LA Squawk Box for Friday, July 24, 2026

LA county leaders OK'd $28 million to close problem jail, August cram sessions to study 'controversial' elected County Executive role, recent City Attorney's TAHO suit was the first, and more.

What’s happening today?

Homeless count numbers are officially released today, after some had been wondering when it was coming out. It turns out homelessness saw an uptick this year, after the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority that does that count posted decreases in the last two years. Sources informed The LA Times prior to today’s release, and the news was framed by that publication as a political setback for Mayor Karen Bass.

The figures reported by the Times — 3.4% increase overall (which includes people living in shelters and outside), and 7.9% for people who are unsheltered — appears to exactly erase the wins Bass had touted the previous year. Last year the results happened to have shown a 3.4% drop in overall homelessness, with a 7.9% decrease of people who are unsheltered.

While the homeless count is done to help calculate how much federal funding is provided to a geographic area for homelessness services, it is also used as a measurement tool for how well local electeds are doing. And we often see the results released for LA County, which has 88 cities and unincorporated areas, and for the city of LA, which is the largest city in the county. Also, not all 88 cities in LA County are part of the same “continuum of care” agency — known as the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority — that applies for the federal HUD funding. Three cities — Pasadena, Long Beach and Glendale — each conduct their own count and apply for the funding separately. But the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority that we’re more used to hearing about reaches out to those cities to include their data into the overall countywide count results that they release.

These homeless count results are often released in June or July, and have also come out in late May. Last year, for some reason, some preliminary number for just the number of people estimated to be living outside — not including people in shelters — were released especially early, in the month of March. The figures of people who are in shelters but are still defined as being homeless, are usually not estimates, as LAHSA has the shelters report the actual number of people staying there.

What just happened?

LA County Board of Supervisors vote to put $28 million toward closing Men’s Central Jail

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors just approved a motion to put an additional $28 million into a five plan aimed at closing Men’s Central Jail this past Tuesday. There have long been well document issues of inhumane conditions at the jail that county officials acknowledge and readily cite. This was why the Board of Supervisors had actually indicated their support for closing the jail numerous years ago. It’s just that this latest investment appears to be the first time LA county leaders have put actual funding toward advancing this closure plan. The motion, authored by Supervisor Janice Hahn, calls for the County CEO to identify those funds and to include it in the supplemental budget proposal that’s due this fall.

But the county officials who head up the jail closure team also told the board on Tuesday that they don’t think the current actions that they’re taking will actually lead to the closure of the jail in the oft-referenced five year span — at least not without building another facility to take on some of the people that would otherwise go to Men’s Central Jail. They also stated this conclusion in their latest quarterly report, in which they wrote that the current steps the county has laid out won’t lead to jail closure “within five years without a replacement.”

“That does not diminish their importance,” the report read. “The county should still fund and implement these actions because they are foundational to justice system reform and to any viable pathway to closure.”

There are seven “required actions” that county officials have taken onto their plates to reduce the number of people being held each day at Men’s Central Jail. The county officials who make up the so-called Jail Closure Implementation Team do a bit of analysis and estimating to figure out how many people would get diverted from the jails, from taking those required actions, and that’s how they arrived at the conclusion that they wouldn’t be able to close the jail in five years. Advocates, however, question this pessimism, and say that county officials are limiting themselves and leaving many important community-focused measures, that have been studied and developed over the years, on the table, and not funding them adequately.

Just under 50% of people in jails on a given day typically haven’t been convicted or sentenced, but are awaiting decisions, and that where many feel there are ways to reduce the number of people in the jail and then close it. For example, many of the people are eligible for diversion programs, but there isn’t staffing at the courthouse their case is being taken up at. Some may also be in the midst of months long waits to get mental health assessments, which can then help judges, as well as public defenders and prosecutors, work out what other programs, aside from jail, might actually make more sense.

One of the seven “required actions” that the county just approved more funding for would place a “psychiatric social worker,” working for the Public Defenders’ Office, at court houses to interview and assess people. One psychiatric social worker was just hired this year to work out of the Clara Shortridge Foltz courthouse in downtown Los Angeles that has a high volume of cases. So far that worker has assessed 197 people since late January, when they first started, and at least 100 people have been released from custody as of late May. The time it took for people to get assessed, under this Public Defender HEAL (short for Holistic Early Assessment and Linkage) program, was cut from a 66-day average to 19 days. This program is listed as the second action in the April 17 and July 10 quarterly reports from the Jail Closure Implementation Team.

And it’s in such programs and others, not even included in the required actions now in the plan, that much progress can be made to close the jail, according to advocates. Janet Asante, campaign lead for the JusticeLA Coalition that pushed for the $28 million in funding, said that one of the most significant things left out of the jail closure teams’ plan is an “independent pretrial services agency” that’s handled by the county’s community-based, non-law enforcement led public safety programs, known as JCOD (short for Justice, Care and Opportunities Department).

