LA Squawk Box for Tuesday, August 11, 2026

Plum LA city committee spots to be handed out, but Nithya Raman faces a shutout. LAPD chief McDonnell's ICE protests report is out. LA Council member Curren Price ordered to stand trial. And more.

What’s happening today?

LA Council’s plum committee spots to be handed out; Nithya Raman could lose longtime homelessness and housing chair position

The LA City Council is meeting today and will take up a new committee structure and schedule. The most dramatic shift in the structure is the splitting of the Housing and Homelessness Committee into two. That committee held its last meeting last week, and it’s chaired by Nithya Raman, who is running for mayor and challenging the re-election of the current mayor Karen Bass. The assignments have not been announced yet, but Noah Goldberg of the LA Times reports that Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson, an ally of Mayor Bass, is not expected to assign Nithya Raman as chair of the Housing and Homelessness Committee. Nithya Raman released a statement on Monday alleging political motivations are driving the anticipated assignments.

What else is on the City Council agenda: There is also a long slate of ad hoc committees included in the proposed committee structure, including an ad hoc committee on the Lineage warehouse fire in Boyle Heights. The agenda for the council meeting also includes items to temporarily prohibit smoke a vape shops in the 15th Council District, the renaming of the intersection of Temple and Figueroa as Little Manila Square (changing it from the existing name America is in the Heart, which is named after a well-known book by Carlos Bulosan, a Filipino American poet, author and activist), homeless outreach services in CD10, approvals for the restoration of Walker’s Cafe in San Pedro, and a contract with Boingo Wireless for wifi at LAX.

LA county pilot to free up Department of Mental Health psychiatric response mobile unit

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors is scheduled to consider a pilot program to give more ER doctors the ability to do 5150 evaluations that lead to involuntary hospitalizations, as a way to relieve the load on the Department of Mental Health’s psychiatric mobile units and shorten their response to crises in the community. The mobile units respond in-person to 24,000 calls. Meanwhile, about 15% to 20% of requests originate from the ER, even though mobile units are actually more geared to responding to community-based incidents, such as to people’s homes or public areas. The Department of Mental Health has been trying to shorten their response times has been through improving their dispatch process, as well as setting up hiring bonuses to staff the teams better. And since the ER calls tend to get short shrift as well, from their teams, as well as slows their response time down, the motions’ authors are proposing to get more doctors trained up to do 5150 evaluations in at least five more hospitals by the end of the year. Here’s how the motion by Janice Hahn and Lindsey Horvath describes the overall policy landscape: “… DMH is working to identify how it can better support individuals experiencing a mental health crisis who end up in ERs, without sacrificing rapid emergency response for those in the community in need of help. Recently, the state legislature passed Assembly Bill 416, amending the LPS [Lanterman Petris-Short] Act to allow County behavioral health directors to include ER physicians as one of the practice disciplines eligible to be authorized by the County to conduct 5150 evaluations. This would enable ER physicians at non-LPS designated facilities to write 5150 applications to involuntarily hospitalize individuals without relying on PMRT.”

Supes will also take up partnership on Pomona fairgrounds revamp

Supervisors are also set to take up a contract with the Fairplex to partner on a redevelopment of the 487-acre fairgrounds, known for hosting the annual LA County Fair. There is also a proposed $1.7 million settlement in a lawsuit against the Sheriff’s Department by Aaron Glazier, who accused the department’s deputies of unlawful arrest and detainment in Bellflower on Jan. 29, 2018. There is a settlement of $1.7 million in a case in a lawsuit by a Deputy District Attorney, Amy Pentz, against then-DA George Gascon, alleging retaliation. Pentz’s lawsuit said a close adviser to Gascon had waited to announce that their office was not pursuing criminal charges in an excessive use case under the tenure of Sheriff Alex Villanueva, who was running for re-election at the time.

LAPD oversight board to take up Chief Jim McDonnell’s ‘after-action’ on 2025 federal ICE protests

The Board of Police Commissioners is set to take up a 60-page “after-action” report from LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell on the police department’s response to the “federal ICE protests” in 2025. The League of Women Voters of Greater Los Angeles submitted a public comment that took issue with McDonnell’s characterization of the protests as “citywide,” rather than mostly in downtown Los Angeles. They noted that this echos “the messaging that came out of the White House, which was contrary to the information shared by the Mayor, the Police Chief, and the Sheriff during several press conferences that incidents took place within a one-mile radius of downtown Los Angeles, as well as a couple of other areas of the City, e.g. Paramount and L.A. Harbor. Most of Los Angeles did not experience wide-scale protests requiring LAPD response.” They also say McDonnell’s characterization of some of what was happening as “rioting” was a bit overblown. They wrote that “‘rioting’ connotes serious violence,” and yet arrest records from the protests that they point to “show that 79% were for failure to disperse, 6% for curfew violations, 6% for looting, vandalism, or trespassing. 3.6% were arrested for violence against police officers. Perhaps a better word choice, rather than ‘rioting’, would be ‘at times, conditions rose to the level of vandalism and violence against police officers.’” Police commissioners are also set to take up amendments to increase the LAPD’s contract with Metro, to cover costs of providing law enforcement services along the three new stations on the D Line that opened in May. This includes a contract amendment that covers increased costs of $1M that includes the addition stops on the D Line for the last fiscal year, from March 1, until Jume 30. This includes covering the platform in the city of Beverly Hills. An operating agreement with the city of Beverly Hills says that the LAPD will provide law enforcement “solely below ground,” which includes stairs, elevators, platforms and rail lines” at the stations. And there is also an amendment related to increase costs for a full-year. This amendment increases the contract by nearly $120M to cover this year, starting from July 1 until next June 30, to include the D Line extension into Beverly Hills.

What just happened?

Curren Price ordered on Aug. 7 to stand trial

The District Attorney’s corruption case against LA City Council member Curren Price ought to be moving forward finally, after Price’s legal team worked to avoid that just failed. But according to journalist Stephen Oduntan, the judge didn’t seem too impressed by District Attorney Nathan Hochman’s case against Price. “It’s not a great case,” Judge Larry Paul Fidler said. On Monday, Hochman announced the judge’s decision, although reporting by Oduntan at LA Focus included the intriguing comment from the judge. Oduntan spoke to Rickey Ivie, an attorney not involved in the case, who said that such decisions are largely procedural, and that the overwhelming majority of the time these motions are denied. Hochman, meanwhile, described the judge’s decision as showing that the DA’s public integrity division “presented ample evidence to hold Price to answer for 12 public corruption felonies,” and Hochman said they “look forward to setting a trial date and proving these charges beyond a reasonable doubt to a jury.”

LA city candidates are now reporting donations above $1,000 within 24-hours.

The start of the reporting period for such donations was last Wednesday, and can be viewed on the Ethics Commission’s elections totals page. Since then, City Attorney candidate John McKinney has posted a $1,000 donation from former District Attorney Jackie Lacey (who has endorsed him). In the 3rd City Council District race to replace Bob Blumenfield, who is termed out, candidate Tim Gaspar posted a donation from Thomas Safran, an affordable housing developer. In the 9th District City Council race to replace the termed-out Current Price, Estuardo Mazariegos received a donation from civil rights attorney Carol Sobel, while his opponent Jose Ugarte received a donation from a former ethics commissioner Ana Dahan. Donations have of course been flowing in for both Nithya Raman and Karen Bass in the mayor’s race.