What’s happening today?
🫏 🐘 Democrats, Democrats, everywhere: There are nearly four times as many voters in the city of Los Angeles registered with the Democratic Party as there are registered Republican voters, at least as of Oct. 19, according to the report just released by California Secretary of State Shirley Weber that shows registrations 15 days before the Nov. 2 election. Of the 2.23 million registered voters in the city of Los Angeles, 1.2 million are registered as Democrats and 324,641 are registered as Republicans. Also, 75,424 are registered as American Independents, and 12,075 are registered with the Green Party in LA city. The total number of people registered to vote in California is 23.27 million, 5.9 million of whom are in Los Angeles County.
🗳️ Some quick voting links: There are now 646 vote centers open across Los Angeles County. They open at 10 a.m. and close at 7 p.m., today, Monday, Nov. 2. But on election day, Tuesday, Nov. 3, they will be open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. You can locate a nearby vote center here. Ballots can also be dropped off at 429 drop boxes around the county, and you can locate a nearby one here. You can track your ballot here.
Raman and Bass’s campaign schedule for Monday: In the close LA mayor’s race, City Council member Nithya Raman and Mayor Karen Bass are continuing their packed campaign schedules, with Raman joining UAW 4811, a higher education worker union, at UCLA and Mayor Karen Bass doing events with former congress member Tony Cardenas in Pacoima and City Council member Hugo Soto-Martinez in Filipinotown. Departing from the usual custom in the past elections, the Los Angeles City Council won’t be holding their Tuesday and Wednesdays meetings, which coincide with election day and the day after. Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson said last week those meetings have been cancelled.
What’s squawking: 🏗️ Resolving disputes in the LA Convention Center expansion project: Agenda // 💲 Proposed Measure A spending plan for homeless services and housing: Agenda // 🧑⚖️ Risky traffic stop and LAPD racial discrimination: Agenda
A bit more on what’s on the Squawk Box:
🏗️ LA city officials are looking to sign off on contracts with construction attorneys who would help with resolving disputes that may come up in the Los Angeles Convention Center expansion project, which is on a tight deadline. Public Works commissioners will be taking up those sole source contracts at their 10 a.m. meeting. “Services are needed to provide third-party evaluations of disputes, and non-binding dispute resolution to expedite issues that may arise during the duration of the Los Angeles Convention Center project,” according to city officials, who have proposed that attorneys David P. Dapper, Mary Salamone and Andy Ness would be up for the job.
Other contracts set to be taken up during the meeting are related to programs to purify wastewater sent from our homes and businesses to the Donald C. Tillman Water Reclamation Plant that then goes to a spreading ground at Hansen Dam to start the slow journey down into our underground aquifers; that improve the city’s sidewalk repair program to improve accessibility on sidewalks, curb ramps and crosswalks; and to build a new childcare facility at Rosecrans Recreation Center that was included in 1996’s Proposition K, which set up an assessment district to raise money for youth park facilities.
💲 The Measure A draft spending plan just got released, and a county-created advisory panel is getting a big presentation on it at a 1 p.m. meeting. The panel, known as the “leadership table,” is meeting in the Gloria Molina Conference Room of the East Los Angeles Library. The panel is also getting presentations on the spending plans of LACAHSA, an agency that gets most of its money from Measure A to build affordable housing, and the LA County Development Authority. Reports and presentation slides related to these plans are stored here. You can find who sits on the “leadership table” here.
🧑⚖️ LA city’s “claims board,” which takes up proposed legal settlements before they reach the Los Angeles City Council, is reviewing, at their 2 p.m. meeting, two cases in which LA city police officers were accused not only of mistakenly stopping them, but also subjecting them to aggressive treatment. One of the cases was filed by an off-duty Sheriff’s deputy who said he was stopped by LAPD officers who then pointed guns at him and told him to lie down on the ground. There’s also a proposed settlement in a lawsuit filed by a Black officer who alleged retaliation after he reported that the LAPD officials were being discriminatory when reviewing Black candidates for police officer jobs. There are 16 cases on the agenda, and many of them are related to vehicle or traffic collisions and trip-and-falls.
