WEBVTT 1 00:00:07.110 --> 00:00:21.270 On this week's episode: the council acts on its homelessness dispute with the county, the Fire Department lays out its plan for Measure FD money, and an 814-unit development on Ventura Boulevard in Studio City clears its appeals. 2 00:00:24.614 --> 00:00:32.054 Fifteen council members, nearly four million Angelenos. Here's your weekly debrief on the L.A. City Council. 3 00:00:32.654 --> 00:00:44.749 Friday's meeting made time for a send-off. Councilmember Monica Rodriguez led a presentation declaring Patty Giggins Day, honoring the longtime leader of Peace Over Violence, who announced she's retiring. 4 00:00:44.749 --> 00:00:57.664 That's the violence prevention agency that started Denim Day in Los Angeles back in 1999. The council president noted that women are now a majority of the council, and credited her generation for building the conditions for that. 5 00:00:57.664 --> 00:01:02.624 And on Tuesday, the council confirmed a longshore foreman to the Board of Harbor Commissioners. 6 00:01:02.624 --> 00:01:09.029 The city created that board on December ninth, 1907, the date the Port counts as its official founding. 7 00:01:09.029 --> 00:01:14.894 This episode was produced with AI from the public recording of the meeting. Links to the source are in the show notes. 8 00:01:18.397 --> 00:01:57.707 Our top story: the city's dispute with the county over the region's homelessness Continuum of Care, and who runs its key systems. Last week we told you the council was weighing a legal fight. This week it took up a motion from Councilmembers Marqueece Harris-Dawson and Tim McOsker. It asks the City Attorney to report on legal options, and city departments to report on the talks with the county and on steps to form a Continuum of Care for the city alone. On Wednesday, the council took it into closed session, then put it off to Friday. And on Friday, the City Administrative Officer came back with terms he said staff had reached with county staff. 9 00:01:57.707 --> 00:01:59.932 Terms on what, exactly? 10 00:01:59.932 --> 00:02:33.072 Two federally required programs now run by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority: the homeless data system, and coordinated entry, which matches people to housing. On data, the city would get records on everyone experiencing homelessness who has any documented link to the city, plus proportional representation on reporting bodies. What proportional means hasn't been set yet. On matching, the county would contract with the city to handle it for all city-funded projects, and the two would jointly recommend a preference for city residents. 11 00:02:33.072 --> 00:02:35.232 Is any of that binding? 12 00:02:35.232 --> 00:02:54.602 Not yet. The City Administrative Officer said binding agreements would come back to the council and to the Board of Supervisors. Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky asked whether the deal could be enforced. Councilmember Bob Blumenfield credited the negotiators, saying the city had been headed toward county-run matching with none of these terms. 13 00:02:54.602 --> 00:02:58.517 Here's Councilmember Tim McOsker, who said he was more skeptical. 14 00:02:59.167 --> 00:03:08.847 The only thing incumbent upon the county is to make a recommendation to the COC, and the COC acts independently. And if the COC acts independently to say forget it, we're not doing it, then what? 15 00:03:09.907 --> 00:03:31.002 The City Administrative Officer answered that a recommendation was the most the county could commit to, since the Continuum of Care's general membership makes those decisions. Later, answering Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez, he said the city subsidizes about ninety-four percent of the subsidized beds in question, and today handles the matching for none of them. 16 00:03:31.002 --> 00:03:33.562 How did it end? 17 00:03:33.562 --> 00:03:57.907 Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez called the change night and day. The amended motion passed with ten votes, exactly the number needed to consider it. Two callers opposed the threatened litigation, one urging the council not to spend money on it. The Continuum of Care's membership is set to vote this Monday on who leads these systems. And the council president asked that what the City Attorney tells the court at a hearing next Tuesday reflect the council's discussion. 18 00:04:01.571 --> 00:04:16.676 Next, Measure FD, the half-cent sales tax for the Fire Department on the November third ballot. A motion from Councilmembers Traci Park and Imelda Padilla asked the department for a spending plan, and on Friday its leaders presented one. 19 00:04:16.676 --> 00:04:18.756 Why ask for a plan now? 20 00:04:18.756 --> 00:04:48.246 A councilmember said that if voters are asked to put hundreds of millions of dollars into the department, City Hall owes them a concrete plan. The fire chief said the department has about as many firefighters as it did in the 1960s, with six fewer stations and roughly ten times the calls. He described growing the next two recruit classes from 120 recruits in all to 180, and said 56 of the department's 106 stations are between 50 and 85 years old. 21 00:04:48.246 --> 00:04:50.006 Who'd keep track of the money? 