WEBVTT 1 00:00:07.350 --> 00:00:24.470 On this week's episode: the city weighs a legal fight with the county over who runs the region's homelessness data and housing systems, a councilmember shares a personal story during a push for domestic violence training, and twenty million dollars to cover Fire Department overtime. 2 00:00:27.814 --> 00:00:35.254 Fifteen council members, nearly four million Angelenos. Here's your weekly debrief on the L.A. City Council. 3 00:00:36.334 --> 00:00:45.534 Ninety years ago this month, power from Hoover Dam first reached Los Angeles, and on Friday the council marked the anniversary. 4 00:00:45.534 --> 00:01:00.219 Councilmember Adrin Nazarian of the Second District said that first power arrived on the evening of October ninth, 1936. In the 1940s, Nazarian said, the dam supplied up to ninety-seven percent of the city's power at peak demand. 5 00:01:00.219 --> 00:01:12.074 It came in over the Department of Water and Power's Boulder transmission lines. Department staff described the system as two hundred sixty-six miles long, ending at a receiving station in what's now the Eighth District. 6 00:01:12.074 --> 00:01:24.789 The department calls itself the largest municipal water and power utility in the nation. Staff said it will keep defending its ownership of its own generation and transmission as it works toward full decarbonization by 2035. 7 00:01:24.789 --> 00:01:30.734 This episode was produced with AI from the public recording of the meeting. Links to the source are in the show notes. 8 00:01:34.077 --> 00:01:44.157 Our top story this week: a dispute between the city and Los Angeles County over who runs two key parts of the region's homelessness system, and whether it ends up in court. 9 00:01:44.157 --> 00:01:46.172 Which parts are we talking about? 10 00:01:46.172 --> 00:02:01.457 At a special meeting Wednesday, a councilmember explained the Continuum of Care application: the federal grant that funds the homelessness service system. The city had applied to lead two pieces of it: the data system, and coordinated entry, which matches people to housing. 11 00:02:01.457 --> 00:02:03.617 And how is that going for the city? 12 00:02:03.617 --> 00:02:20.152 Staff said the Continuum of Care board and membership have already picked the county as the lead applicant for the federal money and to run the point-in-time homeless count. The board has recommended the county lead the data and housing-matching systems too. A membership vote on that has no date yet. 13 00:02:20.152 --> 00:02:22.312 So what can the city do? 14 00:02:22.312 --> 00:02:37.317 Staff laid out options: co-leadership agreements with the county, splitting off into a city-only Continuum of Care, or litigation over the board's process. Then the council president turned to a pending court case. Here's the council president, with city staff. 15 00:02:37.877 --> 00:02:48.817 How likely are the comments today or the proceedings today to come up in your estimation in the Alliance lawsuit with Judge Carter? 16 00:02:50.407 --> 00:02:52.967 In my estimation, guaranteed. 17 00:02:53.687 --> 00:02:54.327 Guaranteed? 18 00:02:54.732 --> 00:03:04.172 The council president pointed to that case and a separate one involving the federal housing department, and took the item into closed session. Nothing was reported out of it. 19 00:03:04.172 --> 00:03:40.037 But afterward the council president said the council is formally asking the City Attorney to develop litigation options to protect the city and its housed and homeless residents, before a hearing in Judge Carter's court on the twenty-seventh. The City Administrative Officer is to keep negotiating with the county, under instructions from Councilmember Ysabel Jurado of the Fourteenth District. And the administrative officer and the Chief Legislative Analyst are to quickly revisit past motions on standing up a city Continuum of Care, a city health department, or both. The clerk said no vote was needed on that direction. 20 00:03:40.037 --> 00:03:57.377 This builds on a thread we've followed. Last week we told you the council called on the county to keep its LA Alliance commitments on mental health. And in August, the council voted fourteen to nothing to hire a consultant to plan a new city structure, aiming to break away from the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority. 21 00:03:57.377 --> 00:04:01.412 And it's back on the agenda Wednesday. More on that before we go. 22 00:04:05.156 --> 00:04:15.796 Next: at a Domestic Violence Awareness Month presentation on Friday, Councilmember Heather Hutt of the Tenth District described a push to change how city workers are trained. 23 00:04:15.796 --> 00:04:17.311 What would change? 24 00:04:17.311 --> 00:04:33.126 Hutt described a motion directing the personnel department and other departments to strengthen domestic and intimate partner violence training for city employees and managers, with a target launch at the start of fiscal year twenty twenty-seven to twenty-eight. No vote was taken Friday. 25 00:04:33.126 --> 00:04:35.846 And what about services for survivors? 26 00:04:35.846 --> 00:04:55.711 The Community Investment Department's general manager described Survivors First, a homelessness prevention program she said keeps ninety-seven percent of survivors housed after they leave shelter. She said the city funds close to seventy percent of survivor beds countywide, and that there are fewer than fifteen hundred such beds in the whole county. 