WEBVTT 1 00:00:06.300 --> 00:00:21.660 On this week's episode: the council votes to put parts of the Mayor's immigration directive into city law, sends an outside-lawyer contract for a possible LAPD television deal to committee, and asks for options on easing the small business tax. 2 00:00:24.899 --> 00:00:32.339 Fifteen council members, nearly four million Angelenos. Here's your weekly debrief on the L.A. City Council. 3 00:00:32.939 --> 00:00:41.465 Friday's meeting set aside time for some ceremony. The city's youth council welcomed its fifth cohort, thirty members from all fifteen council districts. 4 00:00:41.465 --> 00:00:47.025 Department staff said they'll spend ten months learning how city government works, including the budget. 5 00:00:47.025 --> 00:00:57.403 The council also marked Anne Rice Day, for the fiftieth anniversary of Interview with the Vampire, ahead of the Rare Books LA fair at Union Station this weekend. 6 00:00:57.403 --> 00:01:03.705 And ComplexCon, the streetwear convention, is back downtown this weekend. City tourism staff projected seventy thousand visitors. 7 00:01:03.705 --> 00:01:11.859 This episode was produced with AI from the public recording of the meeting. Links to the source are in the show notes. 8 00:01:15.098 --> 00:01:24.050 Our top story: on Wednesday the council voted to write parts of Mayor Karen Bass's Executive Directive seventeen, on immigration enforcement, into city law. 9 00:01:24.050 --> 00:01:25.915 What would it actually do? 10 00:01:25.915 --> 00:01:49.040 The ordinance's text isn't in the packet we report from, so we can't go through it clause by clause. Speaking for it, First District Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez argued that no city land should be a staging area for federal immigration raids, that city tax dollars shouldn't pay to surveil residents, and that contractors who profit from family separation should be held accountable. 11 00:01:49.040 --> 00:01:51.651 Doesn't an ordinance usually take two votes? 12 00:01:51.651 --> 00:02:03.959 On first reading it can pass only with a unanimous vote, and it got fourteen yes votes. The council also sent it straight to the Mayor instead of waiting the usual extra meeting. 13 00:02:03.959 --> 00:02:05.824 Did the public weigh in? 14 00:02:05.824 --> 00:02:24.847 Three speakers did. A photographer who documents immigration enforcement urged the council to prepare for an expected federal surge. Another asked whether police facilities would face fees for helping immigration agents. And a caller objected that there was no fiscal impact statement, and said the item put federal funding at risk. 15 00:02:24.847 --> 00:02:27.830 And there was a related vote on Tuesday. 16 00:02:27.830 --> 00:02:55.058 The council added support for Assembly Bill twenty-four sixty-five to its state lobbying agenda. The bill would bar companies that own or run private detention facilities, or that contract with immigration enforcement agencies, from getting state subsidies, grants, loans and tax credits. A councilmember said private prison companies reported a thirteen percent rise in profits in 2025 while paying almost no state taxes. That passed with thirteen votes. 17 00:02:58.298 --> 00:03:02.000 Next, an LAPD television deal, and the lawyers who'd negotiate it. 18 00:03:02.000 --> 00:03:17.818 On Friday's agenda, the City Attorney's office asked to hire an outside firm, Heller Waldron and Pepper, for its expertise in entertainment law. The firm would represent the city in negotiating a possible television production deal between the LAPD and a company called 44 Blue Productions. 19 00:03:17.818 --> 00:03:19.164 What would that cost? 20 00:03:19.164 --> 00:03:29.933 Fifteen thousand dollars to start, for one year, moved from the police budget into the City Attorney's outside counsel account. The budget committee waived its review, and no financial analysis was done. 21 00:03:29.933 --> 00:03:31.616 How did the public react? 22 00:03:31.616 --> 00:03:52.819 About seven speakers criticized it. Two called it police propaganda, and one of them pointed to an LAPD filming policy that speaker said calls for a positive portrayal. One objected that there had been no committee hearing and no numbers on costs or revenue, and asked why the city's own lawyers couldn't do the work. Another wanted the money spent on social services. 23 00:03:52.819 --> 00:03:53.829 So what happened? 24 00:03:53.829 --> 00:04:06.618 The council didn't vote on the contract. Councilmember Hernandez had called the item up for questions, and the council sent it to three committees: Public Safety, Budget and Finance, and the ad hoc committee on film and television. 