On her first day in office, Mayor Karen Bass declared a state of emergency on homelessness.
The declaration allowed the city to cut through red tape, including through no-bid contracts, and to start Inside Safe, Bass’ signature program focused on moving homeless people off the streets and into interim housing.
On Tuesday, nearly three years after she took the helm, and with homelessness trending down two years in a row for the first time in recent years, the mayor announced that she will lift the state of emergency on Nov. 18.
“We have begun a real shift in our city’s decades-long trend of rising homelessness,” Bass said in a memorandum to the City Council.
Still, the mayor said, there is much work to do.
“The crisis remains, and so does our urgency,” she said.
The mayor’s announcement followed months of City Council pushback on the lengthy duration of the state of emergency, which the council had initially approved.
Some council members argued that the state of emergency allowed the mayor’s office to operate out of public view and that contracts and leases should once again be presented before them with public testimony and a vote.
Councilmember Tim McOsker has been arguing for months that it was time to return to business as usual.
“Emergency powers are designed to allow the government to suspend rules and respond rapidly when the situation demands it, but at some point those powers must conclude,” he said in a statement Tuesday.
McOsker said the move will allow the council to “formalize” some of the programs started during the emergency, while incorporating more transparency.
Council members had been concerned that the state of emergency would end without first codifying Executive Directive 1, which expedites approvals for homeless shelters as well as for developments that are 100% affordable and was issued by Bass shortly after she took office.
On Oct. 28, the council voted for the city attorney to draft an ordinance that would enshrine the executive directive into law.
The mayor’s announcement follows positive reports about the state of homelessness in the city.
As of September, the mayor’s Inside Safe program had moved more than 5,000 people into interim housing since its inception at the end of 2022. Of those people, more than 1,243 have moved into permanent housing, while another 1,636 remained in interim housing.
This year, the number of homeless people living in shelters or on the streets of the city dropped 3.4%, according to the annual count conducted by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority. The number of unsheltered homeless people in the city dropped by an even steeper margin of 7.9%.
The count, however, has its detractors. A study by Rand found that the annual survey missed nearly a third of homeless people in Hollywood, Venice and Skid Row — primarily those sleeping without tents or vehicles.
In June, a federal judge decided not to put Los Angeles’ homelessness programs into receivership, while saying that the city had failed to meet some of the terms of a settlement agreement with the nonprofit LA Alliance for Human Rights.
Councilmember Nithya Raman, who chairs the City Council’s Housing and Homelessness Committee, said the end of the emergency does not mean the crisis is over.
“It only means that we must build fiscally sustainable systems that can respond effectively,” she said. “By transitioning from emergency measures to long-term, institutional frameworks, we’re ensuring consistent, accountable support for people experiencing homelessness.”
Times staff writer David Zahniser contributed to this report.
They had come to hear plans for the privately funded rebuilding of the Palisades Recreation Center that was badly damaged in the January fire that tore through Pacific Palisades.
Most of the hundreds crammed into the rec center’s old gym cheered about plans for new park space, pickleball courts and basketball hoops to be paid for by some of Los Angeles’ wealthiest and most prominent philanthropists.
But that Tuesday night — nine months to the day since the Palisades fire began — they were angry, too. With City Hall.
During public comments, Jeremy Padawer, whose home in the Palisades burned, said of the city-owned rec center: “We need this. We need churches, we need synagogues, we need grocery stores. We need hope.”
But he said he didn’t trust the municipal government to run the beloved rec center and reminded the crowd that the city, which is navigating the complex recovery from one of the costliest and most destructive fire in its history, is “a billion dollars in debt.”
Firefighters extinguish hot spots at the Community United Methodist Church of Pacific Palisades on Jan. 12.
(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)
“What are they going to do with this brand new facility when [philanthropists] turn the keys over to them?” he asked. “Do we trust them?”
“No!” the crowd shouted.
He added: “Where is Mayor Bass?” The audience cheered. Someone hollered back: “Lost cause!”
Bass and other city leaders dispute they have neglected the fire-ravaged Palisades, but the scene encapsulated the anger and disappointment with City Hall that has been building in one of Los Angeles’ wealthiest neighborhoods. There, scores of yard signs depict the mayor wearing clown makeup à la the Joker. On one cleared lot, an enormous sign, roughly 7 feet tall, stands where a home once did, declaring: “KAREN BASS RESIGN NOW.”
