward you this email? Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Saturday morning.
Los Angeles Times
26-07-2025
- Politics
- Los Angeles Times
L.A.'s bid to rewrite its City Charter starts off with a spicy leadership battle
Good morning, and welcome to L.A. on the Record — our City Hall newsletter. It's David Zahniser, with an assist from Julia Wick, giving you the latest on city and county government. Here you thought charter reform would be boring. A 13-member citizens commission is just getting started on the painstaking, generally unsexy work of poring through the Los Angeles City Charter, the city's governing document, and coming up with strategies for improving it. Yet already, the commission has had a leadership battle, heard allegations of shady dealings and fielded questions about whether it's been set up to fail. But first, let's back up. Mayor Karen Bass, City Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson and former Council President Paul Krekorian chose a collection of volunteers to serve on the Charter Reform Commission, which is charged with exploring big and small changes to the City Charter. The commission is part of a much larger push for reform sparked by the city's 2022 audio leak scandal and a string of corruption cases involving L.A. officials. The list of potential policy challenges the commission faces is significant. Good government types want the new commission to endorse ranked-choice voting, with Angelenos selecting their elected officials by ranking candidates in numerical order. Advocacy groups want to see a much larger City Council. Some at City Hall want clarity on what to do with elected officials who are accused of wrongdoing but have not been convicted. 'You are not one of those commissions that shows up every few years to fix a few things here or there,' said Raphael Sonenshein, who served nearly 30 years ago as executive director of the city's appointed Charter Reform Commission, while addressing the new commission last week. 'You actually have a bigger responsibility than that.' The real work began on July 16, when the commission took up the question of who should be in charge. Many thought the leadership post would immediately go to Raymond Meza, who had already been serving as the interim chair. Instead, the panel found itself deadlocked. Meza is a high-level staffer at Service Employees International Union Local 721, the powerful public employee union that represents thousands of city workers and has been a big-money spender in support of Bass and many other elected city officials. Meza, who was appointed by Bass earlier this year, picked up five votes. But so did Ted Stein, a real estate developer who has served on an array of city commissions — planning, airport, harbor — but hadn't been on a volunteer city panel in nearly 15 years. Faced with a stalemate, charter commissioners decided to try again a few days later, when they were joined by two additional members. By then, some reform advocates were up in arms over Stein, arguing that he was bringing a record of scandal to the commission. They sent the commissioners news articles pointing out that Stein had, among other things, resigned from the airport commission in 2004 amid two grand jury investigations into whether city officials had tied the awarding of airport contracts to campaign contributions. Stein denied those allegations in 2004, calling them 'false, defamatory and unsubstantiated.' Last week, before the second leadership vote, he shot back at his critics, noting that two law enforcement agencies — the U.S. attorney's office and the L.A. County district attorney's office — declined to pursue charges against him. The Ethics Commission also did not bring a case over his airport commission activities. 'I was forced to protect my good name by having to hire an attorney and having to spend over $200,000 in legal fees [over] something where I had done nothing wrong,' he told his fellow commissioners. The city reimbursed Stein for the vast majority of those legal costs. Stein accused Meza of orchestrating some of the outside criticism — which Meza later denied. And Stein spent so much time defending his record that he had little time to say why he should be elected. Still, the vote was close, with Meza securing seven votes and Stein picking up five. Meza called the showdown 'unfortunate.' L.A. voters, he said, 'want to see the baton passed to a new generation of people.' The 40-year-old Montecito Heights resident made clear that he supports an array of City Charter changes. In an interview, Meza said he's 'definitely in favor' of ranked-choice voting, arguing that it would increase voter turnout. He also supports an increase in the number of City Council members but wouldn't say how many. And he wants to ensure that vacant positions are filled more quickly at City Hall, calling it an issue that 'absolutely needs to be addressed.' That last item has long been a concern for SEIU Local 721, where Meza works as deputy chief of staff. Nevertheless, Meza said he would, to an extent, set aside the wishes of his union during the commission's deliberations. 