22 00:04:50.006 --> 00:05:09.551 The chief said the money would be added on top of the department's general fund support, not replace it. There would be quarterly reports, a public dashboard and a citizens oversight committee. Councilmember Monica Rodriguez warned that the department and the whole city will be closely watched on what the money delivers, and called for guardrails. 23 00:05:09.551 --> 00:05:11.311 What about the measure's critics? 24 00:05:11.311 --> 00:05:31.346 A councilmember asked the chief to answer two criticisms head on. He said no measure money would go to pensions or bonuses, and that the tax would benefit everyone. Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez asked that the plan cover local hiring and the hiring of formerly incarcerated firefighters, and the chief said they'd look at it. 25 00:05:31.346 --> 00:05:32.706 Where did it land? 26 00:05:32.706 --> 00:05:37.131 The council then voted eleven in favor to note and file the motion. 27 00:05:40.635 --> 00:05:53.515 Our third story is in Studio City. On Wednesday, the council denied appeals and upheld approval of the Riverwalk project, a mixed-use development on West Ventura Boulevard, in Council District Four. 28 00:05:53.515 --> 00:05:55.060 What's the project? 29 00:05:55.060 --> 00:06:11.915 A seven-story development with 814 homes, 46 of them for very low income households, and nearly seventy-six thousand square feet of restaurant space. It would remove 240 non-protected trees and export up to 521,000 cubic yards of earth. 30 00:06:11.915 --> 00:06:15.115 Who appealed, and what did the council add? 31 00:06:15.115 --> 00:06:38.715 The Studio City Residents Association and Save LA River Open Space appealed, and so did one individual. The council put the matter off on Tuesday, then decided it Wednesday, eleven to nothing. The conditions include proof that the project meets state fire-safety rules before the final map is recorded, conditions from the Council District Four office, and a new ten-foot sidewalk on Valleyheart Drive. 32 00:06:42.058 --> 00:07:06.223 Now some quick hits from around City Hall. On Wednesday, the council voted eleven to three to find funding to finish a study of a city-owned public bank. One councilmember backing it said the city pays millions a year in fees to big private banks. An opponent said the city doesn't have the billions it would take to start a bank. Councilmembers John Lee, Traci Park and Monica Rodriguez voted no. 33 00:07:06.223 --> 00:07:27.233 Also on Wednesday, camera enforcement of bus lanes on six DASH routes passed thirteen to one, along with the transportation department's license plate reader policy. Lee, the lone no, questioned the contractor's access to the data. Rodriguez argued that both police and transportation need these tools, and called the council's uneven treatment of them hypocrisy. 34 00:07:27.233 --> 00:07:39.558 That ties to the police department's Axon license plate reader pilot. Two weeks ago we told you the council took over review of it. On Wednesday it was put off to next Tuesday, its last day for council action. 35 00:07:39.558 --> 00:07:58.413 On Tuesday, the council confirmed Mayor Karen Bass's appointment of a San Pedro longshore foreman to the Board of Harbor Commissioners. Union members and community members spoke in support of him, and supporters welcomed having a longshore union member back on the commission. Councilmembers praised him, and Councilmember Tim McOsker urged colleagues to vote yes. 36 00:07:58.413 --> 00:08:17.738 And the council asked budget staff to report within ninety days on cutting or deferring city fees on small for-sale housing, so that homes for sale aren't charged more than comparable rentals. It passed with fourteen votes. Councilmember Curren Price recused himself as a precaution because he's a landlord. 37 00:08:21.242 --> 00:08:50.472 Before we go, a look at what's ahead. On the agenda for next Tuesday, October twenty-seventh: the Public Safety Committee recommends that the council veto the Police Commission's approval of the Axon pilot. Also scheduled are a zone change for a new Fire Station 31 on Foothill Boulevard, bans on parking oversize vehicles in the Second and Fifteenth districts, and up to one hundred thirty million dollars in bonds for 237 affordable homes at Flats on Sunset. 38 00:08:50.472 --> 00:09:06.442 Next Wednesday, October twenty-eighth, the council is set to consider an updated shelter bed plan under the LA Alliance settlement, the mayor's reappointment of Wendy Greuel to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority commission, and about seven point eight million dollars for the Clean Corridors program. 39 00:09:10.346 --> 00:09:16.106 Hear something we got wrong? There's a link on this episode's page to report it, and corrections are read on air. 40 00:09:16.106 --> 00:09:19.866 That's the news from City Hall. See you after the next meeting.