Residents have blamed city leaders for a confusing rebuilding process that they say is being carried out by so many government agencies and consultants that it’s difficult to discern who is in charge. They also say that the city is moving too slowly — a charge that Bass and her team vehemently reject.
Kenny Cooper, special agent in charge of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, speaks during a news conference announcing the arrest of 29-year-old Jonathan Rinderknecht in connection with the Palisades fire on Wednesday.
(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)
On Wednesday, a day after the meeting at the rec center, federal prosecutors announced that the deadly Palisades fire was a flare-up of a small arson fire that had smoldered for six days, even after city firefighters thought they had it contained. Authorities said they had arrested Jonathan Rinderknecht, a 29-year-old Uber driver who is suspected of setting the initial fire on New Year’s Day.
Hours after the arrest was announced, the Los Angeles Fire Department — which failed to pre-deploy engines despite extreme wind warnings — released its long-awaited after-action report that said firefighters were hampered by an ineffective process for recalling them back to work, as well as poor communication, inexperienced leadership, and a lack of resources.
Many Palisadians had already suspected the fire was a rekindling of the smaller blaze, said Maryam Zar, who runs the citizen-led Palisades Recovery Coalition. But the onslaught of news landed “like a ton of bricks” in the frustrated community.
Zar got home late after attending the meeting at the rec center Tuesday night. Then, on Wednesday morning, her phone buzzed with text message chains from Palisadians telling one another to brace for a traumatic day — not necessarily because they would learn how the fire started, “but because we all knew that it was so unnecessary,” she said.
While people were happy there was “finally some accountability” with the arrest, she said, conversations in the Palisades quickly turned to: “Had the city been prepared, this wouldn’t have happened.”
Zar, who has spent more than a decade serving on and founding volunteer organizations and task forces in Pacific Palisades, said she was well accustomed to byzantine government processes.
“But for the first time, I’m worried because the wheels just aren’t turning,” she said.
A large sign on a fire-scorched lot at Alma Real Drive and El Cerco Place in Pacific Palisades calls on Mayor Karen Bass to resign.
(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)
One project that has, for some, become surprisingly emblematic of working with the city is the promised-but-delayed installation of a small temporary space for the Palisades Branch Library, which stood next to the rec center campus before it was destroyed.
Cameron Pfizenmaier, president of the volunteer group Friends of the Palisades Library, said Los Angeles Public Library officials told her in July that the city would be placing a 60-by-60-foot prefabricated building — essentially a large trailer — on a grassy space at the entrance to the rec center.
It would include lockers for patrons to pick up books ordered online, computers, printers and scanners, and public meeting space. The building, she said she was told, would be up and running by August.
Then, she said, the building’s installation was delayed to October. And the location was changed, with the temporary space — which probably will stand for several years while the library is being rebuilt — now set to be placed atop two tennis courts at the rec center.
In an email to The Times this week, Bass’ office said that the building’s installation is expected to begin in November and that it should open by the end of January.
“The community is losing faith that the city is actually able to do anything,” said Pfizenmaier, who lost her home. “It’s such a missed opportunity for good news and hope.
“It’s not that hard to drop a bungalow and hook it into power. … The only thing that’s making it hard is the bureaucracy that’s preventing it.”
People play tennis at the Palisades Recreation Center on Oct. 5.
(Juliana Yamada/Los Angeles Times)
Yet Palisadeans themselves seem divided on the library, with some decrying the proposed use of the rec center’s grassy expanse, a rare green oasis in the charred neighborhood. Reality TV star Spencer Pratt, who lost his home, posted a photo of the space on Instagram, complaining that “Karen Bass and her city goons want to put a temporary library on top of it” and that he figured “the library will be designed in the shape of an empty water reservoir.”
Others have blasted the decision to place the structure atop the popular tennis courts.
In a statement to The Times, Bass’ office said the city’s Department of Recreation and Parks and the Los Angeles Public Library are gathering community feedback about the modular building, which the two agencies will share. They also are still determining how to hook up plumbing, sewage and electricity on site and are ordering books, computers, supplies and furniture, the mayor’s office said.
“This effort needed to be coordinated with and adjusted to the plans to redesign and rebuild the Palisades Rec Center to ensure the temporary site would not impede future construction,” Bass’ office said.