'On the commission, I am an individual resident of the city,' he said. Stein, for his part, told The Times that he only ran for the leadership post out of concern over the commission's tight timeline. The commission must submit its proposal to the council next spring — a much more aggressive schedule than the one required of two charter reform commissions nearly 30 years ago. Getting through so many complex issues in such a brief period calls for an experienced hand, said Stein, who is 76 and lives in Encino. Stein declined to say where he stands on council expansion and ranked-choice voting. He said he's already moved on from the leadership vote and is ready to dig into the commission's work. Meza, for his part, said he has heard the concerns about the aggressive schedule. But he remains confident the commission will be successful. 'I don't think we have the best conditions,' he said. 'But I do not believe we've been set up to fail. I'm very confident the commissioners will do what's needed to turn in a good product.' — STRICTLY BUSINESS: A group of L.A. business leaders launched a ballot proposal to repeal the city's much-maligned gross receipts tax, saying it would boost the city's economy and lower prices for Angelenos. The mayor and several other officials immediately panned the idea, saying it would deprive the city's yearly budget of $800 million, forcing cuts to police, firefighters and other services. — INCHING FORWARD: Meanwhile, another ballot proposal from the business community — this one backed by airlines and the hotel industry — nudged closer to reality. Interim City Clerk Petty Santos announced that the proposed referendum on the $30-per-hour tourism minimum wage had 'proceeded to the next step,' with officials now examining and verifying petition signatures to determine their validity. — GRIM GPS: The Los Angeles County Fire Department had only one truck stationed west of Lake Avenue in Altadena at a critical moment during the hugely destructive Eaton fire, according to vehicle tracking data analyzed by The Times. By contrast, the agency had dozens of trucks positioned east of Lake. All but one of the deaths attributed to the Eaton fire took place west of Lake. — CHANGE OF PLANS: On Monday, Bass nominated consultant and Community Coalition board member Mary Lee to serve on the five-member Board of Police Commissioners. Two days later, in a brief email, Lee withdrew from consideration. Reached by The Times, Lee cited 'personal reasons' for her decision but did not elaborate. (The mayor's office had nothing to add.) Lee would have replaced former commissioner Maria 'Lou' Calanche, who is running against Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez in the June 2026 election. — SEMPER GOODBYE: The Pentagon announced Monday that the roughly 700 Marines who have been deployed to the city since early June would be withdrawing, a move cheered by Bass and other local leaders who have criticized the military deployment that followed protests over federal immigration raids. About 2,000 National Guard troops remain in the region. — HALTING HEALTHCARE: L.A. County's public health system, which provides care to the region's neediest residents, could soon face brutal budget cuts. The 'Big Beautiful Bill,' enacted by President Trump and the Republican-led Congress, is on track to carve $750 million per year out of the Department of Health Services, which oversees four public hospitals and roughly two dozen clinics. At the Department of Public Health, which is facing its own $200-million cut, top executive Barbara Ferrer said: 'I've never actually seen this much disdain for public health.' — HOMELESS HIRE: The commission that oversees the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority selected Gita O'Neill, a career lawyer in the city attorney's office, to serve as the agency's interim CEO. O'Neill will replace Va Lecia Adams Kellum, who stepped down Friday after more than two years in her post. — THE JURY SPEAKS: The city has been ordered by a jury to pay $48.8 million to a man who has been in a coma since he was hit by a sanitation truck while crossing a street in Encino. The verdict comes as the city struggles with escalating legal payouts — and was larger than any single payout by the city in the last two fiscal years, according to data provided by the city attorney's office. — LOOKING FOR A LIAISON: Back in May, while signing an executive directive to support local film and TV production, L.A.'s mayor was asked whether she planned to appoint a film liaison as the City Hall point person for productions. 'Absolutely,' Bass said during the news conference, adding that she planned to do so within a few days. That was two months ago. Asked this week about the status of that position, Bass spokesperson Clara Karger touted the executive directive and said the position was 'being hired in conjunction with industry leaders.' She did not provide a timeline. That's it for this week! Send your questions, comments and gossip to LAontheRecord@ Did a friend forward you this email? Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Saturday morning.
Los Angeles Times
19-07-2025
- Politics
- Los Angeles Times
It's a bureaucratic whodunit: Who killed Measure J?
