{"id":94414,"date":"2025-07-26T15:37:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-26T15:37:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/94414\/"},"modified":"2025-07-26T15:37:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-26T15:37:10","slug":"l-a-s-bid-to-redo-its-city-charter-kicks-off-with-a-leadership-battle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/94414\/","title":{"rendered":"L.A.’s bid to redo its City Charter kicks off with a leadership battle"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Good morning, and welcome to L.A. on the Record \u2014 our City Hall newsletter. It\u2019s David Zahniser, with an assist from Julia Wick, giving you the latest on city and county government.<\/p>\n

Here you thought charter reform would be boring.<\/p>\n

A 13-member citizens commission is just getting started on the painstaking, generally unsexy work of poring through the Los Angeles City Charter, the city\u2019s governing document, and coming up with strategies for improving it. Yet already, the commission has had a leadership battle, heard allegations of shady dealings and fielded questions about whether it\u2019s been set up to fail.<\/p>\n

But first, let\u2019s back up.<\/p>\n

Mayor Karen Bass<\/b>, City Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson <\/b>and former Council President Paul Krekorian <\/b>chose a collection of volunteers to serve on the Charter Reform Commission<\/a>, which is charged with exploring big and small changes to the City Charter.<\/p>\n

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The commission is part of a much larger push for reform sparked by the city\u2019s 2022 audio leak scandal<\/a> and a string of corruption cases<\/a> involving L.A. officials<\/a>. The list of potential policy challenges the commission faces is significant. <\/p>\n

Good government types want the new commission to endorse ranked-choice voting<\/a>, with Angelenos selecting their elected officials by ranking candidates in numerical order. Advocacy groups want to see a much larger City Council<\/a>. Some at City Hall want clarity on what to do with elected officials who are accused of wrongdoing but have not been convicted.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou are not one of those commissions that shows up every few years to fix a few things here or there,\u201d said Raphael Sonenshein<\/b>, who served nearly 30 years ago as executive director of the city\u2019s appointed Charter Reform Commission, while addressing the new commission last week. \u201cYou actually have a bigger responsibility than that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The real work began on July 16, when the commission took up the question of who should be in charge. Many thought the leadership post would immediately go to Raymond Meza<\/b>, who had already been serving as the interim chair.<\/p>\n

Instead, the panel found itself deadlocked.<\/p>\n

Meza is a high-level staffer at Service Employees International Union Local 721, the powerful public employee union that represents thousands of city workers and has been a big-money spender in support of Bass and many other elected city officials.<\/p>\n

Meza, who was appointed by Bass<\/a> earlier this year, picked up five votes. But so did Ted Stein<\/b>, a real estate developer who has served on an array of city commissions<\/a> \u2014 planning, airport, harbor \u2014 but hadn\u2019t been on a volunteer city panel in nearly 15 years. Faced with a stalemate, charter commissioners decided to try again a few days later, when they were joined by two additional members.<\/p>\n

By then, some reform advocates were up in arms over Stein, arguing that he was bringing a record of scandal to the commission. They sent the commissioners news articles pointing out that Stein had, among other things, resigned from the airport commission<\/a> in 2004 amid two grand jury investigations into whether city officials had tied the awarding of airport contracts to campaign contributions.<\/p>\n

Stein denied those allegations in 2004, calling them \u201cfalse, defamatory and unsubstantiated.\u201d Last week, before the second leadership vote, he shot back at his critics, noting that two law enforcement agencies \u2014 the U.S. attorney\u2019s office and the L.A. County district attorney\u2019s office \u2014 declined to pursue<\/a> charges against him. The Ethics Commission also did not bring a case over his airport commission activities.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was forced to protect my good name by having to hire an attorney and having to spend over $200,000 in legal fees [over] something where I had done nothing wrong,\u201d he told his fellow commissioners. The city reimbursed Stein for the vast majority of those legal costs.<\/p>\n

Stein accused Meza of orchestrating some of the outside criticism \u2014 which Meza later denied. And Stein spent so much time defending his record that he had little time to say why he should be elected.<\/p>\n

Still, the vote was close, with Meza securing seven votes and Stein picking up five.<\/p>\n

Meza called the showdown \u201cunfortunate.\u201d L.A. voters, he said, \u201cwant to see the baton passed to a new generation of people.\u201d The 40-year-old Montecito Heights resident made clear that he supports an array of City Charter changes.<\/p>\n

In an interview, Meza said he\u2019s \u201cdefinitely in favor\u201d of ranked-choice voting, arguing that it would increase voter turnout. He also supports an increase in the number of City Council members but wouldn\u2019t say how many. And he wants to ensure that vacant positions are filled more quickly at City Hall, calling it an issue that \u201cabsolutely needs to be addressed.\u201d<\/p>\n