From the days just after the fire through July, the library lot on Alma Real Drive served as a staging area for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power’s emergency response, including distributing water and providing electric vehicle charging stations for Palisades residents, Bass’ office said.
Bass has issued a swath of executive orders to aid recovery, including providing tax relief for fire-affected businesses and streamlining permitting. And she has touted the speed with which the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, a federal agency, cleared debris from the library lot, citing her own “call to prioritize public spaces in the debris removal operation.”
The lot was cleared in April in six days — 24 days ahead of schedule.
Bass’ office said the L.A. Public Library is working to select an architect from a list of preapproved contractors through the Bureau of Engineering “to expedite the rebuilding of the permanent library.”
Joyce Cooper, director of branch library services for the library, said in an interview that the Palisades Branch Library held more than 34,000 items, including books, audiobooks, DVDs and CDs.
“Pretty much our entire collection — everything was lost,” Cooper said. “It was a community hub. When the fire destroyed the branch, it took that away from everybody.”
The city established limited library services in the nascent Pacific Palisades in the 1920s, and the community got its first branch library in 1952.
The most recent facility opened in 2003 and was damaged by a 2020 electrical fire that destroyed much of the children’s collection, said Laura Schneider, a board member and former longtime president for Friends of the Library.
After a long closure during the COVID-19 pandemic, volunteers worked hard to draw people back to the library, Schneider said. Children and teenagers competed in writing contests, volunteers hosted big weekend book sales, and older people sought help with computers.
Schneider — whose still-uninhabitable home was damaged by the January fire — was first drawn to the library as a young mom. She moved to the Palisades when her son, now 23, was 2 years old and was enchanted by the big, circular window with a window seat in the fairy-tale-themed children’s section.
“I really believe it’s the heart of the Palisades,” Schneider said. “It’s a place that welcomes everyone. … There’s no community center. There’s no senior center in the Palisades. The library is as close to that as it comes.”
At the start of Tuesday night’s meeting at the Palisades Recreation Center, Jimmy Kim, general manager of the city’s cash-strapped parks department, made clear that questions about the location of the temporary library were “outside the scope” of the gathering and would not be answered. Many in the audience groaned.
The recreation center will be rebuilt through a public-private partnership that Bass and her onetime political adversary, billionaire real estate developer Rick Caruso, promoted in a joint appearance in the spring. There, Bass told reporters that the city’s job was to ensure the project was able to move quickly through the permitting process and that “the role of government is to get out of the way.”
Private donations from Caruso’s philanthropic group Steadfast LA will help pay for the roughly $30-million rebuilding of the rec center. Another major donor is LA Strong Sports, a group started by Lakers coach JJ Redick, a Palisades resident who coached a youth basketball team at the center and appeared at the Tuesday meeting.
Speaker after speaker praised the private donors for making speed a priority.
“I’m so grateful that this is going through private [development] and not city because otherwise it would not be up for another 10 years,” said one woman, who said she had lived in the Palisades for two decades and had an 8-year-old boy who used the park often.
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She added: “I just want to thank Rick Caruso for being the savior of our community.”
Caruso — who defeated Bass in the Palisades by wide a margin in the 2022 mayoral election — smiled and waved at her from the front of the room as the audience clapped.
A 15-year-old girl came to the microphone and said the rec center was where she learned to ride a bike and where her brothers played Saturday basketball games. Please, she pleaded with the donors in the room, hurry.
“Please don’t let us age out,” she said. “Please don’t let this take so long that kids never get to experience what I have. We’re ready to come back stronger. We just need help getting there.”
Caruso told the audience he expected construction to begin in January and for the center to reopen in January 2027. He said his group will not operate the space — the city will — but that he thought it would be in better hands if a community foundation took it over from the government.
At the end of the meeting, a City Hall staff member told the crowd that Bass had sent several staffers that night. The mayor, she promised, was listening.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass has hired Mitch Kamin, a lawyer who has fought the Trump administration and provided legal services for underserved communities, to be her next chief of staff.
Kamin, who, like the mayor, is a graduate of Alexander Hamilton High School, will be Bass’ third chief of staff in her nearly three years leading the city — a much more rapid turnover than in previous administrations.
Announcing the appointment in a press release Friday, Bass called Kamin a “seasoned leader and status quo disrupter.”
The Harvard-educated lawyer has decades of experience as an executive at nonprofits and legal services organizations and has served on several city commissions.
