mayor

June 4 (UPI) — The Democratic mayor of Newark, Ras Baraka, has sued the Republican U.S. district attorney of New Jersey over his arrest last month outside of a prison being transformed into a detention facility to hold migrants arrested in the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

The lawsuit, announced Tuesday, accuses District Attorney Alina Habba and Special Agent in Charge Ricky Patel of the Newark Division of Homeland Security Investigations of violating Baraka’s rights by arresting him without cause, initiating a malicious prosecution and committing defamation.

“They abused their power to violently arrest me at Delaney Hall despite being invited inside,” Baraka said in a statement Tuesday.

“No one is above the law.”

Baraka was arrested on May 9 outside Delaney Hall, a Newark prison owned by GEO Group, which in February signed a contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement to house migrants at the 1,000-bed center for 15 years.

Habba accused Baraka of trespassing at the facility and claimed he was arrested after allegedly “ignored multiple warnings from Homeland Security Investigations to remove himself from the ICE detention center.

“He has willingly chosen to disregard the law,” she said on X following Baraka’s arrest. “That will not stand in this state.”

Habba — formerly a lawyer for President Donald Trump, who appointed her to her current position in New Jersey — announced last month she was dropping the charges against Baraka “for the sake of moving forward.”

According to the lawsuit, Baraka was at the prison at the invitation of Rep. LaMonica McIver, one of three Democratic New Jersey House representatives visiting Delaney Hall that day to inspect it.

Baraka arrived at Delaney Hall at about 1:42 p.m. EDT and spoke with members of the public protesting the Trump administration’s immigration policies.

At 1:50 p.m. a GEO Group guard invited Baraka to enter the inner gate of Delaney Hall, which the mayor did. He waited there for about 40 minutes, apparently for the Democratic lawmakers inside the facility.

According to the lawsuit, Patel confronted Baraka at 2:33 p.m., and told him to leave. Baraka argued he was invited in by the guard, which Patel disputed, the court documents state.

Minutes later, the members of Congress exited the facility after witnessing the confrontation between the two and informed Patel that they had wanted Baraka there.

“After the members of Congress conveyed their thoughts, Defendant Patel threatened to arrest the Mayor,” the lawsuit states. “In response, the Mayor said: ‘I’m leaving now.'”

Baraka was arrested by about 20 DHS agents, some masked, about 5 minutes after he left the GEO Group property, according to the filing.

“Egged on by Defendant Patel, who ordered the DHS agents to ‘take him down’ (meaning violently tackle the Mayor of Newark) the agents pushed, shoved and assaulted the Mayor’s security team and members of Congress before violently pulling Mayor Baraka’s arms and arresting him without probable cause,” the lawsuit states.

“The DHS agents handcuffed the Mayor behind his back in an effort to effect maximum humiliation for what Defendant Habba’s office later admitted was an alleged ‘petty offense.'”

The lawsuit, which is seeking compensatory and punitive damages, also accuses Habba of having a political agenda to forward Trump’s immigration policies and to help Republicans in the state.

When Habba told the court she was ending the prosecution of Baraka, federal Judge Andre Espinosa admonished the district attorney.

“The hasty arrest of Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, followed swiftly by the dismissal of the trespassing charges a mere 13 days later, suggests a worrisome misstep by your office,” Espinosa said.

“An arrest, particularly of a public figure, is not a preliminary investigative tool. It is a severe action, carrying significant reputational and personal consequences, and it should only be undertaken after a thorough, dispassionate evaluation of credible evidence.”

On Monday, after learning of Baraka’s intention to sue her, Habba retorted: “My advice to the mayor — feel free to join me in prioritizing violent crime and public safety. Far better use of time for the great citizens of New Jersey.”

Habba later last month filed charges of assaulting law enforcement against McIver in connection with Baraka’s arrest.

Baraka has voiced solidarity with McIver, and McIver described the charges against her as “purely political.”

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass won’t be called as a witness in a multiday federal court hearing that could determine whether the city’s homelessness programs are placed in receivership.

Matthew Umhofer, an attorney for the L.A. Alliance for Human Rights, told U.S. District Judge David O. Carter on Tuesday that he and his legal team were withdrawing subpoenas issued in recent weeks to Bass and City Councilmembers Monica Rodriguez and Traci Park. Battling over the appearances, which were opposed by the city, would have delayed the proceedings for several months, he said.

The alliance, which sued the city in 2020 over its response to the homelessness crisis, originally sought testimony from the three politicians as part of an evidentiary hearing focused on whether the city failed to comply with the terms of a settlement agreement on homelessness programs.

The agreement, reached in 2022 between the city and the alliance, requires the city to provide 12,915 beds for its unhoused population by June 2027. The alliance contends that the city already is failing to meet the milestones of the agreement and has no clear path to that goal. City officials say they fully intend to comply by the deadline.

The possibility that Bass could testify in Carter’s courtroom provided a rare source of drama for the past week of hearings, which have focused on such granular issues as the definition of a homeless encampment.

Umhofer, in an interview, said he dropped Bass and the others because the city’s lawyers had threatened to pursue an appeal to block the three politicians from testifying, which would have triggered a delay of at least two to three months.

“I think it’s cowardly for the mayor to not testify,” he said. “She’s come in to court on multiple occasions and and shared talking points, but has never undergone cross-examination. For her to resist a subpoena is the definition of avoiding accountability and transparency.”

Umhofer argued that the testimony provided over the last week is already enough to show that the city’s homelessness programs should be overseen by a third-party receivership appointed by the court.

A Bass spokesperson did not immediately respond to Umhofer’s remarks. Theane Evangelis, an attorney for the city, said Umhofer’s description of Bass as cowardly — made in front of the judge during Tuesday’s hearing — was “uncalled for.”

“The Alliance lawyers apparently recognized that there was no legal basis for their subpoenas,” Evangelis said later in a statement. “They should never have issued them in the first place. The City is complying with the agreement settling a 2020 lawsuit, and it is indisputable that thousands of new housing units have been built and homelessness is down in LA for the first time in years.”

Bass declared a state of emergency on homelessness in 2022, on her first day in office, securing additional power to award contracts and sign off on lease agreements for interim housing and other facilities. That same year, she launched Inside Safe, which has been moving thousands of unhoused Angelenos into hotels, motels and other interim housing. She also created a program to accelerate the approval of certain types of affordable housing.

The alliance has portrayed the city’s homelessness response programs as irrevocably broken, arguing that the only recourse is for the judge to turn them over to a third-party receiver. During six days of testimony, lawyers for the alliance repeatedly highlighted the findings of a consulting firm that the programs lack adequate data systems and financial controls, leaving them vulnerable to fraud.

Lawyers for the alliance also pointed out that the city has repeatedly missed the quarterly milestones established in its settlement agreement.

Over the last week, lawyers for the city argued that their client has made “best efforts” to comply with the settlement agreement. They also contended that the milestones are not mandatory. And they said the alliance is the party that’s “flat-out ignoring” the terms of the agreement.

Evangelis said the agreement allows for the city’s obligations to be paused, and the terms to be renegotiated, if an emergency takes place. The Palisades fire broke out in January, destroying thousands of homes.

“Instead of recognizing the enormous stress that our city is under and honoring its promise to meet and confer … the alliance ran to court the month after those fires and sought sanctions against the city’s supposed breaches,” Evangelis told the court last week.

The alliance placed Bass on its witness list last month, saying she has “unique knowledge” of the facts — and had put herself at the center of the debate by promising to lead on homelessness.

Lawyers for the city argued that putting Bass and the two council members on the stand would place “an undue burden” on them as elected officials. They instead presented as witnesses City Administrative Officer Matthew Szabo, who is the city’s top budget official, and Deputy Mayor Etsemaye Agonafer, calling them the most knowledgeable about the settlement agreement.

Last week, Carter delayed ruling on whether Bass and the council members should testify, saying he first wanted to hear from Szabo and Agonafer, who handles homelessness issues for Bass.

Agonafer testified for about four hours Thursday. Szabo, who has overseen the city’s compliance with the settlement agreement, was questioned off and on during four hearing days. In multiple exchanges, he said he was confident the city would comply with the terms of the settlement by June 2027.

The two council members sought as witnesses by the alliance have been highly critical of the city’s homelessness programs.

Rodriguez, who represents the northeast San Fernando Valley, frequently uses the phrase “merry-go-round from hell” to describe the city’s struggle to get accurate data from the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, a city-county agency.

Park, who represents part of the Westside, said during the council’s budget deliberations last month that the city had wasted billions of dollars on homeless programs. Before casting her vote, she also said the city is “unable to manage” its own homeless affairs.

A New Jersey mayor has filed a lawsuit against a federal prosecutor and close ally of United States President Donald Trump after he was arrested at a protest outside an immigration detention centre.

In a civil complaint filed on Tuesday, Mayor Ras Baraka of Newark, New Jersey, accused acting US Attorney Alina Habba of “subjecting him to false arrest and malicious prosecution”.

The complaint also names Ricky Patel, a special agent with the Department of Homeland Security’s investigations unit, as a co-defendant.

“As a result of this false arrest”, the lawsuit argues that Mayor Baraka “suffered severe reputational harm, emotional distress and other damages”.

The suit is the latest fallout from a May 9 protest outside Delaney Hall, a privately run immigration detention facility in Newark.

Baraka, a longtime critic of the facility, had joined three Democratic members of the US House of Representatives for a tour of the 1,000-bed detention centre, as protesters gathered outside the gate.

The lawsuit alleges that a member of the GEO Group, which owns the facility, allowed Baraka to come inside Delaney Hall’s wire gate. But once inside, it says Patel ordered him to exit again, on threat of arrest.

Baraka complied, but a few minutes later, as he stood with protesters outside the gate, agents with the Department of Homeland Security surrounded the mayor, handcuffed him and led him away.