Good morning, and welcome to L.A. on the Record — our City Hall newsletter. It's Rebecca Ellis, with an assist from Julia Wick and Noah Goldberg, giving you the latest on city and county government. The 'five little queens' of L.A. County agree: accidentally wiping out a ballot measure is not a good look. It's a 'bureaucratic disaster,' Supervisor Lindsey Horvath said this week of the revelation that voters had wiped out the promise of hundreds of millions toward services that keep people out of jail. That snafu happened when voters approved her completely unrelated ballot measure in November to change the county's form of government. It's clear, the supervisors say, someone messed up badly. But who? The bureaucratic whodunit has confounded county observers — even those who once were creatures of the county themselves. 'I just can't figure it out,' said Zev Yaroslavsky, a former longtime county supervisor. 'The charter amendment just disappeared. I just don't know how that happened, mechanically.' The mistake, it seems, began with the county's executive office, which supports the five politicians with the less glamorous, administrative parts of the job — preparing meeting agendas and guiding the board through marathon Tuesday meetings. One of the lesser-known job requirements: updating the county charter — think of it like the county's constitution — when voters make changes at the ballot box. To do that, the executive office is supposed to submit the change to Municode, the online vendor hosting the county's charter, when the measure passes. That didn't happen. In 2020, voters approved Measure J, enshrining the promise of hundreds of millions toward services that keep people out of jail in the charter. Only the language was never actually added to the official charter document. Executive Officer Edward Yen, who was sworn into the top job last year, told his bosses Tuesday that the office was cleaning up its act. 'This failure of this magnitude is the reason why we're doing what we're doing,' he said at the Tuesday board meeting, noting he'd found his office's policies 'limited and lacking' when he came on the job. Celia Zavala, the former executive officer who retired in January 2024 after more than three decades with the county, couldn't be reached for comment. The executive office called its role 'purely ministerial' when it came to charter amendments and said it was working closely with the lawyers to make sure future changes were 'accurately and promptly reflected in the charter.' It was sloppy governance, but — until recently — it didn't really matter. Voters approved the measure, so it was, legally speaking, part of the county's governing document, even if you couldn't open up the charter and see it. But when a majority of county supervisors decided they wanted to revamp the county government last year, the outdated document became a real problem. County counsel had their marching orders: They were to create a ballot measure, known as Measure G, that would overhaul the county government, expanding the five-person board of elected supervisors to nine and bringing on a new elected executive, who would act almost as a mayor of the county. That's how it works, says Yaroslavsky. A supervisor has the vision. The lawyers create a ballot measure that makes it a reality. 'They put it into the secret language of legalese that none of us understand. And it wasn't like we took a magnifying glass to it,' said Yaroslavsky, who sponsored a ballot measure in 2002 to raise money for the county's trauma care network. 'I don't think I had any lawyers on my staff at the time — and certainly not legislative experts. So, I mean, you have to rely on your lawyers.' To change the county government, county lawyers wrote a ballot measure that would repeal most of a section of the charter — called Article III — in 2028. That section details the powers of the board — and, most consequentially, includes the requirement from Measure J that the board funnel hundreds of millions toward anti-incarceration services. County lawyers rewrote that chunk of the charter with the new changes the board wanted to make to the county's form of government — but left out the anti-incarceration funding. So when voters approved Measure G, they unwittingly repealed Measure J. The county counsel, led by Dawyn Harrison, said in a statement last week that the fault lies with a 'prior Executive Officer administration.' The charter wasn't updated, so they were left in the dark about what they needed to include in the new version. But some say the county lawyers — who drafted both ballot measures and therefore were presumably familiar with that part of charter— share some of the responsibility. 'It is an inexcusable administrative failing of the County's Executive Office and Counsel,' Supervisor Holly Mitchell said last week. 'It's just amazing that you wouldn't recall that you had Measure J,' said John Fasana, the former Duarte City Council member who first spotted the mistake. County counsel said in a statement that it was unrealistic. They were going off of what was posted on the online charter, which they said they're expected to treat 'as the governing law.' 'The idea that county attorneys should have 'just known' a provision was missing assumes we memorize every law ever passed,' county counsel said in a statement. 'That's not how the law works, and it couldn't function if we did.' Derek Hsieh, head of the sheriff's deputy union that opposed both ballot measures, says the buck stops at the top. 