Most recently, he was general counsel and chief strategy officer for the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, a project of “Star Wars” creator George Lucas that is set to open next year.
Before that, Kamin was a partner at the law firm Covington & Burling LLP, where he helped the firm recruit for its first L.A. office and was co-chair of the global commercial litigation practice group and the entertainment and media industry group. He previously was president of Bet Tzedek Legal Services, a nonprofit law firm that provides free legal services.
“Mitch is a passionate, committed and compelling leader,” former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, who was a partner with Kamin at Covington, said in a statement.
Kamin, 58, is taking charge of Bass’ office as the Trump administration continues its immigration crackdown in Los Angeles and across the country. During Trump’s first term, he represented the city in a lawsuit against the Department of Justice that prevented the federal government from requiring cooperation with immigration enforcement as a condition of receiving grant money.
Kamin replaces Carolyn Webb de Macias, who has led the mayor’s office since November 2023. She had been retired and was only supposed to serve in the role for a year but stayed on longer following the January wildfires, the mayor’s office said.
The mayor’s first chief of staff was Chris Thompson, who led the transition team after her election.
Chiefs of staff in recent mayoral administrations often served longer. Ana Guerrero headed the mayor’s office for eight years under Mayor Eric Garcetti, while Robin Kramer served under Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa for about four.
Kamin was appointed by Garcetti in 2016 to serve on the commission that oversees the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority. He also served as president of the board of commissioners for the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles starting in 2011.
Kamin was on the board when the agency fired its CEO, Rudolf Montiel. The board drew criticism for providing Montiel with a $1.2 million severance package.
“The basic thing was to eliminate any legal liability … close this chapter and move forward,” Kamin told The Times in 2011.
Kamin will start his new job on Sept. 22, Bass told her staff in an office-wide email.
“Mitch has my full support and mandate to lead this team and to maximize our effectiveness and performance,” she wrote.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass plans to endorse Antonio Villaraigosa, a longtime compatriot and the city’s former mayor, in the 2026 governor’s race on Tuesday.
“Antonio and I have known and worked together our entire adult life,” Bass said in a statement. “I have seen up close the impact he has made not just for our city but for our entire state. Our country is at a crossroads and it’s vital that our state have a leader who will lead California into the future.”
Villaraigosa said he was honored to have Bass’ support, describing the mayor as “a fierce advocate for working families, children, seniors, and underserved communities and a tireless champion for social and economic justice and for the people of Los Angeles.”
The race to replace termed-out Gov. Gavin Newsom has drawn a crowded field of contenders with notable credentials.
In addition to Villaraigosa, who served as Los Angeles’ mayor for eight years, other prominent candidates include former Rep. Katie Porter of Irvine, former U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, former state legislative leader Toni Atkins, current state Supt. of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, former state Controller Betty Yee, wealthy businessman Stephen Cloobeck, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco and conservative commentator Steve Hilton.
Despite being the Democratic leader of the nation’s second-largest city in an overwhelmingly blue state and a veteran congresswoman, it’s unclear how much weight Bass’ endorsement will have in the governor’s race.
Her favorability ratings have dropped since she was elected mayor in 2022. Shortly before Bass won the mayoral contest, 50% of Los Angeles voters had a favorable opinion of her, according to a UC Berkeley/Los Angeles Times poll. In April, after wildfires ravaged the area, 50% had an unfavorable view of her. However, Bass’ reputation may have rebounded as she vigorously defended the city during federal immigration raids this summer.
Bass has known Villaraigosa, a former two-term Los Angeles mayor and legislative leader, for more than half a century. They met as community activists in the 1970s, focused on issues such as the drug epidemic, police accountability and poverty.
They have long supported each other’s political pursuits. Villaraigosa was an early backer of Bass’ 2022 mayoral campaign and served on her mayoral transition team.
Bass is scheduled to publicly endorse Villaraigosa on Tuesday morning outside of the Los Angeles Sentinel, a Black-owned weekly newspaper. Los Angeles City Council President Marqueece Harris Dawson, Councilwoman Heather Hutt, Long Beach Mayor Rex Richardson, Inglewood City Councilwoman Dionne Faulk and South Los Angeles religious leaders are also expected to attend.
