Los Angeles City Council Meeting - July 1, 2025
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Los Angeles City Council Meeting - July 1, 2025
The Los Angeles City Council met on July 1, 2025, to consider a 151-item agenda. The meeting included a special presentation honoring Colonel Eric Swenson for his leadership in the Palisades fire recovery, numerous public comments on immigration enforcement, rent control, and free speech, and votes on key ordinances including a ban on renovictions, a public bank feasibility study, and emergency declarations.
Consent Calendar
- Items 12–14, 16–17, 19–21, 25–27, 29, 33–54, 57, 59–76, 78–79, 83, 85–107, 109, and 111 were approved with 15 ayes.
- Items 55, 77, 113, 118, 15, 22–24, 28, 30–31, 18, 56, 81–82, 111–112, and 143 were approved as separate votes with tallies ranging from 12 to 15 ayes.
Public Comments & Testimony
- A family member (Guadalupe Gonzalez) described the disappearance of Julie, a mother of three, during an ICE raid, and urged the council to act. Councilmember Price spoke in solidarity with immigrant communities.
- Several speakers opposed the proposed ban on the N-word and C-word (Item 140), arguing it infringes on First Amendment rights.
- Jan Fukuhara spoke in support of the Little Tokyo Business Improvement District conversion (Item 8), citing increased safety for seniors.
- Jovan Houston (Unite Here Local 11) urged the council to invalidate the referendum on the Olympic wage ordinance, citing intimidation by signature gatherers.
- Danny and others called for passage of the permanent ordinance to end renovictions (Item 80).
- A speaker criticized the city's budget priorities and police funding, and called for remote public comment access.
- Multiple speakers addressed the emergency declarations (Items 116–117) related to immigration protests and the Palisades fire, urging the council to focus on the raids themselves.
Discussion Items
- Presentation and Recognition: Councilmember Park honored Colonel Eric Swenson of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for his leadership in the Palisades fire debris removal, which cleared 6,837 structures and set a record for speed. Multiple council members expressed gratitude, and a special motion was adopted (15 ayes).
- Item 2 – Parking Meter Fees: Councilmember Hutt moved to adopt the city attorney’s revised ordinance increasing parking meter fees. Seconded by Councilmember Hernandez. (Passed as part of block vote)
- Item 6 – Public Bank Feasibility Study: Councilmember Hernandez spoke in favor of funding a study for a municipal public bank, with $60,000 allocated from council discretionary funds (including $15,000 from Councilmember Blumenfield). The motion passed 15–0.
- Item 80 – Ban on Renovictions: Councilmember Blumenfield introduced and spoke on the adoption of a permanent ordinance to ban evictions based on substantial remodels, while creating a clear pathway for legitimate renovations. The ordinance was adopted as amended with 13 ayes.
- Item 113 – Investigation into Signature Gathering: Councilmember Park introduced an amendment to broaden the scope of an investigation into alleged misconduct in signature gathering for a referendum on the tourism wage ordinance, to include both sides. Passed 12–2.
- Item 139 – Prohibition of Disaster Tours: Councilmember Park introduced a motion to prohibit commercial tour bus operations in the Pacific Palisades disaster area. Passed 15–0.
- Item 144 – LAPD Response to Federal Immigration Requests: Councilmember Hernandez introduced a motion requesting reports from LAPD and the city attorney within 15 days on LAPD’s interactions with federal agencies during immigration raids, and for policy guidance. Passed 14–0.
- Item 149 – Showers of Hope Program: Councilmember Soto Martinez spoke on using CD 13 discretionary funds to keep two shower sites for unhoused individuals in the district. Passed 15–0.
- Public Hearing on Eminent Domain (Items 3 and 4): The council heard a presentation from LAWA on acquiring properties for the LAX Airfield and Terminal Modernization Project and the Landside Access Modernization Program. No property owners appeared. The council approved the resolutions of necessity with 14 ayes.
Key Outcomes
- Adopted Ordinance to Ban Renovictions: Council adopted the city attorney’s ordinance permanently prohibiting evictions based on substantial remodels, with LAHD to issue regulations within 90 days. (13 ayes)
- Approved Public Bank Feasibility Study: Transferred $60,000 in discretionary funds to study the feasibility of a municipal public bank. (15–0)
- Approved Emergency Declarations: Council extended emergency declarations related to the Palisades fire and immigration enforcement protests.
- Approved Business Improvement Districts: Little Tokyo, Gateway to LA, and Lincoln Heights Industrial Zone BIDs were authorized with majority support from property owners (87.02%, 76.81%, and 81.30% respectively).
