We're here on Team Boulevard, really celebrating the revitalization of this area.

We've got new sidewalks.

We've got trees, new mediums, really encouraging folks to come out and enjoy the open space and clean air.

I'm excited about coming out walking in the community around friends and family.

And the block party is just the caveat to the day.

The Black Party is going to feature games, information for kids and for families.

There's gonna be some food.

And just a real chance to celebrate.

I'm from this area, so the C the City Beautifier by today.

I can help but be a part of what's going on.

I think it's important to walk at my age to getting out and continuously moving and being involved versus sitting down doing nothing and just getting older is so important to continue to move.

I rode my bicycle here.

I live right down the street.

And so I want to really encourage uh folks to uh appreciate and enjoy the open space.

So come on, get your body moving.

Let's have a great one.

Schools are back this week, but there was just enough time for one more event on summer break.

Council members Eunicius Hernandez and Isabel Herado gathered with their local community to help everyone get ready for that return to school.

Today we are on the border of CD1 and CD 14, celebrating our annual Lincoln Heights backpack giveaway, where we are giving over a thousand two hundred backpacks out to community and families here in Lincoln Heights, as well as have over 30 resources and organizations here providing access to health care, access to food.

We're doing everything we can to support our families, and we're doing it in partnership with our neighboring districts.

I want to let all the families and our students or children know that get ready for school because our schools are ready for you.

Our teachers, your principals, everyone in schools are ready for you to come back and start learning, start connecting and playing with your classmates, and you know, making sure that you're safe.

So all the families and parents, I want to let you know that the safest place for your children is in site school.

So they will be safe, we will protect them, and everybody's ready for the first day of school.

I know these are hard times, and our communities are afraid, and rightly so, but in these moments, getting together and seeing one another and sharing space makes me feel safe, and I hope you all too.

No matter what, our community has to continue showing up, and that's what our offices are doing.

We're providing backpacks, a safe space.

We haven't had free haircuts down the way, and that's the kind of thing our community members want to feel right now.

I know Councilmember Hernandez and I are committed to making sure that you have more safe spaces here in the city of LA, Lincoln Heights, and beyond Councilmember Adrian Nazarian breaks ground on new tiny homes.

The city marks a clean energy milestone, and a top score for LA City's housing authority on Section 8.

The stories up next on City Beat.

Council Member Adriana Zarian has broken ground on new tiny homes in Van I's, which he says will add 100 beds and help give unhoused neighbors a path to stability.

The 2025 Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count reported that the unsheltered homeless population in Nazarian's district had decreased by 36% since 2024, according to Nazarian.

In the last eight months, interim shelters and a navigation center in his district have provided services to more than 1,500 individuals and shelter to 866.

In addition, Nazarian says the new tiny homes support his goal of helping those living in dangerous conditions and will help residents enjoy a cleaner and safer neighborhood.

For more information, visit CD2.lacity.gov.

Mayor Karen Bass announced the completion of the ELAN Solar Plus Storage Center, one of the largest solar and battery energy storage projects in the country.

Eland is the latest addition to LA's clean energy sources from the Baron Ridge Renewable Energy Corridor in Mojave.

According to Bass, this center pushes the city's clean energy share above 60%, marking a major milestone in LA's transition to 100% clean energy by 2035.

The ELAN project can provide enough power to supply more than a quarter of a million households across LA.

For more information, visit mayor.lacity.gov slash press.

With bonus points added, HACLA attained a score of 102%.

According to HACLA, the score represents the above and beyond dedication of its team in administering the Section 8 program.

The authority added that Section 8 is a lifeline to over 50,000 low-income Angelinos who might otherwise find themselves out on the street.

For more information, visit HACLA.org.

Surfs up at Venice Beach.

When the ocean calls, Reckon Parks wants to make sure everyone can answer.

Parasurfing is an all abilities program that teaches young Angelinos how to paddle out and catch the waves.

And the surfing people are surfing there.

Play LA is all about getting kids from all over the city, all ability, all ages, to come and truthfully just have fun.

Today's event is like um surfboarding because some of the kids ding that surfboard needs fun, including me.

When the families come out to Venice Beach or Cabrillo Beach, the kids light up.

They have support from our staff.

It's a beautiful experience for them because otherwise they wouldn't have access to surfing boards and getting these lessons from our staff.

We're gonna paddle.

They enjoy it, they want to come back over again, and we get repeat kids that do this program more than once.

I love this program.

I love this team.

This is a really great opportunity to enter the ocean and enter surfing.

Surfing has a lot of barriers to entry.

It can be an expensive sport, it can be a very intimidating sport.

A lot of parents, you know, reach out to us and want their children to feel safe and confident in the ocean.

And they might not necessarily have those skills.

So being able to pass that on and to see kids having fun safely in the water, is just truly the biggest gift of all.

It's really important and it's saved live.

First, you gotta get the surfboard, and then you you've got to like Scorpio Z on the surfboard battle, and then like catch the let way.

And then you gotta bend your news so you can balance your bed.

We want them smiling.

That's the most important thing.

Smiling is also really important.

We make sure to have a close rapport, check in.

Some, you know, some disabilities are more apparent than others, and we just want to make sure that we're being um available to all.

I recommend parents search on our website, Alleyparks.org to research any type of activities we offer to any type of children with disabilities or without, and they can join in and have these experiences like surfing, which is called para-surfing on our website.

And we also offer paddle boarding.

We offer swimming and a variety of other aquatic programs.

And they'll see that their kids, once they come out here, even if they're a little scared, they'll enjoy this experience because it's a wonderful experience, and we offer these beautiful affordable programs to all of the children in Los Angeles.

Have fun, go surfing on the water.

And the kids certainly are safe, smiling, and stoked.

LA's public library presented a celebration of black excellence in honor of Juneteenth and the achievements of African Americans with something for everyone.

It was a day of blessing, learning, culture, and joy.

It's an incredibly special day here at the beautiful historic central library in downtown Los Angeles.

We are here for June Jubilee, a celebration of black excellence.

I want to lift up our incredible staff who've done such a great job to put together this event as they have made the program happen in July this year.

It's extra special, and we're looking forward to many, many Angelinos coming to Central Library to explore all that we have to offer.

It's important that the library celebrates all cultures, and it does a great job of doing that.

And I think here at June Jubilee, you'll find displays like Karen Collins, whose African-American Museum of Miniatures shows the history of African-American culture.

You'll find performances like Jametta Rose and the voices of creation who are bringing joy and happiness and unity to the people of LA.

We're here to celebrate Black Culture, Black Excellence.

We started off the day with a libation and a drum ceremony.

There's lots more to see, including uh author presentations, craft activities for people of all ages.

When you walk up on that floor, it's just gonna be an amazing site to witness all of the African-American quilted stories that these women have put together.

For our community, all of you who are here and will be going through these doors shortly.

This is your day, and don't forget, this is your library.

It's not my library, it's not the commission's library, it's not just the mayor's library, it is your library, and that's why we're here and we exist for you.

Not just at Central Library, but all of our branches throughout this amazing city of Angels.

To all of you, welcome to June Jubilee.

It's gonna be a great day.

Thank you so much.

Young players stepped up to the plate at a citywide tournament.

LA City's Wreck and Parks softball and baseball tournament brought four neighborhoods to the field, bringing out the best in competition and community pride.

We are excited to host a citywide baseball and softball tournaments today.

We have four regents represented.

That means players from all over the city coming from our recreation centers to compete for a citywide title.

This is extremely important for the kids because it's not every day they get an opportunity like this to play on a nice build like this for the championship for the city.

It's a big deal for our community.

A lot of practice throughout the week, and they're able to get somewhere here for the championship, so something that they're gonna remember for a long time.

Really positive for them.

We're hosting the baseball softball tournament right now, but we do have year-round sports.

You can find out information at LA Parks.org, where we have four different seasons of baseball, basketball, softball, flag football, soccer, and we're increasing and adding programs and new sports at all times because we're also part of the Olympic initiative.

So we're trying to make sure that we give opportunities for youngsters to get exposed to new sports and have an opportunity to try out and play things that are new for them.

The kids are able to exercise, take out all their energy.

They play for their parts, they make friends, and this is the culmination of what we have going on for the past three months.

What it brings to the kids is self-confidence, self-esteem, community pride.

We're giving them an opportunity that they're never gonna forget.

It is an area of South LA where we want to make sure that we have a lot of alternative actions for young people to participate in and to foster a great path for them when they make choices about what they're gonna do with their time.

We're here to support that, give them activities to belong to, and we have this happening throughout the city, not just in South LA.

So we're happy to always provide that year-round.

That program is a home run for Wreckin Parks, and there are many more sports detailed on their website.

In this week's feature story, gratitude is the theme of the 2025 Nisei Week Japanese Festival in LA's Little Tokyo.

Honoring the legacy of the district has never been more important.

And the cultural celebrations kicked off with the Nisei Week Grand Parade.

