Good morning, and welcome to L.A. on the Record — our City Hall newsletter. It’s Rebecca Ellis, with an assist from Julia Wick and Noah Goldberg, giving you the latest on city and county government.
The ‘five little queens’ of L.A. County agree: accidentally wiping out a ballot measure is not a good look.
It’s a “bureaucratic disaster,” Supervisor Lindsey Horvath said this week of the revelation that voters had wiped out the promise of hundreds of millions toward services that keep people out of jail. That snafu happened when voters approved her completely unrelated ballot measure in November to change the county’s form of government.
It’s clear, the supervisors say, someone messed up badly. But who?
The bureaucratic whodunit has confounded county observers — even those who once were creatures of the county themselves.
“I just can’t figure it out,” said Zev Yaroslavsky, a former longtime county supervisor. “The charter amendment just disappeared. I just don’t know how that happened, mechanically.”
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The mistake, it seems, began with the county’s executive office, which supports the five politicians with the less glamorous, administrative parts of the job — preparing meeting agendas and guiding the board through marathon Tuesday meetings.
One of the lesser-known job requirements: updating the county charter — think of it like the county’s constitution — when voters make changes at the ballot box. To do that, the executive office is supposed to submit the change to Municode, the online vendor hosting the county’s charter, when the measure passes.
That didn’t happen.
In 2020, voters approved Measure J, enshrining the promise of hundreds of millions toward services that keep people out of jail in the charter. Only the language was never actually added to the official charter document.
Executive Officer Edward Yen, who was sworn into the top job last year, told his bosses Tuesday that the office was cleaning up its act.
“This failure of this magnitude is the reason why we’re doing what we’re doing,” he said at the Tuesday board meeting, noting he’d found his office’s policies “limited and lacking” when he came on the job.
Celia Zavala, the former executive officer who retired in January 2024 after more than three decades with the county, couldn’t be reached for comment.
The executive office called its role “purely ministerial” when it came to charter amendments and said it was working closely with the lawyers to make sure future changes were “accurately and promptly reflected in the charter.”
It was sloppy governance, but — until recently — it didn’t really matter. Voters approved the measure, so it was, legally speaking, part of the county’s governing document, even if you couldn’t open up the charter and see it.
But when a majority of county supervisors decided they wanted to revamp the county government last year, the outdated document became a real problem.
County counsel had their marching orders: They were to create a ballot measure, known as Measure G, that would overhaul the county government, expanding the five-person board of elected supervisors to nine and bringing on a new elected executive, who would act almost as a mayor of the county.
That’s how it works, says Yaroslavsky. A supervisor has the vision. The lawyers create a ballot measure that makes it a reality.
“They put it into the secret language of legalese that none of us understand. And it wasn’t like we took a magnifying glass to it,” said Yaroslavsky, who sponsored a ballot measure in 2002 to raise money for the county’s trauma care network. “I don’t think I had any lawyers on my staff at the time — and certainly not legislative experts. So, I mean, you have to rely on your lawyers.”
To change the county government, county lawyers wrote a ballot measure that would repeal most of a section of the charter — called Article III — in 2028. That section details the powers of the board — and, most consequentially, includes the requirement from Measure J that the board funnel hundreds of millions toward anti-incarceration services.
County lawyers rewrote that chunk of the charter with the new changes the board wanted to make to the county’s form of government — but left out the anti-incarceration funding.
So when voters approved Measure G, they unwittingly repealed Measure J.
The county counsel, led by Dawyn Harrison, said in a statement last week that the fault lies with a “prior Executive Officer administration.” The charter wasn’t updated, so they were left in the dark about what they needed to include in the new version.
But some say the county lawyers — who drafted both ballot measures and therefore were presumably familiar with that part of charter— share some of the responsibility.
“It is an inexcusable administrative failing of the County’s Executive Office and Counsel,” Supervisor Holly Mitchell said last week.
“It’s just amazing that you wouldn’t recall that you had Measure J,” said John Fasana, the former Duarte City Council member who first spotted the mistake.
County counsel said in a statement that it was unrealistic. They were going off of what was posted on the online charter, which they said they’re expected to treat “as the governing law.”
“The idea that county attorneys should have ‘just known’ a provision was missing assumes we memorize every law ever passed,” county counsel said in a statement. “That’s not how the law works, and it couldn’t function if we did.”
Derek Hsieh, head of the sheriff‘s deputy union that opposed both ballot measures, says the buck stops at the top.
“The responsibility for this is with Los Angeles County supervisors. They are in charge, they take responsibility,” said Hsieh, underscoring one didn’t need to have had a law degree to figure this out.
“And by the way, John Fasana’s not a lawyer,” he said.
State of play
— MEASURE J(K): County supervisors unanimously voted Tuesday to ask their lawyers to find a way to bring back Measure J. The county says it’s looking at multiple options to try to get the measure permanently back in the charter including a change in state law, a court judgment or a ballot measure for 2026.
— A HELPING HAND: County officials say a cash fund for families financially reeling from federal immigration raids will be stood up within a month. It’s not clear yet who will be eligible or how much a family could expect to collect.
— HOMELESSNESS HOPE: For the second straight year, the city and county saw declines in the number of homeless people. The number of people experiencing homelessness in the county dropped 4% in 2025, including a 10% decrease in people living on the street, according to the county’s annual point-in-time homeless count.
— TRUMP BASH: A day after the Pentagon ordered the withdrawal of half the National Guard troops deployed in L.A., Gov. Gavin Newsom held a press conference in Downey to criticize the president for wasting hundreds of millions of dollars to appear “tough” by punishing immigrants.
— PALISADES PERSPECTIVE: Mayor Karen Bass’ political image was badly bruised in the wake of the fires, but she has compensated amid a string of historically good headlines in recent days. However, six months after the fires, she still faces some harsh critics in the Palisades, where the devastation is still palpable.
— TRAGEDY WHILE TRAINING: Three deputies were killed on Friday in an explosion at the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department’s Biscailuz Training Center in East L.A. The agency has a history of dangerous incidents at its training facilities, with at least four fires at its mobile shooting ranges in the last 12 years.
— ICE IN JAIL: The sheriff’s department has resumed transferring jail inmates to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for the first time in years. Eight inmates were released to ICE in May and a dozen more in June. Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna said he has “no choice” in the matter. He said the department must follow federal judicial warrants seeking the transfer of inmates in its county jails.
— COSTLY CROSSWALK: A jury decided this week that the city must pay nearly $50 million to a man who has been in a coma since he was hit by a sanitation truck while crossing a street in Encino. The verdict comes as the city continues to struggle with escalating legal liability payouts.
— MOUNTING LIABILITY: The county’s no stranger to big payouts either. The supervisors approved a $14-million settlement this week to Alexander Torres, who spent more than 20 years in prison for a murder that he did not commit.
QUICK HITS
- On the docket for next week: The L.A. City Charter Reform Commission will be meeting today at 11 a.m. at Cal State Northridge.
- Where is Inside Safe? The mayor’s office conducted a citywide response effort this week, bringing more than 65 Angelenos inside from Echo Park, Hollywood, South L.A., Baldwin Hills, Canoga Park, Reseda, North Hills, Westlake and the Miracle Mile (Council Districts 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 12 and 13).
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