25 00:04:09.857 --> 00:04:18.246 Our third story is small business taxes. Right now, businesses with less than a hundred thousand dollars in gross receipts don't pay the city's business tax. 26 00:04:18.246 --> 00:04:20.505 And the council wants to raise that? 27 00:04:20.505 --> 00:04:41.478 For now it wants options. On Wednesday it asked the Office of Finance to look at flat or tiered taxes, and to report what it would cost the general fund to raise the exemption to a hundred twenty-five, a hundred fifty or two hundred thousand dollars. It also asked about tying the threshold to inflation or exempting only restaurants. The threshold itself didn't change. 28 00:04:41.478 --> 00:04:42.769 Was there anything else? 29 00:04:42.769 --> 00:05:03.742 In a separate vote, it asked the office of Chief Legislative Analyst Sharon Tso to report within sixty days on bringing back a Business Tax Advisory Committee. It would be modeled on the committee whose work led to the business tax reforms signed in December 2004, and the small business exemption would be part of its job. Both votes were fourteen in favor. 30 00:05:03.742 --> 00:05:05.033 What did speakers say? 31 00:05:05.033 --> 00:05:22.457 About four backed relief. A Chamber of Commerce representative asked for a threshold of at least five hundred thousand dollars, phased in like the 2004 change. One caller supported raising it but suggested a time limit to prevent abuse. Another said a business owner had left the city for lower taxes elsewhere. 32 00:05:25.696 --> 00:05:29.197 Now a run through the rest of the week. 33 00:05:29.197 --> 00:05:52.929 On Tuesday, the council backed two state bills that Eleventh District Councilmember Traci Park tied to the Palisades fire. One protects mobilehome residents displaced by disasters. Park said about five hundred mobile homes in the Palisades were destroyed. The other, Park said, would give homeowners facing non-renewal a proper explanation and a chance to respond. Both passed with thirteen votes. 34 00:05:52.929 --> 00:05:58.376 And it passed an item on PFAS, the so-called forever chemicals, as amended. 35 00:05:58.376 --> 00:06:17.829 On Wednesday, the council asked for reports on bringing back weekly street sweeping citywide, clearer alerts, and refunding wrongly ticketed drivers within fifteen days. Councilmember Hernandez said sweeping was cut after pandemic budget cuts but the signs were never updated. It passed with fourteen votes. Weekly sweeping isn't back yet. 36 00:06:17.829 --> 00:06:24.832 Also Wednesday: two oversize vehicle parking restrictions. They passed eleven to three, and who voted no wasn't announced. 37 00:06:24.832 --> 00:06:40.783 The council asked the offices of City Administrative Officer Matthew Szabo and Chief Legislative Analyst Sharon Tso to review the city's community safety programs. They're also to design one citywide unarmed crisis response program, building on two existing pilots. Fourteen votes. 38 00:06:40.783 --> 00:06:55.956 And the council again continued the local emergency declared for the January 2025 wildfires. In public comment, a landlord group's representative said the emergency rent restrictions tied to it had hurt property owners after twenty months. 39 00:06:55.956 --> 00:07:12.296 On Friday, the council moved about twelve point nine eight million dollars so the Fire Department can pay its share, by October sixteenth, to take part in a state ambulance transport program. It passed with thirteen votes and needs the Mayor's approval. 40 00:07:15.535 --> 00:07:19.296 Before we go, a look at what's on the agendas ahead. 41 00:07:19.296 --> 00:07:51.433 On Tuesday, October sixth, the council is scheduled to take up revisions to the Wilmington–Harbor City and Harbor Gateway community plan updates. Also on the agenda: a one-year extension of the temporary ban on permits for RV parks approved as public benefit projects, and a proposal to renew cannabis licenses regardless of tax delinquency for businesses that would have qualified for the city's tax amnesty program. There's also a motion for the council to take jurisdiction over the Police Commission's approval of an agreement with Axon for a pilot program called Lightpost. 42 00:07:51.433 --> 00:08:09.895 On Wednesday, October seventh, there's a proposed ordinance banning tobacco and cannabis retailers from selling nitrous oxide, and a proposal to study speed cameras on Paseo Del Mar in San Pedro. Also up: up to twenty million dollars in bonds to buy and rehabilitate a sixty-one-unit apartment building in the Fifteenth District. 43 00:08:13.134 --> 00:08:21.342 That's the week at City Hall. If we got something wrong, there's a link on the episode's page to tell us, and corrections are read on air. 44 00:08:21.342 --> 00:08:22.254 Thanks for listening. 45 00:08:22.254 --> 00:08:26.014 That's the news from City Hall. See you after the next meeting.