We're kicking off Nisei Week here in Little Tokyo, celebrating our Japanese American community.

The theme for this year is Hencha, which is gratitude.

It's just a celebration, a celebration of all the uh Japanese Americans who have been in LA over a hundred years, actually.

And it's just a reminder of uh all the things that we need to cherish about this place and about our culture.

A lot of people in the Los Angeles are not aware of the of this event is actually every year.

You don't ever want to lose your cultural heritage.

It's important to keep that identity, and so this event helps to reinforce that on a regular basis.

It's important to have these parades in large part because it's a way for people to learn more about the culture and to be appreciative and um in tune with what the community wants, right?

It's important to leave from community, and that's what the Japanese American heritage and Nisai Week is all about.

Yeah, it's a great way to support the Japanese community here in Los Angeles.

It's important for representation.

I think that kind of the state of our country right now.

I think having this representation to showcase like inclusivity and that we care about our community.

It helps to bring people and community together.

Celebrating diversity, definitely.

Yes, yes, for sure.

That's why we're here.

Living in such a like diverse city.

We're so lucky to have all of these wonderful cultures around us that we can experience, and I think coming to events like these, you really get to feel, you know, the things you don't get to see in your everyday life.

So I'm excited to see all the Nisei Queens and Princesses.

I'm really excited to see uh the winners from the beauty pageant.

Um they're my favorite part of the parade.

We went to Tokyo earlier this year, and being in Little Tokyo is just like a little snippet of uh actually being in Tokyo.

I've been coming to Little Tokyo since 1968, I guess.

It's changed greatly, but it's still really the, as far as I'm concerned, the heart of Los Angeles and the jewel of Los Angeles, and I feel very privileged to be a part of this.

LA is a melting pot, and so to have our vibrant communities represented, especially in these times where we've been devastated by immigration ice raids.

Now more than ever.

Just so excited to be here to celebrate the diversity, which is the strength of our city.

In this week's things to do, keep LA beautiful at the 7th Annual Beautification Conference.

Learn more about our coastline at Cabrillo.

And enjoy a special edition of Back to School Venice.

All this up next on Things to Do.

On Saturday, August 23rd, the Board of Public Works and the Office of Community Beautification presents the seventh annual beautification conference celebrating people, purpose, presence.

Connect with fellow Angelinos to share stories, learn how to get involved, host your own community cleanup, and discover all that local partners and city agencies have to offer.

There will be over 30 exhibitors at the Community Resource Expo.

And the conference will cover community engagement, volunteering, the My LA 311 system, and Composting 101.

Head to the Lincoln Heights Senior Center for the 7th Annual Beautification Conference on Saturday, August 23rd, beginning at 10 a.m.

Find out more under the Keep LA Beautiful tab at LAOCV.org.

Enjoy a guided walk with the Cabrillo Marine Aquarium Educators on Saturday, August 23rd, when they will be interpreting the various habitats of the Cabrillo Beach Coastal Park.

The walk begins at the aquarium courtyard and takes in the native garden, salt marsh, beaches, and tide pools.

Along the walk, you'll see fossils, native plants, and other interesting finds of the coastal park.

Pack a snack, head outside, and meet at the aquarium for this Cabrillo walk on Saturday, August 23rd at 1 p.m.

For more information, see the events calendar at CabrillomarineAquarium.org.

On Saturday, August 23rd, join Councilwoman Tracy Park for a very special coastal cleanup and fire relief edition of Back to School Venice Beach.

This will be a coastal wellness experience and community celebration dedicated to supporting families, celebrating youth, and showing up for those impacted by the January wildfires.

There will be youth performers, local vendors, games, and raffles, along with a coastal cleanup, yoga, and a skate zone.

There will also be a backpack giveaway, free resources, and relief items.

Join Councilwoman Tracy Park for Back to School Venice Beach on Saturday, August 23rd, beginning at 10 a.m.

For more information, visit the Instagram account of Councilwoman Tracy Park.

And that's a look at some things to do.

And that's all for this week.

I'm Susan Huckle, and from all of us here at LA This Week, thank you so much for joining us.

Remember that you can watch us online anytime at LACityview.org.

We're also on Instagram, Facebook, X, and YouTube.

See you next time for more LA This Week.

Planning for emergencies is smart, but does the family emergency plan include pets?

Of your Los Angeles City Council.

Today is Tuesday, the 19th day of August in the year 2025.

My name is Marquis Aristos, and I serve as president of this council.

Mr.

Clerk, if we can begin our proceedings by calling the roll.

Yes, President.

All right, uh first order of business.

Approval of the minutes, August 15, 2025.

Councilmember Soto Martinez moves.

Councilmember Lee seconds.

What's next?

Combinatory resolutions for approval.

Councilmember Price moves.

Councilmember Hudado, seconds.

What's next?

Mr.

President, today is Tuesday, and it's time for the flight suit.

All right, I'll ask everyone in the chambers to rise, face the flag, and follow along with councilmember Hutt.

Thank you.

Let's begin the flags with pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America to the Republic for which it stands.

All right.

Mr.

President, additional community impact statements have been submitted for items three and twenty-five by the West Side Neighborhood Council and for item 44 by the Valley Village, Del Ray, Sherman Oaks, and Sun and Tonga neighborhood councils.

The government operations committee reports for items 12 and 13 have been submitted and uploaded to the respective council files.

Item one is an item notice for public hearing.

Items two through thirty-six are items for which public hearings have been held.

Items 37 through 43 are items for which public hearings have not been held.

Alright, without objection, those items are uh before us.

Uh now is the time for specials members and just Mr.

Clerk uh for the record.

I'm requesting that we hold item number 44 on the desk.

Specials members, Mr.

McCoster.

Thank you very much, Mr.

President.

I would ask that um uh we when I've just submitted an amendment to item 34 on behalf of uh Bob Bloomfield, and then on item 43, I would move uh on behalf of CD5, the CAO report, and note and file the mayor's office report.

Is there a second to this motion?

Second by council member.

Thank you.

Council President, I would like to call item 38 for a separate vote.

Alright, councilmember Hernandez.

Thank you, Council President.

I forgive if this has already been called uh 38 special for a separate vote, and I have comments for three, twenty-eight, and thirty, which can be taken up together.

All right, Councilmember Lee.

Excuse me, uh Councilmember Hendes.

Uh that would be items three, twenty-eight and thirty.

Thank you.

Councilmember Lee.

Thank you, Councilmember.

I believe you held item 44 on the desk.

Yeah, alright.

Councilmember Rodriguez.

Uh, yes, 31 and 44 for comments.

Okay.

Councilmember Price.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

So I'll put a buttons of caution, but I'm accusing myself of the item seven.

As my wife's employer has worked with an organization listed in the past.

Item seven.

Thank you.

All right.

Any other specialist members?

Alright, seeing none.

Uh, Mr.

Clerk, what items uh are available at this time?

Mr.

President, there's also a request to hold item 19 on the desk.

All right.

The council may now vote on items two, fourth through six, eight, nine, ten, and eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen through seventeen, eighteen, twenty through twenty seven, twenty-nine, thirty-two, thirty-three, thirty-five, and thirty-six.

All right, those items are now before us.

Let's open the roll, close the roll, tabulate the vote.

Twelve eyes.

Alright, what's next?

Mr.

President, the council may not move on to item 42, which is for a verbal update.

No action will be taken on this item.

All right.

Uh, thank you so much, uh, Mr.

Clerk.

Uh members, as we started out now about 75 days ago, uh, when the siege on our city and cities around Southern California, the country uh commenced uh in the name of immigration enforcement.

Uh we commit it to in these chambers every day that we meet, uh document and put on the record uh what is happening in our neighborhoods to our constituents and to our uh neighbors, and so today uh we will hear from uh the leadership of Chirla, the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, the Central American Resource Center, Public Council, and the ACLU.

And so I'll ask those representatives to join us at the center desk uh for a uh short presentation, all right.

And before you all start, we'll hear from a couple members.

Um we'll hear from Councilmember McCosker and then we'll hear from Councilmember Hernandez to introduce our um panelists.

Councilmember Coskar.

Thank you so much.

Uh Mr.

President, members.

Um, I just want to update on what's happening out in the field in the one five.

Yesterday morning, we had three day laborers taken by alleged immigration enforcement agents in San Pedro.

They staged at a home depot, excuse me, they staged at a target on North Gaffey Street, and they conducted this action in the Home Depot parking lot.

Uh we've seen these types of raids at Home Depot locations across the city uh to bring it home to my district.

The harbor communities have endured so much, and I know I've said it before.

First, daily ice staging operations occur on Terminal Island where local activists are being taunted and mocked and waved at and sped by.

And in one case, two weeks ago, one of those activists was arrested.

I have been with them at those daily events a couple of times, and I've had cars at high rates of speed come right at me, right at me.