'The responsibility for this is with Los Angeles County supervisors. They are in charge, they take responsibility,' said Hsieh, underscoring one didn't need to have had a law degree to figure this out. 'And by the way, John Fasana's not a lawyer,' he said. — MEASURE J(K): County supervisors unanimously voted Tuesday to ask their lawyers to find a way to bring back Measure J. The county says it's looking at multiple options to try to get the measure permanently back in the charter including a change in state law, a court judgment or a ballot measure for 2026. — A HELPING HAND: County officials say a cash fund for families financially reeling from federal immigration raids will be stood up within a month. It's not clear yet who will be eligible or how much a family could expect to collect. — HOMELESSNESS HOPE: For the second straight year, the city and county saw declines in the number of homeless people. The number of people experiencing homelessness in the county dropped 4% in 2025, including a 10% decrease in people living on the street, according to the county's annual point-in-time homeless count. — TRUMP BASH: A day after the Pentagon ordered the withdrawal of half the National Guard troops deployed in L.A., Gov. Gavin Newsom held a press conference in Downey to criticize the president for wasting hundreds of millions of dollars to appear 'tough' by punishing immigrants. — PALISADES PERSPECTIVE: Mayor Karen Bass' political image was badly bruised in the wake of the fires, but she has compensated amid a string of historically good headlines in recent days. However, six months after the fires, she still faces some harsh critics in the Palisades, where the devastation is still palpable. — TRAGEDY WHILE TRAINING: Three deputies were killed on Friday in an explosion at the L.A. County Sheriff's Department's Biscailuz Training Center in East L.A. The agency has a history of dangerous incidents at its training facilities, with at least four fires at its mobile shooting ranges in the last 12 years. — ICE IN JAIL: The sheriff's department has resumed transferring jail inmates to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for the first time in years. Eight inmates were released to ICE in May and a dozen more in June. Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna said he has 'no choice' in the matter. He said the department must follow federal judicial warrants seeking the transfer of inmates in its county jails. — COSTLY CROSSWALK: A jury decided this week that the city must pay nearly $50 million to a man who has been in a coma since he was hit by a sanitation truck while crossing a street in Encino. The verdict comes as the city continues to struggle with escalating legal liability payouts. — MOUNTING LIABILITY: The county's no stranger to big payouts either. The supervisors approved a $14-million settlement this week to Alexander Torres, who spent more than 20 years in prison for a murder that he did not commit. That's it for this week! Send your questions, comments and gossip to LAontheRecord@ Did a friend forward you this email? Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Saturday morning.
Los Angeles Times
12-07-2025
- Politics
- Los Angeles Times
This four-decade veteran of city government thinks Los Angeles is in dire trouble
Good morning, and welcome to L.A. on the Record — our City Hall newsletter. It's Julia Wick, giving you the latest on city and county government. Rick Cole has forgotten more about municipal government than most of us will ever know. The 72-year-old former mayor (Pasadena), city manager (Ventura, Azusa, Santa Monica) and deputy mayor (Los Angeles) returned for a third stint at Los Angeles City Hall in 2022, bringing a depth of experience to political neophyte and then-newly elected City Controller Kenneth Mejia's office as Mejia's chief deputy. After two and a half years in City Hall East, Cole announced last month that he would be leaving his post to focus on the Pasadena City Council, which he joined again last year. Cole knew that holding down 'a more-than-full-time role in LA and a more-than-part-time role in Pasadena' would be difficult to juggle, he wrote in a LinkedIn post, and ultimately decided he couldn't do both jobs justice. In a goodbye presentation to the L.A. City Council, he sounded the alarm, saying he has never been more worried about the city. We sat down with Cole to discuss that speech and his fears. Here's some of our conversation, very lightly edited and condensed for clarity. Tell me about the speech you gave at council. What motivated it? I've never been more alarmed about the future of Los Angeles. I delineated the existential challenges facing the city, which have been decades in the making. Politics needs to be looking out at the future and not just reacting to the crises of the day. And Los Angeles needs bold, systemic reform to meet the moment. Why are you so alarmed about the future of Los Angeles? It's a converging set of crises. You have a homelessness emergency, an affordable housing crisis, a billion-dollar structural financial challenge that's resulted in the loss of thousands of key city jobs. You had a firestorm that destroyed an entire neighborhood. And you have the federal government at war with the people in the government of Los Angeles. And underneath that, you have an existential challenge to Hollywood, which is unfolding. And you have crumbling infrastructure. And you have people feeling that government can't really fix any of these things, that the money we spend gets wasted, fair or unfair. That's a challenge. Do you think the government is wasting taxpayer money? Every institution has some level of waste. The problem with Los