During Tuesday’s discussion, Supervisor Janice Hahn asked county staffers about the progress of such an independent pretrial services agency, remarking that her district staffers seem to feel that this program isn’t as “robust” as it should be. She also described this program as a significant opportunity to reduce the number of people in jail and get the county closer to closing the jail.

County CEO Joe Nicchitta responded to Hahn saying that pretrial services are available at three courthouses — Lancaster, Airport and Compton — but added that the program has “been unable to expand beyond these sites due to the limitations of funding.”

Nicchitta said that one of the issues is that the county needs to transition from a “model” for pretrial services that’s led by the probation department, and go to one that’s led by JCOD, the agency that’s focused on removing law enforcement’s role. He told the board on Tuesday that his office is in discussions with the heads of the two agencies, to get “that model unstuck” and “there are some barriers there, but… I don’t see those as insurmountable.” FYI, JCOD happens to also be located within the County CEO’s Office that Nicchitta leads.

When Hahn asked if funding has moved from probation to JCOD, and after Nicchitta said that it hadn’t, Hahn responded, “That’s a problem.”

Nicchitta explained that when it comes to that funding, they are still working out what is “appropriate to move and what people are appropriate to move with the funding,” and he noted that “the different departments having different views on that.”

Hahn leaned on Nicchitta a bit in response, telling him she wanted him to “to see if you can figure out how to unstick this piece of it — ‘cause … a pretty big piece, in my opinion — of jail closure — is pretrial.”

If you wish to dig a little deeper, additional programs that county officials have spent time exploring are scattered across various reports, including a 2021 report from the County CEO’s Office on comprehensive studies of the jail system done by the JFA Institute and the 2021 “final report” by a Jail Closure Workgroup. The Care First Jails Last report and another report known as the Sequential Intercept Model are two others that county officials often reference. There’s also another study being done by New York University that the head of the jail closure implementation team, Wilford Pinkney, teased on Tuesday. Supervisors said they wanted to know a bit more about that study in the next update about the closure plan in a few months.

Have you been wondering about the elected mayoral figure to lead LA County government? The Measure G task force set to dive into that in August

A task force set up to implement the voter-approved Measure G, which made sweeping changes to LA County government, is wading into the thorny area of creating a centralized, elected leader of LA County government. That was among the numerous changes under the measure, which also expanded the Board of Supervisors from five to nine members, and set up an independent ethics commission.

The creation of the elected County Executive position under Measure G — in turn eliminating the appointed County CEO position — is been a politically touchy subject. It takes a behind the scenes job that many people don’t really know about, and potentially puts out into the political arena, where it will have a more high profile role for voters to consider. This new, elected role was even cited by former County CEO Fesia Davenport as damaging to her reputation, resulting in a $2 million settlement payout last year to Davenport. She later resigned in March “to focus on my health and wellness.”

At Wednesday’s meeting of the Governance Reform Task Force, which is a team of appointed people who are overseeing Measure G implementation, one of its members, Derek Hsieh, called this new position “controversial,” and adding that he thought is was “expensive, and expansive.” Hsieh is also chair of the Coalition of County Unions, and he is also executive director of ALADS, which is the Association of Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs. Not all members of the board are movers and shakers, necessarily in the political arena. There is one member, more steeped in the music and tech industries, who joked that the time she allots to attending these rather obscure civically-minded task force meetings, as “basically a weird hobby I have.”

The appointed County CEO looms large for many advocates familiar with LA County government, especially those who look closely at how the county spends taxpayer money, because this role plays a central role in working with departments to lead the development of budget proposals. And it employs 560 county workers, including several “strategic” ones that bring together important policies such as changing how people look at public safety. But it is also largely an obscure office.

One of the task force members even voiced surprise that the County CEO’s office leads a department that steers municipal services for unincorporated areas. Julia Mockeridge told the panel of County CEO officials who were presenting to them on Wednesday night that “as a member of unincorporated Los Angeles County, I’m actually very surprised to learn that the CEO has a team that deals with unincorporated areas. As a resident of unincorporated East LA, I would not have ever thought to go to the CEO’s office for help with my services.”

Jeramy Gray, from the County CEO’s Office, responded that their office serves more of a “strategic coordination” role on services for unincorporated areas, “so you wouldn’t necessarily see the CEO as the public facing, prevailing service provider of that service. But we are typically behind the scenes coordinating with various departments across multiple departments to ensure that services are, in fact, delivered.” Some of the county CEO officials acknowledged they don’t focus that much on branding their office in that public of a way.