The complaint alleges that Patel ordered the agents to “take [the mayor] down” and that they “pushed, shoved and assaulted” the mayor’s security team before arresting him. Baraka denies trespassing onto the Delaney Hall grounds.

“They abused their power to violently arrest me at Delaney Hall despite being invited inside,” Baraka wrote on social media on Tuesday. “No one is above the law.”

Habba initially filed a trespassing charge against Baraka for his actions during the protest. But by May 19, she moved to dismiss the charge, prompting a rebuke from the judge overseeing the case.

“Your role is not to secure convictions at all costs, nor to satisfy public clamour, nor to advance political agendas,” Judge Andre Espinosa told a representative for Habba’s office.

“The hasty arrest of Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, followed swiftly by the dismissal of those trespassing charges a mere 13 days later, suggests a worrisome misstep by your office,” Espinosa added.

“An arrest, particularly of a public figure, is not a preliminary investigative tool. It is a severe action, carrying significant reputational and personal consequences, and it should only be undertaken after a thorough, dispassionate evaluation of credible evidence.”

At the same time as she announced she was seeking the dismissal of the trespassing charge, Habba revealed she would be pursuing criminal charges against US Congress member LaMonica McIver, who was also at the Delaney Hall protest.

Habba accused McIver of assaulting law enforcement during Baraka’s arrest. That case is ongoing. But Representative McIver has called the charges against her “purely political”, and she issued a statement on Tuesday in support of Baraka’s lawsuit.

“The way Mayor Baraka was treated at Delaney Hall was outrageous,” the statement reads. “It is beyond clear that there was never any legal or factual basis to arrest or charge him. The administration’s playing politics with our justice system is disgraceful.”

In the lead-up to Baraka’s lawsuit, Habba herself weighed in, suggesting the mayor’s complaint was a waste of time.

“He is planning to sue the Feds,” Habba wrote on social media Monday. “My advice to the mayor – feel free to join me in prioritizing violent crime and public safety. Far better use of time for the great citizens of New Jersey.”

Habba had served as part of Trump’s personal legal team before joining his administration following his second inauguration in January.

Trump has pledged to pursue a policy of “mass deportation” during his second term as president, but that goal has run up against logistical issues, including a lack of detention space. His administration awarded Delaney Hall a 15-year contract to help address the growing demand for beds, and the facility opened this past May.

Baraka, however, has argued that Delaney Hall failed to receive the proper local permitting and has been a visible presence at protests outside the immigration centre. The GEO Group denies any permitting violations.

Critics, particularly on the left, have long accused the Trump administration of retaliating against those who oppose the president’s signature policies, including his crackdown on immigration.

Tuesday’s lawsuit, for example, accuses Habba of defaming Baraka in her efforts to detain and charge him with trespassing.

“In authorizing and/or directing the arrest of Mayor Baraka without proper legal grounds, Defendant Habba was acting for political reasons and fulfilling her stated goal of ‘turning New Jersey red’,” the lawsuit argues.

The complaint further alleges that other members of the Trump administration participated “in promoting a false and defamatory narrative”, including that Baraka “broke into” the detention facility.

Baraka is running this November as a Democratic candidate in the race to be New Jersey governor. His lawsuit alleges the arrest and subsequent trespassing charge was designed to “damage him politically”.

Last month, Trump endorsed one of Baraka’s Republican rivals, businessman and former state Representative Jack Ciattarelli, for the governorship.

NEWARK, N.J. — Newark Mayor Ras Baraka sued New Jersey’s top federal prosecutor on Tuesday over his arrest on a trespassing charge at a federal immigration detention facility, saying the Trump-appointed attorney had pursued the case out of political spite.

Baraka, who leads New Jersey’s biggest city, is a candidate in a crowded primary field for the Democratic nomination for governor next Tuesday. The lawsuit against interim U.S. Attorney for New Jersey Alina Habba coincided with the day early in-person voting began.

The lawsuit seeks damages for “false arrest and malicious prosecution,” and also accuses Habba of defamation for comments she made about his case, which was later dropped.

Citing a post on X in which Habba said Baraka “committed trespass,” the lawsuit says Habba issued a “defamatory statement” and authorized his “false arrest” despite “clear evidence that Mayor Baraka had not committed the petty offense of ‘defiant trespass.’” The suit also names Ricky Patel, the Homeland Security Investigations agent in charge in Newark. Baraka’s attorney, Nancy Erika Smith, said they also expect to sue President Trump’s administration but are required to wait six months.

“This is not about revenge,” Baraka said during a news conference. “Ultimately, I think this is about them taking accountability for what has happened to me.”

Emails seeking comment were left Tuesday with Habba’s office and the Homeland Security Department, where Patel works.

Videos capture chaos outside the detention center

The episode outside the Delaney Hall federal immigration detention center has had dramatic fallout. It began on May 9 when Baraka tried to join three Democratic members of Congress — Rob Menendez, LaMonica McIver and Bonnie Watson Coleman — who went to the facility for an oversight tour, something authorized under federal law. Baraka, an outspoken critic of Trump’s immigration crackdown and the detention center, was denied entry.

Video from the event showed him walking from the facility side of the fence to the street side, where other people had been protesting. Uniformed officials then came to arrest him. As they did, people could be heard urging the group to protect the mayor. The video shows a crowd forming and pushing as officials led off a handcuffed Baraka.

He was initially charged with trespass, but Habba dropped that charge last month and charged McIver with two counts of assaulting officers stemming from her role in the skirmish at the facility’s gate.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Andre Espinosa rebuked Habba’s office after moving to dismiss the charges. “The hasty arrest of Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, followed swiftly by the dismissal of these trespassing charges a mere 13 days later, suggests a worrisome misstep by your Office,” he wrote.

McIver decried the charges and signaled she plans to fight them. A preliminary hearing is scheduled later this month.

Baraka said the aftermath of the withdrawn charge meant he had to explain it in the media and argue his case when he had done nothing wrong.

“I want somebody to apologize, write a letter, say this was wrong, come out and say, ‘We shouldn’t have done this,’” he said.

New Jersey targeted over its so-called sanctuary policies

Delaney Hall, a 1,000-bed facility, opened earlier this year as a federal immigration detention facility. Florida-based Geo Group Inc., which owns and operates the property, was awarded a 15-year contract valued at $1 billion in February. The announcement was part of the president’s plans to sharply increase detention beds nationwide from a budget of about 41,000 beds this year.

Baraka sued Geo soon after that deal was announced.

Then, on May 23, the Trump Justice Department filed a suit against Newark and three other New Jersey cities over their so-called sanctuary policies. There is no legal definition for sanctuary city policies, but they generally limit cooperation by local law enforcement with federal immigration officers.

New Jersey’s attorney general has a statewide directive in place prohibiting local police from collaborating in federal civil immigration matters. The policies are aimed at barring cooperation on civil enforcement matters, not at blocking cooperation on criminal matters. They specifically carve out exceptions for when Immigration and Customs Enforcement supplies police with a judicial criminal warrant. The Justice Department said, though, the cities won’t notify ICE when they’ve made criminal arrests, according to the suit.

It’s unclear whether Baraka’s role in these fights with the White House is affecting his campaign for governor. He’s one of six candidates seeking the Democratic nomination in the June 10 election to succeed term-limited Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy.

On Tuesday, Baraka explained the timing of the suit as an effort to get the case before the court before it was too late. He described the arrest and fallout as a distraction during the campaign.

“But I also think that us not responding is consent,” he said.

In a video ad in the election’s final weeks, Baraka has embraced a theme his rivals are also pushing: affordability. He says he’ll cut taxes. While some of the images show him standing in front of what appears to be Delaney Hall, he doesn’t mention immigration or the arrest specifically, saying: “I’ll keep Trump out of your homes and out of your lives.”

Trump has endorsed Jack Ciattarelli, one of several Republicans running in the gubernatorial primary. Ciattarelli has said if he’s elected, his first executive order would be to end any sanctuary policies for immigrants in the country illegally.

Catalini writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Alanna Durkin Richer in Washington contributed to this report.

TULSA, Okla. — Tulsa’s new mayor on Sunday proposed a $100 million private trust as part of a reparations plan to give descendants of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre scholarships and housing help in a city-backed bid to make amends for one of the worst racial attacks in U.S. history.

The plan by Mayor Monroe Nichols, the first Black mayor of Oklahoma’s second-largest city, would not provide direct cash payments to descendants or the last two centenarian survivors of the attack that killed as many as 300 Black people. He made the announcement at the Greenwood Cultural Center, located in the once-thriving district of North Tulsa that was destroyed by a white mob.

Nichols said he does not use the term reparations, which he calls politically charged, characterizing his sweeping plan instead as a “road to repair.”

“For 104 years, the Tulsa Race Massacre has been a stain on our city’s history,” Nichols said Sunday after receiving a standing ovation from several hundred people. “The massacre was hidden from history books, only to be followed by the intentional acts of redlining, a highway built to choke off economic vitality and the perpetual underinvestment of local, state and federal governments.

“Now it’s time to take the next big steps to restore.”

Nichols said the proposal wouldn’t require city council approval, although the council would need to authorize the transfer of any city property to the trust, something he said was highly likely.

The private charitable trust would be created with a goal to secure $105 million in assets, with most of the funding either secured or committed by June 1, 2026. Although details would be developed over the next year by an executive director and a board of managers, the plan calls for the bulk of the funding, $60 million, to go toward improving buildings and revitalizing the city’s north side.

“The Greenwood District at its height was a center of commerce,” Nichols said in a telephone interview. “So what was lost was not just something from North Tulsa or the Black community. It actually robbed Tulsa of an economic future that would have rivaled anywhere else in the world.”

