Latest news with #Soto-Martínez
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. 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.
Yahoo
18-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
L.A. opens resource centers for people who lost work in the fires
On Tuesday morning, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass touted the opening of four new resource centers to assist Angelenos who have lost income because of the catastrophic wildfires. The centers, which were opened in partnership with L.A. County, offer a one-stop location where people affected by the fires can access relief funds, get help with job placement and training, look for temporary employment and apply for small business loans. They can also access emergency shelter and rental assistance and get help filing taxes at the centers, among other services. Read more: These gardeners, housekeepers, nannies kept Pacific Palisades going. Fire took their jobs "The other benefit of this center is that the individuals can work with staff, one on one," Bass said. "Sometimes what discourages people from getting their benefits is the application process. It's confusing, complicated, but here you can actually work with individual staff who will take you step by step through the process." Individuals will be able to access services regardless of their immigration status. "The fires were devastating for so many people, many who've lost their homes and family members. But there were also secondary effects — gardeners, house cleaners, healthcare workers, restaurant workers, all who have lost their jobs, live-in childcare workers who have lost both their homes and their jobs, all at once," said Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martínez, whose district includes Hollywood, Westlake and Echo Park. Soto-Martínez said his office was receiving calls every day from constituents who, despite living well outside the bounds of either the Eaton or Palisades fires, still had their lives upended by the flames. Read more: If you lost your job because of the Los Angeles fires, here are a few options "They're now backed up on rent. They've lost income, and they need the city support," Soto-Martínez said. The centers will be open Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at these locations: West Los Angeles: 5446 Sepulveda Blvd., Culver City, 90230 Northeast San Fernando Valley: 13356 Eldridge Ave., Sylmar, 91342 West Adams/Leimert Park: 4305 Degnan Blvd., Los Angeles, 90008 Boyle Heights: 2130 1st St., Los Angeles, 90033 Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Los Angeles Times
18-02-2025
- Business
- Los Angeles Times
L.A. opens resource centers for people who lost work in the fires
On Tuesday morning, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass touted the opening of four new resource centers to assist Angelenos who have lost income because of the catastrophic wildfires. The centers, which were opened in partnership with L.A. County, offer a one-stop location where people affected by the fires can access relief funds, get help with job placement and training, look for temporary employment and apply for small business loans. They can also access emergency shelter and rental assistance and get help filing taxes at the centers, among other services. 'The other benefit of this center is that the individuals can work with staff, one on one,' Bass said. 'Sometimes what discourages people from getting their benefits is the application process. It's confusing, complicated, but here you can actually work with individual staff who will take you step by step through the process.' Individuals will be able to access services regardless of their immigration status. 'The fires were devastating for so many people, many who've lost their homes and family members. But there were also secondary effects — gardeners, house cleaners, healthcare workers, restaurant workers, all who have lost their jobs, live-in childcare workers who have lost both their homes and their jobs, all at once,' said Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martínez, whose district includes Hollywood, Westlake and Echo Park. Soto-Martínez said his office was receiving calls every day from constituents who, despite living well outside the bounds of either the Eaton or Palisades fires, still had their lives upended by the flames. 'They're now backed up on rent. They've lost income, and they need the city support,' Soto-Martínez said. The centers will be open Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at these locations: West Los Angeles: 5446 Sepulveda Blvd., Culver City, 90230 Northeast San Fernando Valley: 13356 Eldridge Ave., Sylmar, 91342 West Adams/Leimert Park: 4305 Degnan Blvd., Los Angeles, 90008 Boyle Heights: 2130 1st St., Los Angeles, 90033
Los Angeles Times
08-02-2025
- Politics
- Los Angeles Times
A city of immigrants moves to resist Trump. How far can L.A. leaders go?
