LA Squawk Box for Monday, May 18, 2026
Nithya Raman grilled by Hasan Piker and Rae Huang by Conan Nolan, Olympics human rights report up in council today, politicians speak to Chinatown tenants' gentrification concerns, and more.
What’s happening this week?
City Council finally set to discuss human rights effects of the Olympics: Human trafficking, displacement of unhoused communities, labor issues and other human rights concerns related to the Olympic Games is set to be taken up by a LA City Council committee today, May 18, 2026, at 1 p.m. (meeting stream). Those concerns are outlined in a report LA 28 officials are required to prepare as part of its contract with the city. People who spoke at public comment at an earlier April 14, 2026 meeting pointed to inadequacies with the report, including the fact that many of the ideas for ameliorating those human rights concerns aren’t funded.
It has also taken almost half a year for the report — which is dated Dec. 19, 2025 — to even be taken up in a public forum, and when it did get scheduled for discussion last month, it had to be postponed to today’s meeting of the Ad Hoc Committee on the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
City officials have since submitted a recommendation that the human rights report be filed away “inasmuch as it is submitted for informational purposes.” At this committee hearing, there’s also supposed to be a verbal report from the mayor’s office on “major events” that’s chiefly preoccupied with the Olympic Games. This office, led by Paul Krekorian, the former City Council president, is also in charge of overseeing how the city coordinates with organizers of other “major events” like the 2026 FIFA soccer championships that’s coming to town next month.
Will LA County’s ethics commission be independent? Another major item up for discussion this week is Los Angeles County’s effort to set up an “independent” Ethics Commission, which is going through some awkward first steps. FYI, LA city already has such a commission, set up in 1999, that not only monitors, but also enforces laws around lobbying, campaign disclosures, conflicts of interest and other programs to guard against corruption and abuses of power, as well as to promote an even-playing field in the democratic process.
The LA County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday, May 19, 2026, will be taking up a motion that includes instructions aimed at staffing up such a commission. One key issue being sussed out is how the county’s ethics commission would actually be an independent body, according to Robert Greene, a journalist and former LA Times editorial board member who has been monitoring governance reform at the county.
Right now, the county charter calls for the Board of Supervisors — the elected members of which would be the subject of the Ethics Commission’s oversight — to hire the commission staff, and for the county’s appointed attorney (known as the county counsel) to hire the lawyers that advises the commission.
There are concerns that’s a set-up that takes away from the independence of the commission. And so the Governance Reform Task Force that was set up under the voter-approved Measure G has recommended that this part of the charter be changed to allow the Ethics Commission to “be able to hire and fire its own chief ethics compliance officer, who would hire and supervise the rest of the staff,” and to “hire an independent attorney,” according to Greene.
County supervisors will be taking up the the staffing up of the Ethics Commission at its 9:30 a.m. meeting on Tuesday, May 19, 2026 (meeting stream). You can read the motion here.
Mayoral debate forum incoming… on Wednesday: The San Fernando Valley Chamber of Commerce is hosting a candidate forum on May 20, 2026, starting at 4 p.m., for the mayor’s race, and it looks like Karen Bass, Nithya Raman, Adam Miller and Rae Huang are confirmed to field questions from moderator Alex Cohen. Spencer Pratt was invited, but there hasn’t been a confirmation yet. Candidates won’t be questioned at the same time, but rather one at a time. Registration to attend closes 5 p.m. on Tuesday, May 19, 2026, according to the Instagram post about the event. The link to register is here.
There are other weighty topics set to be discussed by county supervisors at Tuesday’s meeting. County officials will report on how they’re preparing for “potential federal government interference with the June 2, 2026, and the November 3, 2026” including by authorizing the county’s legal counsel to join in litigation against the federal government… There’s also a motion to execute an agreement with a nonprofit set up to raise philanthropic money fund Los Angeles County’s public health programs, which are losing $50 million in funding for services, due to H.R. 1, also referred to as the One Big Beautiful Bill, and in response to potentially even more cuts amounting in the hundreds of millions of dollars coming down the pike. While LA county voters in June will be deciding on a countywide a sales tax measure to help fill the fiscal void left by the federal cuts, county officials say that won’t be enough and so are turning to such philanthropic strategies. The nonprofit set up for such purposes is called The Foundation to Advance Public Health Los Angeles… And another interesting item on Tuesday’s agenda is a plan to purchase an Expo Park building where 702 Department of Social Services staff now work out of, and is where the department provides" “DPSS’ applicants with services for various programs … [that] include a Customer Service Center VI, an Appeals and State Hearings board, Greater Avenue for Independence, In-Home Supportive Services, and a K-Step Montessori Child Care Center.”