- Approved Ban on Disaster Tours: Directed LADOT to prohibit commercial tour bus operations in the Pacific Palisades disaster area.
- Approved LAPD Reporting on Immigration Responses: Requested reports from LAPD and city attorney within 15 days on interactions with federal immigration enforcement.
- Honored Colonel Eric Swenson: Special motion adopted recognizing his service.
- Adjournment Motions: Council adjourned in memory of Reverend Dr. Joseph Benjamin Hardwick and Braun Levy. Braun’s mother called for action on DUI prevention, and Councilmember Park introduced a resolution supporting AB 366 for ignition interlock devices.
Meeting Transcript
And resources needed by the community during these trying times. The immigrant community as well as African Americans and other groups, Chinese Americans, actually have gone on the ground since the wildfires because of ICE, the fear of ICE rates. We are gonna stand in solidarity with those families. We will stand up for those families, and as you need resources, we will make sure that you have the help that you need to move forward in the community. We are here to support our immigrants with know your rights trainings. We have food resources, mental health support, and other resources for their children in these tough and challenging times. We know with the recent uh raids and the ICE presence, families are afraid. They're concerned for their safety, for their rights, and what tomorrow may bring. And so we have assembled our team here to make sure that families are aware of their rights. We have a know your rights campaign and are issuing red cards. We are conducting workshops and trainings for service providers as well as community residents so that they too are aware of what rights they have. And so we have put together measures in place, and you'll see across the city a number of organizations are finding ways to distribute food directly to families without putting them in harm's way. Improving safety for transit riders starts on the sidewalk. A citywide improvement program is giving bus shelters the upgrades needed to connect people to their bus. In Koreatown, the 150th bus shelter transformation was a cause for celebration. We're here in Koreatown at the intersection of Olympic and Vermont Boulevard, celebrating the 150th installation of our staff bus shelter. Koreatown is the most densely populated neighborhood in all of Los Angeles with over 100,000 residents. And we're so excited to celebrate with the community a phenomenal transformation of an existing bus shelter from a static to a much more modern amenity featured bus shelter. Welcome to Not Your Mother's Bus Stop, right? This is not what the bus stops look like when I was in school and depended on them. It has lighting, it has Wi-Fi. If you've ever been on a bus stop and missed your bus, that surge of frustration is not knowing when the next one's gonna arrive. But this tells you, it tells you when your next bus is coming. That's a sigh of relief. We're talking about improved infrastructure for transit-dependent riders, many essential workers in a neighborhood that's been overlooked for too long. The technology aspect of this investment is huge. But as summers get warmer, sometimes the most important thing is shade. A shelter to catch a bus and make our constituents' lives a little bit easier. Moving forward, I'd like to see more public and private partnership. When the city does the good work, we as a community need to amplify that message and let people know what's happening in the city of LA in particular things that affect public transportation and infrastructure. We want to help get the message out. Let them know that it's safe to be on the streets and taking public transportation once again. So STAP program is a very community-driven process. It was born out of the need to provide shelters to many of our seniors and our young people riding the bus and other public infrastructure, but also in communities like Koreatown, where it's been very underserved for many, many generations that the community of Koreatown has requested for these types of infrastructure being made here. Find out how bus shelters across the city are being improved at streetsla.lacity.org. From bus shelter glow-ups to making improvements elsewhere. Councilwoman Monica Rodriguez wants Angelinos to give their evaluations to the Department of Wreck and Parks. That feedback will help to assess future needs for city parks. Welcome. Thank you all for being here. What is a really important opportunity for us here? Today we're at Lakeview Terrace Rec Center where we are engaging in the park needs assessment. Something that I fought for while I was on the budget and finance committee, because I want Angelinos to be able to give direct feedback to the city of Los Angeles about their priorities and needs for their local parks. Olin is a landscape architecture planning and urban design firm, and we're supporting the city this year in the parks needs assessments. As a consultant, we help survey the community to help do drawings, to help provide clarity and to bring all of this data from the community engagement together to really help form a vision for the next 25 years under the direction of the Department of Wreck and Parks. Really, what we've been hearing is that people really want to see a lot of unprogrammed spaces to do recreational activities. They want to see the department focus on things like festivals. So really what we want to do as a part of our second phase of outreach is to talk more about those types of amenities and things that they'd like to see in their park system because again, for the next 25 years, we're really setting the standard for what we want to do. So we want a park system that reflects what we're hearing from the community, but also what we think they want to do going forward into the future. We have a team, 13 different firms that are working to help the city on this under our leadership, and all of them are coming together with different knowledge sets and different expertise.
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