Good morning, and welcome to L.A. on the Record — our City Hall newsletter. It’s David Zahniser, with an assist from Howard Blume and Noah Goldberg, giving you the latest on city and county government.
She’s blunt. She’s combative. She doesn’t go along to get along.
And now, Los Angeles City Councilmember Monica Rodriguez is almost certainly getting four more years in office.
On Wednesday, with the deadline past, no one filed a petition to challenge Rodriguez in the June 2 primary election. That makes her the only official at City Hall to be in that coveted position this year.
One caveat: Someone could still run as a write-in, waging a long-shot campaign. But realistically, Rodriguez has a free ride to continue representing her northeast San Fernando Valley district.
Rodriguez, who lives in Mission Hills, said she had been prepping for “another fight,” raising money and giving endorsement interviews. Now, she’s started talking about what her third and final term could look like.
“Giddyup. Everyone better buckle up,” she said, cackling.
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For an elected official, nothing can bolster one’s confidence like a reelection victory or two. Newly elected council members tend to keep a low profile their first few years. The longer they stay, the more outspoken they become.
Rodriguez, on the other hand, has been willing to speak her mind for quite some time.
She’s been a longstanding critic of Mayor Karen Bass’ Inside Safe program, which moves homeless people indoors. She has pushed, without success, for the city to yank its money from the embattled Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, or LAHSA. Last fall, she told a mayoral aide that Bass’ team “botched” the Palisades fire recovery in the first few months.
Rodriguez frequently expresses her views in vivid terms, and in ways that can annoy her colleagues.
Last year, she warned a proposal to hike the minimum wage for hotel and airport workers to $30 per hour would trigger job losses, leaving the city with “the best paid unemployed workforce in America.”
She denounced the city’s plan to upgrade the Convention Center, saying the council was continuing to “fund failure.” She regularly drops the phrase “merry go round from hell” — shorthand for her struggle to get her colleagues to pull out of LAHSA, the city-county homeless agency that’s been the subject of blistering audits.
With the election approaching, the zingers have only gotten zingier.
Six weeks ago, City Councilmember Nithya Raman launched a last-minute bid to rewrite Measure ULA, the city’s tax on high-end property sales, saying it had chilled development of much-needed apartments. Raman wanted her proposal to go on the June ballot but failed to garner support from her colleagues, who said it hadn’t been vetted.
Rodriguez, in a screed delivered on the council floor, compared Raman to “the arsonist that comes showing up as a firefighter.”
That was a not-so-veiled reference to the fact that Raman promoted Measure ULA in 2022 — and downplayed concerns that it would affect housing production.
“Ms. Raman, you supported and endorsed the false notion to voters that [Measure ULA] was going to be the panacea — without study, without any of the verified proof,” she said. “We knew that these were the implications.”
Raman, in a statement on Friday, said she endorsed Measure ULA after reading through research suggesting that the tax, which generates money for housing programs, would not affect housing production. Newer analysis, she said, found that the measure “indeed resulted in less investment in multi-family housing.”
“That is a huge concern to me and should be to everyone in L.A., a City that is still very much facing a housing shortage,” said Raman, who is now running for mayor. “I am willing to take some heat to get the best outcomes for the City and to secure support for these crucial revenues.”
Stuart Waldman, president of the Valley Industry and Commerce Assn., a San Fernando Valley-based business group, said he appreciates Rodriguez’s direct approach, even when he disagrees with her.
“A lot of councilmembers, if they don’t agree with you, they won’t even meet with you,” he said. “There are council members who say they’ll listen and take [an issue] under advisement, even though they’ve made up their mind. They just don’t want to tell someone to their face that they disagree.”
Rodriguez’s approach doesn’t always reap political dividends.
Last year, Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson removed her from a number of high-profile committees, including those that oversee homeless programs, public safety and the city budget.
Despite her warnings, the council hiked the minimum wage for tourism workers and approved the $2.6-billion Convention Center project. She championed the creation of a new youth development department, only for it to wind up on the chopping block in last year’s budget.
Rodriguez, 52, grew up in Arleta, the daughter of a U.S. Marine veteran who served in Vietnam while holding a green card, and later became one of the city’s earliest Latino firefighters in the wake of a federal consent decree on hiring. She graduated from San Fernando High School in 1992, one year after Assemblymember Luz Rivas and two years after U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla.
She worked for former Mayor Richard Riordan and former Councilmember Mike Hernandez and later ran unsuccessfully against former Councilmember Richard Alarcon. She joined the Board of Public Works in 2013, running for council a second time four years later.
With a third term looming, Rodriguez wants to take a program she launched in her district — moving homeless people out of RVs and into housing — and take it citywide. She’s excited about expanding a program for fixing sidewalks that also teaches job skills to young people.
Rodriguez acknowledged that her stances, and her remarks, can rub people the wrong way, noting that it’s “more comfortable to walk in a group than to walk alone.” Nevertheless, she doesn’t intend to change her approach.