They're thinking I'm somebody else, I'm sure, and then swerve away, and then I get a gesture that's obscene.

We've had a raid in Wilmington where agents saw people eating at a taco stand, they flipped a U-turn and they chased them down and arrested them on PCH, and now a raid in San Pedro at a home depot, just three guys just looking for work in the parking lot.

This pattern of enforcement is creating fear in our neighborhoods where people are simply trying to make money to feed their families and to live in peace and live lawfully.

I've created I I've had real concerns about the agents uh who will continue to come back to this Home Depot or to Target or to any other sites.

Um, going back to the same spot to pick up more people, it is just cruel.

Um, grateful to a group in our that you are affiliated with in our community called the Harbor Peace Patrol.

They work with Union del Barrio and all the community members who show up.

Uh they showed up yesterday, they quickly gathered up what was left behind and made sure that family members had those things, and they've reached out to you, and I'm sure the many, many, many calls you get.

It's really clear.

These are actions in violation of the injunction.

It is really clear.

This is cowardice, and this is illegal.

They are actions in violation of the injunction of the temporary restraining order.

I appreciate you being here very much.

I ask the president, and I appreciate the opportunity to speak to what's happening in our district.

I know you have many, many stories across our city.

Thank you so much, Mr.

McCosker.

Councilmember Hernandez.

Thank you, Council President.

Thank you so much to our uh to our partners out in the community for working with us to come and tell the truth about what's happening here in the city of Los Angeles.

In council chambers today, we have the privilege of hosting the organizations that are leading the fight against the Trump administration's unconstitutional, indiscriminate, and downright inhumane immigration enforcement.

Please welcome Chidla, Carison, and the ACLU of Southern California.

Today they will share with us the reality of what's happening on the ground, how our families are being impacted, even under the TRO, and how Los Angeles could stand united in this fight.

I'm deeply grateful to have them here with us today.

And colleagues, I urge us all to listen closely.

I want to be clear, we're not here to talk about the strategy of the litigation.

We are here to learn more about what we as a city can do to help our communities.

And with that, I'll turn it over to our guests.

Thank you so much for joining us.

Thank you so much, Councilmember Hernandez.

To our guests.

You all can go in any order.

Um if it's up to me, we'd start with Angelica Chirla, but you know, it's your call.

We'll start.

I'll start.

We we have our order.

I'll start.

Then Marta and then Andres.

Um good morning.

Thank you so much for having uh having me here and having our colleagues talk about what continues to happen in our community.

My name is Angelica Salas.

I'm the executive director of Chirla, the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights.

There is an indiscriminate drag net unleashed by the federal government upon immigrant and Latino communities in Los Angeles, and it is violating individuals' civil and constitutional rights, irrespective of immigration status and endangering public safety.

Chirla convenes the Los Angeles Rapid Response Network made up of over 30 organizations and labor unions and more than a thousand three hundred volunteers who have documented countless enforcement actions.

This network has reported over uh through its uh immigrant assistance line 1,916 sightings of immigration throughout LA, um, where we have over a thousand seventy-eight individuals who have reported presence of uh agents in their communities.

Um we have also had um uh documented 667 operations where individuals who are part of the rapid response network actually saw arrests happening.

To date, over 4,200 individuals have been detained according to DHS records.

Okay.

Uh, Chirla, MDAF, Garecen, and many others that are part of the rapid response uh network and part of the legal response have collected over a thousand two hundred names of family members who are currently detained throughout California, but also outside of the state.

The incessant immigration enforcement actions throughout Los Angeles County increase the tension, they terrorize communities, and in verified instances result in tense violent and dangerous incidents involving federal agents against community members as they are exercising their constitutional rights.

These raids have already resulted in two deaths, one in Ventura County and one in Monrovia, California, and several injuries have been caused by excessive use of force.

And I want to repeat this excessive use of force is happening when these raids are being conducted.

The majority of these raids do not include arrest or search warrants.

They rely on racial profiling and are targeting open air work sites like car washes, home depot stores, street vending, gardening, construction sites, etc.

These federal agents enforcing immigration um uh laws continue to shield their identity and refuse to provide basic information as to who they are.

Some identify as border patrol, others as ICE, others as DEA, others as FBI, ATF, and U.S.

Marshals.

Yet there are many more that have only police on their body gear.

Still others have nothing to identify which agency they belong to.

When asked to identify themselves, they refuse to tell the community members who they are and what laws they immigration laws they're enforcing.

Many drive up to our neighborhoods in unmarked cars with tinted windows.

They are extremely aggressive with community members, asked for their badge numbers or other identifying information.

This is what led Cheerla alongside with the ACLU, public counsel, immigrant offenders, the Los Angeles Workers Center, and Delon, and those directly impacted to file a lawsuit to stop these lawless actions to demand and also to demand access to detainees.

Our lawsuit, Pedro Vázquez Pardomo versus Noam, is an important lawsuit to seek to defend our communities.

And Pedro Vazquez Pardomo is a day labor who is sitting at a bus stop who is actually picked up without any arrest warrant and treated horribly once detained.

The federal court agreed that we provided evidence to warrant a temporary restraining order on July 11th of 2025.

This led to a significant decrease in activity.

The Cato Institute reported today that there was a 67% decrease in arrests after the temporary restraining order.

However, when the Ninth Circuit Court decision on June 30 further affirmed our claims and did not state the decision that Trump wanted, we immediately saw the same kind of raids continue after the sharp decrease.

What we have observed now is that these raids have become even more violent, fast and furious, and has continued with the same mode of operation as before.

We are seeing enforcement across the protected counties.

That includes LA, Orange, San Bernardino, Riverside.

It also includes Ventura, Santa Barbara, and San Luis Obispo.

These enforcement continues.

They continue mostly in the early hours of the day.

This randomness is naturally sowing fear and preventing people from carrying on their daily routines.

They are not even asking questions now.

They're just swooping in and grabbing people from work sites.

This is regardless of immigration status, as we have people with LPR status that have actually also, or legal permanent residents that have also been picked up.

People fear being profiled, hurt, detained, or worse.

Again, we continue to document all these operations and all of these arrests.

The back and forth terrorizes the community and attempts to undermine the faith in the courts and their ability to stop the blatant anti-constitutional actions.

The Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to intervene and allow them to continue their actions without restraint.

We will get their decision, that is the Supreme Court's decision any day now.

The needs for our community are great.

The city of Los Angeles should declare a state of emergency and take action to protect families and businesses impacted by these raids.

This is a Trump-made disaster and should be treated like the disaster that it is.

We need economic support for our families and businesses impacted.

We need to increase investment in the represent LA program to support the massive scale of newly detained individuals.

We need to keep our community housed.

This includes eviction protection and passing the Los Angeles rent stabilization ordinance so that families trying to survive can keep paying their house costs.

Police, the Los Angeles Police Department needs to uphold constitutional rights by protecting Angelinos when they are exercising theirs.

That's the First Amendment, the Fourth Amendment, the Fifth Amendment within the Constitution.

We need you to continue to speak up and to continue to support our efforts to protect our communities.

Thank you for all that you have done.

Thank you for having us here.

We continue to work together to protect everybody who calls the city of Los Angeles home, and I will pass it over to my colleagues.

Good morning.

I'm Marta Revolu, the executive director of the Central American Resource Center, Caresen, and I stand before you alongside my colleagues with urgency.

Thank you to the City Council, Council President for having us here today, but especially thank you to my colleagues for your love and commitment for a better Los Angeles.

I am honored to stand with you.

Garecen has served the Los Angeles region for more than 42 years with integrity and commitment.

We're also proud members of the Los Angeles Rapid Response Network.

Cares and provides immigration legal services, advocacy, policy, and organizing programs in rapid response and crisis management.

We serve approximately 25,000 people a year.

Los Angeles is often a national model for a city of immigrants and inclusion.

However, it is not perfect.

We can do more.

It is my job, my obligation, my responsibility to fight and strive for a more just city that protects its residents, whether they're documented or undocumented.

We strive and advocate to have a city that protects human and immigrant rights, a city that recognizes the incredible contribution immigrants make to the social and economic fabric of our communities.

However, for the past two and a half months, Los Angeles has been under attack.

Over the last two months, our city funded day labor center in the Westlake area, C D1, in front of the Home Depot, has been raided by ICE three times.

Each time we have seen an escalation of violence and desperation.

The last raid, which came after the TRO, was a so-called Trojan horse operation, where more than 20 ICE agents jumped out of a back of a rented moving truck, fully armed with weapons of war, masks, and tactical gear.

They remained defiant.

These agents had no warrants and a right to chase our day laborers and street vendors like animals.

Our community ran for their lives.

We had men and women running, falling in the streets and getting hurt.

We had children screaming for their mothers.

Each time they have taken approximately 20 people.

Many continue to be detained under inhumane conditions.

Some have already been deported without due process, and a number of them still haven't been found.

They are disappeared.