Angeles government and the public sector in California is an aversion to innovation. We've fallen behind the private sector in adapting to the new world of advancing technology and changing demographics. That's fixable, and that's what I was advocating for. What would it look like to fix these problems? Who's responsible, and who is currently dropping the ball? The lack of responsibility is built into the City Charter. Tell me more about what you mean by that. The people who originally wrote the charter a hundred years ago intentionally designed the system to diffuse authority, which therefore diffused accountability. So it's really difficult to know who is in charge of any given thing. A clear example is that the department heads have 16 bosses. They report to the mayor, but in each of the council districts, the council members think that the department heads report to them. That they ... have to make the council member happy with what's going on in their district, whether it's trimming trees on a particular street or fixing a sidewalk in front of a constituent's home, the general managers [of city departments] are subject to extreme and constant political pressure. That distracts them from fixing the system so that we're doing a better job, so that there are fewer resident complaints, so that a constituent wouldn't have to go to their council member to get their street fixed. The street would get fixed every 10 years. But if you are have 16 bosses and and a continually shifting set of priorities, it's difficult, if not impossible, to put in place systemic solutions. And in terms of who do you blame: Do you blame the general manager? Do you blame the mayor? Do you blame your council member? Do you blame the lack of resources that the city has to allocate? The answer is yes. What needs to change? What I advocated is designing the city to work in the 21st century, which means a chief operating officer who works for the mayor to make sure the city runs effectively across 44 departments. We don't have such a person now. It means a chief financial officer. The responsibilities of a chief financial officer are [currently] divided between four different offices in the city, so it's difficult, again, to point to one person who's in charge of keeping the city fiscally sound. The charter calls for a one-year budget, but we could do a two-year budget and simply update it once a year and be consistent with the City Charter. But then we would have a much broader view of the city's financial future, and we wouldn't waste so much time on a budget process that takes 11 of the 12 months and produces very little change. — SAFER CITY: L.A. is on pace for its lowest homicide total in nearly 60 years as killings plummet, according to an LAPD tally. The falling murder rate mirrors a national trend in other big cities. As my colleague Libor Jany reports, it also paints a decidedly different picture than the Gotham City image offered by President Trump and other senior U.S. officials as justification for the deployment of military troops in L.A. in recent weeks. —MORE RAIDS FALLOUT: Mayor Karen Bass announced a plan Friday to provide direct cash assistance to people who have been affected by the Trump administration's sweeping immigration raids. The money will come from philanthropic partners, not city coffers, and the cash cards will be distributed by immigrant rights groups. —MOTION TO INTERVENE: The city and county of Los Angeles are among the local governments seeking to join a lawsuit calling on the Trump administration to stop 'unlawful detentions' during the ongoing immigration sweeps. The lawsuit was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, Public Counsel and immigrant rights groups last week. —IN MEMORIAM: Longtime former executive director of the Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs Jaime Regalado died last month at age 80. Born in Boyle Heights, Regalado served in the U.S. Navy and was the founding editor of California Politics & Policy and the California Policy Issues Annual. He led the Pat Brown Institute at Cal State L.A. from 1991 to 2011. —'SOMEONE GOOFED': When L.A. County Supervisors Lindsey Horvath and Janice Hahn co-wrote Measure G, a sprawling overhaul of county government that voters passed last November, they didn't realize they would also be repealing Measure J, a landmark criminal justice measure that voters had passed four years earlier. Thanks to an administrative screw-up for the ages, that's exactly what happened. The relevant changes won't go into effect until 2028, so county leaders have some time to undo their oops. —DISASTER AVERTED: A potentially tragic situation was averted Wednesday night, after all 31 workers in a partially collapsed Los Angeles County sanitation tunnel were able to make their way to safety. Work on the tunnel has been halted, and the county sanitation district board is looking into what caused the collapse. —POSTCARD FROM SANTA MONICA: In the long shadow of White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller's hard-line anti-immigration policies, local and national observers alike are paying renewed attention to Miller's upbringing in the famously liberal enclave once dubbed 'the People's Republic of Santa Monica.' Join me for a deep dive into Miller's time at Santa Monica High School and learn why some of his former classmates think he's getting his revenge on Southern California. That's it for this week! Send your questions, comments and gossip to LAontheRecord@ Did a friend forward you this email? Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Saturday morning.
