LA Squawk Box for Wednesday, May 13, 2026

Proposal to scale back $30 wage plan for tourism workers in council today, Imelda Padilla proposes big list of 41.18 zones, and committee slows down proposal to increase short-term rentals.

What’s happening today? A proposal to delay and water down the so-called “Olympic Wage” for airport and hotel workers is on the LA City Council’s agenda for Wednesday (meeting stream). This proposal, as it was first proposed back in December, signaled some cold feet on the part of city leaders to move forward with a $30 wage aimed at ensuring workers were not being short-changed as the city hosts the Olympics and other major events. The proposal calls for reaching a $30-an-hour wage by 2030, two years after the Olympics. There will be a City Attorney candidate forum tonight at 5:30 p.m., but this one has a fee at the door. The forum is organized by the Women Lawyers Association of Los Angeles and the Los Angeles County Bar Association, and it costs $10 for members of the WLALA, and $25 for non-members. What’s NOT happening today is a mayoral debate that was to be televised on Fox 11 — but Mike Bonin, who leads one of the co-hosts, the Pat Brown Institute, shared on his Substack the questions that they were planning to ask. The debate was canceled after two of the top mayoral candidates, Mayor Karen Bass and Council member Nithya Raman, withdrew earlier this week.

What just happened?

LA leaders delays action on vacation rental ordinance, with staffers expected to take weeks to report back on enforcement recommendations: LA City Council members on Tuesday took up a proposal to raise a cap on the number of vacation units that could put on the short-term market in Los Angeles. But city officials raised concerns the long-term housing market would take a serious hit even as many Los Angeles residents are already struggling to pay rent and keep up with housing cost.

That concern about housing affordability was underscored on Wednesday, with polling results from Emerson College citing that issue as a top priority among the Los Angeles voters.

The LA City Council’s Planning and Land Use Management Committee ended up continuing the issue on Tuesday, with the chair, Bob Blumenfield spending much of the meeting raising concerns about the city’s ability to enforce the existing rules on the books.

The proposal to increase the pool of short-term rentals of vacation homes is also part of the city’s budget deliberations that happening at the same time. In April, Mayor Karen Bass included instructions in her spending proposal to make changes to the city’s vacation rental rules in order to bring in more tax revenue, as a way to ease the city’s serious budgetary woes. Airbnb, which has secured support from community groups and unions, has been making a concerted push to raise the short-term rental cap for vacation homes, launching a campaign called Save our Services that proposes short-term revenues could be a fix for LA’s budget problems. Meanwhile, groups like Better Neighborhoods LA, which include union and tenant advocates and others, have been raising alarms around effects such short-term rentals could have on housing affordability in Los Angeles. Among the opposing side’s more powerful members is the hotel workers union, Unite Here Local 11.

Council member Nithya Raman, who is running for mayor, held a news conference on Monday amplifying her opposition to the vacation rental proposal that her opponent, Mayor Karen Bass, is pushing as part of her budget. Raman as well as many others are also proposing that the city first work on enforcing the existing rules.

At Wednesday’s hearing on the issue, Raman who sits on the PLUM committee, asked about how much revenue the city is get from raising the cap on vacation rentals. Staffers were hesitant to provide a definitive answer, saying there were unable to confidently predict what the participation level would be. They said they have been looking at some estimates that revenue could be between $25 million to $30 million, but cautioned that “I would go back to the uncertainty” around what they can predict. Meanwhile, there are reports still pending on what the city could do to enforce the existing rules on the books, and staffers told the committee that they might need at least five more weeks to provide recommendations on how to improve enforcement.

Meanwhile, Blumenfield shared an anecdote that reflects some of the concerns people have about the possible slippery slope of giving property owners more opportunities to place homes onto the short-term market, as opposed to the long-term market.

“I know a guy who has a really nice house and basically lives outside of the house more often than he does in the house, because he makes more money renting his house than not.” Blumenfield said. That person told him he is excited about this proposed change to the vacation rental ordinance, according to Blumenfield, and he is now thinking about buying additional properties to rent out as short-term vacation rentals, telling him, “You know, this is a great business for me” and that he “makes more doing that than writing films for Hollywood.”

Meanwhile, a supporter of the proposal to raise the cap, Council member Heather Hutt, submitted a set of instructions for ways the short-term rental rules could be changed on a temporary basis, sunsetting on Dec. 31, 2028. They state that the rules would be in place “during upcoming major events, including the 2027 Super Bowl and 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games.” Hutt’s instructions, it appears, won’t be translated into ordinance language immediately. Blumenfield, who chairs the planning committee, talked about using Hutt’s instructions as a “guide” for coming back with a report. Those instructions can be read here. They mirror a recent report that calls for the cap to be raised on a temporary basis.