“I understood from an early age that much of the success that I have had is on the backs of the civil rights movement,” Villaraigosa told the Sentinel in 2022. He added that he “wouldn’t have been elected mayor if not for African Americans, Latinos, Asians, Jews and progressive whites all coming together.”
As a community and cultural center of Boyle Heights, Mariachi Plaza would be an obvious place for families to gather on Father’s Day.
But the normally bustling plaza was all but deserted when Mayor Karen Bass visited Sunday morning.
More than a week after President Trump’s immigration raids first instilled terror in Los Angeles communities, the federal sweeps have had a profound chilling effect in the overwhelmingly Latino, working-class neighborhood just east of downtown.
“Mariachi Plaza was completely empty. There was not a soul there,” Bass recalled a few hours later. “One restaurant, there were a handful of people. The other restaurant, there was literally nobody there.”
Bass visited a number of small businesses in Boyle Heights with Assemblymember Mark Gonzalez (D-Los Angeles), including Casa Fina, Distrito Catorce, Yeya’s and Birrieria De Don Boni, as well as the Estrada Courts public housing project, where Bass and Gonzalez both said residents were reluctant to come outside of their homes for a Father’s Day celebration.
“It’s the uncertainty that continues that has an absolute economic impact. But it is pretty profound to walk up and down the streets and to see the empty streets, it reminded me of COVID,” Bass told The Times on Sunday afternoon.
Bass said restaurant operators in Boyle Heights told her current circumstances were actually worse than what they had faced during COVID-19, because unlike during the pandemic, there had been no ensuing bump in to-go orders. She hypothesized that the issue was compounded by the fact that many people were not going in to work, meaning they didn’t have disposable income to eat out.
“They said people aren’t ordering, and people probably aren’t ordering because they’re not working,” Bass said.
Gonzalez said the proprietor of one of the restaurants they visited was crying.
“He said, ‘It’s so empty. I’ve never seen it like this, and I don’t know how we can survive this,’ ” Gonzalez recalled.
Asked about his message to Trump, Gonzalez spoke about the centrality of immigrants to California’s economy.
“For somebody who’s supposed to be business oriented, he sure is allowing local businesses to sink and have the effect that these raids are having,” Gonzalez said.
Entire sectors of the city’s economy cannot function without immigrant labor, Bass said, citing the Fashion District in downtown Los Angeles, where raids have instilled acute fears and muffled business.
Bass also said she worried about how the disquiet would affect rebuilding in the fire-ravaged Pacific Palisades, if a significant quotient of the immigrant-heavy construction workforce is scared to show up to job sites.
In a post on X, she urged Angelenos to visit small businesses like those in Boyle Heights, writing, “Let’s show up, support them and send a message: LA stands with you.”
The aftereffects of the ensuing mass protests have also pummeled restaurants and bars in the downtown area, with widespread vandalism in the Civic Center and Little Tokyo areas.
At a news conference Thursday, Mayor Karen Bass made a startling claim.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents had appeared at a homeless shelter that day, among other sensitive locations in Los Angeles, she said.
But what actually happened at the Whitsett West Tiny Home Village in North Hollywood remains murky. The shifting narratives reflect the anxiety of Angelenos amid ICE raids targeting immigrants at Home Depots, churches and retail centers.
In L.A., a “sanctuary city” where local officials do not participate in federal immigration enforcement, tensions with the federal government are at an all-time high. After some protests against the raids turned violent, the Trump administration called in the National Guard and the U.S. Marines.
With federal officials keeping the city in the dark on immigration enforcement actions, City Council members and the mayor sometimes rely on the rumor mill.
ICE’s parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security, quickly responded to Bass’ comments, saying they were “false.”
“[ICE] is not in homeless shelters,” the agency wrote on X. “This rhetoric from [the mayor] and California politicians demonizes the brave men and women of law enforcement.”
The Whitsett West Tiny Home Village, which is on city property and is run by the nonprofit Hope the Mission, has beds for about 150 people in shed-like structures off the 170 Freeway near Whitsett Avenue and Saticoy Street.
According to Laura Harwood, Hope the Mission’s deputy chief program officer, people in a car tried to get access to the tiny home village on Thursday afternoon, telling security guards that they were American citizens who wanted to see how their taxpayer dollars were being used. The guards did not admit the visitors, who were wearing civilian clothes.
“This is a really unusual situation. This really doesn’t happen,” Harwood said.
