What Happened
Attendance moved between 13 and 15 through the day. Council Member Curren Price Jr. was recused from Items 11 and 21 and left the room for both. The last votes of the session were taken with 11 members present.
Most of the calendar cleared in groups without dissent, including Items 4 through 7, 14, 23 through 27 and 29, and a later block covering Items 1, 2, 30, 31, 33 through 35, 37 through 41, 45 through 48 and 50 through 55. Two closed-session settlements were reported out and approved without dissent: $287,500 in City of Los Angeles v. Bruce Simon and Carol Simon (Item 56), and $1,553,101.82 in United States ex rel. Mayling and Fair Housing Council of San Fernando Valley v. City of Los Angeles (Item 57).
Council Member Eunisses Hernandez called Item 9 for comments to describe a $2 million U.S. Department of Transportation grant for design and engineering on a traffic study in the Westlake–MacArthur Park neighborhood, one of two grants including $500,000 from SCAG for outreach. "This project is not going to move forward until we have that community engagement," she said, describing it as part of a larger effort to open up "one of our poorest neighborhoods in Los Angeles" by centering "people's needs over the use of cars." It passed without dissent, as did her Item 42 motion to streamline Al Fresco outdoor dining permits, which she said forced small businesses to pay "tens of thousands of dollars for consultants to assist with the application" on top of the fees, turning "a resource that should be a lifeline" into something that was "drowning small businesses."
Council Member Bob Blumenfield spoke to Items 12 and 13, both adopted without dissent. Item 12 expands shared housing in Council District 3 and master-leases the sites; he cautioned that the city needs to work closely with the City Administrative Officer on how it scales master leasing so the state does not later deny funds on the grounds that general funds are already being used. Item 13 brings a sober-living volunteer program to a cabin community, which he credited to a constituent and called "Rowan's motion": residents "have expressed the need to stay sober but they find it hard with others using," and the city has "a willing partner who wants to try something new." Blumenfield also raised a process objection on Item 22, which moved $1.2 million from the Unappropriated Balance for a gang injunction curfew program. He said he had no objection to the spending but wanted to know "what changed since Wednesday," when the Financial Status Report was heard without it. The CAO replied that at the time of issuing the report "we did not believe it needed to move," but had no objection. Item 22 passed without dissent.
Items 15 through 20 — parking and street-signage resolutions. Hernandez called Items 15 through 18 special for a single separate vote, and they were adopted together 12-2 with Hernandez and Hugo Soto-Martinez opposed. The four are Transportation Committee resolutions: "No Stopping Anytime" signs on Canoga Avenue in Council District 3 (Item 15, CF 24-1224); replacing an oversize-vehicle restriction on Foothill Boulevard in Council District 7 with "No Stopping Any Time" signage and red curbs (Item 16, CF 24-1381); the same treatment on Filbert Street and Foothill Boulevard (Item 17, CF 24-1438); and new oversize-vehicle parking prohibitions under Municipal Code Section 80.69.4 on Saticoy, Los Alimos, Yolanda and Lindley in Council District 12 (Item 18, CF 24-0008-S26).
Items 19 and 20 followed individually. Item 19 (CF 24-0008-S27), a Park–Lee resolution restricting oversize-vehicle parking on McLaughlin Avenue and Campus Drive in Council District 11 as amended by a Park–Harris-Dawson motion, was adopted 14-1 over Soto-Martinez. Immediately afterward the clerk asked Hernandez whether she wanted to clarify her vote on Item 19; she said yes, and the clerk restated the result as 13 ayes and 2 noes. The official record still carries the 14-1 tally. Item 20 (CF 24-0008-S28), covering Sherman Way, Winnetka, Glade, Elkwood and Saticoy in Council District 3 as amended by Blumenfield–Rodriguez, was adopted 13-2 with Hernandez and Soto-Martinez opposed. Taken together, this is six oversize-vehicle and no-stopping measures in a single session, opposed consistently by the same two members.
Item 32 — new 41.18 enforcement zones (CF 24-4118-S12). Hernandez called it special for a separate vote, no member asked to be heard, and it was adopted 9-4, the widest split of the day, with Hernandez, Ysabel Jurado, Nithya Raman and Soto-Martinez opposed. The Blumenfield–Park resolution designates two Council District 3 intersections — De Soto Avenue at Deering Circle, and Deering Circle at Independence Avenue — for enforcement under Municipal Code Section 41.18(c) against sitting, lying, sleeping, or storing personal property in the public right-of-way, and directs the responsible departments to post notices and begin enforcement once the posting period expires.
Item 21 (CF 22-1545-S24) approves and appropriates $3,332,333.70 from the Inside Safe Reserve in the General City Purposes Fund to the Homelessness Emergency Account, on the 21st status report as of October 31, 2024. Price was recused and Council Member Monica Rodriguez called it for a separate vote; it passed 12-1 with Rodriguez opposed.
Item 44 (CF 23-1348) establishes an interim housing bed rate of $80 per bed per night effective January 1, 2025 and instructs the CAO to identify funding and the contract authorities needed to implement it. Raman called it for comments and used them to answer the accountability objections directly, telling colleagues that site-by-site and program-by-program outcome data is now available to every office through LAHSA and her own, and that she had used it in her district to improve results at the worst-performing site. "That is a marked change from the way in which the system was operating just a few months ago," she said. She then made a broader point about where scrutiny falls: "We talk a lot about accountability here... I welcome that accountability. I also would welcome it from other departments that we're funding here in the city about how money is spent. I want to ask these questions about every dollar spent, but we don't do that — we only do that for this sector. And I think that's a real problem." The item was adopted 13-1 over John Lee; Rodriguez then asked to be recorded as a no, and the clerk restated the result as 12-2, though the official record retains the 13-1 tally.