Plans to expand the Los Angeles City Council from 15 to 25 members are fading as a key council committee said the proposal needed more study before it could go to voters.<\/p>\n
The Rules, Elections and Intergovernmental Relations Committee, made up of five council members, recommended dropping plans to expand the council as part of a charter reform measure for the Nov. 3 ballot, saying the measure needs more study before it is put before voters. The idea has been under discussion for nearly four years.<\/a><\/p>\n The council committee, which had its final meeting on charter proposals Monday, also rejected proposals to adopt ranked choice voting, in which voters list candidates in order of preference, and to split the city attorney\u2019s office into two roles \u2014 an elected city prosecutor and appointed city attorney. <\/p>\n The committee did move forward with putting other measures before voters \u2014 including allowing noncitizens to vote in L.A. city and L.A. Unified School District elections, increasing Police Department oversight, establishing a director of Public Works, implementing a two-year budget cycle (instead of every year), establishing a capital improvement program to guide the city\u2019s infrastructure, and removing a section of the charter that had prevented the city from selling goods it produces. <\/p>\n The panel\u2019s recommendations will be taken up Wednesday by the full City Council, which will have the final say over what proposals are included in the charter reform ballot measure. <\/p>\n The committee\u2019s decision to hold back on council expansion and other hot-button issues came after the chief legislative analyst office recommended that the measures be studied further, with council expansion going before voters in 2028. Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson, who chairs the committee, said he would establish a council committee to address future charter reform. <\/p>\n Councilmember Nithya Raman pushed to have the council expansion included on the ballot, but she couldn\u2019t persuade other committee members when the measure was up for discussion on Friday. <\/p>\n Raman, who is challenging Mayor Karen Bass in the Nov. 3 mayoral election, said council expansion was one of the original issues that prompted the reform process and questioned what more study was needed. <\/p>\n \u201cI am a little disappointed that we may be punting big questions again to a future charter reform process,\u201d Raman said Friday. \u201cThere is a great deal of mistrust in L.A. city government right now.\u201d<\/p>\n Harris-Dawson said that while he supports a larger council in theory, it also shifts the city\u2019s power dynamic between the council and mayor. Council expansion has been raised as an issue for 27 years, he said. For now, he said, he was \u201cabsolutely opposed.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cA bigger council makes the mayor more powerful than the mayor would be now,\u201d he said during committee discussion. \u201cIn every city that has a large council, the mayor is vastly more powerful than the situation that we have in L.A. today, where there\u2019s a good amount of balance between the mayor and the council, which is why there\u2019s all this focus on the council.\u201d<\/p>\n The chief legislative analyst\u2019s report recommended the City Council should move forward with about a third of 66 proposals made by the Charter Reform Commission, a panel of citizens who were tasked to review the charter and make recommendations on how to update it to improve governance. They also considered motions made by council members, including a proposal from Hugo Soto-Mart\u00ednez that would allow noncitizen residents to vote in L.A. and school board elections. <\/p>\n On Monday, the council committee moved forward with Soto-Mart\u00ednez\u2019s proposal before the City Council, even though it wasn\u2019t part of the Charter Reform Commission\u2019s recommendations.<\/p>\n \u201cHopefully, a majority of them agree that people that work here, that live here, that have roots here, that have been contributing to society for such a long time, should be able to have a say in their local elections,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n The committee also recommended moving forward with police accountability reform measures, including one to increase the council\u2019s authority over Los Angeles Police Department policies.<\/p>\n The committee moved three measures on police accountability for a full council vote, each over the dissent of Councilmember John Lee, who said he was concerned about politicizing oversight of the LAPD. <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a much better department. It\u2019s a department that is extremely progressive,\u201d Lee said. \u201cIt is a department that strives to … make positive changes.\u201d<\/p>\n During public comment, many speakers expressed criticism and urged the committee to take up major reforms to the charter. Some of the harshest criticism about the overall process came from within City Hall. City Controller Kenneth Mejia, who won reelection this year, posted a video Sunday. He said he was frustrated by the committee\u2019s decision to hold off on major proposals such as council expansion, describing it as \u201cthe status quo of the political machine working, wanting to maintain its power.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe all got into office trying to flip City Hall because it\u2019s not working here,\u201d Mejia said. \u201cBut no, when it comes to things like expanding council sizes \u2026 when it comes to ranked choice voting to make our elections more democratic, and being able to vote our conscience, that got punted.\u201d<\/p>\n Mejia was critical of the council committee for not taking up his office\u2019s recommendations to increase the office\u2019s oversight and funding through the charter process. <\/p>\n \u201cCity Hall doesn\u2019t care about transparency and accountability and oversight,\u201d he said. \u201cWe are not serious at City Hall.\u201d<\/p>\n The effort to reform the city\u2019s charter began in 2022, when The Times reported on a leaked audio recording <\/a>in which former City Council President Nury Martinez and two other council members made racist remarks, disparaged council colleagues and talked crassly of carving up the city politically.<\/p>\n