What Happened
Eleven to fifteen members were present through the February 10, 2026 meeting. Council Member Heather Hutt hosted a presentation from Legends of Basketball (the NBA's retired-players association) marking NBA All-Star weekend, announcing roughly $70,000 in direct investment in Council District 10 nonprofits and small businesses, including a $25,000 Dollar General grant for a reading program at Sienna Elementary School and $60,000 in Spectrum-funded marketing support for four local businesses.
Council adopted a large slate of committee reports without dissent, including a Charter Communications citywide cable-services contract, a non-profit leasing policy for city-owned facilities, and the appointment of Rudy Ortega Jr., the first Native Californian to serve on the Board of Water and Power Commissioners, whom Council Member Monica Rodriguez praised for his work on undergrounding utility lines in the northeast San Fernando Valley.
Three Transportation Committee reports establishing oversize-vehicle parking restrictions in Council Districts 7, 10, and 12 (Items 21-23) passed together 12-3, with Council Members Eunisses Hernandez, Ysabel Jurado, and Hugo Soto-Martinez voting no; no floor debate preceded the roll call.
A City Attorney ballot measure applying the city's cannabis business tax to unlicensed cannabis operations (Item 35) passed 14-1, with Rodriguez voting no; no floor debate accompanied the vote. A companion measure applying the transient occupancy tax (TOT) to online travel companies (Item 36) passed as part of a larger unanimous block vote.
A separate ballot measure raising the TOT hotel-bed tax rate (Item 37) drew extended debate over competing options for how much to raise it and for how long. Council Member Tim McOsker, who had authored an earlier version proposing a 4% increase through the 2028 Olympics stepping down to 2% afterward, said he would instead support an alternate version (Option B, moved by Council Members Adrin Nazarian and Hutt) raising the rate 2% through the Olympics and reducing it to 1% afterward; that motion passed 14-1, with Council Member Imelda Padilla voting no. Council Member Eunisses Hernandez then moved a competing amendment, seconded by Bob Blumenfield, to instead set a flat, permanent 2% increase with no scheduled step-down, arguing a temporary rate change risked confusing voters and could leave the city better positioned to cover future costs such as the convention center expansion; that amendment failed 7-8, with Hutt, Jurado, John Lee, McOsker, Nazarian, Traci Park, Rodriguez, and Katy Yaroslavsky voting no. The council then re-adopted Option B as the final, controlling version of the ballot measure, 13-2, with Lee and Rodriguez voting no. Rodriguez said she opposed the increase in part because the council had not first addressed misuse of homelessness funding, and renewed her call to apply new tax disincentives to short-term rentals rather than hotels. Hotel-industry representatives, including the Central City Association, the Hotel Association of Los Angeles, and the LA Area Chamber of Commerce, urged the council in public comment to reject any TOT increase, warning it would make Los Angeles the most expensive major U.S. hotel market and discourage World Cup and Olympics visitors from booking rooms within city limits.
Public comment was dominated by members of the Trans Latina Coalition's Angels of Change program, who repeatedly urged the council to formally introduce and fund the TGI Wellness and Equity Initiative, a proposed two-year, $4 million investment in transgender-led community organizations, saying the proposal has had committee discussion but has not been placed on the council agenda for a vote. Several fast-food workers, including employees of McDonald's, again urged passage of the fast food fair work ordinance, describing retaliation for requesting schedule changes. A photographer documenting the city's response to ICE told the council that an LAPD assistant chief had told the Police Commission the department "merely monitored" a recent student walkout, which he said was false based on his own observation of officers using less-lethal munitions and baton strikes on the crowd.