Nichols’ proposal follows an executive order he signed earlier this year recognizing June 1 as Tulsa Race Massacre Observance Day, an official city holiday. Events Sunday in the Greenwood District included a picnic for families, worship services and an evening candlelight vigil.

Nichols also realizes the current national political climate, particularly President Trump’s sweeping assault on diversity, equity and inclusion programs, poses challenging political crosswinds.

“The fact that this lines up with a broader national conversation is a tough environment,” Nichols admitted, “but it doesn’t change the work we have to do.”

Jacqueline Weary, is a granddaughter of massacre survivor John R. Emerson, Sr., who owned a hotel and cab company in Greenwood that were destroyed. She acknowledged the political difficulty of giving cash payments to descendants. But at the same time, she wondered how much of her family’s wealth was lost in the violence.

“If Greenwood was still there, my grandfather would still have his hotel,” said Weary, 65. “It rightfully was our inheritance, and it was literally taken away.”

Tulsa is not the first U.S. city to explore reparations. The Chicago suburb of Evanston, Illinois, was the first U.S. city to make reparations available to its Black residents for past discrimination, offering qualifying households $25,000 for home repairs, down payments on property, and interest or late penalties on property in the city. The funding for the program came from taxes on the sale of recreational marijuana.

Other communities and organizations that have considered providing reparations range from the state of California to cities including Amherst, Massachusetts; Providence, Rhode Island; Asheville, North Carolina; and Iowa City, Iowa; religious denominations like the Episcopal Church; and prominent colleges like Georgetown University in Washington.

In Tulsa, there are only two living survivors of the Race Massacre, both of whom are 110 years old: Leslie Benningfield Randle and Viola Fletcher. The women, both of whom were in attendance on Sunday, received direct financial compensation from both a Tulsa-based nonprofit and a New York-based philanthropic organization, but have not received any recompense from the city or state.

Damario Solomon-Simmons, an attorney for the survivors and the founder of the Justice for Greenwood Foundation, said earlier this year that any reparations plan should include direct payments to Randle and Fletcher and a victims’ compensation fund for outstanding claims.

A lawsuit filed by Solomon-Simmons on behalf of the survivors was rejected by the Oklahoma Supreme Court last year, dampening racial justice advocates’ hopes that the city would ever make financial amends.

Murphy writes for the Associated Press.

SOUTH BEND, Ind. — On Jan. 1, Pete Buttigieg’s second term ended, and the “Mayor Pete” era in South Bend was over. In the Democratic presidential candidate’s telling, he presided over a Rust Belt comeback story in Indiana’s fourth-largest city, a metaphor for what is possible elsewhere in America.

Before Buttigieg took office in 2012, downtown had been moribund for decades. Aging, abandoned homes dragged down spirits in poorer neighborhoods. Unemployment was high, wages low, evictions common. White residents were fleeing by the thousands. A Newsweek article declared South Bend, population 101,860, one of America’s “dying cities.”

Today, unemployment in the Greater South Bend area is less than 4%, down from nearly 10%; development has accelerated in the city’s downtown; and the population has stopped shrinking. Local business boosters recently raised street banners that said, “Thanks Mayor Pete.”

“South Bend’s trajectory has been transformed,” Buttigieg said in his farewell address to the city’s Common Council on Dec. 9.

Pete Buttigieg appeals to Democrats anxious to win back Rust Belt voters who defected from the party in 2016.

(Jae C. Hong / Associated Press)

That’s the resume that Buttigieg is promoting to make the jump from mayor to president. It’s a part of his appeal to Democrats who are anxious to win back Rust Belt voters who defected from the party in 2016.

But there’s a hitch. Among residents of color, who make up nearly half of South Bend’s population, reviews of Buttigieg’s legacy are noticeably mixed — some positive, some outright hostile.

The local criticism has taken on national importance in the Democratic primary, where he has struggled to attract voters who aren’t white. It’s a weakness that’s been offset by Buttigieg’s significant support in the two states that hold the first nominating contests, Iowa and New Hampshire, where black and Latino voters are deeply underrepresented compared with the Democratic Party overall.

“Pete isn’t ready to lead the free world, a world of huge diversity and tremendous need. He is not ready. That’s all I can say behind that,” said Common Council member Henry Davis Jr., one of Buttigieg’s most vocal critics, who unsuccessfully ran against the mayor in 2015.

But other black leaders have rallied to Buttigieg’s side, including the area’s NAACP president, Michael Patton, who has said he’s “grateful to Mayor Pete” for his work.

Life remains a struggle for many South Bend residents. Poverty is still stubbornly high, and homeless residents are a regular sight.

The Greater South Bend area “has become more segregated between White and African American/Black residents since 2010,” according to a forthcoming regional housing report prepared by South Bend and neighboring Mishawaka. (The report did not examine segregation data in South Bend alone, though the city is by far the most populous town in the metropolitan statistical area that was analyzed.)

The city also has “one of the highest foreclosure rates in the United States,” with an eviction rate that is “extremely high,” the report said. In South Bend, racial discrimination is the primary factor cited by tenants when making fair-housing complaints, bucking the national trend, where disability is the most common complaint, according to the report.

Buttigieg’s campaign defended his record, saying he devoted resources to a variety of programs to create affordable housing, fund home repairs and increase shelter capacity for homeless residents, while pointing to some forces that were beyond the city’s control.

“Indiana has pretty hostile laws toward tenants, unfortunately,” campaign spokesman Sean Savett said of the city’s foreclosure and eviction numbers.

Nonprofit housing developer Seymour Barker in South Bend. He’s a fan of Pete Buttigieg.

(Matt Pearce / Los Angeles Times)

Seymour Barker, 74, of Granger, Ind., who helps run a community development corporation, 466 Works, that receives grants from South Bend to help build new housing on the southeast side, said “the city has supported us every step of the way, and it’s all happened under the administration of Mayor Pete.”

“I can’t tell you the experience of other African Americans under him,” Barker said, “but that’s been our experience with him.”

::

After taking office, Buttigieg went to work on the city’s blight, launching an initiative to repair or demolish 1,000 abandoned or derelict homes in 1,000 days, a goal he reached ahead of schedule.

Common Council member Regina Williams-Preston, an occasional critic from the city’s black community, accused Buttigieg of moving too quickly against property owners who didn’t have the money to make repairs right away. Buttigieg acknowledged the program needed some adjustments.

But other residents happily welcomed Buttigieg’s demolition work. On a recent Thursday afternoon in December, two South Bend Bureau of Streets trucks rumbled by as James Underwood strung up Christmas lights outside a home on the 1100 block of Johnson Street, the block that saw the most houses targeted for repair or removal, according to city data.

As a result of that program, Underwood, a 60-year-old factory worker, bought a condemned home to fix up, between shifts, to give to one of his four children. He’s still trying to track down the absentee owner to finalize the sale, but he couldn’t be happier that two abandoned “eyesores” across the street had been razed.

“I would put a vote toward him because of what he did in this neighborhood and others,” Underwood said of Buttigieg. As he spoke, city workers in green vests piled out of their trucks to clear leaves from the sidewalks outside a home charred by a fire.

A South Bend home destroyed by fire.

(Matt Pearce / Los Angeles Times)

As Buttigieg progressed through his administration, he benefited from some fortunate timing. He arrived in office after the worst shocks of the Great Recession and then served through an uninterrupted run of national growth.

During Buttigieg’s first year, South Bend processed construction permits for commercial and residential projects valued at $69.8 million, city data showed. Within four years, in 2016, that figure had blossomed to $190 million.

Buttigieg harnessed that growth to lure new private investment. In the city’s downtown, Buttigieg invested public dollars to make the streets more walkable and to help finance some private development. Two new hotels opened, and young professionals started moving in, which boosted neighborhood merchants.

“He’s not afraid to ruffle feathers and get a job done that he thinks needs to be done,” South Bend restaurant owner Peg Dalton says of Buttigieg.

(Matt Pearce / Los Angeles Times)

When South Bend native Peg Dalton opened her restaurant in 2001, since renamed Peggs, “there was literally not a car on the street,” she said. As she spoke to a reporter, the spaces outside her restaurant that day were all taken.

Buttigieg cultivated local business leaders to draw support for his political initiatives, according to Dalton, telling them on issues such as raising pay for city workers or changing the flow of city streets downtown: “I need your support on the ground.”

“He’s not afraid to ruffle feathers and get a job done that he thinks needs to be done,” said Dalton, 55.

One of the biggest changes to South Bend under Buttigieg’s administration was the growth of the city’s Latino population, now estimated to make up more than 15% of the city’s residents. Buttigieg pushed for an identification-card program designed so residents without ID, including immigrants, could get access to social services.

Paul Beltran, 33, a healthcare case manager who emigrated from Ecuador, credited Buttigieg for being “accessible and present.”

(Matt Pearce / Los Angeles Times)

Paul Beltran, 33, a healthcare case manager who emigrated from Ecuador and a volunteer at his church, Vida Nueva Church of God, credited Buttigieg for being “accessible and present” and for the times he addressed residents in Spanish.

“It’s not 100% fluent,” Beltran said of Buttigieg’s Spanish, but “he could carry a conversation, to a point.”

Nanci Flores, a prominent local activist, said there was still work to be done to assist the city’s immigrant community. But “even when we don’t always get it right, I still see a city working to follow a compassionate and inclusive example,” Flores said.

Buttigieg’s relationship with black residents, who make up more than a quarter of the city’s population, has been much rockier.

Some black residents began distrusting Buttigieg when he demoted the black police chief less than three months after arriving in office. There were allegations that the chief had improperly recorded white officials accused of making racist comments. In his memoir, Buttigieg wrote that initially supporting the chief had been his “first serious mistake as mayor.”

