Los Angeles City Council Meeting – March 19, 2025: Budget Crisis, Port Power, and Homeless Oversight
STREAMING COPY IN PREPARATION — RECORDING AVAILABLE FROM THE ORIGINAL SOURCE
Los Angeles City Council Meeting – March 19, 2025
The Los Angeles City Council convened on March 19, 2025, with 13 members present. The meeting covered routine approvals, a special discussion on port power reliability, a homelessness oversight proposal, and a critical mid-year financial status report warning of a nearly $1 billion budget gap. Public comment included testimony on worker rights, disaster relief, and neighborhood concerns.
Consent Calendar
- Approved minutes of March 18, 2025.
- Approved commendatory resolutions.
- Voted en bloc on items 3, 5–8, 12, 14, 15, and 17–27 (13-0).
- Item 1 (separate vote) and item 9 (with Councilmember Price recused) were also approved 13-0.
- Item 2 continued to April 22, 2025; item 43 continued to March 25, 2025.
- Items 4, 11, 16, and 28 were each amended and then passed 13-0.
Public Comments & Testimony
- Support for Fast Food Ordinance: Multiple speakers, including Julieta Garcia and a representative from the Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking (CAST), urged the council to approve the fast food wage ordinance to protect workers from wage theft and exploitation. CAST emphasized that low wages increase vulnerability to trafficking.
- Disaster Relief for City Employees: Several librarians (Christine Adolph, Tina Lerno, Nicholas Bielia, Kirsten Xavier, Patrick Xavier) who lost homes in the Eaton fires pleaded for paid city disaster relief time to handle insurance, housing, and trauma recovery. They noted they had exhausted sick and vacation leave.
- Neighborhood Council Concern: Lydia Grant expressed disappointment over a vote (item 1) on neighborhood council term limits, arguing it devalued volunteers.
- Housing and Rent Escrow Items: Multiple speakers criticized the rent escrow account (REAP) items (29-32) and called for return of funds to property owners, citing alleged corruption and lack of oversight.
- Street Vacation and Parking: Several speakers objected to an alleged unlawful street vacation on L. Ron Hubbard Way and enforcement of parking restrictions there, claiming no red curb exists.
- General Opposition to Council: Some speakers used offensive language to denounce councilmembers, the mayor, and city policies on homelessness and the Palisades fire response.
Discussion Items
- Power Supply at the Port of Los Angeles (Item 13): Councilmember McOsker led a discussion with LADWP and Port representatives about power surges causing equipment shutdowns at terminal operators. A study by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) is underway, with assessments of terminals and LADWP systems, expected to conclude in October 2025. McOsker urged a three-way cost-sharing model for mitigation equipment and requested an annual report on outages.
- Homelessness Response Performance and Oversight (Item 10): Councilmember Raman introduced a motion to create a performance and oversight function within the Housing Department to monitor outcomes of homelessness spending. She cited early data showing that simple data collection had boosted filled permanent supportive housing units from 74/month to over 250/month and occupancy above 95%. Councilmember Blumenfield seconded, calling it a professional step to consolidate homelessness programs.
- Mid-Year Financial Status Report (Item 28): Chief Administrative Officer Matt Zabo presented a stark update: revenues are $141 million below plan through February; expenditures are $300 million over budget; liability claims will exceed $300 million vs. $100 million budgeted; the reserve fund will drop to 2.22% (below the 2.75% emergency level). For FY 25-26, projected revenue shortfall of $315 million, plus required pension and reserve replenishment, creates a nearly $1 billion gap. Zabo stated layoffs of thousands are likely, and recommended immediate cost-cutting, including restructuring departments and addressing the solid waste subsidy ($200 million). Councilmembers Nazarian, Price, and Hernandez asked about triggers, reserve impacts, and historical comparisons (similar to the 2009-10 budget crisis).
Key Outcomes
- Port Power Reliability: Accepted the EPRI study report; Councilmember McOsker will introduce a motion for annual outage reports and periodic progress updates.
- Homelessness Oversight: Approved item 10 (13-0), establishing a performance-oversight unit in the Housing Department.
- Budget and Financial Actions: Adopted the mid-year financial status report (13-0), which recommends $190 million in immediate solutions and warns of further reductions. The council will consider the mayor's proposed FY 25-26 budget next month.
