Good morning, and welcome to L.A. on the Record \u2014 our City Hall newsletter. It\u2019s Noah Goldberg giving you the latest on city and county government. <\/p>\n
There\u2019s no exact way to measure the effectiveness of Los Angeles City Council members. <\/p>\n
But we analyzed three basic elements \u2014 meeting attendance, committee assignments and amount of legislation drafted \u2014 to give readers a sense of what their local electeds are up to.<\/p>\n
Meeting attendance<\/p>\n
As part of charter reform efforts, the City Council sent a measure<\/a> to the November ballot asking voters to allow them to reduce the number of council meetings from three per week to just one.<\/p>\n The proposal received stiff pushback from at least one councilmember, Monica Rodriguez<\/b>.<\/p>\n For the record:<\/p>\n 9:05 a.m. July 25, 2026An earlier version of this newsletter said a proposal to reduce the number of City Council meetings from three a week to one failed to make the November ballot. The measure did make the ballot. <\/p>\n \u201cMeeting less for a city of 4 million people I think sends the wrong message. Particularly when you have the best-paid council in the country,\u201d said Rodriguez in an interview on Fox 11 earlier this year (each councilmember makes an annual salary of more than $244,000). \u201cThis idea that we would be meeting less I believe runs contrary to what the public is demanding form their council.\u201d <\/p>\n Yet Rodriguez isn\u2019t a stickler for showing up to meetings herself, ranking near the bottom of her colleagues for attendance. Since the start of 2025, Rodriguez has attended about 86% of meetings, missing 25 out of 177 meetings, according to a Times analysis.<\/p>\n Gabriel Avalos<\/b>, a spokesperson for Rodriguez, implied that other work-related matters kept her from the meetings.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s no distinction for absences related to city business, but she certainly wasn\u2019t absent due to dishes and laundry,\u201d Avalos said.<\/p>\n Only two other councilmembers missed more meetings than Rodriguez \u2014 mayoral candidate Nithya Raman<\/b>, who missed 30 meetings, and Curren Price<\/b>, who missed 34 while dealing with illnesses.<\/p>\n On the other end of the spectrum, Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson<\/b>, who runs the meetings, missed the fewest \u2014 just four of the 177 meetings from January 2025 until this month. <\/p>\n Eunisses Hernandez<\/b> and Ysabel Jurado<\/b> each attended 169 meetings, or about 96%.<\/p>\n Stella Stahl<\/b>, a spokesperson for Raman, said that most of the councilmember\u2019s absences were due to her position as the city\u2019s representative on the South Coast Air Quality Management District. <\/p>\n The remaining absences, Stahl said in a statement, \u201cwere tied to a small number of previously scheduled conferences and speaking engagements relevant to her committee work and district priorities, along with occasional sick days and travel for a funeral.\u201d<\/p>\n You\u2019re reading the L.A. on the Record newsletter <\/p>\n Sign up to make sense of the often unexplained world of L.A. politics.<\/p>\n By continuing, you agree to our Terms of Service<\/a>, which include arbitration and a class action waiver. You agree that we and our third-party vendors may collect and use your information, including through cookies, pixels and similar technologies, for the purposes set forth in our Privacy Policy<\/a> such as personalizing your experience and ads. <\/p>\n Committee assignments<\/p>\n Council members are appointed to committees by the council president. They can sit on additional committees if the president lets them.<\/p>\n These small groups of council members are responsible for reviewing the first drafts of legislation. Committee chairs have the power to move legislation forward \u2014 or stall it \u2014 by either putting it on the agenda, or not. <\/p>\n The busiest councilmembers are Hugo Soto-Mart\u00ednez <\/b>and Adrin Nazarian<\/b>, who each sit on nine committees, including some temporary \u201cad-hoc\u201d ones. Councilmember Tim McOsker <\/b>follows with seven committee assignments. <\/p>\n But the number of committee assignments isn\u2019t necessarily the clearest indication of power. Katy Yaroslavsky<\/b> serves on only five committees, but she chairs the Budget and Finance Committee, which edits and approves the mayor\u2019s proposed budget before sending it to the full council for one of its most important annual votes. <\/p>\n At the bottom of the list is Price again, who sits on four committees, including as chair of the Committee on Economic Development. <\/p>\n Legislation<\/p>\n Another easy marker is the amount of legislation a council member authors.<\/p>\n At each meeting, dozens of pieces of legislation go before the council \u2014 some high-profile, others just to keep the lights on at City Hall<\/a> (literally).<\/p>\n Rodriguez, despite her relatively low attendance, was at the top of the legislative list over the last year and a half, drafting 199 motions.<\/p>\n A good chunk were motions on whether to support or oppose bills at the state and federal level. Rodriguez also had the most ceremonial street namings of any council member, with 13. <\/p>\n Rodriguez pointed to more significant legislation, like an ordinance banning city workers from taking on additional gigs for Immigration and Customs Enforcement<\/a>, as her proudest achievements. <\/p>\n After Rodriguez, McOsker was the second-most prolific author, with 178 pieces of legislation, followed by Traci Park with 163. <\/p>\n At the bottom were Price with 84 and Harris-Dawson with 90.<\/p>\n State of play<\/p>\n \u2014 HOMELESSNESS RISING: <\/b>Homelessness, including those living in shelters and other temporary facilities, went up by 3.4% across the city<\/a> compared with 2025. Unsheltered homelessness \u2014 those living outdoors or in their vehicles \u2014 was up 7.9% after two consecutive years of decreases, dealing a fresh blow to Mayor Karen Bass <\/b>as she runs for reelection.<\/p>\n \u2014 DISAPPEARING ACT: <\/b>Bass\u2019 press relations office communicates through WhatsApp messages that auto-delete every 24 hours<\/a>, potentially shielding the messages from public records requests, according to three sources familiar with the office.<\/p>\n \u2014 PLAY BALL: <\/b>In 1936, Los Angeles made it a misdemeanor to play baseball, basketball, soccer or any other ball game on a street or sidewalk. Nearly a century later, when kids spend half as much time outside as their parents did, City Councilmember Bob Blumenfield<\/b> wants to cut the obscure law from the books<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u2014 THE ICE EFFECT:<\/b> A new study from the UCLA Latino Policy & Politics Institute found that businesses within half a mile of nine ICE enforcement sites had 46,000 fewer customer visits<\/a> and an estimated $3.16 million in accumulated revenue losses during the two weeks after enforcement activity.<\/p>\n \u2014 NEW HONCHO: <\/b>Los Angeles schools Supt. Andr\u00e9s E. Chait<\/b> made a calm official entry into his new job Tuesday, emphasizing rising test scores<\/a> and \u201ca sense of belonging\u201d that binds school communities.<\/p>\n QUICK HITS<\/p>\n Stay in touch<\/p>\n That\u2019s it for this week! Send your questions, comments and gossip to LAontheRecord@latimes.com<\/a>. Did a friend forward you this email? Sign up here<\/a> to get it in your inbox every Saturday morning.<\/p>\n \n