During Buttigieg’s tenure, the number of black police officers also dropped by nearly half, according to the South Bend Tribune.

Tensions erupted in June after a white South Bend police officer shot and killed a black man, Eric Jack Logan. The officer, who didn’t have his body camera turned on, said Logan had threatened him with a knife. Angry black residents heckled Buttigieg at a town hall meeting. “We don’t trust you!” one woman shouted.

“It’s a mess. And we’re hurting,” Buttigieg said of the shooting in the June presidential debate.

As with many such protests around the nation, the angst went much deeper than a single shooting.

“I have been here all my life, and you have not done a damn thing about me or my son or none of these people out here,” Logan’s distraught mother, Shirley Newbill, told Buttigieg at a protest. “It’s time for you to do something.”

But Underwood, the factory worker, who is black, said he thought some of the criticism of Buttigieg was “overblown.”

“One guy can’t fix all the problems,” Underwood said. “You can’t blame one guy.”

Soon, the most powerful Los Angeles County politician won’t be the mayor of L.A. It won’t be a county supervisor.

It will be the elected chief executive.

“It’s probably going to be the second most powerful position in the state next to the governor,” said former West Covina Mayor Brian Calderón Tabatabai, one of 13 people now tasked with deciding just how much power should come with the post.

This week, the final five members were named to the county’s “governance reform task force.” The former politicians, union leaders, advocates and business owners will make recommendations on how to move forward with Measure G, the sprawling ballot measure approved by voters in November to overhaul L.A. County government.

Measure G was massive in scope but scant on details. That means members of the task force — five of whom were picked directly by supervisors — must figure out the contours of a new county ethics commission by 2026. They’ll also help expand the five-person board to nine by 2032.

Perhaps most consequentially, they will have to hammer out the powers of the new chief executive, an elected official who will represent 10 million county residents — a position that some task force members don’t even think should exist.

“I’m extremely concerned about the elected CEO,” said former Duarte Mayor John Fasana, a task force member. “At this point, we have to try and find a way to make it work.”

Rewind to last November’s election. The elected chief executive position was, by far, the most controversial part of the overhaul, and a bitter pill to swallow for some who were otherwise eager to see the Board of Supervisors expanded and ethics rules strengthened.

Currently, the chief executive, a role filled by Fesia Davenport, is appointed by the supervisors and works under them. She takes the first stab at the county budget and wrangles department heads, putting out whatever fires are erupting.

It’s not a glamorous job — many people don’t know it exists — but the chief executive, more than any other county leader, is responsible for keeping the place running smoothly.

With the passage of Measure G, the position will become a political one, beholden only to voters. Some have dubbed it the “mayor of L.A. County.”

Supervisor Lindsey Horvath, who spearheaded the overhaul, said that one of the most influential positions in local government will now come out of the shadows and be directly accountable to voters.

Supervisor Kathryn Barger has been deeply skeptical, warning that it will diminish the supervisors’ power and politicize a position that functions best behind the scenes. Supervisor Holly Mitchell had similar hesitations, as did some county employee unions.

Now, they’ve got to make it work.

Derek Hsieh, who heads the Assn. for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs as well as chairs the Coalition of County Unions, said both labor groups opposed Measure G and the creation of the elected chief executive. But now, as a member of the task force, he vowed to “bring success to that decision.”

In interviews, some task force members — both supporters of Measure G and opponents — said they plan to tread carefully.

“I’ve heard murmuring, like what if we get someone like an [Alex] Villanueva running amok and burning bridges unnecessarily,” said Marcel Rodarte, who heads the California Contract Cities Assn., referring to the bombastic former sheriff. “It’s a possibility it could happen. I want to make sure that those nine supervisors have the ability to rein in the CEO.”

Rodarte and his colleagues will take the first stab at creating checks and balances. Should the chief executive be able to hire and fire department heads? What are the veto powers? How much control will the executive have over the county’s purse strings? Currently, the position has no term limits — should that change?

Sara Sadhwani, a politics professor at Pomona College and a task force member, said she’s already hearing concerns about the lack of term limits, which would put the chief executive on an uneven footing with supervisors, who must leave after three four-year terms. She said the task force may consider a change in state law that would permit term limits.

“Looking at the federal government, there need to be very real constraints on executive power,” she said. “There has to be a healthy friction.”

Sadhwani said she’s expecting some pushback to parts of the proposal from county supervisors, who may be less than pleased to see their power siphoned away.

“We can imagine there are board members who do not want to see those powers move to an executive branch,” she said.

Rob Quan, a transparency advocate, said he’ll be watching closely.

“What I would like to see is this task force have the freedom and independence and insulation to come up with good, thoughtful recommendations,” he said. “What I don’t want to see is these supervisors using their commissioners as gladiators.”

State of play

— THREE-RING CIRCUS: L.A. city and county officials spent the past week in U.S. Dist. Judge David O. Carter’s courtroom — either monitoring or participating in a multi-day evidentiary hearing on the city’s settlement agreement with the L.A. Alliance for Human Rights. The stakes are high: the Alliance wants to place the city’s homelessness programs into receivership, effectively removing control from Mayor Karen Bass, on the grounds that the city is not meeting its legal obligations for providing such services. The city says it has made its best efforts to comply with the agreement.

So who was in the room? City Atty. Hydee Feldstein Soto monitored the hearing at various points. City Administrative Officer Matt Szabo was grilled on the stand over multiple days. Dr. Estemaye Agonafer, deputy mayor for homelessness, was sometimes prickly during three-plus hours of questioning.

— WHEN DOES IT END? The testimony in the Alliance case is expected to spill into next week, although it’s not clear how many more days are needed. Carter, who has remained unusually muted during this week’s proceedings, declared at one point: “Time’s not a concern.”

— READY TO MOVE ON: Speaking of homelessness, Councilmember Tim McOsker is looking to bring an end to Bass’ emergency declaration on homelessness, rescinding the mayor’s power to award no-bid contracts and lease buildings without council approval. The move comes two and a half years after Bass declared an emergency. Councilmember Monica Rodriguez, an outspoken critic of the city’s homeless programs, also has been a longtime supporter of terminating the emergency.

— WAGE WARRIORS: A coalition of airlines, hotels and concession companies at Los Angeles International Airport filed paperwork Thursday to force a citywide vote on a new ordinance hiking the minimum wage of hotel and airport workers to $30 per hour by 2028.

— FEELING POWERLESS: Former Animal Services General Manager Staycee Dains said in a series of interviews with The Times that she felt powerless to solve entrenched problems at her agency, including severe understaffing and mistreatment of shelter animals. Dains said she was repeatedly told by the city’s personnel department that she couldn’t fire problem employees. And she clashed with a union that represents shelter employees.

— MONEY IN THE MAIL: Many residents who lost their homes in the January wildfires should have received a tax refund after their damaged or destroyed properties were reassessed. But about 330 checks are in limbo after postal workers tried unsuccessfully to deliver them to vacant or destroyed homes.

— NO CHARGES: A former L.A. County probation official who was accused by more than two dozen women of sexually abusing them when they were minors will not be criminally prosecuted because the alleged incidents happened too long ago. Thomas Jackson, 58, has been named in dozens of lawsuits that were part of a historic $4-billion settlement.

— WHAT DISASTER? L.A. leaders declined to dramatically increase the budget of the city’s Emergency Management Department, despite the many natural disasters that could hit the region in years to come. Facing a nearly $1-billion shortfall, the City Council passed a budget that rejected the funding bump asked for by department leaders.

— I SUED THE SHERIFF: Former Times reporter Maya Lau is suing Los Angeles County and Villanueva, the former sheriff, arguing that her 1st Amendment rights were violated. Lau’s attorneys said she was the target of a sheriff’s investigation that was “designed to intimidate and punish” her for reporting about a leaked list of deputies with a history of misconduct.

QUICK HITS

• WHERE IS INSIDE SAFE? The mayor’s signature program to address homelessness went to the area around 103rd Street and Wilmington Avenue in Watts, according to the mayor’s team. That area is represented by Councilmember Tim McOsker.
• On the docket for next week: The supervisors meet Tuesday to consider a plan for holding regular meetings with city officials about the formation of the county’s new homelessness department. According to the motion, put forward by Horvath, the meetings would ensure “open communication” with the city after the supervisors voted to pull more than $300 million out of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, or LAHSA.

Stay in touch

That’s it for this week! Send your questions, comments and gossip to [email protected]. Did a friend forward you this email? Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Saturday morning.

KYIV’s mayor and former world champion boxer Vitali Klitschko entered the ring with Volodymyr Zelensky, accusing him of “authoritarianism”.

The former heavyweight blasted the wartime Ukrainian President for paralysing his city with “raids, interrogations and threats of fabricated criminal cases”.

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Klitschko said the president’s decision to use martial law to appoint a rival military administration in Kyiv stopped his city from making progress.

The 53-year-old mayor’s claims come after ex-comedian Zelensky was taunted earlier this year by Donald Trump and his right-hand-man JD Vance.

The Don tripled down on his criticism of Zelensky in a blistering Truth Social rampage in February, branding the Ukrainian President a “dictator” and a “moderately successful” comedian.

And just days after that, a furious Trump dramatically booted Zelensky out of the White House amid a seething row over US backing of the Ukraine war, sparking global chaos.

Trump has also accused wartime hero Zelensky of “refusing to have elections” – despite this being normal protocol under martial law.

Klitschko’s allegations towards Zelensky of authoritarianism come as his Kyiv administration faces a string of arrests.

Some of Klitschko’s deputies have been purged by the national anti-corruption bureau under an operation called Clean City.

The probe has exposed widespread corruption under the mayor’s watch – and seven of his subordinates have so far been arrested, with another three under investigation.

The former athlete has now lashed out at Zelensky, saying that the work of his city council has been plagued by fake criminal cases and threats.