You can also expect the following other major events this week… A potential deal is set to be taken up in relation to a $30 minimum wage, known as the “Olympic Wage,” for airport and hotel workers. This wage had been adopted last year, but has now been put into question because business groups have threatened the city’s reliance on business gross receipts tax via a ballot measure to repeal it. The measure has qualified for the ballot in November. If approved, the measure could potentially setting off a financial bomb for LA’s budget through the loss of around $860 million in tax revenue a year …
It’s time to check in on the financial health of candidates in the LA city mayors race and other races — with about two weeks before polls close for the June primary. Campaigns submitting their campaign financial disclosure by Thursday of their activity as of this past Saturday, May 16. Those disclosures will show how much money candidates have raised since their last disclosure a month ago, as well as how those campaigns have been spending their money …
And we’ll get to hear City Council members who sit on the Rules Committee opine on even more charter reform items, focusing on election and ethics topics this week. While these charter reform hearings have mostly followed this schedule set by the Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson, who also chairs the Rules committee, the commitee has tacked on other items for discussion. To get a feel for what some advocates are pushing, here’s a letter from California Common Cause pushing for several ethics commission independence and campaign finance reform items…
Also, LA City Council member Imelda Padilla’s one big beautiful list of 41.18 anti-camping zones is up for a vote on Tuesday’s council meeting agenda. The list includes 26 locations where Padilla deems as presenting “ongoing threat to public health or safety,” although those claims have to come with some proof…
And on Wednesday, there will be an opportunity to make public comment on the city budget at the 10 a.m. City Council meeting set for that day. The Budget and Finance Committee completed deliberations last Friday, and this meeting will be the full City Council’s opportunity to take a crack at the budget proposed by Mayor Karen Bass.
What just happened?
Mejia says the idea of housing as a human right ‘scares people’
There was a forum held on Sunday, May 17, 2026, that reflected the priorities of Angelenos facing a precarious housing situation in a gentrifying Chinatown. Many vacant lots and older buildings in that neighborhood are being eyed by real estate interests, with some of those in the audience at the “Raise Income, Not Rent” town hall from buildings where elderly and other tenants could potentially see their rent go up, despite already struggling to pay their existing rent.
The conversation at this forum, organized by the volunteer-run Chinatown Community for Equitable Development (CCEDLA), diverged from what usually gets televised or is widely considered a priority in the election cycle. Participants asked questions in English, Spanish and Chinese.
Controller Kenneth Mejia, one of the participants of the forum reflected on this, saying in his closing remarks, “We see things differently. We are not backed by corporations, by big money. We’re backed by the people. There is a lot of money up against us. They’re up against people who care about human beings. They’re fighting against people who believe that housing is a human right. And I think for them, that scares them, because they see things through the lens of money. They see things through the lens of housing as a commodity. But for us, we see it as a human necessity to be able to live, to raise your kids here, to be able to play outside in healthy, clean air. And I think … that scares people.”
There were only two other panelists, Mayoral candidate Rae Huang and City Attorney candidate Aida Ashouri, despite many other officials also getting invited. Some did not respond, while others declined, citing scheduling conflicts. Among those who declined include the tenants’ and the Chinatown community’s representative on the City Council, Eunisses Hernandez. Fanny Oyang, a spokesperson for CCEDLA, said Hernandez had attended a similar event when she had run for office.
The panel discussion included a lightning round in which candidates were asked to hold up a sign answering “yes or no” in response to a series of questions. Alejandro Gutierrez, who moderated the round, prefaced it by joking to the candidates, “Make sure you answer the way that the community don’t get upset at you.”
Among the questions asked of the candidates was whether they would work to repeal the LAMC 41.18 anti-camping law that is used as an enforcement tool whenever City Council offices conduct sweeps of homelessness encampments. Mejia, Huang and Ashouri all held up signs stating that yes, they will work to do repeal the law. Their response prompted applause from the audience.
Raman and Huang grilled on-air, in two separate interviews: Two mayoral candidates on the progressive end of the political spectrum recently got to test their mettle during interviews.
Mayoral candidate and LA City Council member Nithya Raman, was grilled on many of her stances, including on Israel, during Hasan Piker’s Twitch stream. Piker, describing Israel as an apartheid state, asked Raman if her stances have changed since she filled out an earlier, 2020 Democrats for Israel endorsement questionnaire in which she said she supported Israel’s right to exist. Raman responded that she does support Israel’s right to exist, adding that she is critical of the actions of governments, including that of India, the country she’s from and is now being operated under Hindu nationalist principles. “I’m critical of that when it happens everywhere,” Raman said.