We're living a nightmare where Angelinos are racially profiled, illegally taken by federal authorities, and inhumanely treated in detention.

Immigrants are afraid to go to work, and day laborers are not going to work or who are going to work are risking it all.

However, I often hear that the main concern for many is why police is limited in how they collaborate with ICE.

The main concern should be how local police can protect the rights of Angelinos, working people, mothers, fathers, and our neighbors.

In the front lines, we have seen the LAPD shooting tear gas, collaborate with ICE to create a perimeter around raids for the protection of agents and not the community.

Just last week, we saw the LAPD face peaceful protesters in Riot Gear lined up deep.

I'm sorry if I can ask you to pause for one second.

The gentleman in the lime-colored lounge pants and green hats, you have been warned.

This is your first and last warning in the next disruption of this meeting, you will be excused.

Thank you.

Please carry on.

Just last week we saw the LAPD face peaceful protesters in riot gear lined up deep, but not to protect the people who pay for the police in the city.

It was disappointing and wrong.

There's still room for improvement.

Additional de-escalation training.

Or at least, where is the training that was promised for de escalation after the uh George Floyd incident?

Where is that de-escalation uh training?

We also need to re-prioritize on how to spend city resources.

We want a city and a police department that fully implements a sanctuary ordinance, a department that believes protecting immigrant families and their rights is their responsibility, that it's their primary job.

Protecting the rights of Angelinos should be the number one priority.

Because we have seen from the Trump administration that first, they detain people without judicial warrants and racial profile our community.

Second, they chase human beings like animals.

They detain them in inhumane conditions.

They are denied due process and they violate court orders and decisions with complete disregard to the law.

So what do we need?

We need continued bold leadership.

We need resources and funding to make sure that we can continue to respond to this emergency.

We need U.S.

strategic partners.

We need a police department that prioritizes angelinos and their rights.

We need additional policies to support and protect immigrant families.

We need housing security, prioritizing and protecting tenants' rights.

We need food security.

We support an ordinance, a law that gives local power local police the ability to confirm that federal authorities have to identify themselves.

We are ready to partner with you.

We are ready to make sure that together we can protect our communities.

Thank you.

And I've been a lawyer with the ECLU SoCal since I was sworn in as a lawyer, focusing on immigrants' rights in December 2016, a month after Trump's election the first time around.

As some folks know, I was not a U.S.

citizen then.

In fact, I was deportable then.

And fast forward eight years, I just became a U.S.

citizen in January, the week after Trump's second inauguration.

And the thing I want to lift up here is that I was able to practice law as a non-citizen because of a U.S.

Supreme Court case from 50 years ago, providing me this right and building on case law, establishing that as a non-citizen, I was also a person within the meaning of the 14th Amendment to the U.S.

Constitution and thereby protected by the Equal Protection Clause.

The US Constitution has been an aspirational document and has taken ordinary folk with extraordinary courage and solidarity, citizens and non-citizens and immigrants over the decades in cases like Yikwo in 1886 and Plyler, about a hundred years later, organizing and suing to realize the promise of enforce and expand the meaning of freedom and equality in the Constitution.

It is in this context that we know that no matter the color of our skin, what language we speak or where we work, documented or not, in the United States, we're all guaranteed constitutional rights, including the right against unreasonable seizures.

A concept clearly backed up by case law that the Trump regime has attempted to completely disregard and nullify, just as they've attempted to do with birthright citizenship.

And so on June 6th, as you've heard from Angelica and Martha, the Trump regime began its siege of LA in Southern California, unleashing militarized mass goons to terrorize our communities, abducting and ripping folk from their families, and then detaining them in dungeon-like conditions at the B 18 detention facility in downtown LA, denied of due process and access to attorneys with little to no food and medical care, essentially trying to force folks who sign their rights away.

So on July 2nd, as you can see in the screen, courageous residents, immigrants, workers, and advocacy groups across various industries and throughout Southern California, including Chirla, immigrant defenders, the LA Workers Center Network, and the United Farm Workers sued the Trump regime.

And on July 11th, the Federal District Court, this is a brief recap and history of what's happened in the case so far.

On July 11, the Federal District Court of the Central District of California ruled in our favor and issued temporary training orders, TROs for short, effectively blocking the Trump regime's unlawful stops and demanding the government provide access to counsel for detained immigrants.

More specifically, the stop and arrest TRO prohibits federal agents from relying solely on four factors alone or in combination as a basis for reasonable suspicion for stopping a person.

And these are one apparent race or unicity, two, speaking Spanish or English with an accent, three, presence in a particular location like a bus stop, car wash, tow yard, or agricultural site relatedly for the work the person does.

Further, the acts of detention TRO requires the federal government to allow legal visitation at B18 seven days a week for a minimum of eight hours a day, Monday through Friday, and at least four hours a day, weekends and holidays, and to permit detained persons to communicate with their attorneys confidentially by phone at no cost.

Immediately, the Trump regime appealed, and it also moved to stay the stop and arrest TRO.

But after the Ninth Circuit denied this request, as you've heard, the federal government then asked the Supreme Court to stay the TRO.

The Supreme Court has not decided.

In absent the Supreme Court stay, it the TROs will remain in effect until the district court rules on a future motion for a preliminary injunction or PI for short, which we filed on July 28th.

But even in the event of a Supreme Court stay, the litigation goes on, and we're working hard to secure a PI, which would provide relief for a longer time period while the lawsuit is pending and being decided.

We will be in a month on September 24th at 9 a.m.

Now, to end, as Angelica Marta have discussed, we've seen uh the Trump regime ramping up the race back up, especially since the Ninth Circuit decision in the beginning of August.

And we've been working hard to investigate this race and what may be violations of uh the stop and arrest TRO.

And as Councilmember McCosker uh also discussed.

Also, more recently, we've been hearing of people held at B-18 in freezing temperatures.

There it seems like they're turning B 18 into a Yelera.

This was a common theme among folks I visited at the Atlanto immigration jail last week, who shared a story about the Trump regime's callousness that will make you, council members, shiver.

When a detainee at B 18 asked the guard if they could please raise a temperature, the guard essentially told them we need to keep the temperature low to kill the bacteria on you.

Council members, this is the kind of stake sanctioned cruelty and complete disregard for human life, let alone human dignity that we're fighting against.

And as we've been tragically reminded with Jaime Garcia and Camarillo and Carlos Montoya and Monroe, Trump's siege of the Southland has irreparably harmed real people in real lives.

And with the unprecedented federalization and deployment of the National Guard and then the Marines, we can see clearly the Trump's regime's playbook of scapegoating immigrants to take dangerous steps towards fascism.

But this is not and shall not be where the story ends.

With our summer of resistance, we've served as a first line of defense against fascism, and we shall overcome, but it will take a village and movement to do so because the lawsuit alone won't do it.

We need all of us doing our part, everything we can, each of us, as people are conscious from community defense groups and rapid responders to public servants, as you are, we can play a vital role from knowing and educating folks of our rights, saying something if we see something, meaning exercising our First Amendment rights, which the city should and must protect and uphold, and if we can, documenting a raid or arrests, identifying community members being abducted, reporting into our baskets per doma legal team.

And as a city of LA, we should be an even brighter national beacon for immigrants' rights.

Unlike electives and municipalities cowering to Trump's basis threats, the city should fully implement its sanctuary ordinance, especially at the LAPD, and forcefully defend against Trump's lawsuit, which comes after one court loss after another.

We must ensure that no state of resources in any way advanced immigration enforcement, and this should include LAPD responses to so-called mutual aid requests and joint task forces.

And as the city and other interveners have rightfully highlighted the rich contribution of their immigrant communities, including to tax revenues, we should put our tax money where our mouth is and provide life-serving services and resources to our immigrant communities, including by significantly expanding Represent LA.

Thank you so much.

We have a member on the queue.

Councilmember Rodriguez.

Thank you.

It's good to see you and thank you all for being here.

I want to make sure, you know, we've seen various posts on social media of individuals documenting.

And my question is, I want to make sure, I want to ask you to please provide what is the best method of documentation that you can suggest to individuals that would be viable in helping to continue to pursue the TROs, the violations of the TROs that are happening, and what guidance can you provide for members of the public?

Because again, we we don't want them to also be put in harm's way.

And so I want you to help us for members of the public that should they be a witness to what's occurring.

What is the safest and most effective means of documenting that will aid you in further examples that can provide you the courts for the violations of the TROs and any other uh documentation that we need.

I'll begin first by saying that um I as I stated there's a thousand three hundred um individual volunteers that are part of the rapid response network in Los Angeles, and so I encourage individuals to um become part of those um rapid response efforts because you will get training and not just training once but a continue continuity of training as well in order to act in that um manner.

So how do they how do they get in contact?

Um so you can call uh Chirla, um, and you can connect with our um director of organizing, Pedro Trujillo, um, and become part of it, and you can call our hotline 188-624-4752.