He says that these hampered the ability of Kyiv authorities to make key decisions.

Kyiv’s mayor told The Times: “This is a purge of democratic principles and institutions under the guise of war.

“I said once that it smells of authoritarianism in our country. Now it stinks.”

He also accused President Zelensky of using military administrations across the country to take power from elected mayors.

This is not the first time ex-sportsman Klitschko – who is also said to have presidential ambitions – has called out his rival Zelensky.

The Kyiv mayor called out the Ukrainian President in February amid stalling peace negotiations.

Zelensky then hit back at the boxing champ, saying: “Klitschko is a great athlete, but I didn’t know he was a great speaker.”

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Klitschko said that his recent criticism of Zelensky has been protected by his celebrity status.

“Many of the mayors are intimidated, but my celebrity status is a protection,” he explained.

“You can fire the mayor of Chernihiv, but it is very difficult to fire the mayor of the capital who the whole world knows.”

He added: “That is why everything is being done to discredit and ruin my reputation.”

Political scientist Volodymyr Fesenko said that the conflict betwene the two rivals goes deeper.

The expert said it reflected concern about abuse of city funds in wartime, calling it a “response to manifestations of corruption in the Kyiv city administration”.

He told The Times: “During the war money should go primarily to defence, to protect the country, yet there is all this construction.”

Questioning the corruption in Kyiv, he added: “In some other cities, even stadiums are being built.

“In the Donbas there are large landscaping projects. The frontline is near by, and the money is not going to defensive structures, but to greenery.”

Kyiv locals have been baffled as luxury flats keep popping up instead of shelters or schools — often built on public land using a dodgy “toilet loophole”.

This starts with setting up a par-per-use toilet for example, to then receive something similar to squatters’ rights.

Many of the ten Kyiv officials under investigation have been charged with corruption relating to the approval of these land permits.

Klitschko’s ex-deputy has been charged with taking bribes to help war conscripts escape, while a former city councillor accused of embezzlement has fled to Austria.

He responded to claims of corruption under his watch, saying that he had sacked eight of the officials being investigated.

“I have 4,500 employees in this building alone and about 300,000 employees working for the city,” he said.

“Corruption cases sometimes happen, but we react harshly and quickly.”

He added: “We co-operate with law enforcement, provide all the necessary information and hope for an impartial investigation of all cases.”

Klitshcko’s main rival in Kyiv, Tymur Tkachenko, has slated the mayor for showing “weakness” during wartime.

Tkachenko told The Times: “Mr Klitschko could not close the brothel in the basement of the same building where he lives.”

He was referring to Tootsies, a notorious strip club raided and shut down by the security service last month as part of an investigation into sex trafficking. 

Klitschko hit back at claims he was tied to the strip club which is near a hotel complex he owns, calling it a “lie” meant to smear him.

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Staycee Dains was about a month into her job overseeing the Los Angeles city animal shelters when an employee openly defied her.

Dains asked the employee to clean a kennel. Instead, the employee picked up a hose and sprayed a dog in the face, Dains said.

Dains thought the employee should be fired, but she said the city’s personnel department recommended five days of leave.

Mayor Karen Bass hired Dains in June 2023 after promising to make L.A. “a national model for animal welfare” by turning around its troubled shelters, where dogs may live in overcrowded and dirty kennels and volunteers have complained that animals sometimes don’t get food and water.

But in an interview with The Times, Dains said she felt powerless to solve entrenched problems that included severe understaffing and employees who mistreated or neglected animals.

She said she was repeatedly told by the personnel department, which functions like a human resources department at a private company, that she couldn’t fire problem employees. She also clashed with one of the unions that represents shelter employees.

At one point, Dains even reached out to L.A. County prosecutors for help.

Meanwhile, as the overcrowding worsened, more dogs and cats were euthanized in city shelters under her watch than in the preceding years.

“We need to tell the unfiltered, unvarnished truth about what is happening in the shelters,” Dains said.

In August, after a little more than a year as Animal Services general manager, Dains went on paid leave. A few days later, a top Bass advisor told Dains that her last day would be Nov. 30 and that she was free to resign before then.

Zach Seidl, a Bass spokesperson, pushed back on Dains’ accusations.

“Many of these characterizations are misleading and some are just plain inaccurate,” he said in an email.

Dains, in a series of interviews, said the city does not provide enough funding to meet the basic needs of the animals in its six shelters.

During Bass’ first year in office, amid critical reporting by The Times and others about conditions in the shelters, the mayor offered an 18% budget increase — far less than the 56% the Animal Services department had requested. The following fiscal year, her budget proposal slightly lowered the department’s funding.

Last week, in passing a budget that closed a nearly $1-billion shortfall, the City Council spared Animal Services from major cuts.

Dains, who previously held top shelter jobs in San José and Long Beach, said her employees were desensitized to the suffering of the animals after witnessing it day after day. The understaffing was so bad that three people were responsible for 500 dogs: cleaning kennels, setting up adoptions and working with the medical team, she said.

“I couldn’t sleep knowing that animals were just in those hellholes suffering,” said Dains, who now works at a shelter system in Sacramento. “It was awful.”

Dains, who made about $273,000 a year in L.A., said she witnessed some of her employees “terrorizing” dogs by banging on their kennels, or spraying them with water to move them back. She told the employees to stop the behavior, but some said they had been trained to treat the dogs that way, she said.

To ensure that animals were fed and their enclosures cleaned, Dains suggested starting a schedule that tracked when each task was done. But a union representative worried that the information could be used to punish employees, Dains said.

Ultimately, Dains said, she dropped the proposal because of the opposition from the union, Laborers’ International Union of North America Local 300. A representative from the union declined to comment.

Dain said that personal entanglements and gossip among employees sometimes made it hard to hold them accountable.

Some supervisors had had sexual relationships with their subordinates, which led them to overlook the employees’ poor work performance, according to Dains. Others used the “dirt” they had on co-workers to protest when confronted about their own behavior, she said.

Dains said she suspected that some employees were sleeping during night shifts instead of cleaning cages or doing paperwork. She showed The Times a photo of dog beds arranged on the floor of a staff room like a “nest.”

She said she also witnessed employees watching videos on their phones, rather than working. Others ignored people who walked into the shelter looking to adopt a pet, she said. Some employees told her that colleagues failed to give food or water to cats and dogs.

At the same time, Dains said, other employees went “above and beyond constantly” to make up for those who didn’t pull their weight.

“There’s a significant portion of staff that just aren’t doing their jobs,” she said. “I saw this constantly.”

Dains put some of the blame on supervisors, who were “not requiring them to perform.”

When she tried to discipline supervisors, she faced pushback, she said.

After she put a supervisor on leave who was accused of bullying people, Laborers’ International Union of North America Local 300 filed a grievance against her, Dains said.

A spokesperson for the personnel department declined to comment.

At the same time, Dains acknowledged that she should have been tougher on some of the assistant general managers who reported directly to her. But she said she wanted to maintain working relationships with them.

It is a “tricky thing to do to start writing up executive-level managers that you are trying to work with,” she said.

A shelter employee, who requested anonymity because he didn’t have permission to talk to the media, agreed with Dains’ assessment.

“There’s no accountability, there’s no repercussions,” he said. “And the staff who do work have to work twice as hard.”

A report last year by Best Friends Animal Society, which highlighted the poor conditions in the shelters and suggested possible solutions, criticized Dains as the “biggest barrier” to improvement.

The shelters lacked written protocols, and the euthanasia policy “changed five times in the last year” without communication about the changes, the report said.

According to a Times analysis, the number of dogs euthanized at city shelters from January through September last year increased 72% compared with the same period the previous year. The number of dogs entering the shelters increased each year since 2022, but the number put to death far outpaced the population gain.

In the crowded conditions, animals started behaving poorly and suffered “mental and emotional breakdown,” according to the Best Friends report. That made them less likely to be adopted and more likely to be euthanized.

Dains, in her interview with The Times, defended her euthanasia decisions, arguing that it wasn’t safe for the animals, staff, volunteers or the public to “warehouse” dogs in kennels for months or years.

She said that there was no euthanasia policy when she arrived and that the department was creating one during her tenure.

Bass was Dains’ boss, but Dains’ main contact was Jacqueline Hamilton, deputy mayor of neighborhood services. Dains said she spoke often with Hamilton and told her about the personnel problems and other issues. But Hamilton didn’t offer any meaningful help and didn’t want her to publicize the poor conditions at the shelters, Dains said.

“I am not getting any movement or traction,” Dains told The Times, describing her work experience.

Seidl, the Bass spokesperson, said Dains “was given support to succeed, including assistance in communicating the status of the department to the public and decision makers.”

Dains said that shortly after she became general manager, she asked Deputy Dist. Atty. Kimberly Abourezk, who worked on animal cruelty cases, to send a letter to the mayor about poor conditions at the shelters.

Venusse D. Dunn, a spokesperson for the district attorney’s office, said Abourezk didn’t send the letter because she visited city animal shelters and didn’t find evidence of any crimes.

The office “is not in a position to tell another agency how to operate their facility,” Dunn said.

Annette Ramirez, a longtime Animal Services staffer, is now interim general manager. The “severe overcrowding crisis,” as the department described it in news release this month, continues.

It was the first and possibly the most dramatic act by Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass after she took office: declaring a city emergency on homelessness.

That move, backed by the City Council, gave Bass the power to award no-bid contracts to nonprofit groups and to rent hotels and motels for interim homeless housing. It also allowed Bass to waive regulations limiting the size and scale of certain types of affordable housing.

Now, two and a half years into Bass’ tenure, some on the council are looking to reassert their authority, by rescinding the homelessness emergency declaration.