Good morning, and welcome to L.A. on the Record — our City Hall newsletter. It's Tony Barboza, with help from my colleagues David Zahniser and Julia Wick, giving you the latest on city and county government. For most of this week, downtown Los Angeles has been buzzing with protesters, including high school students walking out of class, who are decrying President Trump's mass deportation plans. The demonstrators with Mexican, Guatemalan and Salvadoran flags, who gathered outside City Hall, marched through the streets and shut down the 101 Freeway, were a reminder that L.A. is a city of immigrants and a place where, for many years now, support for immigrant communities has been politically popular. That reality was evident inside City Hall too, where Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martínez and several colleagues on Tuesday introduced a series of proposals to ramp up the city's response to the Trump immigration crackdown. The proposals, which are relatively limited in scope, could require businesses to report federal immigration raids and audits to the city, set aside space at LAX for legal assistance, fund legal service groups and launch a comprehensive 'know your rights' campaign for immigrants, among other steps. Still, the legislation, which came after Mayor Karen Bass signed a sanctuary city ordinance into law in December, shows city leaders' willingness to carry the mantle of resistance to Trump's anti-immigration agenda. That's significant, given the risk of antagonizing a president who has already threatened to punish 'sanctuary cities' by starving them of federal funds — money that L.A. needs to recover from the recent wildfires. Soto-Martínez said in an interview Friday that 'this is just the beginning of a very long four years. This is our opening salvo, but there will be many more.' He said his office decided on the proposals to introduce this week after bringing together a collection of people working on the front lines in immigrant communities. 'We had other ideas as well, but we felt that these were the ones that we needed to put forward the quickest,' Soto-Martínez said, without detailing what other measures were under consideration. Because most immigration policy happens at the federal level, he added, the city's ability to respond 'is going to be totally dependent on our ability to be creative' and also on how outraged and activated communities get in response to Trump's actions. The Los Angeles County Republican Party, which has little influence at City Hall and has previously criticized L.A.'s 'sanctuary city' policy, responded to the council's new immigration proposals by suggesting that it instead 'crack down on follow-home robberies, or looting, or homeless encampment fires.' 'Maybe the good people of Los Angeles could attend fully funded 'know your rights' seminars about how to rebuild after incompetent city leadership allowed their homes to burn to a crisp due to gross mismanagement,' Roxanne Hoge, who chairs the L.A. County Republican Party, said Friday. 'It is embarrassing that people who were elected to fill potholes and run public transit but who can do neither have anything to say about federal immigration enforcement.' Councilmember John Lee — a former Republican who changed his registration to 'no party preference' on an overwhelmingly Democratic City Council — said he would like to see amendments to this week's proposals to exclude participation for people convicted of violent crimes, his office said this week. Meanwhile, immigrant rights groups have been pushing the city to go beyond its sanctuary law and take more proactive steps. Organized labor is a powerful ally and has stood beside those groups in calling for more action. 'Immigrant rights are workers' rights,' Yvonne Wheeler, president of the L.A. County Federation of Labor, said at a rally outside City Hall this week. 'Absolutely no one should live in fear of deportation. No one should live in fear that their loved ones will be targeted in schools, churches and places of worship.' Angélica Salas, executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, one of the groups championing the sanctuary city ordinance and other local actions to protect immigrants, said the motions introduced this week are only a first step in a response that must evolve and adapt over the next four years. 'I know that this City Council, the majority of them, are with us. They are with us, and they want to support our families,' she said. While there's a lot of support for educating people about their constitutional rights, she said, 'these actions are not enough to stop the ferocious attack on immigrants by the administration that it feels like comes up with something new by which to attack us every single day. It's going to require more action that is both proactive and responsive.' Salas would like to see more city investment in community-led rapid response teams, with hotlines to report and document immigration raids and other enforcement activity and connect people to legal services and support. She thinks the city should also support programs to offer free legal services in schools. Seeing crowds of young people protesting in the streets this week gave hope to Salas, who got her start in the immigrant rights movement during the 1990s in opposition to Proposition 187, the ballot measure that sought to deny services to immigrants without legal status and sparked a new generation of activists to fight for immigrant rights. 'At that time, I just thought 'Oh, my God, they're attacking my family,' and that's how I got into this movement,' she said. 