“I know what I’m here to do, and I’m just going to continue,” she said.
State of play
— SCRAMBLE FOR SIGNATURES: The deadline for candidates for city office to turn in petitions arrived on Wednesday, and the signatures are still being counted. By Friday, 12 mayoral candidates had qualified to run against Bass, including Raman, reality television star Spencer Pratt and tech entrepreneur Adam Miller. The City Clerk’s office is still reviewing the petitions of several other mayoral hopefuls, all of them political unknowns.
— ANOTHER FREE RIDE: L.A. Unified School board member Kelly Gonez is also running unopposed in the June 2 election. On Wednesday, her one potential opponent, JP Perron, announced he was dropping out. Like Rodriguez, Gonez represents part of the San Fernando Valley.
— A HELPING HAND: For a hot minute, things were touch and go for Sylvia Robledo, a former council aide looking to unseat Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez. After filing her petitions, Robledo learned Tuesday that she was short 14 voter signatures. Raul Claros, one of her rivals in the race, stepped in to help close the gap, gathering some signatures himself. “People want options,” he said later on Instagram. “People want anybody but Eunisses Hernandez.”
Two of Robledo’s other opponents — entrepreneur Nelson Grande and nonprofit executive Maria Lou Calanche — added their own names to her petition. On Wednesday, she qualified for the ballot.
“We may have a different vision or path, but we all want new leadership,” Robledo said.
— JANISSE JETS OFF: The top executive at the Department of Water and Power, Janisse Quiñones, announced this week that she has taken a job as CEO of a privately owned electrical company in her native Puerto Rico. Quiñones, who was hired at $750,000 a year, faced criticism over the DWP’s decision to drain a reservoir shortly before the Palisades fire broke out. Her first day in the new job is March 30.
— TRUMP ON LINE 1: Bass spoke on the phone this week with President Trump to request FEMA reimbursements for the Palisades fire, KNX News reported. Bass told the station that the president was “very receptive.”
“I was reluctant to call because there are a few other things going on, like what’s happening overseas, and I didn’t think, given all that was happening internationally, that he would actually return my call,” she told the station.
— OVERDUE BILLS: The county Board of Supervisors voted this week to fund a financial review of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, after finding that the agency owes tens of millions of dollars to nonprofits that oversee interim housing for the region’s homeless population. Supervisor Lindsey Horvath said her phone was “ringing off the hook” from groups needing to get paid by LAHSA.
— TIT FOR TAT: Meanwhile, the long-running feud between Bass and Horvath continued to boil over, with the two taking digs at each other over the future of the region’s homeless programs. Bass, in a statement, said pulling out of LAHSA too quickly would bring “unintended consequences” and leave “more Angelenos to die on our streets.”
“When the County created their new Department of Homeless Services and Housing, they also created a $300 million gap, which they had to close by prioritizing bureaucracy rather than services,” Bass said.
Horvath shot back, saying she is already conferring with council members on a strategy to have the city pay the county to provide homeless services.
“I’m ready to work with the City Council and show the Mayor what locking arms actually looks like,” she said, swiping one of Bass’ signature phrases.
— PALISADES BOWL IN PERIL: The owners of a mobile home park destroyed last year in the Palisades fire are marketing the site as a potential “mixed use” project — housing plus commercial space, which would result in permanent displacement of residents. City Councilmember Traci Park said any developer looking to take the sellers up on their offer should “pound sand.”
“What we are interested in doing is restoring this property as a mobile home park for the people who were there and remain displaced,” she said.
— PURSUING POT PROCEEDS: L.A. cannabis companies owe the city more than $400 million in business taxes, late fees and interest. Hoping to recoup $30 million of that total, the council voted this week to set up an amnesty program for those pot businesses that still owe money and haven’t already shuttered.
— JAIL DEATHS: Ten people have died in L.A. County jails so far this year, putting the county on track for another record-setting year of in-custody deaths. Now, county supervisors want the Sheriff’s Department to reverse that trend by beefing up safety checks, more closely monitoring cameras and increasing access to the overdose reversal drug Naloxone.
— FOR FLOCK’S SAKE: The Police Commission wants to know how data captured by the controversial license plate reader Flock Safety are being stored and shared. Commissioner Jeff Skobin asked for the information following reports that federal agencies had repeatedly accessed Flock’s surveillance data as part of Trump’s ongoing immigration crackdown.
QUICK HITS
- Where is Inside Safe? The mayor’s signature program to fight homelessness went to a stretch of Laurel Canyon Boulevard in North Hollywood, underneath the 170 Freeway. About three dozen people went inside, according to Bass’ team.
- On the docket next week: The council’s Planning and Land Use Management Committee meets Tuesday to take up a proposal to hike the penalties for putting up illegal billboards and other unpermitted signs.
Stay in touch
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