So you can become part of the Rapid Response Network, and we need that support.

So, very specifically, and I'll I'll um ask Andrés to go even more specific in terms of constitutional rights.

What we ask you is if you witness, stay calm, you have the constitutional right to document with your video, make sure that you stay um uh not you know stay uh far away from and distance from the federal agents so that they don't charge you with obstruction.

But for you to document, you have that right.

So to document what's actually happening.

But once the operation happens and we're seeing that these operations are happening super fast now, stay there.

Take uh names of witnesses who also saw it.

You were a witness, but there were other people who were there who saw what happened.

Often individuals who remained were also asked about their immigration status, and maybe they were U.S.

citizens, maybe they were green card holders.

Um, ask those individuals to also provide you with your name and their number, um, uh what happened, but then also connect with the rapid response network so that we can also go in and document.

Usually the rapid response network volunteers go and they stay there and they talk to the witnesses in order to collect the evidence.

That is the evidence that we have actually provided in the in this lawsuit.

And like I said, we've responded in situations where people have witnessed arrests 667 times.

And I just need you to understand how that number, how significant that is, because it's only been a couple of months that this has been going on.

Andres, I just want to add before we give it to Andres that if you can, you should also document who was taken.

Um, because oftentimes there is no way to locate the people that are detained unless we have names of and we know who was taken into detention.

Uh, Helica Marta expertly covered this, and especially as Chirla has been uh courageously leading the LA Rapid Response Network.

Um and just to emphasize uh some points on a Helica made, uh, everyone has the right, the first member right to record, um, as long as we're not interfering.

Um, um it takes a certain amount of privilege uh to to be able to do that.

Um, if someone is at risk of immigration enforcement, uh may not feel uh secure and safe to be able to play that role.

But at a minimum, people should know the rights, which uh people can access on our HLU SoCal website.

Uh, in addition, we do have an intake, uh, um intake line, and uh it's SOCAL, SOCAL intake all together.aclu socal.org.

And the kind of information that we're looking for is, you know, the the this court prohibited the the four factors in particular, alone and combination, um, uh race or ethnicity, and what length, whether the individual speaks Spanish or or English with an accent, the location, like a work site, or what kind of and what kind of work the person does, uh, for example, if they labor in at a Home Depot parking lot, right?

Or a carbuchero in a car wash.

Those are just some examples, uh, farm workers, uh, agricultural sites.

Um the government needs more than that to establish a reasonable suspicion before detaining stopping someone.

Um, and uh they they during the court there's a court hearing and nor in the Ninth Circuit hearing that they ever provide any information uh establishing or or in any way uh uh providing any in vitia of um articulable facts that they've come up with for reasonable suspicion for the arrest of individuals.

Um the kind of information that we're looking for is how what are they what what kind of cars and vehicles are they coming in with?

Um are they blocking egress, uh, ingress, uh entrances exits, um, uh how many vehicles, how many agents, what are they wearing?

Are they masked?

Uh, do they have clearly visible uh markers?

Are are they wearing bests, they have weapons, because that also shows the extreme level of force that that agents have been using to uh what you know uh uh some believe is um an attempt to intimidate and who wouldn't be intimidated when unmasked agents who are not identifying themselves are rushing at you, especially when you've seen videos of people who look like you being beat up and abused, right?

Uh so who in the right mind wouldn't try to avoid that kind of uh bull rushing at you with militarized weapons, right?

Um, and so you know what happened play by play uh if you can if you can document it.

Um and also as Angelica mentioned, um these raids often happen in a matter of minutes, incredibly quickly, and so rapid responders may not have been there unless they're already uh patrolling Home Depot or somewhere that uh agents have come time and time again, you know, the West Lake Home Depot, for example, that they've hit multiple times, several car washes they've hit multiple times.

Um, and so it's important to collect as much information as possible, especially about individuals who've been taken, because uh as much information, including name, uh date of birth, possibly a number, would help us being uh would help us access them, whether it's at B 18 or at Adelanto.

Thank you.

Yeah, because uh the experience that we had in my district uh by the time we found out about it, they were already gone.

And all we had were first names of the individuals and the rapid response network again, and God bless everybody who's participated, but we want to thoughtfully inform members of the public who perhaps are not being trained, because not everyone has the bandwidth and the capacity to engage in that formal level.

We want to ensure that if they are a witness to it, if they are at the Lowe's in Pacoima or a home depot in Van Eyes, and they are a witness to it, that we give some general guidance on how to safely document in a manner that doesn't further jeopardize them, but in fact does aid you with your efforts.

And so what I ask if it's possible, even if there's an online intake, uh, you know, what that allows people to provide any information that makes it more accessible than having to call or what have you, that might perhaps, and even if they could upload any video uh for the ACLU, that could perhaps be beneficial in further aiding any further court actions in pursuit of the violations of the TROs and and whatnot.

So again, thank you because it's I want to make sure that we are safely protecting even other members of our community that are attempting to be helpful, that they don't further subject themselves to perhaps then getting charged or pursued or assaulted uh in their own right.

And I think that's what again, we know that this is an act of fear mongering.

We know that this is an act of terrorism that is being inflicted on members of our community, however, I want to make sure that we are you know not responding with checkers but responding with chess.

How are we making very thoughtful decisions and preparing members of our public and our community that if they are witness, that they are engaging responsibly, safely, and in a manner that actually helps us, not creating more chaos in the moment.

Uh, we want to make sure that we do so very thoughtfully.

Uh councilwoman, I just my experience has been based on all uh the countless uh responses to to raids, that many times the public is at a distance, they are actually at a safe distance, they're doing what they're supposed to do.

We we've uploaded videos, um, LA Times just did a whole piece also on how to safely document.

I need you to also understand that the very act of taking out a camera, I mean a camera or a phone camera, uh, often triggers the uh agents to come and get closer to that individual because they don't want that witness.

And so I just need you to also understand that many times the public is simply um uh videotaping and they've um journalists have been attacked, um, journalists have been have been asked their immigration status.

I mean, I understand the rules, you know, the rules don't apply, but again, we have to provide and we're we have a responsibility to provide responsible guidance for members of the public, so that we all do our best part to ensure that we aren't inflicting more harm on other individuals.

So I just want to make sure we provide the most responsible guidance, and that's most helpful in terms of the the type of documentation that we provide.

But I think again, making it an accessible online portal if possible to even capture for individuals that I think members of the public generally don't know what to do with it other than post it on social media, perhaps can aid us in collecting larger quantities of documentation for what members of the public are are witnessing.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Padia.

Hello, thank you all all of you for being here and providing this report.

Um, I think uh we all appreciate it, we all know the work you're doing, we all know the amount of coordination across the city that you are taking on, and even across the city but into the county.

So I do want to start by saying thank you.

And uh, you know, I think we all kind of are noticing that the rules are not applying, right?

And we're having these conversations related to or making rules and remind us of what the rules are, and uh my observation is that you know this is going to be uh a battle of the generation to really take on the questions related to federal overreach of local control, right?

But as we live through that and we figure that out and and it gets them packaged, not just within our city, but now you know there's other cities kind of going through it as well.

Um I did want to pose the question, because you know, in my district, most of the raids have happened at Home Depot, and they've happened at Home Depot, and uh that's specifically the Home Depots that have uh uh a formalized day labor site.

So that tells me that they're operating from a cheat sheet, right?

There's this assumption that there's going to be undocumented workers at a day labor site, and that's why they are you know, staging in um the portion, the part of District 12 that's right next to mine, and then they go into my district and they've made their rates.

But my so my question is, um, and I know you're really busy with the legal stuff, but as organizations that work with um immigrant undocumented communities, have we begun the conversation of how to rethink the way businesses and um workers interact in a way because we now know that the day labor center model is no longer uh a good approach or a safe approach?

Um well I I'm gonna I guess I'm I don't agree that the day labor center and model is not a good approach.

Uh cheerless started the first day labor center in Los Angeles in in the early 90s, and we struggled over years and years ago, um, with the city of Los Angeles, with the county of Los Angeles to set up safe working sites that were not at uh street corners.

So I don't think the issue is day labor sites on Home Depots.

We actually struggle, worked really hard even with the corporation to have them on site.

Um again, it was about public safety, and it was also about worker rights and and worker justice.

So I don't think that that is the issue.

I think that the problem that we have is massive racial profiling because constitutional rights are individual rights, and so that means that every single person who is working at any site has a right to be told, is there a warrant again, you know, against you?

Yeah, is there a warrant for your arrest?

What is the reasonable suspicion or probable cause that you have that that you are in fact undocumented?

And I just want you to also understand that um we need to hold Home Depot accountable as well as a corporation for allowing this kind of um entrance into parking lots and the treatment of our folks.

So I don't think it is the day labor center model, it is the mass um lawlessness of this of the federal agency that is just going in and it's impacting not just the day laborers.

