What’s happening today?
As of 3 a.m., the LA mayor’s race results looked to be favoring Council member Nithya Raman, who was leading Mayor Karen Bass by 2.25% and more than 16,000 votes. The results are still close of course, but past Los Angeles elections in which more progressive candidates have tended to do well in ballots counted after election day, and that’s fueling a lot of projections that Raman will eventually command a more decisive lead.
The Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk will be doing another update after 4 p.m. And tomorrow they’re expected to do two updates, one after 9 a.m. and the other after 4 p.m. They ramp that up to three updates on Friday. Here’s the schedule they have posted. Election officials report that they processed and counted 2.147 million ballots on Election Day, which is a 36.34% turnout.Council member Nithya Raman is leading in the LA mayor’s race.
What’s squawking: 🏥 Measure ER watchdog committee’s first-ever meeting: Agenda / Video (Webex live) // 🚓 Asset forfeiture revenue, and grant for insurance fraud investigations: Agenda / Video (Teams live) // 🌳LA’s still behind on trimming its trees: Agenda / Video // 💊 Unscrupulous drug recovery home operators: Agenda / Video (Teams live) // 🧑🌾 Farmer’s market at MLK Jr. medical campus: Agenda / Video (Teams live) // 🏖️ 🏚️Beaches and messy neighbors Agenda / Video (Teams live) // ⚕️Medicaid work requirements Agenda / Video (Teams live) // 🧑🧑🧒🧒 youth leaving foster care Agenda / Video (Teams live) // 🚚 LA county DMH and DSFS offices moving to Monterey Park? Agenda / Video (Teams live) // 🏘️ What can police do about evictions, illegal lockouts? Agenda // 📺 Contractors at LA city’s Channel 35 Agenda
🏥 A nine-person oversight committee monitoring how the new Measure ER half-cent sales tax revenues are being used is having its first ever meeting this morning starting at 9 a.m. The members include the director of LA County’s Department of Public Health, Dr. Barbara Ferrer, as well as the Health Services department’s director, Christina Ghaly. In addition to selecting officers, they are getting a presentation that provides an overview of Measure ER, The half cent sales tax became effective Oct. 1, and sunsets in five years, on Oct. 1, 2031, and it was put forward in response to federal cuts to health services funding.
🚓 LA county officials from law enforcement-related departments look to be going over some routine business at its 9:30 a.m. meeting, including acceptance of a grant to help the LA District Attorney investigate insurance fraud, and an agreement for the Sheriff’s department to receive asset forfeiture revenue from the federal government, which they participate with on joint task force operations.
🌳 LA city’s Board of Public Works is getting a report on how the city’s doing in meeting its urban tree maintenance goals. While the city is meeting a few of them – such as removing diseased or damaged trees – the report included with the agenda for today’s 10 a.m. meeting notes that they’re behind on their tree-trimming goals “due to lack of equipment, personnel, and weather events.”
💊 🧑🌾 LA County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath wants to look into ways to address any unscrupulous activities by operators of drug recovery homes who might try to pocket insurance and Medi-Cal money without actually providing services, or worse, keep administering harmful drugs to people who came to seek help with their addictions. Her motion is being workshopped in a 11:30 a.m. “cluster” meeting devoted the county’s health and mental health services. Another item of note is a possible farmer’s market coming to the county’s Martin Luther King Jr. Medical Campus.
🏖️ 🏚️ Some work is being done to fix up bathrooms and other facilities at Mothers Beach, according to one of the items being taken up by LA county’s community services officials at noon today. There is also a big batch of requests to issue orders at nuisance properties around the county, where they’re aiming to get people to remove “ trash, junk, debris, discarded furniture and appliances, and miscellaneous personal property.” Those officials will also be getting a report on ways the county is preparing the coastal areas to withstand the winter weather, including emergency work to address erosion at Point Dume.
⚕️🧑🧑🧒🧒 Family and social services officials at the LA County will be taking up some in-progress motions at a 1:30 p.m. meeting. One is on responding to new work requirements under HR1 for people who receive Medicaid, and another to better serve so-called “transitional aged youth” who become homeless and are often leaving foster care.
🚚LA County’s mental health and child and family services are making a move from a homebase in El Monte to Monterey Park potentially. The “operations” cluster at 2 p.m. LA county officials are set to take up proposed leases to house DMH office and DCFS offices in Monterey Park’s office park area on Corporate Center Drive.
🏘️ The LA City Council’s housing committee – chaired by melda Padilla – is set to take up a motion at its 2 p.m. meeting today that calls for looking into the LAPD’s role when responding to reports of evictions and “alleged unlawful lockouts” at single room occupancy buildings. They’re also taking up the mayor’s appointment of Adelina Camilla McCloud to the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles Board of Commissioners and ordinance language to exempt some developers from paying the Measure ULA transfer tax.
📺 The LA City Council committee – chaired by Monica Rodriguez – that deals with arts programs and parts facilities will be taking up at its 2 p.m. meeting the fate of contractors at LA city’s TV station, Channel 35.
What just happened?
Nithya Raman leads Karen Bass in close fight for the mayor’s seat
Many supporters of City Council member Nithya Raman are prognosticating that she will be the next LA city mayor, even as Mayor Karen Bass at her own election night party said she expects she’ll eventually move ahead in the standings to get “four more years” in the seat.
One of those Raman supporters, Controller Kenneth Mejia, was brimming with optimism on Tuesday evening. He is the lone City Hall colleague to have thrown his enthusiastic support behind Raman’s campaign for mayor.
“I got so much hope,” said Mejia, who has complained of his own ostracization within City Hall, particularly reflected through the budget cuts his fraud investigation unit has faced. “And guess what? I’m so damn proud to be the only one in City Hall who supported Mayor Raman.”
Meanwhile, City Hall’s pressure cooker settings have been set especially high, with normally collegial fellow electeds circling wagons and openly taking digs at Raman for jumping into the race, including accusing Raman of opportunism. Others have accused Raman’s leadership on the council’s homelessness committee as “unproductive.”
Raman described in her election night speech the onslaught of pushback against her candidacy as coming from LA’s establishment, which includes “almost every politician in this city, a deep bench of donors.”
“They threw everything they had at us,” Raman said. “And they had a lot. But we fought back.”
Bass, for her part, also called it a “fight.” During her speech as “featured guest” during the Los Angeles County’s Democratic Party’s election night party, Bass took up the familiar chant in her election night speech, “When we fight, we win. And we will win.”
Perhaps all is fair in love and war, but after a fight like what’s occurred over the course of the last year, it will be interesting to see where things go from here – whether it’s Raman or Bass who wins – after so many harsh words have been let loose.
Meanwhile, in the Los Angeles City Attorney’s race, Marissa Roy, a deputy attorney with State Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office, has a sizable lead over opponent John McKinney, who is a deputy district attorney with LA County. The City Council races in the 3rd District in the west San Fernando Valley, and the 9th District, in South Los Angeles, are also up in the area.
And all of the city measures, which include a sales tax measure to fund the fire department, and several charter amendments that grew out of the recent Charter Reform discussions, are leading with yes votes. With the exception of a measure that makes a largely technical change to campaign finance rules, a measure to double the park’s department’s budget allocation currently has the highest percentage of “yes” votes out of all of them. Parks advocates have complained of the city sidelining parks needs in the city’s budget, and this “ballot box budget” measure may be one way voters are sending a message.