1,600 residential unit project in Skid Row, near Little Tokyo, advances: The planning committee on Tuesday, also heard an appeal against a massive 1,589 residential-unit mixed use project in Skid Row, at Fourth Street and Central Avenue. The committee ended up denying the appeal and advancing the project. A representative for a group opposing the project, the Little Tokyo Community Council, raised concerns that it would gentrify the area, affecting communities like Little Tokyo, which has become more and more of a tourist destination. Longtime businesses, including the well-loved Suehiro diner, have been forced out of the area as the area has become more popular. What’s more, some pointed to what they called an “insulting” percentage of the project that would be designated as affordable. The project, they said, would have only be required to have 0.5% of its units be affordable. They said that community members had been hoping to see at least 30% of the project be set at affordable rates. The project has a substantial array of support from well-known groups including the Inner City Law Center, the Downtown Women’s Center, People Concern, East Los Angeles Community Corporation and Union Station Homeless Services. A representative for the developers and others pointed to the large number of residential units the project would add. Meanwhile, the project is opposed by Nikkei Progressives. One of its members, Mark Masaoka, shared some comments with The LA Reporter, saying that the groups he has been participating in have a history of opposing “slow growth” efforts that restricted multi-family housing projects. “We need housing built for the low income and the missing middle,” he said. Masaoka describes himself as “a proud, retired, union journeyman electrician and board member of an anti-gentrification real estate investment fund.” He adds that opponents of the project such as himself “are serious people here; let’s have serious conversations.” Even though the appeal was denied, the project did move forward with some changes proposed by Council member Ysabel Jurado, who represents the district where the project is located. In it she proposes higher percentages for the amount of affordable housing in the project.

Mayoral candidates can seek as many donations as they want from business, corporations, labor unions and political committees: The Ethics Commission announced that a contribution Adam Miller made to his campaign has removed a limit on the amount of donations mayoral candidates can receive from sources that aren’t people. Candidates can now seek as many donations as they want from business, corporations, labor unions and political committees. They had been limited to receiving no more than $1.6 million in donations from such sources. This is happening after a filing went up on Monday showing Miller contributed $1.5 million to his own campaign. And his latest contributions disclosure shows he already had $2.7 million, although much of it was also his own money. The idea of non-individuals donating to campaigns typically doesn’t go over well with the public, according to Sean McMorris with California Common Cause, which last year made a presentation to the Charter Reform Commission promoting a “people-only campaign contribution system.” The idea to ban all such contributions has been floating around City Hall in recent years. Back in 2019, such a ban was included in the Ethics Commission’s reform package. Such a ban can be seen as beneficial because it would simplify things, since it can be hard to tell if someone was donating both as an individual and also potentially through a corporation (something that is not allowed, but can be difficult to enforce on if it were to occur). This type of ban was also part of the charter reform commission conversation that just wrapped up. As part of that discussion, the Ethics Commission submitted a report that includes a section on a possible ban on non-individual contributions. It includes some figures from recent elections that compared the average amounts donated by non-individuals and those by individuals. Non-individuals, unsurprisingly, gave much more, and for elections for citywide seats such as the mayor, such donations were nearly twice as much as what individual people were donating to candidates.

Immigrant right advocates urge action by Board of Police Commissioners: The LA Sanctuary Coalition presented to the Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners, after their presentation was abruptly pulled last month, and about 10 months after a City Council motion had been transmitted to commissioners to ensure that the LAPD was not helping federal immigration officials. The presenters included ACLU SoCal attorney Andres Kwon, CHIRLA’s director Angelica Salas, and Fr. Brendan Busse of LA Voice. The Board of Police Commissioners did not immediately act in response to the presentation, but requested some reports on the matter. Kwon urged the board to act, saying of the federal administration, “They’re going to come anyways,” adding that “they hate LA,” due to its “rich diversity” and for being a “city of immigrants.”

“That’s why they target us,” Kwon said. “They’re going to come anyways. It’s whether are we going to help them, or are we going to stand up for our community members?”

A few more things that just happened, and a few things to read …

Big list of 41.18 zones proposed: Council member Imelda Padilla introduced a motion on Tuesday proposing to put a long list of streets where she wants anti-camping zones set up. Her motion cites an “ongoing threat to public health or safety.” FYI, zones set up under this reason could only be effective for no more than a year, according to the ordinance language. And the threat to public health or safety would need to be documented. The language also says the zones can’t be enforced unless signage has been posted.

Board of Supes moves on protecting immigrants at council medical facilities, like hospitals: City News Service reports that the Board of Supervisors adopted a motion that calls for protecting patients, staff and others at county medical facilities in light of the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigranst. That motion “directs county staff to establish an internal committee composed of experienced hospital personnel, county counsel and the Office of Immigrant Affairs to oversee implementation of the protections,” the story says.

Empty seat on the Board of Police Commissioners: LA Local reports that the Los Angeles police commissioner Teresa Sánchez-Gordon is stepping down from the board, after earlier resigning as its president. She told LA Local that she is doing this because of threats made against herself and her family. Sanchez-Gordon was appointed by Mayor Karen Bass in December 2024, to a term that was set to end in 2029.

Calls for Rae Huang to drop out of the mayor’s race: Huang, who has been polling in the single, digits was asked in an interview, conducted and posted Tuesday by Jonathan Hale, how she responds to calls for her to halt her mayoral campaign. Huang said she does not plan to do so.

A few more things … Paul Thornton of Golden State asked candidates in the LA city council district 1 race what they want to do about MacArthur Park. Unrig LA spots from big bucks coming to Spencer Pratt’s mayoral campaign.