27 00:04:55.711 --> 00:04:59.996 Then Hutt spoke from personal experience. Here's Councilmember Heather Hutt. 28 00:05:00.476 --> 00:05:21.096 I'm a domestic violence sufferer. Mine was not physical because you know, but it was it but it was financial and control is a part of domestic violence. And once I I was able to move out of that, my whole life changed. 29 00:05:23.275 --> 00:05:48.435 Councilmember Adrin Nazarian followed, recalling volunteering at a San Fernando Valley domestic violence clinic, helping people seek restraining orders, an experience Nazarian said led to public service. Councilmember Nithya Raman praised Survivors First and said she hopes to expand resources for survivors. And another member called the budget a political choice, urging providers to push for more beds and services at budget time. 30 00:05:51.939 --> 00:06:03.619 One more story, this one about money. On Wednesday the council moved twenty million dollars within the Fire Department's budget to cover a projected deficit in sworn overtime. 31 00:06:03.619 --> 00:06:05.164 Moved from where? 32 00:06:05.164 --> 00:06:22.729 Ten million from sworn salaries and ten million from constant-staffing overtime. The agenda noted that neither the City Administrative Officer nor the Chief Legislative Analyst had completed a financial analysis. It passed thirteen to nothing and was sent to the Mayor right away. 33 00:06:22.729 --> 00:06:26.249 The council also approved some legal payouts that day. 34 00:06:26.249 --> 00:06:48.419 Thirteen to nothing, on nine closed-session matters. As the clerk read them, they include up to about three point six seven million dollars plus interest to pay a judgment over a 2020 dog bite at the East Valley Animal Shelter, and up to one point six million dollars to settle a case over a 2019 pedestrian fall in the Hollywood Hills. 35 00:06:48.419 --> 00:07:00.579 For context, the Controller's annual report in February found the city's liability payouts reached a record two hundred eighty-seven million dollars in the twenty twenty-four to twenty-five fiscal year. 36 00:07:04.002 --> 00:07:07.282 Now some shorter items from around City Hall. 37 00:07:07.282 --> 00:07:26.107 On Tuesday, the council asked for recommendations on opening the Legacy Business Program to restaurants and other small businesses that have operated in the city for at least ten years with a record of following local labor standards, and on a citywide restaurant protection ordinance. The report is due to committee in ninety days. It passed thirteen to nothing. 38 00:07:26.107 --> 00:07:42.212 The council adjourned Tuesday in memory of a forty-two-year-old Culver City bus operator who was shot and killed October first in Mar Vista, on a motion by Councilmember Traci Park of the Eleventh District. The council heard that the district attorney has filed murder charges against the accused man. 39 00:07:42.212 --> 00:07:53.627 On Wednesday, in a divided vote, the council moved fifty thousand dollars from a regional threat assessment grant into police overtime and related costs. It passed eleven to three; the members who voted no weren't named. 40 00:07:53.627 --> 00:08:09.462 On Friday, the council voted ten to one to ask for an ordinance removing the Transportation Commission's advisory role over city parking lots approved for housing or homeless programs. It was amended from the dais; the amendment's text wasn't available, and the no vote wasn't named. 41 00:08:09.462 --> 00:08:26.487 Also Friday, at a special meeting, the council let the California Municipal Finance Authority issue up to twenty-one million dollars in bonds for a ninety-seven-unit affordable building at sixteen twenty-four South Hope Street, in the Fourteenth District. It passed with ten votes. 42 00:08:26.487 --> 00:08:53.562 And on Wednesday, during announcements, Councilmember Nithya Raman of the Fourth District relayed a request for help after a hit-and-run in her district. A thirty-six-year-old Long Beach motorcyclist was killed around seven in the morning on September twenty-second at Ventura Boulevard and Carpenter Avenue. Tips go to LAPD's Valley Traffic Division at eight one eight, six four four, eight zero three six, or anonymously at lacrimestoppers dot org. 43 00:08:56.906 --> 00:09:00.426 Before we go, a look at the agendas ahead. 44 00:09:00.426 --> 00:09:28.626 On Tuesday, October twentieth, the council is scheduled to hear an appeal of an eight-hundred-fourteen-unit mixed-use project on West Ventura Boulevard in the Fourth District; the planning committee recommends denying the appeal. Also listed: a hearing on a liquor license for the Whole Foods on Sunset Boulevard, and a committee recommendation asking the Department of Building and Safety to report within thirty days on a citywide program to deal with vacant and nuisance properties. 45 00:09:28.626 --> 00:09:58.026 On Wednesday, October twenty-first: the Police Commission's agreement with Axon for the Lightpost test pilot, which the council took jurisdiction over on October sixth, with a deadline of October twenty-seventh. And a motion from Councilmembers Marqueece Harris-Dawson and Tim McOsker asks the City Attorney to report on litigation options over the Continuum of Care process, and asks staff to report on negotiations with the county and on steps toward a city-only Continuum of Care. 46 00:10:01.530 --> 00:10:07.890 If you hear something we got wrong, there's a link on the episode's page to report it, and we read corrections on air. 47 00:10:07.890 --> 00:10:11.650 That's the news from City Hall. See you after the next meeting.