I have um uh individuals who are patrons, they were customers of Home Depot who were actually questioned about their immigration status.

So this isn't about the day laborers, it's about a federal uh federal agents, um federal agents who just feel that they there is no rule, they have the green light to do anything and to question anybody about their immigration status, and I want to also state and to do it forcefully, they are talking about a lot of these um interactions are consensual that people are giving information freely, you know, they're giving their immigration status freely, but actually what they're doing is they have guns in front of them, they're beating them up.

It's the mistreatment is so horrible, and sometimes people are literally just grabbed.

So I just let's let's put the real problem is the federal uh agencies that are violating our constitutional rights.

And I agree with you.

I agree that we're seeing things that are horrendous, but the argument I'm trying to make is um that it's a long-term battle within the space of the courts.

What I'm trying to just unpackage and see what um organizations like your own are thinking is at this very moment, that is where they're going.

There are individuals that don't know their rights, right?

They don't know um what other options they have.

So I'm just curious if at this moment in time, when we know that that is their strategy, how are we over uh thinking through their uh strategy that we're seeing on the ground?

Because I gotta be honest with you, when it comes to our constituents, uh, you know, I can give them the complicated technical minutiae related to reminding them of the fact that we are a country of laws, but then when you emphasize this is an administration that's intentionally trying to break things um for their agenda, I still have to give them an answer about well, what else are we doing to specifically get the individuals that they're looking for into a different place to avoid the sweep?

I just want to mention that the day labor centers uh exist and have uh been created pretty organically.

Um these corners um of workers were already there.

Um, and so the day labor centers um really exist uh to go into those spaces where workers naturally go to seek work, um, and to provide additional support services and additional information that is critical for people to know their rights.

So we are continuing to do that.

Uh, but we are this is a whole new world where we were able to say that day labor centers, our organizations, churches, schools, we're safe spaces, poorhouses were safe spaces.

But this is administration in administration that it's not following the law, that it's blatantly violating the law.

So it is very frustrating on what answer we give as an as an immigrant rights organization, um, to be able to protect people, right?

Um, because it's becoming harder and harder to do that.

Um, and so I I believe, like Angelika said, that it's that the day labor centers are providing an extra layer of protection and support to day laborers.

Um, but do we have to be creative and think of new ways and think outside the box on how to protect our community?

Absolutely.

Um we have to make sure that we put in place policies and protocols for people to know what to do in those cases.

It's not that people don't know their rights, is that their rights are not being respected, is that the rights are being violated.

So that is a very hard thing to combat and to fight against.

Um, but yes, I think that we are engaging internally on what new ways, you know, can we protect our community?

One of the things that is happening is that um we have volunteers and other organizations in the area who are coming to these sites in front of Home Depot, whether there's a day labor center or not, to patrol the area.

Um, in our Westlake um day labor center, there's people on all of the sides of that um, you know, uh mini mall.

Um, and they are able to, they're not able to stop federal authorities from coming and arresting people and detaining people, but they are definitely able to document um and to make sure that we know who is being taken.

Um, if the day labor centers weren't there, if those volunteers weren't there, it would be just people that are disappeared, and we would have none of the support evidence um that we need.

But we have to be creative, we have to think outside of the box.

We need resources to make sure that we can continue to protect as many people as possible, especially the most vulnerable like day laborers and street vendors, okay.

Thank you.

I needed to hear that because um, you know, I've done work um over the years with day labor centers, including uh, you know, in Houston, Texas, and the outcome was always definitely everything related to knowing your rights, being protected, public safety, public health, but the ultimate goal of that location was connect the worker to the employer, and we if we can figure out a way of continuing to do that because it's part of our overall, you know, local economy, they are part of the entire system of our local economy.

I think we need to rethink it if what it's become today is a cheat sheet for them to go um, you know, hit their numbers, so to speak.

So I just was wanted to put that out there.

And then I did lastly want to say, you know, I keep seeing a lot of scatteredness messages related to um boycotts.

How serious is the grassroots?

Because it has to be grassroots.

We've only seen it uh historically uh be effective from a grassroots perspective.

How serious is uh the movement of a grassroots approach to start certain boycotts of individuals that are um benefiting from this?

Well, we should be boycotting Home Depot, that's for sure.

Because if I'll be I wouldn't be shocked uh to find out if Home Depot is not colluding with with the federal government.

I wouldn't be shocked if Home Depot is colluding with the federal government.

Um the city should use this leverage and power uh to get to the bottom of it and ensure that Home Depot is not colluding with the federal government, that it's uh uh doing everything possible not only to uphold a you know uh in uh coordination and collaboration with all the stakeholders involved to uphold and protect everyone's rights, including their the the day laborers, but also their customers.

We know of many, many customers who were arrested by the federal government by these mass goons at Home Depot sites and work sites, not just day labors.

What are they doing about that?

And also, Commissioner Padilla, I would say the the city supports day labor centers, uh including Van Nuys, including Cypress Park and other centers, and these are uh many of these sites.

They have buildings where workers were able to, they laborers were able to be in, and the federal government needs a warrant to be able to access these private spaces, and actually that's protected many day laborers.

So it is a long game.

We should be creative, as everybody mentioned, uh, but also we should double down on the support of the day laborer centers.

That is at least my opinion.

No further questions.

Thank you so much.

Uh Councilmember Soto Martinez and then Councilmember Hernandez to close.

Uh thank you so much, uh, Council President and Councilwoman Hernandez for bringing uh you know our wonderful friends into council and uh Councilman Hernandez.

I know your district has been ground zero for many of these atrocious events, so thank you for for taking leadership for the city in this very difficult moment.

And I just uh want to thank uh Angelica, Marta, and Andres for coming in here and and giving us so much information about what the public should be doing and setting a I think a very a path of what we could be doing as a city and uh and so many of many of your different suggestions.

Uh, you know, as someone who whose parents weren't documented when this came into this country, I can't imagine uh what's happening right now.

Uh when my parents were out there street vending, I never thought that you know one day they wouldn't come home uh to my warm embrace and to have a family meal, and I can't imagine the the trauma that is happening right now in our communities.

Uh families being split apart, kids never having to see their parents again, uh, and also the secondary effects of this trauma.

Um, it's truly incalculable, and we won't know truly the the depth of this terror until many, many, many years from now.

Um, but I appreciate your your unified uh clarion call of what we should be doing in this moment.

And I think what you said to us is that everyone needs to play their part, everyone needs to play their role.

We have people that are going out there responding to raids to to verify and document and let the rep-response network know that it's happening so they can mobilize resources.

We have our attorneys, uh Andres, a good friend of mine here fighting uh against the federal government through through the legal apparatus.

We see folks doing mutual aid and doing nonviolent direct action protests and so many other things, and I think that is what you are being you're asking us to do right now is for everyone to play their role to the best of their ability.

And I think my colleagues and I are unified in pushing back against this agenda.

I think we've all come out saying we as a city are not going to stand for this, we're gonna take a lot of leadership, and right now this body is going to be voting on a few motions that are gonna provide hopefully more protections to the folks uh facing uh many of these attacks.

But I think another thing that you mentioned is that not only do we have to meet this moment right now, and yes, I do believe we should fund represent LA to much higher uh a higher number.

I do believe we should put money out for financial support and food or whatever is needed in this moment, but being in solidarity with the immigrant community is not just about meeting this moment.

We know that immigrants phase wage theft at higher degrees than many other folks.

We know that they live in housing that is many times uninhabitable, having families living in one bedroom apartments.

We know the immigrants don't have access to good jobs or good labor benefits, and we know that many of them live in rent control units, that the rents go up beyond what they make every single year.

So I get your call, and I agree with the call that you're giving us here today.

But I also want to child, I want to sort of bring to this council that not only are we fighting for immigrants, but we're fighting for so many different communities.

We see our LGBTQ, you know, uh allies being attacked.

Uh we see women's rights being taken away.

And I think Andres, you said it, we said it well.

We are fighting against a white nationalist fascist government that is hell banned on ethnic cleansing of this of this of this government.

And I see right through it, and if you don't believe me, go read hate monger, go read all the testimony and the research that's been given about this administration.

And so I think in this moment, what we're being asked to is to have solidarity in the city unlike we've never seen before.

No more living in silos, no more movements fighting for their own piece of the pie.

We're all living in the same in the same in the same moment, and I think that's what you're asking us to do.

And again, I appreciate you coming here, and certainly you can count on this body to have solidarity in this moment and beyond uh against until we get past this very difficult moment.

And again, thank you so much, Council President, uh, for all your leadership and Councilmember Nanis for bringing these amazing folks here today.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Sarah Martinez.

Thank you.

I have a couple questions, but then I'll close out.

Um, so I just want to uplift um the people that you said you've been talking to that have been incarcerated in our in these immigration prisons, in these dungeons, in these ice chests, in these cages.