During the meeting, there was much back and forth and worry expressed over whether there would be enough opportunity to discuss this touchy subject out in the open and to have enough engagement with stakeholders. But it turned out that Sara Sadhwani, another task force member who is on a committee that’s looking specifically at the elected county executive position, said their committee had already been cooking up plans to schedule a trio of eight-hour long cram sessions in August. Those meetings would take place ahead their task force making some final decisions on the role on Aug. 26, and at another meeting in early September. The first of that deep dive meeting should be on Aug. 7, followed by two more on the 17th and the 21st, according to Sadhwani.

At least 199 people have applied to be on the county’s new Ethics Commission

The county’s Governance Reform Task Force has also been getting the word out about the county’s deadline for this Sunday, July 26, for people to apply to be on the county’s new Ethics Commission, which was also included in Measure G. And during Wednesday’s meeting, the task force got an update that 199 people had applied to be on the commission. There is expected to be a measure on November’s ballot to change the county charter to allow for the commission to function in a more independent capacity.

A few more things …

Residents around the Lineage warehouse that caught fire last month are dealing with not only odors and the usual pests, but the arrival of an unusual bright green colored species of flies.

Mayor Karen Bass, as chair of the Metro Board, delivered a “state of the agency” from the regional transit agency on Tuesday. Some key milestones for Metro has been the opening of the A Line extension to Pomona, and of course the three new stops on the D Line that extends from mid-city to Beverly Hills. Later in the week, the Metro board advanced some proposals to include seats on the board that would represent Metro riders, including someone who is themself a rider or is at least an advocate, according to Kavish Harjai of LAist.

It turns out that the lawsuit filed last week by the City Attorney’s Office was the first ever filed using the Tenant Anti-Harassment Ordinance, ever since the law was first created back in 2021, and then strengthened in late 2024. The lawsuit, filed against a landlord that the City Attorney’s Office is accusing of trying to evict people at a Historic South-Central apartment because their rent was too low. Council member Nithya Raman, who chairs the city’s Housing and Homelessness Committee, spoke at the celebration of this milestone. Raman is also running for mayor.

The First Amendment Coalition and the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression just told the LA City Council that they will sue if they continue to ban people’s use of the words and variations of the words “cunt” and the N word. The press release quotes none other than Stacey Segarra-Bohlinger, known for singing her public comment at City Council meetings to the tunes of popular songs, and who was dinged for using the word “cunt” in a comment criticizing the ban. “We can’t let the city council set such a dark precedent,” Segarra-Bohlinger said. “While I don’t condone the use of slurs or epithets to insult or dehumanize others, I strongly oppose any infringement on the right of the public to speak freely, and that includes using strong language when it feels necessary.”

There was supposed to be Los Angeles Board of Police Commission meeting on Tuesday, but it got canceled after board officials said their mics didn’t work. A prior meeting had been delayed to 11 a.m., due to technical issues, but this time around, they didn’t stick around as long to get the issue fixed. Photojournalist Martin Romero was in the room to capture the board’s executive director, Django Sibley, saying that the mics weren’t working and that meant they couldn’t hold the meeting.

LA Material’s Julia Wick, who recently broke the news that longtime City Hall comms veteran Yusef Robb was volunteering for Mayor Karen Bass while working for Lineage during the fire at the company’s Boyle Heights warehouse, was back this week reporting that Robb was also in an internal WhatsApp chat at that time. And on Friday, the LA Times’s Noah Goldberg reports that this chat is set to auto-delete messages after 24 hours.

A Step to Freedom, a nonprofit that grew quickly and receives public funding, has spent $1.7 million on contracts with companies by its CEO, Kenya Croom, according to an investigation by the LA Times’s Andrew Khouri and Alene Tchekmedyian.

Council member Nithya Raman who is running for mayor, just got another $136,633 in matching funds, which candidates can qualify for by receiving small dollar donations. That brings Raman’s matching funds total in the runoff with Mayor Karen Bass to $511,707.56 (This was tracked by Unrig LA) In the 9th District race, where there is a runoff between Estuardo Mazariegos and Jose Ugarte, Mazariegos has received $47,200, and in the City Attorney’s race runoff between John McKinney and Marissa Roy, Roy has received $131,800.00. These can all be tracked on LA city’s Ethics Commission’s election totals website here.

And finally, Mayor Karen Bass just shared that she got an endorsement City Council member Katy Yaroslavsky, who represents the 5th Districts, which includes westside communities. This represents a continued edge Bass has over her opponent, Raman, who is a member of the City Council but has not gotten any endorsements from her colleagues, and it makes not a lot of waves in terms of a council member stepping out to join Raman in potentially challenging the status quo. Raman though recently scored the endorsement of City Controller Kenneth Mejia, who just won a second term in a landslide during the primary, despite having an opponent backed by the LA County Democratic Party.