What Happened
Fourteen of fifteen members were present for the September 16, 2026 meeting, with Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson presiding; Heather Hutt was absent for every recorded vote. Council Member Curren D. Price Jr. recused himself from Item 3 (CF 25-0924), citing his status as a landlord, and from Item 34 (CF 23-1022-S40), citing his wife's employer's prior work with a listed organization; both items were taken while he was off the floor. At the clerk's request and without objection, Items 10, 38 and 39 were held on the desk for a joint presentation, and Item 23 (CF 26-1200-S52), the appointment of Anabel Cuevas to the Board of Civil Service Commissioners, was continued to Tuesday, September 22.
The bulk of the 39-item agenda moved in consent rolls with no debate. Among the items adopted unanimously: the second consideration of the ordinance raising Los Angeles Zoo admission fees by $2.00 (Item 1, CF 26-0600-S22); a report on rental assistance programs at HACLA-owned and administered properties (Item 4, CF 26-0299); the two Boyle Heights fire items described below (Items 8 and 9); the Port Security Grant Program award (Item 14, CF 26-1040); the FY2021 Connect and Protect behavioral health response grant extension (Item 17, CF 22-0282); the Internet Crimes Against Children task force supplemental award (Item 18, CF 25-0015); the FEMA Urban Search and Rescue continuation (Item 19, CF 24-0641); the reappointment of Rasha Shields to the Board of Police Commissioners (Item 22, CF 23-1200-S8); the whistleblower and anti-retaliation policy report (Item 27, CF 26-1199); and the Contract Financing Pilot Program expansion (Item 33, CF 24-0710). Council Member Bob Blumenfield moved the Housing Committee report — to note and file — on Item 6 (CF 21-1230-S7), the report on incorporating SB 4's labor standards and affordability requirements into the city's local implementation, and moved the Budget and Finance Committee reports on Items 21 (CF 26-0467, Bureau of Street Services permit and application fee adjustments) and 24; all passed 14-0. Council Member Ysabel Jurado moved the Ad Hoc Committee for Boyle Heights Fire Recovery report on Item 9, which passed 14-0.
Two appointments to the Board of Harbor Commissioners drew extended floor tributes and passed without opposition. Council Member Tim McOsker introduced Sheila Lewis, a Harbor City resident and longtime Watts Labor Community Action Committee executive, noting he had been advocating for a nominee directly from the labor movement and calling her work on job creation and reentry programs central to making the port "work for the communities that surround the port"; Item 11 (CF 26-1200-S57) passed 15-0. McOsker also introduced Ishmun "Lee" Williams for reappointment (Item 13, CF 23-1200-S102), framing him as the embodiment of the charter measure guaranteeing one San Pedro and one Wilmington representative on the Harbor Commission; that item passed 14-0.
Item 5 — Small NOAH contract with Genesis LA (CF 26-1179), adopted 14-0-1. Council approved a contract with Genesis LA Economic Growth Corporation to administer the Small Naturally Occurring Affordable Housing program, funded by Measure ULA, as amended by Motion 5-A (Padilla–Lee) plus verbal amendments Council Member Imelda Padilla made from the floor, replacing "recommendation" with "awards" and "prior to making awards" with "on a quarterly basis" in Instruction No. 5. Council Member Eunisses Hernandez urged an aye vote, noting Genesis LA has administered over $167 million in affordable housing loans and more than $10 million for the pilot program, and framing the roughly $102 million program as a way to reach buildings "on the brink of losing their affordable covenant" before they are lost: "This is the moment ULA was created for."