'So it fills me with just so much admiration for these young people who are standing up for their parents. Many of them are also undocumented.' One official who is key to the city's response is Claudia Aragon, director of the Office of Immigrant Affairs for Bass. She started the job in 2023, at a time when Texas Gov. Greg Abbott was putting migrants seeking asylum onto buses and sending them to Los Angeles and other Democratic-run cities. Aragon helped manage the migrants' arrival and connect them with organizations to find housing and services. Now that the Trump administration is launching a flurry of anti-immigration executive orders and other actions, Aragon said the city is working to inform immigrant Angelenos through 'know your rights' and family preparedness workshops, and by directing them to providers of pro bono immigration legal services. Aragon said that L.A.'s immigrant communities are in 'fear of what they can expect when they leave their door every day.' She wants them to know that 'during this time, the mayor's office is here working every day for them, and we will stand with them, and we will continue to work every single day for them, like we did when the buses arrived.' Bass' office didn't directly answer questions from The Times about the mayor's position on the council's immigration proposals and whether any additional actions are needed to protect immigrants from the Trump administration. In a statement, Bass pointed to her office's work with nonprofits to provide 'know your rights' training and to educate immigrants about available resources. 'No one should live in fear due to their immigration status,' she said. Asked about the council's immigration proposals, Solomon Rivera, Bass' deputy chief of staff, said that 'a lot of them make sense.' The mayor 'has to see where the council ends up on these, but is really supportive of protecting all Angelenos, and the council's done a good job on leading on that,' he said. The next hearing on the proposals is scheduled for Feb. 21 at the council's committee on civil rights and immigration. — REOPENING REVERSAL: Bass announced late last week that the fire-ravaged Pacific Palisades would reopen to the general public, sparking criticism from residents and opposition from Councilmember Traci Park, who represents the area, as well as the mayor's recovery czar, Steve Soboroff. A day later, hours before the neighborhood was set to reopen, Bass changed course, saying the checkpoints blocking off the area would remain in place. — MASTERS OF DISASTER: The mayor has selected Hagerty Consulting, a firm that specializes in disaster preparedness and response, to help the city recover from the Palisades fire. It's still not clear how much the firm will be paid or for how long. — COLLATERAL DAMAGE: The plan to expand and modernize the Los Angeles Convention Center by the 2028 Olympic Games is no longer feasible, city officials said. High-level city analysts reported this week that the new focus on wildfire recovery will make it impossible to marshal the resources to finish the $1.4-billion project by that date. The council will decide in coming weeks whether to rework the project or abandon it. — CARUSO COMMITTEE: Speaking of wildfire recovery, real estate developer and unsuccessful mayoral candidate Rick Caruso has formed a nonprofit foundation, bringing in various business leaders to look at strategies for quickly rebuilding from last month's fires. Caruso announced his picks days after Gov. Gavin Newsom announced his own recovery panel, which is populated by a different set of business leaders. — ROGAN'S HERO: Meanwhile, Caruso spent nearly two hours hanging out with podcaster Joe Rogan, using that platform to call for the firing of Janisse Quiñones, chief executive at the Department of Water and Power, over her agency's preparation for and response to the recent Palisades fire. Bass has, in recent weeks, promised a full accounting of the city's handling of the emergency. — HEADED TO COURT: A.F. Gilmore Co., which owns the Original Farmers Market, filed a lawsuit this week seeking to overturn the City Council's approval of the $1-billion TVC project, which would expand and modernize the Television City property at Beverly Boulevard and Fairfax Avenue. The lawsuit claims that the city did not comply with state environmental law while reviewing the project, among other things. — MYSTERY MAN (OR WOMAN): The City Council awarded a $40,000 contract to Bienart Katzman Littrell Williams, a law firm that will represent city officials in a 'federal criminal investigation related to a city employee.' City Atty. Hydee Feldstein Soto did not respond to inquiries from The Times asking whether the contract is connected to the FBI's investigation into Deputy Mayor Brian Williams, who was put on leave in December amid allegations that he called in a fake bomb threat. (Williams, through his lawyer, has denied the allegations.) A Bass aide referred questions to Feldstein Soto. — COUNTY CRACKDOWN: Los Angeles County supervisors are looking to crack down on post-wildfire price gouging by handing out fines of up to $50,000 to landlords who dramatically hike rents. 'There are still bad actors who are taking advantage of this crisis,' said Supervisor Lindsey Horvath, whose district includes the blackened Pacific Palisades. — EASTSIDE HIRE: Councilmember Ysabel Jurado, who represents parts of the Eastside, has brought on a new press deputy: Lisa Marroquin, who was until recently public affairs director for the Central City Assn., a downtown business group. Before that, Marroquin spent a few years with M Strategic Communications, which has lobbied City Hall on behalf of clients including Waymo, Airbnb and engineering giant AECOM.
