What’s happening today?
The Los Angeles City Council is considering an item to repeal a city law that limits people to purchasing only one handgun per month. The Firearms Policy Coalition and others had challenged LA city’s law, LAMC 55.14, in June in a lawsuit that argued that this law was just like a state law that they and others had successfully challenged last year as being unconstitutional and a violation of the Second Amendment. FYI, the June 2026 lawsuit also included a challenge of a similar “one-a-month” handgun law in Inglewood.
The Haynes Foundation, a philanthropic venture set up by “LA’s first civic power couple,” is 100 years old as of today. They are hitting this milestone at a time when the organization is seeing many of the recommendations made by a “citizen commission” they’d convened 50 years ago finally get implemented under the voter-approved Measure G.
Those changes include expanding the Board of Supervisors to nine members, and creating an entirely new elected county executive that’s often compared to a mayor, but one for the entire county. The elected executive position had also been proposed by Supervisor Kenneth Hahn, a couple years before the citizen commission recommendation, and after advocates had already been calling for it. One of the chief arguments made by advocates for creating a mayor-like county executive basically amounted to saying that it would bring more personality to bureaucratic LA County policy-making and governance.
Speaking of the county executive, candidates running for this office, which starts until 2028, can actually begin fundraising for their campaigns next Monday, September 7, Labor Day, reports Robert Greene in his latest issue of Los Angeles Rules. And some have already been speculating on who is going to run for what is expected to be an incredibly powerful seat.
The details of what this political office entails actually have not been decided yet. The governance reform task force that’s set up to implement Measure G met several times in August to suss out what they want to propose to the Board of Supervisors, and then at a Sept. 9 meeting next Wednesday, that task force is expected to finalize their proposal.
What just happened?
BTS is big in Los Angeles
LA City Hall was lit up in “borahae” purple to mark South Korean pop band BTS returning to LA this week after five years (during which their members served out each of their military duty stints). BTS’s management team and representatives of their fanclub, ARMY (short for Adorable Representative M.C. for Youth), also met with LA Mayor Karen Bass. The mayor’s office also did a post showing ways in which BTS is tied to Los Angeles, including the fact that they filmed one of their 2020 music video for the song On at the Sepulveda Dam (the band also enlisted UCLA’s band for the song). Other connections to Los Angeles include the fact that BTS made their first album in a garage in Los Angeles, and they gave an early free concert at the Troubadour in 2014.
Torched chats with state budget adviser on the state of 2028 Olympics finances
Alissa Walker of Torched talked to the state’s budget adviser Jason Sisney about what’s happening at the state level to fund the projects and the costs associated with the Olympics. State officials appear to be operating under the assumption that the federal government won’t be funding things like transportation projects for the Olympics, and Sisney says that means there is an understanding that the state may need to come up with the money for transit. Sisney also discusses the state’s role in providing a backstop to any cost overages by LA 28, the committee that’s coordinating the 2028 Olympics that’s being hosted in Los Angeles. There’s been plenty of angst at the city level about LA, already struggling with funding city services, being hit with financial overage costs if LA 28 doesn’t break even on their own budget. City Controller Kenneth Mejia has been drawing some attention to this and last week sent an information request to LA 28 for financial data.
Some LA charter reform tidbits
The task force that’s implementing Measure G in LA County is getting a familiar face on governance issues in Raymond Meza, who chaired the LA city charter reform commission that had finished its work earlier this year, presenting a set of recommendations to the Los Angeles City Council. Meza is supposed to be filling in temporarily on a vacancy in one of the three seats of the Measure G task force reserved for labor groups. The seat Meza will fill is the SEIU 721 seat. The two other seats are each filled by the LA County Federation of Labor and the Coalition of County Unions.
Meanwhile, many of the big changes that Meza-led LA city’s charter reform commission had recommended – and that many members of the public had advocated for – actually didn’t make it to this November’s ballot. And so now, as a consolation prize, there is an Ad Hoc Committee on Charter Review that’s getting under way to continue the work. On Tuesday, the committee’s chair, LA City Council member Tim McOsker, authored a motion that appears aimed at getting them set up with information on the timeline, history, and analysis they’ll need to properly study and deliberate on the reforms, and to create a way for the public and labor groups to participate in that work.
A few more things…
Just as Unite Here Local 11 announced its endorsement of Nithya Raman for mayor, Hugo Soto-Martinez – the LA City Council member most associated with that union – was being featured in a video praising Raman’s opponent Mayor Karen Bass and discussing their backgrounds as organizers. Bass also announced that she had earned the endorsement of La Opinión.
LA County Supervisors advance motions that call on county officials to look into ways to protect small business tenants from getting displaced.
Loyola Marymount University just unveiled a digital archive that documents the stories and history of Chavez Ravine residents who were displaced by Dodger Stadium. You can delve into the archives here. LMU is also continuing to collect stories about Chavez Ravine from the public.
City Controller Kenneth Mejia says his office just added mobile shower locations to his map of bathrooms and water fountains in Los Angeles, which has seen an uptick in usage during this especially hot summer.
For those wondering what local officials might be doing to prepare for the Super El Nino, LA County Supervisors got a presentation on it on Tuesday that you can also catch here.