Um, it's not just about putting a person in a cage, it's about losing your autonomy over your not only where you can be, but your entire body.

The way that they search people's bodies, the way that it's they disappear, but they're being abused, and their constitutional rights are being violated, they're being tortured.

We complain in here when it's too cold in chambers.

Now imagine these people that are being put in literal ice boxes.

So I just want us to ground ground us in that, that it's not only the kidnapping and disappearing of our people, but it's the torture of our people as well that is occurring.

Um, and I want to name that because I I've had people that I know that I love very much that have been in immigration prisons, and that's you know something that never leaves you.

Um I wanted to want to just recognize those people in there and pray for them and send them a lot of love.

And I want you all, if you can, please put us in the climate of the country, right?

This is happening here in Los Angeles, and we're trying to show everybody who's watching what is happening in Los Angeles, telling the truth about what's happening in Los Angeles, but can you place us in the country?

What is occurring nationwide?

Because I don't think people understand how serious this is.

They're gonna comfort the immigrants first, then they're gonna comfort documented people, then they're gonna come for everybody else.

Black, brown, LGBTQ, they are already doing it.

But the seriousness I think of just our sovereignty as a city, as a state, I think there's just so much on the line that I don't think people have a clue about.

Can you just kind of brace ground us in that where we are in the political landscape of it all?

I'll start.

First, on October 1st, there'll be 170 billion dollars in order to expand detention, incarceration of our people to have more federal agents with more money, um, with bonuses, uh, recruiting uh left and right in order uh to hunt us down.

I come to you after, and I know Marta and I have the privilege, the honor to talk to the families, and um to see everything that's happening to them.

On Saturday morning, I met with a family of Mr.

Carlos Montoya.

I met, I spoke with his uh uh daughter from Guatemala and his uh niece here in Los Angeles.

And they this is a family who lost a person who was not just important to them, their loved one, but was important to an entire community because he was a good man who worked in construction, worked at everything in order, not just to provide for his family, but to send to the community, to the the children who needed shoes, the kids who needed support.

I need you to understand who is being attacked, and and the and when I talked to Mariela said what I want, I want justice, but I want leaders that are going to step into their power, they're gonna step into their power so nobody else has to lose their life like my uncle did.

Um and for me, it's about this is happening all over the country because there are resources that are available available, billions of dollars that are re uh that are available.

This federal government has put more money into the enforcement of immigration laws than money for the entire law enforcement, municipal sheriffs, all the other federal enforcement agencies.

So if they have these, if they can do what they're doing with what they have now, imagine what's gonna happen to our community.

That is why I'm saying to you, declare a state of emergency.

Yesterday I had a conversation with my colleagues in Chicago.

There they are asking, how did you create your rapid response networks?

How are you documenting?

What is the information that we need because they are being threatened?

You see what's happening in Washington, DC, in New York City, but also in our southern states and in our Midwestern states where there isn't city council members like the ones that you know, it is it, they don't have bodies like this.

In fact, they're working directly with the federal administration to deport our people, but also it's profiteering.

There's a lot of people who are making a lot of money.

So, Core Civic and GEO are gonna get billions of dollars in contracts to detain our people and then to send them all across the country.

In California, California City is about to open another detention center, we gotta stop this.

This is horrific, and I want you to know that I each one of you right now is living in a moment where you can make a difference.

You really can for these families, and you can stand up boldly, put the resources where our community needs so they can survive.

And I want to speak also to our about our small businesses.

These businesses are hurting.

You supported them during the fires, you supported them during the pandemic.

You need to think about the businesses in the same way that you did then.

And and and lastly, I live in Northwest Pasadena.

I have a situation where barely getting out of the fires.

We have had raids there.

I had people who lost their home and who have family detained.

How can that be so?

This is unacceptable.

So we need to make sure that that we act boldly and we think about this moment.

Um, and I do want to back to the words of uh councilwoman Padilla.

We have to think outside of the box, but we also have to be bolder and braver during this time.

It's fearing, it's fearful.

People have a lot of fear.

We need to step into our courage.

We need to step into our courage right now because courage exists when there is fear.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Thank you so much.

Um, thank you to our panel.

Thank you all for being here, Councilmember Hernandez.

Thank you, thank you so much.

Thank you for setting that that landscape for us, uh, um, I hear I I want to talk about the next steps.

So I hear you in next steps or ask that you all have is one declare a state of emergency vote for what's occurring, two, support our small businesses that are hurting right now, three, supporting our families, making sure that they don't fall into the addiction to homelessness pipeline, and that's the rent stabilization ordinance, uh ordinance through other means that are gonna be in front of us and that are in front of us to approve and to vote, um, and meeting people with that with food and other resources.

So I hear you, and I hope my colleagues hear you because you're right, it is a moment to be bold.

We have the bully pulpit, we can say the things, we have you know a budget that we're working through, but sometimes we need to reassess our investments to meet the moment.

You know, before the budget, we weren't in these federal immigration enforcement rates.

We um we haven't seen our small business impacted at the level that they are before the budget.

So I I would hope that we can reassess, you know, how we move, and I hear you on next steps, and I also hear you Andres about you know companies and corporations who are, you know, potentially working and and helping with federal immigration enforcement.

And I want these companies to know that we're watching, we're watching their investments in private prison industries.

We're watching the collaboration and calls that they're making, uh, and we're also watching not do nothing when Penske trucks are being opened up in their parking lots and people are getting getting kidnapped.

So I just want to let you know that I heard you, and it takes eight to make something happen on this body.

So I heard I hope seven other people also heard you, so we could get things done.

Um, but I'm grateful for you all for you showing your bravery, because I know that even coming out here to talk, you know, puts people in on different situations, and when we talk about security and all the things, so I'm just grateful for your bravery and for showing us what it looks like to not just do the work during the crisis, but I think our folks are doing as good as they are because of the decades of work that you all have done to build the strength, capacity, and connections in this committee.

So thank you.

I am internally grateful to you all.

I heard of people having to embrace and huddle because of how cold it is at B18 for the body heat.

And an eighty-five-year-old uh shivering on the concrete floor, trying to sleep.

Um they're making it so hard so that people can sign the rights away and sign voluntary departure.

I spoke to somebody who had, but he still provided his story and his declaration, even though you wouldn't help him at all.

That's a kind of so that's the kind of solidarity we need right now, that even if it's not in our direct self-interest, he said it.

I'm doing this for the people so that nobody else can go through this again.

I just wanna ground us and remind us of that that we need the kind of solidarity with that that we've never seen before, as Hugo mentioned, and and we implore you to um do everything you can as a LA City Council.

Thank you and Council President, thank you so much on this.

And Council President, I do want to uplift uh your leadership as well, and then that of the mayor.

You know, I she has been stepping up and having the conversations and pushing our all the entities uh to throw down for our city.

But you the way that you have opened up our council to be able to tell the stories of multiple districts that are being impacted throughout this process.

I think for the history, for people to witness, I just I'm grateful you created that opportunity for us.

Thank you so much, and thank you to uh members who participated and pushed us to do to do this.

Uh, this was the idea of our council president pro Tim Bob Blumenfield uh to do this every morning.

Uh so I want to make sure we acknowledge him, and we will continue.

Just everybody, we'll we'll be here every morning until um, you know, we uh as we say uh at the park, it's not over until we win.

Uh so we'll be here every morning until uh we return peace to our streets and justice to our people.

Thank you all so much.

Thank you.

Mr.

Clerk, uh, we'll continue this item.

And um I'll ask you what's next.

Mr.

President, there's a request to continue item 19 to Wednesday, August 20th, 2025.

Without objection.

For the record, an additional community impact statement has been submitted for item 28 by the historic Thailand Park neighborhood council.

The council may now proceed to public comment.

All right, we can prepare uh the room for public comment.

We'll hear from the clerk and the city attorney, and I will just note members uh uh of the council, staffs, and the gallery.

We will uh hold public comment till noon.

So that gives us 40 minutes of public comment today.

So everybody be aware, get us up to the mic, start as soon as you can so we can get to as many people as possible.

People providing public comment, when it is your turn to speak.

Please state which of the agenda items you'd like to speak to.

You will have one minute per item, up to three minutes total for the items open for public comment.

We will tell you when your time is up.

When speaking on the agenda items.

You must be on topic.

Our goal is to get through as many speakers as we can.

If you are not on topic, or if we cannot tell whether you were on topic, you will get one brief warning from me or the council president.

At that point, you need to get immediately and clearly on topic.

If you do not do so, or if you again stray off topic, you will forfeit the rest of your speaking time, and we will move on to the next speaker.

The items open for public comment on the agenda are items number one and items 37 through 46.

So again, the items that are open for public comment on the agenda are items number one and items number 37 through 46.

Members of the public may also speak for up to one minute for general public comment.

During general public comment, members of the public may speak to any of the items or anything else than a city's subject matter jurisdiction.

I have a couple more announcements before we begin.