Councilmember Tim McOsker said he wants to return city government to its normal processes and procedures, as spelled out in the City Charter. Leases, contracts and other decisions related to homelessness would again be taken up at public meetings, with council members receiving testimony, taking written input and ultimately voting.

“Let’s come back to why these processes exist,” McOsker said in an interview. “They exist so the public can be made aware of what we’re doing with public dollars.”

McOsker said that, even if the declaration is rescinded, the city will need to address “the remainder of this crisis.” For example, he said, the homeless services that the city currently provides could become permanent. The city could also push county agencies — which provide public health, mental health counseling and substance abuse treatment — to do more, McOsker said.

Bass, for her part, pushed back on McOsker’s efforts this week, saying through an aide that the emergency declaration “has resulted in homelessness decreasing for the first time in years, bucking statewide and nationwide trends.”

“The Mayor encourages Council to resist the urge of returning to failed policies that saw homelessness explode in Los Angeles,” said Bass spokesperson Clara Karger.

The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, also known as LAHSA, reported last summer that homelessness declined by 2.2% in the city of L.A., the first decrease in several years. The number of unsheltered homeless people — those who live in interim housing, such as hotels and motels, but do not have a permanent residence — dropped by more than 10% to 29,275, down from 32,680.

The push from McOsker and at least some of his colleagues comes at a pivotal time.

Last month, the L.A. County Board of Supervisors voted to pull more than $300 million from LAHSA, the city-county agency that provides an array of services to the unhoused population.

Meanwhile, the L.A. Alliance for Human Rights, which has been battling the city in court over its response to the crisis, is pushing for a federal judge to place the city’s homelessness initiatives into a receivership.

Matthew Umhofer, an attorney for the alliance, said the city has “very little to show” for its emergency declaration in terms of progress on the streets.

“It’s our view that a state of emergency around homelessness is appropriate, but that the city is not engaged in conduct that reflects the seriousness of the crisis — and is not doing what it needs to do in order to solve the crisis,” he said.

Inside Safe, Bass’ signature program to bring homeless people indoors, has moved 4,316 people into interim housing since it began in 2022, according to a LAHSA dashboard covering the period ending April 30. Of that total, nearly 1,040 went into permanent housing, while nearly 1,600 returned to homelessness.

Council members voted this week to extend the mayor’s homelessness emergency declaration for another 90 days, with McOsker casting the lone dissenting vote. However, they have also begun taking preliminary steps toward ending the declaration.

Last week, while approving the city budget, the council created a new bureau within the Los Angeles Housing Department to monitor spending on homeless services. On Tuesday, the council asked city policy analysts to provide strategies to ensure that nonprofit homeless service providers are paid on a timely basis, “even if there is no longer a declared emergency.”

The following day, McOsker and Councilmember Nithya Raman — who heads the council’s housing and homeless committee — co-authored a proposal asking city policy analysts to report back in 60 days with a plan addressing the “operational, legal and fiscal impacts” of terminating the emergency declaration.

That proposal, also signed by Councilmembers John Lee and Ysabel Jurado, now heads to Raman’s committee for deliberations.

While some on the council have already voiced support for repealing the emergency declaration, others say they are open to the idea — but only if there is a seamless transition.

“I want to make sure that if we do wind it down, that we do it responsibly,” said Councilmember Bob Blumenfield, who represents the southwest San Fernando Valley.

Blumenfield wants to protect Executive Directive 1, which was issued by Bass shortly after she declared the local emergency, by enshrining its provisions into city law. The directive lifts height limits and other planning restrictions for 100% affordable housing developments, which charge rents below market rates.

Raman said the city must confront a number of issues stemming from the homelessness crisis, such as improving data collection. But she, too, voiced interest in exploring the end of the emergency declaration.

“This is also an extremely important conversation, and it is one I am eager to have,” she said.

SIR Sadiq Khan has backed calls to decriminalise possessing small amounts of cannabis.

London’s mayor said a report published today gave “a compelling case”.

The London Drugs Commission says current cannabis laws are “disproportionate” and policing continues to focus on ethnic communities, hurting relations with cops.

The LDC, set up by Mr Khan in 2022, is calling for small quantities of natural cannabis to be decriminalised.

Importing, manufacturing or distributing the drug would still be illegal.

Labour’s Mr Khan said: “The report makes a compelling case for the decriminalisation of small quantities of natural cannabis which the Government should consider.”

Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said: “Cannabis is illegal for a reason. I oppose these plans.”

Responding to the report, Sir Sadiq said: “I’ve long been clear that we need fresh thinking on how to reduce the substantial harms associated with drug-related crime in our communities.

“The London Drugs Commission report makes a compelling, evidenced-based case for the decriminalisation of possession of small quantities of natural cannabis which the Government should consider.

“It says that the current sentencing for those caught in possession of natural cannabis cannot be justified given its relative harm and people’s experience of the justice system.

“We must recognise that better education, improved healthcare and more effective, equitable policing of cannabis use are long overdue.”

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When the world calls you “Little Al,” you’re going to do what it takes to be seen.

That’s what I thought after spending an hour last week at the Porsche Experience Center in Carson with the city’s former mayor, Albert Robles.

He’s not the Albert Robles who was found guilty 19 years ago of fleecing South Gate out of $20 million as treasurer — that’s Big Al Robles. Little Al is the one who has tried to be a political somebody in L.A. County for over 30 years, only to almost always fall short, his career careening from one controversy to another.

In 2006, he represented three men who moved to Vernon in an attempt to take over the City Council; they all lost. That same year, Little Al represented Big Al — no, they’re not actually related — at the latter’s sentencing and argued that his client deserved leniency since what he did was common in California politics. The presiding judge replied, “What you have just said is among the most absurd things I have ever heard.”

Then-Carson Mayor Al Robles during a Carson City Council meeting at City Hall in 2015.

(Los Angeles Times)

The year after he was elected Carson’s mayor in 2015, the Fair Political Practices Commission fined Robles $12,000 to resolve allegations of campaign finance law violations. Two years after that, Robles’ 24-year tenure on the board of directors for Water Replenishment District of Southern California — an obscure agency that provides water for 44 cities in L.A. County — ended after a Superior Court judge ruled he couldn’t hold that seat at the same time that he was serving as mayor.

He lost the mayoral seat in the 2020 general election after striking out in his bid for county supervisor in the primary election earlier that year. Robles has been unsuccessful in two other races since — for an L.A. County Superior Court seat in 2022, and a state Senate primary last year where he garnered just 8.5% of the vote.

“I keep thinking I’m done and then I’m not done,” the 56-year-old joked at one point in our conversation as Caymans and Carreras roared through the test track as we lounged in a nearby patio. “It’s kind of like they dragged me back in.”

We met to talk about his latest waltz with the headlines: He’s the lawyer for former Huntington Park Councilmember Esmeralda Castillo. She’s suing the city to get her seat back after an internal investigation found Castillo wasn’t a resident of the southeast L.A. County suburb. The council declared the seat vacant and then picked a replacement.

“Whether or not she lives in [Huntington Park], whether or not she’s an angel, whether or not she’s Charles Manson, that doesn’t matter: She was denied the process that all of us are entitled to,” Robles said.

Um, Manson?

He’s also representing another former Huntington Park council member, Valentin Amezquita, in another lawsuit against the city. That one demands the city hold a special election for Castillo’s former seat, which Amezquita unsuccessfully applied for.

Wait, aren’t the lawsuits contradicting each other?

A judge told him the same thing, Robles admitted. He told me he filed them to expose what he described as Huntington Park’s “hypocrisy” for supposedly following the city charter over the Castillo matter, but ignoring it when choosing her replacement.

“It’s just like what’s happening at the federal level, as far as I see it,” Robles grumbled. Earlier, he compared the lack of due process Castillo allegedly faced to Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Salvadoran national illegally deported by the Trump administration to his home country. “It’s frustrating.”

The more he talked, the more it became evident Robles wants to be seen as the crusader he’s always imagined himself to be and is annoyed that he’s not.

Carson Mayor Albert Robles speaks during a hearing about a proposed $480-million desalination plant in El Segundo in 2019 at the Carson Event Center.

(Dania Maxwell / Los Angeles Times)

His grievances are many.

He continues to hold a grudge against former L.A. County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley, whom he described as “corrupt … and I’ll call him that to his face.” Cooley, for his part, told The Times in 2013 that when Robles unsuccessfully ran against him in 2008, he was “probably the most unqualified candidate ever” because of his political past.

Robles bragged that he torpedoed Cooley’s career.

“It’s an exaggeration — over-embellishment — on my part, but I actually take credit for” Cooley losing his 2010 bid to become California attorney general. “Because when I ran against him, I caused him to spend money — money that he otherwise would have had for the AG race. And if [Cooley] had that additional half a million dollars that he had to spend for the DA race, he may have won.”

He thinks Latino politicians need to close ranks like he feels other ethnicities do.

Case in point: Operation Dirty Pond, an L.A. County district attorney probe into a long-delayed Huntington Park aquatic park. In February, investigators raided City Hall and the homes of seven individuals, including two former council members and two current ones. Robles said the probe doesn’t “make sense” and is further proof that Latino politicians are held to a higher standard than other politicians.

“If Esmeralda were Black or Asian, or hell — dare I say — even white, I think it would be reported differently. I honestly believe that. Because those communities are willing to set aside their differences for the better good, because they know that, hey, if one person is being mistreated, we all are.”

Once he realized I wanted to discuss his own political travails as much as of his clients, Robles said the better setting for our chat would’ve been the Albert Robles Center, a water treatment center in Pico Rivera that opened in 2019.

“That structure, you know, everyone loves it now. Everyone celebrates that it’s there. But surprise, surprise: not one environmental group, not one came out and supported our effort to build it up. … Nobody fought more for that building, for that project, than me.”