Los Angeles Times
05-07-2025
- Politics
- Los Angeles Times
‘Performative politics' on the council floor? That's an eye roll
Good morning, and welcome to L.A. on the Record — our City Hall newsletter. It's Noah Goldberg with an assist from David Zahniser, giving you the latest on city and county government. A few Los Angeles city councilmembers got in some final zingers before packing their bags for summer recess. It was the final council session before the three-week pause, and members were working their way through a thick agenda Tuesday. After weeks in which the main focus has been President Trump's immigration crackdown in the city, it didn't appear there would be fireworks. Then, Councilmember Traci Park rolled her eyes at Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martínez while he was speaking. And Councilmember Monica Rodriguez had some sharp words for both of them. Let's backtrack and figure out how we got there. In May, the council passed an ordinance to raise the minimum wage for hotel and airport workers to $30 per hour — higher than the city's minimum wage — with Park, Rodriguez and Councilmember John Lee voting against it. Soto-Martínez, a former organizer with the hotel and restaurant union Unite Here Local 11, which pushed for the minimum wage hike, led the charge at City Hall. Park said she voted against the ordinance because she thought that it didn't take into account economic realities and that it would result in hotel and airport workers losing their jobs. Park's opponent in a bitterly contested general election for her Westside council seat in 2022 was a Unite Here-backed candidate, Erin Darling. After the minimum wage hike passed, a business coalition called the L.A. Alliance for Tourism, Jobs and Progress began a campaign to overturn it by gathering signatures to place it on the June 2026 ballot, which would at least delay its implementation. Things quickly got ugly. Unite Here's lawyer alleged in a letter to the L.A. County district attorney and the city attorney that petition circulators for the business coalition misrepresented their campaign to voters and even assaulted activists on multiple occasions. Meanwhile, a petition circulator alleged that she was assaulted outside a Food 4 Less in Inglewood by an SEIU-USWW executive board member while gathering signatures. The woman filed a police report, and a judge granted her request for a temporary restraining order against the board member. Enter Soto-Martínez and Park. Soto-Martínez quickly drafted a motion asking for the LAPD to investigate the petition circulators for fraud and other misconduct alleged in the Unite Here letter. When Soto-Martínez introduced his motion at the City Council's Economic Development and Jobs Committee last month, Park spoke up, saying it was hypocritical for Unite Here to complain about misleading campaigns when it engaged in the same tactics 'on a regular basis.' Park quoted from a text message campaign that she said dozens of her constituents had brought to her attention. 'A new complaint alleges paid signature gatherers are using misdirection and misconduct to collect these signatures. Don't sign the petition. Email Traci Park to tell her to stop this misleading effort to lower the minimum wage,' read a text message from Citizens in Support of the LA Olympic Wage, a campaign backed by Unite Here in favor of the hotel and airport minimum wage. Park said the text made it sound as if she were involved in the campaign to repeal the ordinance. 'I have nothing to do with it. No one ever consulted me about it. No one ever asked my opinion about it,' she said at the committee meeting. When the committee approved Soto-Martínez's motion on June 17, she voted 'no,' saying any investigation should scrutinize both sides of the wage campaign. The motion reached the full council on Tuesday. Park quoted from the text campaign again and introduced an amendment asking for the LAPD to investigate both sides of the petition fight — those aligned with the L.A. Alliance for Tourism and those aligned with Unite Here. 'We know that engaging in misleading tactics are not unique to one group or one organization,' she said. 'I know this because I have personally been targeted by misleading smear campaigns by the very group now complaining about this behavior.' Soto-Martínez fired back at his colleague. 