Council Member Traci Park pressed the LA Housing Department at length, saying she had "tried to sound the alarm" in committee about authorizing more than $100 million to a single contractor with no caps on administrative costs or per-unit costs, no staffing plan for Genesis LA, and unresolved questions about prequalification criteria, forgivable loan terms and underwriting standards. Her stated reason for moving the item forward was a correction: she said her committee takeaway — that LAHD would settle those details later without further Council involvement — "was a misstatement, that was incorrect," and that LAHD and Genesis LA will return to Council with guidelines, loan terms and underwriting standards before any funding round opens. LAHD staff confirmed that, citing Section 3.2 of the adopted ULA program guidelines and an annual return to Council, and stated the administrative fee is capped at 2 percent with 98 percent of the contract value going to acquisition and rehabilitation capital. Park said she still does not know the maximum loan limits. Council Member Monica Rodriguez echoed the oversight concerns, invoking LAHSA — "we can't afford any more missteps when it comes to expenditures of taxpayer dollars" — and told the contractor "all eyes are on you." The item first tabulated 13-1 before Hernandez was asked whether she wished to be recorded as a no; the Council President noted the voting system "is not reliable" today, and the clerk restated the result as 14 ayes.
Item 16 — law enforcement grant report (CF 26-1012), adopted 11-3-1. Council Member Hugo Soto-Martinez called the item special for a separate vote. It was taken with no floor debate and first tabulated 12-2; Jurado then asked to be recorded as a no, and the clerk restated the result as 11 ayes and 3 noes. Hernandez, Soto-Martinez and Jurado voted against. Earlier public comment had objected to the meeting's slate of law enforcement grants generally, and to this item's de-escalation training funding in particular.
Item 35 — Regional Threat Assessment Center grant (CF 21-0460-S5), adopted 9-5-1. The FY2026-27 RTAC subaward and funding agreement drew the meeting's only substantive floor opposition. Soto-Martinez said he had voted no in committee over unanswered questions about fusion centers — the federal information-sharing sites that include LAPD — and that they "could be used by the federal government to carry out their fascist agenda." He said that when the department was asked in committee what safeguards exist to ensure federal requests don't violate city policy, the answer was that they trust the federal government's integrity: "The integrity of the Department of Homeland Security. That does not mean much to me." He added that he asked to visit a site and was told he could not, because the FBI-run centers require clearance — "We're being asked to vote on an issue with no understanding of what we could be approving" — and cited a congressional report finding the centers "sometimes endangered liberties and more often than not are unrelated to terrorism," and a separate study finding they "have repeatedly targeted minority communities and protest movements under the guise of counterterrorism." He thanked Hernandez for raising the questions in committee. The electronic vote tabulated 12-2, then 10-4 after Jurado and Raman asked to be recorded as noes; the clerk ultimately took a voice vote, producing 9 ayes and 5 noes. Voting against: Curren D. Price Jr., Eunisses Hernandez, Hugo Soto-Martinez, Nithya Raman and Ysabel Jurado. No member spoke in favor.
Item 34 — FY2026-27 Second Homelessness Funding Report (CF 23-1022-S40), adopted 12-1-2. Taken while Price was recused, with Jurado moving both the Homelessness and Health Committee report as amended and the Budget and Finance Committee report; Blumenfield withdrew his earlier motion as duplicative. There was no floor debate. Monica Rodriguez cast the sole no vote. Council later sent the item forthwith without objection.
Boyle Heights fire recovery (Items 8, 9, 36 and 37). Jurado called Item 36 special to describe a four-item package responding to the Lineage fire. Item 36 (CF 26-0906-S12) requests an immediate allocation of up to $10 million for pest control, case management, utility bill assistance, emergency financial aid and other unmet recovery needs. Item 37 (CF 26-0906-S13) redirects up to $940,000 in existing fire recovery funds to help affected workers and businesses access relief, with no General Fund impact. Item 8 (CF 26-0906-S10) withholds rebuild and reconstruction permits for 1400 South Los Palos Street pending confirmation the fire investigation is complete and evidence-preservation needs are met, which Jurado described as pausing a "like for like rebuild while the fire investigation remains active." Item 9 (CF 26-0906-S11) directs a report on raising citation and fine levels for violations on projects with significant community impact, giving the city tools to hold "multibillion dollar corporations" to cleanup deadlines. She also announced a new motion to review oversight of solar panel safety systems, including rapid shutoff. Items 36 and 37 passed 14-0.