This set off more grievances.

Robles was bitter that L.A.’s “Latino power elite” hadn’t listened to him and invested more time and effort in the South Bay, where Latinos make up a majority of the population in many cities but have little political representation.

“They just see us as differently and the resources to organize and build up that political power base never materialized,” he said. “I don’t know if they see it as ‘Oh, those are more affluent communities, they don’t need our help.’ I don’t know.”


He was also “disheartened” by Black residents that opposed district elections in Carson that would have probably brought more Latinos onto the council. They were introduced in 2020 after a lawsuit alleged Latino voters were disenfranchised in the city. Since then, there hasn’t been a Latino elected to the City Council.

“We would have members of the African American community come up and say, ‘Well, we have a Latino mayor. We don’t need districts. Latinos should vote — stop speaking Spanish, and learn to vote.’ And then I would say, ‘You know, everything you’re saying is what whites said about Blacks in the South. And they’re like, ‘That’s not true.’
So, like, some forgot their history and now we seem to have fallen into the politics of, ‘If it’s not us, it can’t be them.’”

We climbed upstairs to the Porsche Experience Center’s viewing deck so Robles could pose for photos. Workers at the venue’s restaurant greeted him, drawing the first genuine smile Robles had flashed all afternoon.

He then mentioned that somewhere in the building was his name. I thought it would be on a plaque commemorating the debut of the Porsche Experience Center in 2016, when Robles was mayor. But it turned out to be his John Hancock alongside a bunch of others on a whiteboard in a room facing the parking lot.

The room was locked.

Robles wondered out loud if he should ask the staff to open it so we could take a better look. Instead, we peered through a window.

“It’s right there,” he told me, trying to describe where exactly it was among all the other signatures. “Well, you’re not familiar with it so you probably can’t see it.”

He could.

Only a few months ago, former Irvine Vice Mayor Tammy Kim had aspirations of returning to the City Council she previously served on for four years.

Now her immediate goal is to fight off charges that could put her in prison for several years.

The Orange County district attorney’s office announced Thursday afternoon that Kim was charged with 10 felonies tied to allegedly lying about her residency during her City Council tenure and while campaigning for mayor last fall.

Kim was formally charged with three felony counts of perjury by declaration, three felony counts of filing a false document, and one felony count each of a public official aiding the illegal casting of votes, of filing false nominations papers, of knowing of the registration of someone not entitled to vote and of voter registration fraud. She was also charged with a misdemeanor of making a false statement.

She could spend up to 11 years and two months in state prison and county jail if convicted on all counts.

She is scheduled to be arraigned Friday morning.

Kim briefly responded to a call from The Times, saying she was advised not to share too much per her attorney, Caroline Hahn.

“We’re entering a not guilty plea,” Kim said.

Hahn added that she and her client “planned to launch a vigorous defense” but did not answer further questions.

Kim is accused of using two fraudulent addresses while running for mayor in the November 2024 election and then in a City Council special election in early 2025, according to the criminal complaint. She owned a condo in the city’s 3rd District, where she had lived since 2015, according to a separate lawsuit filed against Kim to get her thrown off the City Council ballot.

Kim won election to the Irvine City Council in November 2020, receiving nearly 44,000 votes a 14-person, top-three-candidate race.

At that time, city elections in Irvine used an at-large voting system, meaning candidates could live anywhere in the city.

The city moved to district elections in the fall 2024, requiring council members to live in the districts they represent. Only voters from those districts could vote for those candidates.

Kim served until November 2024 when she ran for and ultimately lost a mayoral campaign to Councilmember Larry Agran by a margin of nearly 5,000 votes.

The district attorney’s office believes Kim improperly used an address to run for mayor, no longer claiming to live in the 3rd District condo she had owned for a decade.

To run for mayor, Kim changed her California driver’s license and her voter registration to a home in the 5th District, where she never lived, according to the criminal complaint.

The home belonged to a family Kim met through a Korean teaching class, the complaint alleges. Kim did not inform the family that she was using their address, according to the complaint.

She has been charged with certifying that address as her own under the penalty of perjury.

Kim eventually finished her campaign and voted in November’s mayoral race based out of the 5th Diistrict home.

Shortly after her defeat, Kim declared her candidacy in December to fill the now- vacant 5th District seat, which Agran left after winning the mayoral election.

Kim eventually found a room in another 5th District home on Jan. 10 and changed her California driver’s registration that same day, according to the complaint. She then filed new nomination paperwork with the new 5th District address, according to the complaint.

Later that month, former mayoral candidate Ron Scolesdang sued Kim, claiming that she was fraudulently using an incorrect address. Scolesdang had hired a private investigator to monitor Kim, according to that lawsuit.

Kim eventually dropped out of the race on Feb. 7, the same day a Superior Court judge removed her name from the ballot.

Betty Franco Martinez won the special election.

A former senior member of Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass’ staff has struck a plea deal with federal prosecutors, admitting he called in a fake bomb threat to City Hall late last year that was blamed on anti-Israel sentiment, federal prosecutors announced on Thursday.

Under the terms of the plea agreement, Brian Williams, a longtime law enforcement oversight official who served as Bass’ deputy mayor of public safety, agreed to plead guilty to a single count of threats regarding fire and explosives, which carries a maximum prison sentence of 10 years. He is expected to make his initial court appearance in the next few weeks.

“In an era of heated political rhetoric that has sometimes escalated into violence, we cannot allow public officials to make bomb threats,” U.S. Atty. Bill Essayli said in a news release announcing the deal. “My office will continue its efforts to keep the public safe, including from those who violate their duty to uphold the law.”

In a statement to The Times, Williams’ lawyer Dmitry Gorin said his client “has demonstrated his unreserved and full acceptance of responsibility for his actions.”

“This aberrational incident was the product of personal issues which Mr. Williams is addressing appropriately, and is not representative of his character or dedication to the city of Los Angeles,” Gorin said.

Williams was participating in a virtual meeting at City Hall on Oct. 3, 2024, when he used the Google Voice application on his personal phone to place a call to his city-issued cell phone, according to the plea agreement.

Williams admitted he left the meeting and called Scott Harrelson, a top aide to the LAPD chief. According to the plea, Williams falsely stated that he had just received a call on his city-issued cell phone from an unknown male caller who made a bomb threat against City Hall.

At no time did Williams intend to carry out the threat, according to the plea agreement.

About 10 minutes after calling the LAPD, according to the plea, Williams texted Bass and several other senior mayoral officials a message that read: “Bomb threat: I received phone call on my city cell at 10:48 am this morning. The male caller stated that ‘he was tired of the city support of Israel, and he has decided to place a bomb in City Hall. It might be in the rotunda.’ I immediately contacted the chief of staff of LAPD, they are going to send a number of officers over to do a search of the building and to determine if anyone else received a threat.”

Soon after, LAPD officers searched the building and did not locate any suspicious packages or devices, according to the agreement. Williams told the officers that a man called and said: “I’m tired of the city support of Israel, I have decided to place a bomb in City Hall. It might be in the Rotunda.”

Williams showed the officers the record of an incoming call, which appeared as a blocked number on his city-issued phone. According to the plea deal, that call was the one Williams had placed from Google Voice.

Williams followed up with the mayor and other high-ranking officials some time later with several other texts, saying that there was no need to evacuate City Hall.

“I’m meeting with the threat management officers within the next 10 minutes. In light of the Jewish holidays, we are taking this thread, a little more seriously. I will keep you posted,” the text read, according to federal authorities.

Federal authorities revealed they were looking into Williams last December, when FBI agents raided his home in Pasadena. It sent shock waves through City Hall and the Police Department, where many expressed incredulity at the prospect of a respected government official faking a bomb threat.

Before the case was turned over to the FBI, detectives from the LAPD’s Major Crimes Division conducted surveillance that led them to conclude that Williams was responsible for the bomb threat, sources previously told The Times.

Williams, who was the deputy mayor overseeing the police and fire departments, was on leave because of the criminal investigation in January when Pacific Palisades was engulfed in flames, killing 12 people and destroying more than 6,000 structures.

“Like many, we were shocked when these allegations were first made and we are saddened by this conclusion,” said Zach Seidl, a spokesperson for Bass.

Bass named a former FBI official to replace Williams in early April. The official, Robert Clark, led anti-gang efforts in Los Angeles during his time with the Bureau before retiring in 2016 and serving as a law enforcement consultant and director of public safety for the city of Columbus, Ohio, among other roles.

Williams has held a variety of government positions spanning more than three decades. He had spent nearly two years as a deputy mayor in Bass’ office, working on issues such as police hiring, public safety spending and the search for a new police chief.

Previously, Williams was a deputy mayor in the administration of Mayor James K. Hahn, who held office from 2001 to 2005. Before that, he spent several years as an assistant city attorney in Los Angeles.

From 2016 to 2023, Williams was the executive director of the Sheriff’s Civilian Oversight Commission, according to his LinkedIn page.

Working in Bass’ office, Williams oversaw the Police Department, the Fire Department, Port Police, Airport Police and the city’s emergency management agency, according to his hiring announcement. He was also a member of the mayor’s inner circle, playing a key role in the monthslong search for a new police chief that ended with the hiring of Jim McDonnell.

When Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman was sworn in last year, Williams was the city official chosen to address the audience on behalf of the mayor. He was also a fixture at police graduations, news conferences, community meetings and other events across the city, often wearing a well-pressed suit and a bowtie.

Williams’ attorney Gorin called his client “a career public servant who has worked closely with law enforcement, community groups, public safety and prosecuting agencies throughout his many years in local government and has devoted his life to the service of others.”

Akil Davis, the assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles field office, said in a statement that Williams “not only betrayed the residents of Los Angeles, but responding officers, and the integrity of the office itself, by fabricating a bomb threat.”