'There have been plenty of things said about me that have been misleading and I didn't agree with, but I didn't bring it into this chamber,' he said. Soto-Martínez also said he wanted to draw a distinction between the text message campaign about Park and the alleged physical assaults against Unite Here campaigners. Still, in the end, he said he supported Park's amendment. Park could be seen in a video recording of the council meeting rolling her eyes as Soto-Martínez finished his speech. In a statement, Unite Here co-President Kurt Petersen called Park's comments at the council meeting 'unbelievably narcissistic.' 'Working people plea for her help after they were allegedly assaulted while they campaigned to raise wages. Instead of focusing on helping the victims, Councilmember Park complains about being criticized for her vote against the minimum wage, and equates criticism of her to the alleged political violence,' Petersen said. 'This kind of greedy self involvement in the face of injustice is a hallmark of the billionaire allies of Councilmember Traci Park, and it's why working people don't trust her.' Park responded in a statement, 'Kurt Petersen is killing jobs and tanking our local economy. Iconic restaurants are closing, airport workers are being replaced by kiosks, hotels are pulling out, and working families are losing, not winning. His divisive and reckless tactics are speeding up automation and driving opportunity out of Los Angeles.' Councilmember Rodriguez chastised both Park and Soto-Martínez. 'I think this idea that's trying to assign blame to one side or another is kind of futile, given the demands of what we need LAPD to be focused on, but I think performative politics is the name of the game these days,' Rodriguez said. 'Everyone needs to grow the hell up.' — SANCTUARY SUIT: The Department of Justice filed suit against the city of Los Angeles on Monday over its sanctuary ordinance, calling the ordinance illegal and saying that it discriminates against Immigration and Customs Enforcement. L.A.'s refusal to cooperate with federal immigration authorities has resulted in 'lawlessness, rioting, looting, and vandalism,' according to the lawsuit. Mayor Karen Bass called the lawsuit part of an 'all out assault on Los Angeles' by President Trump. Immigrant rights groups filed their own lawsuit against the Trump administration Wednesday, seeking to block the administration's 'ongoing pattern and practice of flouting the Constitution and federal law' during immigration raids in the L.A. area. — HOMELESSNESS DROP: Homelessness declined by 15% overall in three areas of Los Angeles in 2024, according to a new Rand study. The biggest drop came in Hollywood, where the report found that the number of homeless people decreased 49% from 2023. The number fell 22% in Venice and went up 9% in Skid Row, according to the report. The Rand study linked the Hollywood decrease to a series of Inside Safe operations in 2024. — SEE YA, CEQA: As part of the state budget, the California State Legislature passed Assembly Bill 130 and Senate Bill 131 Monday, which exempts most urban housing projects from the California Environmental Quality Act. The act, known as CEQA, has often mired construction projects in years of litigation. Gov. Gavin Newsom muscled the new rules through the Legislature despite concerns from progressive lawmakers and environmental interest groups. — MANSION SPEND: The L.A. City Council approved a plan Tuesday to spend almost $425 million collected from the city's 'mansion' tax on property sales over $5 million. Backers of the controversial tax — which has been criticized by the real estate industry for limiting property sales and reducing property tax revenue — say the fund is producing crucial dollars for affordable housing and homelessness prevention programs. — FROZEN FUNDS: The Trump administration moved to withhold $811 million from California that would have helped students who are learning English or are from migrant families. 'The [Education] Department remains committed to ensuring taxpayer resources are spent in accordance with the President's priorities and the Department's statutory responsibilities,' the administration said in a letter to states on Monday. 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