El Niño preparedness (Items 10, 38 and 39). Held on the desk and taken together for a presentation. Harris-Dawson cited an over-90-percent probability of one of the strongest El Niño systems "we've seen in our lifetimes." National Weather Service meteorologist Todd Hall cautioned that El Niño "stacks the deck for a stormy season but it does not predetermine the disaster," and that site-specific forecasts require a few days' lead time. Emergency Management Department General Manager Carol Park and staff described twice-weekly NWS briefings, a monthly watershed group running since July, executive seminars in October, and evacuation alerting through Notify LA and wireless emergency alerts. Board of Public Works President Steve Cane reported more than 31,000 catch basins cleaned or maintained since April, nearly $5 million spent cleaning catch basins in burn-scar areas, and erosion control at 25 hillside locations across Council Districts 1, 4, 5, 10 and 11, while warning that "localized flooding may still occur" because rainfall can exceed system capacity regardless of maintenance.
Park used the presentation to press on trash reaching the ocean, handing out photographs of post-storm beaches and calling it "an environmental justice issue, period," and asked what is being done to stabilize the Venice Pier; Bureau of Engineering staff said repair design is going to bid. McOsker asked for a sea level rise report covering port inundation overlaid with the Vincent Thomas Bridge closure from November 1, 2026 to February 29, 2027. Jurado pressed on emergency text alerts — EMD confirmed longer English and Spanish messages are now supported — and on unpaved hillside streets in El Sereno's Omaha Heights, where she said residents must carry trash cans down for pickup, an ambulance would not go up the street, and departments are "at an impasse," with one saying "it's not even our job to do it." Bureau of Street Services said it has purchased two mini profilers for hillside paving and would report back. Hernandez asked LA Sanitation General Manager June Kim Lopez to explain Hyperion's vulnerability; Lopez said more than half of the city's 6,700 miles of sewer lines are over 50 years old and about a third over 90, that 122-year-old Hyperion handles about 85 percent of flows and serves 29 surrounding cities, and that a failure would cost "in the billions." Hernandez asked when the 29 outside entities were last charged fees and whether the city could begin charging them. Street Services reported roughly 20,000 potholes during the 2023 storms and a goal of 1,500 in a 30-day period. Rodriguez urged the city to push LA County to perform sediment removal behind Valley dams, delayed more than 20 years: "We're going to be paying the price for their failure."
A separate set of motions, including Item 30-A, passed 11-0 late in the meeting as members left the floor.
Public Comment
Housing organizations dominated the substantive comment, all supporting Item 5 and Measure ULA implementation. Speakers identified themselves with TRUST South LA, the El Sereno Community Land Trust and Coalition, a Boyle Heights community land trust, the LA Housing Training Hub (Measure ULA's capacity-building partner) and Tierra Libre. They thanked Housing Committee Chair Padilla for focusing on outreach, tenant engagement and leadership, cited the LA County community land trust program's acquisition of 8 buildings and 83 homes as proof of what moving quickly can do, and argued, as TRUST South LA's director put it, that "we cannot build ourselves out of the housing crisis."
Residents affected by the Lineage fire in Boyle Heights spoke through Spanish interpretation, identifying with Comunidad and a local colectivo. Evelyn Montano described repeated hospital visits and a chronic cough since the fire; Trinidad said her children had also been hospitalized. Both asked Council to approve Jurado's motions, to ensure the money reaches affected families directly, and — in Trinidad's case — not to limit eligibility to a three-mile radius or specific zip codes, "because the pollution and smells affected a larger area."
The meeting's first speaker objected to the full slate of Homeland Security grants flowing to LAPD, noting the department already has a $3.6 billion budget while other departments lose funding, and opposed Item 22's reappointment of Rasha Shields on the grounds that the Police Commission has not scheduled items the Council directed it to take up. A San Fernando Valley resident used Items 38 and 39 to argue the city's list of flood-prone problem areas is incomplete and asked departments to collect problem-area lists from neighborhood councils. Another caller asked Council to reinstate call-in public comment at committee meetings. Several speakers were moved to general comment or lost their time after refusing to stay on topic, and one extended stretch of comment consisted of racial and antisemitic abuse directed at the City Attorney and members, which the City Attorney warned the chamber about in advance.