- Other Approved Items: All consent and special items passed unanimously (13-0) as amended or continued.
- Closed Session: The council recessed into closed session to discuss items appropriate for confidential deliberation.
Meeting Transcript
Has been and continues to be a constant reminder of Los Angeles' drive to be the city of tomorrow. Hello everyone, I'm Natalia Belvao, and here's what's happening in LA this week. Influenza or the flu can affect people very seriously. However, there are some preventive measures anyone can take to reduce the likelihood of catching the virus. We got the latest information from Keck Medicine of USC. Influenza is a viral illness. It typically causes what many of us refer to as common cold symptoms, sore throat, runny nose, fevers, muscle aches, chills. It can lead to serious illness, including pneumonia and hospitalization in some cases. You catch the flu from other people. If you know that somebody's sick, you can wear a mask and you can get vaccinated with the seasonal influenza virus vaccine. If you get the flu vaccine now, you can protect yourself for the remainder of the flu season. The flu virus went into a bit of a dormancy during COVID because everybody was wearing a mask, everybody's taking precautions. So we had some seasons where the flu virus really wasn't very prominent. Now we're no longer taking those precautions, and because a lot of us didn't catch the flu in the last few years, some of our immunity to the flu virus has waned. In addition, in recent years, more and more people have decided not to get vaccinated. The flu vaccine is safe and effective. One of the main reasons to get it is it reduces the likelihood that your influenza will be a severe disease. Some people with the flu do get very sick, do end up in the hospital, and do die, unfortunately. It's a more serious virus than maybe some of the other viruses that cause a common cold. And also you want to be contributing to keeping our society healthy and safe. It's not just for yourself, although it will benefit you to get the flu vaccine, but but it's also you know to help protect those around you. The Palisades Library was totally destroyed in the wildfire, but that is not going to be the end of their story. With a relief fund to help staff and another to help the recovery of services, the Library Foundation of Los Angeles and LA Public Library are writing the Palisades branch a new chapter. Well, with all Angelinos, I was watching the news like everyone else, and I was certainly very concerned and watching the progress of the fires, and it wasn't until that morning after that I had learned that the library was a complete loss, and it was just devastating, and it was a loss for everyone who works here. Because libraries are centers of community, they're essential, they serve absolutely everybody. Building that center of community back and building it back as quickly as we can. There is a great sense of urgency in the city to do that. Within days of the wildfires breaking out, the Library Foundation of Los Angeles created two funds. The first was the Palisades Branch Recovery Fund, and the second was the LAPL staff emergency fund. We realized that there was so much devastation within the Palisades community, so the Palisades Recovery Fund was quickly able to provide frontline staff to offer Wi-Fi, hotspots, laptops, power banks, even services like story time and arts and crafts for people in the community. The LAPL Emergency Staff Fund provides really direct access and resources for the staff and librarians that lost their homes. Within days of setting up both of these funds, we received so much support from really across the nation and internationally. To date, we've raised over 200,000 from over 400 donors. And in the immediate aftermath of the fire, they were just like many of our staff throughout the system, were working in the disaster recovery center, you know, helping people in that navigate FEMA and all the other services that they needed. They continue to serve the community. You know, that's the bottom line. They continue to serve the community. One of the things we're so lucky about at the LA Public Library is that we have an outstanding outreach team that is always going beyond the four walls of our libraries and into the community to provide services to sign people up for library cards, to bring technology to communities to bring programming, children's activities, story times out into the community. So having that asset is really important when we've suffered a loss of an entire branch library. And we look forward to taking those outreach vehicles, our book bike, our outreach librarians, and other services into the Palisades as that community comes back. Now to Atwater for the reopening of a playground with more shade overhead and more play structures. So today we are here at Chevy Chase Rec Center at the reopening of the playgrounds. We refurbished these. It took a few months to get them up, but from two to five-year-olds and five to twelve year olds don't have new facilities where they can romp around and have a great time. As you can see, there's new shade structures over these new playgrounds. There's all types of adventurous things for the kids to get involved with, so it's just a great new addition to this gym here in Atwater Village. We really use the space a lot. The kids love it. My son uses it all. Our rec centers are a place where families can come, have a great time, the kids can exercise, parents can get a little break, and so we want to make these hubs as accessible as possible, and so rebuilding them is priority for our office.
openpublica.com