That last item has long been a concern for SEIU Local 721, where Meza works as deputy chief of staff. Nevertheless, Meza said he would, to an extent, set aside the wishes of his union during the commission\u2019s deliberations.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn the commission, I am an individual resident of the city,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Stein, for his part, told The Times that he only ran for the leadership post out of concern over the commission\u2019s tight timeline. The commission must submit its proposal to the council next spring \u2014 a much more aggressive schedule than the one required of two charter reform commissions nearly 30 years ago.<\/p>\n

Getting through so many complex issues in such a brief period calls for an experienced hand, said Stein, who is 76 and lives in Encino.<\/p>\n

Stein declined to say where he stands on council expansion and ranked-choice voting. He said he\u2019s already moved on from the leadership vote and is ready to dig into the commission\u2019s work.<\/p>\n

Meza, for his part, said he has heard the concerns about the aggressive schedule. But he remains confident the commission will be successful.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think we have the best conditions,\u201d he said. \u201cBut I do not believe we\u2019ve been set up to fail. I\u2019m very confident the commissioners will do what\u2019s needed to turn in a good product.\u201d<\/p>\n

State of play<\/p>\n

\u2014 STRICTLY BUSINESS: <\/b>A group of L.A. business leaders launched a ballot proposal<\/a> to repeal the city\u2019s much-maligned gross receipts tax, saying it would boost the city\u2019s economy and lower prices for Angelenos. The mayor and several other officials immediately panned the idea, saying it would deprive the city\u2019s yearly budget of $800 million, forcing cuts to police, firefighters and other services.<\/p>\n

\u2014 INCHING FORWARD:<\/b> Meanwhile, another ballot proposal from the business community \u2014 this one backed by airlines and the hotel industry \u2014 nudged closer to reality. Interim City Clerk Petty Santos <\/b>announced<\/a> that the proposed referendum on the $30-per-hour tourism minimum wage had \u201cproceeded to the next step,\u201d with officials now examining and verifying petition signatures to determine their validity.<\/p>\n

\u2014 GRIM GPS:<\/b> The Los Angeles County Fire Department had only one truck<\/a> stationed west of Lake Avenue in Altadena at a critical moment during the hugely destructive Eaton fire, according to vehicle tracking data analyzed by The Times. By contrast, the agency had dozens of trucks positioned east of Lake. All but one of the deaths attributed to the Eaton fire took place west of Lake.<\/p>\n

\u2014 CHANGE OF PLANS: <\/b>On Monday, Bass nominated<\/a> consultant and Community Coalition board member Mary Lee<\/b> to serve on the five-member Board of Police Commissioners. Two days later, in a brief email, Lee withdrew from consideration<\/a>. Reached by The Times, Lee cited \u201cpersonal reasons\u201d for her decision but did not elaborate. (The mayor\u2019s office had nothing to add.) Lee would have replaced former commissioner Maria \u201cLou\u201d Calanche, <\/b>who is running against Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez<\/b> in the June 2026 election.<\/p>\n

\u2014 SEMPER GOODBYE: <\/b>The Pentagon announced Monday<\/a> that the roughly 700 Marines who have been deployed to the city since early June would be withdrawing, a move cheered by Bass and other local leaders who have criticized the military deployment that followed protests over federal immigration raids. About 2,000 National Guard troops<\/a> remain in the region.<\/p>\n

\u2014 HALTING HEALTHCARE:<\/b> L.A. County\u2019s public health system, which provides care to the region\u2019s neediest residents, could soon face brutal budget cuts<\/a>. The \u201cBig Beautiful Bill,\u201d enacted by President Trump and the Republican-led Congress, is on track to carve $750 million per year out of the Department of Health Services, which oversees four public hospitals and roughly two dozen clinics. At the Department of Public Health, which is facing its own $200-million cut, top executive Barbara Ferrer<\/b> said: \u201cI\u2019ve never actually seen this much disdain for public health.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014 HOMELESS HIRE: <\/b>The commission that oversees the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority selected Gita O\u2019Neill<\/b>, a career lawyer in the city attorney\u2019s office, to serve as the agency\u2019s interim CEO<\/a>. O\u2019Neill will replace Va Lecia Adams Kellum<\/b>, who stepped down Friday after more than two years in her post.<\/p>\n

\u2014 THE JURY SPEAKS<\/b>: The city has been ordered by a jury to pay $48.8 million<\/a> 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 struggles with escalating legal payouts<\/a> \u2014 and was larger than any single payout by the city in the last two fiscal years, according to data provided by the city attorney\u2019s office.<\/p>\n

\u2014 LOOKING FOR A LIAISON: <\/b>Back in May, while signing an executive directive<\/a> to support local film and TV production, L.A.\u2019s mayor was asked whether she planned to appoint a film liaison<\/a> as the City Hall point person for productions. \u201cAbsolutely,\u201d Bass said during the news conference, adding that she planned to do so within a few days. <\/p>\n

That was two months ago. Asked this week about the status of that position, Bass spokesperson Clara Karger <\/b>touted the executive directive and said the position was \u201cbeing hired in conjunction with industry leaders.\u201d She did not provide a timeline.<\/p>\n

QUICK HITS<\/p>\n