Other employees saw some men looking into the complex from different sides and taking pictures.
A worker at the tiny home village, who requested anonymity because he has family members who are undocumented, told The Times that he was returning from lunch when he spotted two DHS SUVs with tinted windows down the block.
Tiny home staffers were concerned enough that they reached out to City Councilmember Adrin Nazarian, who came to the complex.
“We got reports that some ICE agents were around in the area viewing the location from both the front and the backside entryways,” Nazarian said on Instagram.
Nazarian said that immigration agents appearing at the tiny home village would be a “fear mongering” tactic.
The targeting of interim homeless housing could dissuade people from moving off the street, or push those in shelters to leave out of fear, said Rowan Vansleve, Hope the Mission’s president.
“Last Thursday, ICE entered our city, and provoked the city, by chasing people through Home Depots and car washes and showing up at schools. And today, showing up at emergency rooms and homeless shelters,” Bass said at the Thursday press conference.
Bass’ team confirmed to The Times that she was referring to the incident at the Whitsett West Tiny Home Village.
City Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez said that community organizations and local elected officials have been sorting through reports of DHS sightings to see if they are credible.
“We have seen situations where people say federal agents are here, and then when someone goes, it turns out they were never there or were gone an hour ago,” Hernandez said.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass has come under heavy scrutiny for deleting the text messages she sent during the region’s disastrous January firestorms.
But she wasn’t the only elected official expunging her correspondence during those history-making days.
L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger, who represents the area devastated by the Eaton fire, also routinely deletes her text messages, her spokesperson said.
“Supervisor Barger’s iPhone auto-delete setting is set to 30 days. She also manually deletes her texts sometimes,” Barger spokesperson Helen Chavez Garcia said last month.
The Times filed a public records request for Barger’s communications with Bass from Jan. 7 through late February. Barger’s office provided no written communications in response, despite Barger having publicly said that she was texting with Bass late into the night on Jan. 7, while Bass was in transit back to the city after a diplomatic trip to Ghana.
The other four supervisors — Lindsey Horvath, Hilda Solis, Holly Mitchell and Janice Hahn — do not use the auto-delete function on their phones, according to their spokespeople.
Chavez Garcia said in an email that there is “no pre-determined method that the Supervisor applies when selecting which messages to manually delete.”
Constance Farrell, a spokesperson for Horvath, said her understanding was that county officials were supposed to retain their text messages for two years to comply with the county’s record retention policy. Horvath’s office released some of her text messages in February after a Times public records request. The messages showed the supervisor sparring with Bass during the fires.
The county record retention guidelines make no mention of text messages but say that routine “administrative records” are supposed to be kept for two years.
The board’s executive office said the public record act applies to text messages, though some may be exempt from disclosure.
“Whether a supervisor’s text is a public record depends on whether it is a text regarding the conduct of the peoples’ business,” Steven Hernandez, the chief deputy for the executive office, said in a statement.
According to county policy, employees must sign an agreement every year acknowledging that all electronic communications, such as emails or instant messages, sent on county devices are the property of the county.
Bass previously kept her phone on a 30-day auto-delete setting, far shorter than the two-year retention period outlined in the city’s administrative code.
However, after being pressed by The Times, which had filed public records requests for the mayor’s correspondence during the Palisades fire, Bass’ office said it was able to recover the deleted messages using “specialized technology.”
(The Times sued the city in March over the mayor’s texts. Even though city officials ultimately provided some texts, The Times is contesting the city’s argument that releasing them was not required under state law.)
It also remains unclear whether Los Angeles City Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson, who was filling in as acting mayor in Bass’ stead when the fires broke out, deleted his text messages from that time period.
After The Times filed a public records request seeking correspondence that Harris-Dawson sent to Bass or received from her between Jan. 6 and Jan. 16, Harris-Dawson’s office said it had “no responsive records.”
Harris-Dawson’s office did not respond to repeated questions over the course of several months about why there was no correspondence and whether it had been deleted.
“It’s very disappointing to see that that practice has spilled over up the street [to the County]. I was hoping it was just L.A. City Hall shenanigans and the absurdities of our two big leaders,” said Unrig LA founder Rob Quan, referring to Bass and Harris-Dawson.
Quan, who leads a transparency-focused good-government advocacy group, said he believed proper recordkeeping from January was all the more important given the historic importance of the fires.