“Government officials are held to a heightened standard as we rely on them to safeguard the city,” the statement read. “I’m relieved that Mr. Williams has taken responsibility for his inexplicable actions.”

Federal prosecutors alleged Democratic Rep. LaMonica McIver of New Jersey pushed and grabbed officers while attempting to block the arrest of the Newark, N.J., mayor outside an immigration detention facility, according to charges in court papers unsealed on Tuesday.

In an eight-page complaint, interim U.S. Atty. Alina Habba’s office said McIver was protesting the removal of Newark Mayor Ras Baraka from a congressional tour of the Delaney Hall detention center in Newark on May 9.

The complaint says she attempted to stop the arrest of the mayor and pushed into agents for Homeland Security Investigations and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. She faces two counts of assaulting, resisting and impeding an officer.

McIver has denied any wrongdoing and has accused federal agents of escalating the situation by arresting the mayor. She denounced the charge as “purely political” and said prosecutors are distorting her actions in an effort to deter legislative oversight.

Habba had charged Baraka with trespassing after his arrest but dismissed the allegation on Monday when she said in a social media post that she instead was charging the congresswoman.

Prosecuting McIver is a rare federal criminal case against a sitting member of Congress for allegations other than fraud or corruption.

The case instantly taps into a broader and more consequential struggle between a Trump administration engaged in overhauling immigration policy and a Democratic Party scrambling to respond.

Within minutes of Habba’s announcement, McIver’s Democratic colleagues cast the prosecution as an infringement on lawmakers’ official duties to serve their constituents and an effort to silence their opposition to an immigration policy that helped propel the president back into power but now has emerged as a divisive fault line in American political discourse.

Members of Congress are authorized by law to go into federal immigration facilities as part of their oversight powers, even without advance notice. Congress passed a 2019 appropriations bill that spelled out the authority.

A nearly two-minute clip released by the Homeland Security Department shows McIver on the facility side of a chain-link fence just before the arrest of the mayor on the street side of the fence. She and uniformed officials go through the gate and she joins others shouting they should circle the mayor. The video shows McIver in a tightly packed group of people and officers. At one point, her left elbow and then her right elbow push into an officer wearing a dark face covering and an olive green uniform emblazoned with the word “Police” on it.

It isn’t clear from body camera video whether that contact was intentional, incidental or a result of jostling in the chaotic scene.

The complaint says she “slammed” her forearm into an agent and then tried to restrain the agent by grabbing him.

Tom Homan, President Trump’s top border advisor, said during an interview on Fox News on Tuesday that “she broke the law and we’re going to hold her accountable.”

“You can’t put hands on an ICE employee,” he said. “We’re not going to tolerate it.”

McIver, 38, first came to Congress in September in a special election after the death of Rep. Donald Payne Jr. left a vacancy in the 10th District. She was then elected to a full term in November. A Newark native, she served as the president of the Newark City Council from 2022 to 2024 and worked in the city’s public schools before that.

House Democratic leaders decried the criminal case against their colleague in a lengthy statement in which they called the charge “extreme, morally bankrupt” and lacking “any basis in law or fact.”

Catalini, Richer and Tucker write for the Associated Press.

Baraka’s defence team say they will file a motion to dismiss trespassing charges pursued by the Trump administration.

Lawyers in the United States have said they will file a motion to dismiss trespassing charges directed at Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, following his arrest during a protest at an immigrant detention centre in New Jersey.

During a hearing in a New Jersey federal court on Thursday, Baraka’s defence team said that they believed he was being selectively prosecuted by the administration of President Donald Trump.

“We believe that the mayor himself was targeted here,” said Rahul Agarwal, one of Baraka’s lawyers.

“The mayor was invited into the facility on Friday,” Agarwal added, pointing out that Baraka was “outside the facility when he was ultimately handcuffed and detained”.

Baraka himself attended the hearing and spoke to supporters outside afterwards. On social media, he framed the criminal complaint as a sham.

“Today, the U.S. Attorney General’s office chose to move forward with a trial over trespassing charges at Delaney Hall. While the charges are unwarranted, we will fight this,” Baraka wrote. “This is bigger than me. It’s about all of us.”

The incident is the latest to underscore growing tensions between the Trump administration and local authorities who oppose his immigration crackdown.

Civil liberties groups have argued that the government is using its power to intimidate or coerce officials who do not align with its priorities on immigration.

The Trump administration’s complaint centres on the events of May 9, when lawmakers and protesters showed up at Delaney Hall, a new detention facility in Newark run by the private company GEO Group.

Baraka has long opposed the 1,000-bed facility, saying it lacks the proper permitting, and he has appeared outside its gates multiple times since its May 1 opening.

On the day of his arrest, Baraka joined three members of the US Congress — LaMonica McIver, Bonnie Watson Coleman and Rob Menendez — who arrived unannounced “to conduct lawful congressional oversight” of the facility, according to their statements afterwards.

Agarwal said that Baraka was the only person arrested in the incident. Baraka has maintained that he was invited in to the facility and shared a video on social media on Wednesday that he says shows a guard opening the gate to allow him inside the premises.

“Mayor Baraka was at Delaney Hall to join a tour of the detention facility with a congressional delegation as part of their authorized oversight responsibilities,” the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said in a statement on the arrest of Baraka last week.

“Mayor Baraka — and lawmakers across New Jersey and the country — are being targeted by the Trump administration for refusing to be complicit with its ongoing violations of due process.”

However, the government’s criminal complaint alleges that Baraka entered and remained inside the private facility despite multiple warnings to leave. He faces up to 30 days in prison.

“We believe there’s clear evidence that the mayor was within the property,” Assistant US Attorney Stephen Demanovich told US Magistrate Judge Andre Espinosa.

Video of the incident shows an official behind the gate at Delaney Hall telling Baraka he must return outside because “you are not a congressmember”.

Judge Espinosa on Thursday told Baraka he needed to be processed by US Marshals Service after proceedings came to an end.

The Associated Press said the request sparked a moment of confusion in the courtroom. Baraka pointed out that he had already been processed after his arrest, but ultimately agreed to give his fingerprints and take a mugshot a second time.

“They’re trying their best to humiliate and degrade me as much as they possibly can,” said Baraka. “I feel like what we did was completely correct. We did not violate any laws. We stood up for the constitution of this country, the constitution of the state of New Jersey.”

Baraka is considered a leading candidate in the 2025 New Jersey governor’s race.

NEW YORK — Former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has agreed to pay a $329,794 fine to settle an ethics board’s complaint that he misspent public funds on his security detail during his brief, failed run for U.S. president.

The deal, announced Wednesday by the city’s Conflicts of Interest Board, is the costliest repayment order in the ethics board’s history. But it allows de Blasio to avoid an even steeper penalty of $475,000 that was previously imposed, a reduction the board said came in light of the former mayor’s “financial situation.”

In exchange, de Blasio agreed to drop his appeal of the board’s finding. And for the first time, he admitted that he received written warning that his out-of-state security expenses could not legally be covered by city taxpayers.

“In contradiction of the written guidance I received from the Board, I did not reimburse the City for these expenses,” de Blasio wrote in the settlement, adding: “I made a mistake and I deeply regret it.”

The payments concern the $319,794.20 in travel-related expenses — including airfare, lodging, meals — that de Blasio’s security detail incurred while accompanying him on trips across the country during his presidential campaign in 2019. He will also pay a $10,000 fine.

The campaign elicited a mix of mockery and grousing by city residents, who accused the Democrat of abandoning his duties as second-term mayor for the national spotlight. It was suspended within four months.

Under the agreement, de Blasio must pay $100,000 immediately, followed by quarterly installments of nearly $15,000 for the next four years. If he misses a payment, he will be deemed in default and ordered to pay the full $475,000.

The funds will eventually make their way back into the city treasury, according to a spokesperson for the Conflicts of Interest Board.

An attorney for de Blasio, Andrew G. Celli Jr., declined to comment on the settlement.

De Blasio had previously argued that forcing him to cover the cost of his security detail’s travel violated his 1st Amendment rights by creating an “unequal burden” between wealthy candidates and career public servants.

Since leaving office in 2021, de Blasio has worked as a lecturer at multiple universities, most recently the University of Michigan, and delivered paid speeches in Italy.

Offenhartz writes for the Associated Press.

May 14 (UPI) — Democrat John Ewing Jr. defeated incumbent Republican Omaha Mayor Jean Stothert to become Omaha’s first Black mayor.

Ewing, a former Omaha deputy police chief and current Douglas County, Neb., treasurer, defeated Stothert by an unofficial margin of 48,693 to 37,758, as reported by the Douglas County Election Commission. The commission will canvass and make the election official on May 29.

Ewing will also be the first Democrat to serve as Omaha mayor since 2013. Stothert had won three consecutive terms before this loss. Stothert had been the first woman elected city mayor.

Democrats also won four of the seven City Council seats.

The mayor’s office is nonpartisan, but the candidates’ parties came into play as an ad from Stothert stated that “Ewing stands with radicals who want to allow boys in girls’ sports.” KETV-TV reported that Ewing said in response that “Nobody’s ever brought that question up. So I believe it’s a made-up issue by Jean Stothert and the Republican Party.”

Ewing ran an ad that connected Stothert to President Donald Trump, to which she told KETV that “Donald Trump does not call me and ask for advice.”

Omaha and its suburbs make up Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District, and it carries a presidential electoral vote, which can be won by a party different than who may carry the state-wide election and its four electoral votes.

The state generally leans Republican, but Democrats have won the 2nd Congressional District with some regularity, as Kamala Harris did in 2024, Joe Biden in 2020 and Barack Obama in 2008. On the other hand, Republican Donald Trump won in 2016 and GOP member Mitt Romney took the vote in 2012.