Raman also said she does consider Israel’s war on Gaza a genocide, and she had also signed onto a City Council resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza that ultimately didn’t get voted on. She also said she would not be seeking DFI’s endorsement again. Raman had been censured by the Democratic Socialists of America for that endorsement.
And Raman raised a point that the mayor’s seat does not deal with foreign policy, prompting Piker to say that local officials have the power to make policy around protest activity. He cited a 2024 protest outside the Adas Torah synogogue in the Pico-Robertson neighborhood that drew prompt condemnation from local officials like Mayor Karen Bass and Council member Katy Yaroslavsky.
Piker noted that there was not as much focus on the point of the protest, which was being staged to oppose an event being hosted at the synogogue believed to be showcasing stolen Palstinian land that were being put up for sale. Such land sale events have been a target of protests in other places as well, including in New York. Piker also referenced a motion introduced soon after the 2024 Adas Torah syngogue protest that called for the restriction of protests around places of worship, as well as schools, healthcare facilities and public buildings.
To all that, Raman responded, “I mean, look, what is happening in the West Bank and what’s happening with illegal settlements there is deeply troubling. I will confess that I don’t know much about this particular issue, so I don’t want to make a commitment to something I’ll do as mayor that I don’t know that much about.”
While Piker expressed disappointment Raman’s answers after the interview, the candidate came away with a reluctant endorsement from Piker, whose impromptu interview with Raman’s opponent, Rae Huang, during an ICE out of LA protest, had earlier garnered Huang some dedicated supporters.
Pike cited Huang’s low polling numbers as the reason for his endorsement. And some others in recent days have come out asking Huang to step out of the race in order to avoid a scenario in which Spencer Pratt — a Republican whose folksy tirades against the government are laced with right-wing talking points — ends up making the runoff with the incumbent, Mayor Karen Bass. A match-up between Bass and Raman instead, would provide progressive voters with a more preferred, least of evil set of choices.
Meanwhile, mayoral candidate Rae Huang was also grilled on-air in the last few days, this time by NBC4 journalist Conan Nolan, an interviewer who asked some questions that reflected diametrically-opposed views to the ones she espouses. Huang had thrown her hat into the ring back in December, before Raman entered the race, aiming to bring a progressive perspective into the mayor’s race. At the time, the only major candidates in the race included Mayor Karen Bass and former LAUSD superintendent Austin Beutner, both of whom are moderates.
When asked about homeless encampments, Huang brought up her opposition to the city’s anti-camping law, LAMC 41.18. This is subject that even progressive candidates shy from in order to avoid attacks from the right. It’s especially vexed politicians whenever the enforcement of LAMC 41.18 is discussed in relation to encampments near “sensitive” sites like schools.
While some capitulate to claims that setting up encampments should be treated as a crime, Huang dispensed with Nolan’s questions by proposing that people living in encampments are neighbors whose needs are worth supporting to the same degree as people living comfortably in houses. “We are pitting Angelenos against Angelenos,” Huang said. “Both are part of our communities.”
A former state treasurer presenting on bond financing to the Measure ULA ad hoc committee gets a rough reception: The issue of financing a bond off of Measure ULA revenue turned out to have been a touchy subject at last Friday’s ad hoc committee. The panel of three City Council members, led by Council member Ysabel Jurado, was tasked with figuring out what to do about efforts to scale back the real estate transfer tax measure that voters approved in 2022 to fund tenant protections, homelessness prevention and affordable housing construction. The presentation on bond financing was delivered by a former, early 1990s-era State Treasurer Kathleen Brown, now a partner at Manatt Phelps & Phillips. The tool of leveraging ULA funds for bonding, according to Brown, should be used if reforms are made to the tax — and not everyone thinks that the tax ought to be reformed. The committee also heard a presentation that detailed what the anticipated significant loss to funding for existing homelessness prevention programs and affordable housing construction.
Budget and finance committee concludes deliberations on LA city’s 2026-2027 budget: Here’s the video for the budget and finance committee’s final deliberations on the fiscal year 2026-2027 budget. One of the major pieces of news out of the they found a way to fund the city’s safe parking program. The chief legislative analyst (which reports to the City Council) provided some recommendations for ways to move forward with instructions made by budget committee members, and you can find those in this report.
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