What just happened?
LA Controller Mejia releases report on audit of city’s liability risk management, says $1B paid out over five years “largely” preventable
Controller Kenneth Mejia released the findings of his audit into how LA city manages liability risk. Mejia points to the $1.03 billion in legal payouts the city made from 2020 until 2025, which he said were “largely related to preventable incidents like injuries from broken sidewalks, dangerous conditions, and vehicle accidents and excessive use of force by police officers.”
“My office’s audit found an alarming lack of accountability throughout the city,” Mejia said in a statement. “There is no one entity tasked with overseeing risk management, and departments have no incentive to prevent injury, loss, or other harms to the public or to minimize the financial impact of their actions. I urge City Hall to implement the recommendations in our audit to reduce harm and liabilities.”
The Controller’s report includes a response from the City Administrative Officer, one of the city agencies the controller’s office audited. The CAO said they concurred with much of Mejia’s conclusions, but they quibbled over some things such as Mejia’s assertion that the CAO was already supposed to have had a bigger role in managing risk. The CAO’s office argued that this role was actually primarily given to city departments. But the CAO also said they agreed with the Controller that the city’s risk management needed to be centralized and that “we look forward to playing that role using the staff that the council and the mayor included” in this year’s budget.
The CAO’s office had also released a joint report with the City Attorney’s Office earlier this year, on March 27, that highlighted similar concerns and recommendations as Mejia’s.
Mejia’s office said that the City Attorney’s Office didn’t cooperate with them, so they couldn’t study how that office analyses risk and what it recommends as ways to reduce liability.
The Controller’s audit report can be read here. They also put out a white paper on recommendations for improving the city’s risk management process.
A few more things…
A violent ICE abduction that was caught on camera Friday morning in North Hollywood prompted a response from many of LA’s public officials including the city’s mayor, Karen Bass, who notified everyone in a statement that she was “engaging with the Attorney General’s Office to investigate and prosecute any wrongdoing.” She also referred the issue to Rep. Robert Garcia, who leads oversight of federal immigration enforcement abuses.”
79 community groups have joined an “Abolish 41.18” campaign that’s now focusing on getting progressive LA City Council member Eunisses Hernandez to repeal the 41.18 zones in the 1st City Council District. Those zones were set up by her predecessor Gil Cedillo, who she prevented from getting re-elected. Hernandez had spoken out against the anti-camping law while campaigning, similarly to other progressives. Another progressive, Council member Hugo Soto-Martinez had waited more than four years, and until after he had been re-elected this year, to rescind the 41.18 zones in the 13 Council District. He too had initially gotten into office after stating his strong opposition to the law during his campaign. Those zones were rescinded after many of the groups, now focused on Hernandez, waged a campaign to pressure Soto-Martinez to do so. The campaign says they’re also seeking more support for the latest stage of their campaign at an upcoming Really, Really Free Market event at Echo Park Lake on Saturday, Nov. 8.
In some last minute drama in the LA mayor’s race, Nithya Raman’s campaign said Sunday that a part-time staffer who posted on his own social media account about the Michigan Senate race is “no longer with the campaign.” This came after political consultant Mike Trujillo, who supports Mayor Karen Bass, boosted a post that highlighted Eric Cheng saying in a recent video that Haley Stevens tried to “brainwash” Black voters. Trujillo wrote that “this isn’t even funny… What is it with your campaign and the constant ignorance of the African American community?”
Meanwhile, Nithya Raman posted on her social media about the Los Angeles Police Protective League funding the Republican Party to oppose her campaign for mayor, writing, “BREAKING: The LA County Republican Party is campaigning to elect Karen Bass.” The post points to a filing from the Republican Party that shows a $100,000 contribution from a committee sponsored by the police union.
During Friday’s presentation-heavy LA City Council meeting, the crew at the Highland Park-based Stones Throw Records was invited by Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson to be recognized for offering up independent hip hop music for three decades. During the remarks, the founder of the label, Peanut Butter Wolf, mentioned that his landlord, during the early days of the record label, had been then-LA County Supervisor Gloria Molina (Molina had also served a term on the LA City Council just before joining the county board).