If I could have the uh Spanish language interpreters, please make this first one aloud to the room.

If you require a Spanish language interpreter, please make sure to pause every few sentences so the interpreters can interpret.

So we would ask that in order to help us run an efficient public comment period.

Please make sure to wait until you hear the name that you signed up under called aloud through the speakers before lining up.

After you hear your name called, you can line up in any order on your left-hand side of the council chambers.

Thank you.

I will begin by calling names.

Tia Matt Afrier, Lena Sullivan, Dolores Rosa, and Lori Lathrop.

Tia Matt, Afrier, Lena Sullivan, Delois Rosa, and Laura LaTrap.

Good morning.

Which items would you like to speak to?

Hi, good morning.

Um, I am giving general public comment.

Okay, so you have one minute.

Go ahead.

Thank you so much.

Um, my name is Lena Sullivan.

I'm here with Sage as a tenant organizer as well as a renter in an RSO unit living in District 13.

I'm here with all of these folks to ask you to please strengthen Larso and cap the rent at 3%.

As a tenant organizer, every day I'm speaking with tenants who are struggling to survive in LA.

Um, one for example, one SAGE member who lives in a Larsa unit in district ten.

Recently got the maximum rent increase of four percent plus two percent for utilities, plus ten percent for temporarily taking in a family member in need.

That's a total of a sixteen percent rent increase.

So um, Councilmember Hutt, I'd like to direct myself to you specifically.

78% of your constituents are renters and 12% of the city's RSO units are in your district.

So I ask you as well as every other council member here today to please stand with your renter constituents and vote yes and clause proposals for LARSA, um, as well as fully funding rental assistance and for stay house delay.

Cap the rent at three percent.

Before the next speaker begins, I will call a few more names.

Robert, Harriet Elliott, Nicole Paulson Cahane.

Good morning.

Which items would you like to speak to?

Item number thirty-four, please.

Okay, and as just so just for everybody.

If it's just the item, please let us know the item, so thank you.

If it's the item or items plus general public comment, please let us know if you'd like general public comment as well.

So is it just item 34?

Yes.

Okay, so you have one minute for the item.

Go ahead.

My name is Lori Lathrip.

I am vice president of the Harvard City Neighborhood Council.

Um, I want to remind you that the Harvard City Neighborhood Council did uh submit a CIS statement uh against this project.

There has been nothing that has been transparent about it from the beginning.

Um I urge that you please help figure out what went wrong, where it went wrong, because words do make a big difference, and somewhere along the lines, I believe that this has gone a little bit further than it needed to, and it's continuing to go into a circle that needs to stop and help figure out what went wrong so this doesn't continue to happen in Harvard City or happen in another city.

We need to get this fixed.

Thank you.

Which items would you like to speak to?

Commentary public comment.

Okay, so you have one minute.

Go ahead.

Yes, I am here to speak about uh the rents raising.

We need help.

We need it so that the rents are not raised because we run the risk of being evicted.

I'm one of the people that needs uh help paying rent.

We need help paying rent because me in particular, my husband, he works at Home Depot, and as we know, Home Depot has been subject to the raids, fry ice.

And I am a street vendor myself, and I am afraid to go out and work as well because of the raids.

So that is why we need rental assistance.

Please help us.

Because it is a very terrible and scary situation for us.

Uh many of us, we are not we're too scared to go outside because of the raids that are going on.

Thank you very much.

Good morning, speaker.

You have three minutes for the items and one minute for general.

Go ahead.

Start with item number 39 is about the uh international overdose awareness, uh awareness.

Um I would like to make sure that uh council understand that um the city of Los Angeles really never care about anything about overdose because a lot of those illegal gangbangers are continue doing drugs on Figaroa, on Skid Roll, on any corner of the uh street of Los Angeles, and nobody cares.

Uh the other day I was uh overdosed, and then the only person who cared is actually my nurse Dana.

Dana is the one who take care of me in the ICU, not the city attorney, not the council member, not the blow mandingo or whatsoever.

Uh, but I want to thank uh thank uh thank Dana very much for taking care of the patients in the ICU, especially for all of the patients about overdose patients who end up in the ICU.

Keep out the good work, Dana.

Now let's move on to item number 40.

Uh item number 40 is about the uh Korean independence day, including the uh illumination of the city hall.

Yes, I am here to support the uh Korean Independence Day, and the hall are we going to celebrate it?

Uh that will be we are going to make sure that we're gonna host a Korean barbecue in the middle of the street of the Figaro and 77.

And uh I think that is the best way for us to recognize uh the importance of the Korean Independence Day.

And then uh furthermore, uh we are going to make sure that every single uh Korean homeless person, uh every single uh Korean uh overdose patients in the hospital.

They are getting the care they need.

They are getting their services they need, they are getting the shelter, whatever they need.

And then most important, we're gonna focus in on the uh uh law-abiding Korean American, not the illegal Korean American.

We have to make sure uh we are supporting the legal, legal American only.

So you've exhausted your time on item 40.

Please move on to another item.

Now let's move on to item number 43.

Uh no, 42, item number 42.

Uh, I am here to thank all of our ICE law enforcement for arresting the gangbanger illegals.

I'm I'm here to give a shout out to our uh Los Angeles Police Department, Department of Homeland Security, and the ICE and whatever FBI, CIA, whatever, right there, to make sure uh the city of Los Angeles remains safe.

Uh, we're gonna make sure that they uh uh we're gonna make sure that uh every single all of those uh um uh gangbanger on Figaroa, uh prostitution, drug ring, cartel ring, they're gonna continue to go into jail, going to prison, going to get deported because criminal has no place in the city of Los Angeles.

We're gonna continue to support ICE, FBI, LAPD, uh, law enforcement of every single kind.

General public comment for the uh general public comment.

Uh yes, um, I want to make sure that uh for everyone in the city of Los Angeles who are so sickened by your services taken by illegals, who are sickened by your services taken by illegals, who are sickened that there are so many illegal cartel, illegal gangbangers, and the illegal whatever drugs, fentanyls, marijuana on the street.

I want to make sure that every single of those 15 council members does not do anything about it.

Every single of those 15 members council, they're gonna continue to support their illegals, but which council member are going to support a law and order, that'll be the 2026 council member Spindler.

So I am here uh to voice my support for my nurse, Dana, uh for my council member Spindler, and then we're gonna make sure everyone in the city of Los Angeles, a legal legal citizen, can continue to thrive, can continue to uh uh succeed.

Your time has expired.

Next speaker.

Good morning, speaker.

Which items would you like to speak to?

Uh number 34 and also general public comment.

So, item number 34, it looks like public comment has already been held.

So sorry, you can speak to it for the general public comment, though.

Go ahead.

Okay.

And I have a pack.

Item 34 has been amended, and I don't think anyone's had an opportunity to speak on the amendment.

Yes, so Councilmember McCosker, would you like to make a request to reopen public comment on item 34?

Yes, I would move that we reopen public comment on item 34, given the amendment that was introduced today.

Is there a second to this motion?

Mr.

Blumenfield has seconded, and I'm fine to reopen public comment for item 34.

So, speaker, I believe you have one minute for the item and one minute for general public comment.

Go ahead.

Go ahead.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Nicole Paulson.

Um, our small neighborhood is facing a 46-based RV park push forward without our voices with our without environmental review and without the safeguards the laws require.

This is about more than one project.

It's about whether Angelinos can trust their city to follow the law and protect its people.

The CUP process exists for a reason.

To make sure projects are safe, compatible, and reviewed with community input.

Skipping that process is not just wrong.

It's dangerous.

This RV park is planned on top of nine capped oil wells that operated for over a century.

Yet there's been no soil testing, no sequel require review, no assurance that the land is even safe for human habitation and families to live on.

We are only asking for fairness, safety, and the process the law requires.

Please uphold the CUP and protect the health and character of every community in Los Angeles.

Um I have another minute.

Yes.

So general public comment.

Okay.

Um, so this is a discrepancy between you know the LAMC and the state statute, and there's multiple different.

There's two different well, actually, the state and the city have made it a CUP, and then and the definition portion, and then 14.00 came along and required a ministerial process, which doesn't safeguard our our people in our community, and um especially the fact that it's being built on capped oil wells without full environmental analysis.

Like it's very I'm scared for my community.

I really, I really and the people that live on are gonna plan be plan to live live there.

And I just want safe and and our voices to be heard in this process.

It's coming into my community, and yeah, that's it.

Thank you.

Before the next speaker begins, before the next speaker begins, I will call a few more names.

Shane Henson, Bob Mengel, Sheeta Ashley, Jose Dominguez, Kojo, the Artists.

Good morning.

Which items would you like to speak to?

Um, I was saying number one because I don't like the proliferation of uh liquor stores, but I want number two, which has to do with human trafficking, and um the book called Okay, so number so you'll have one minute for item number one if you'd like item number two, general public or public comment has been satisfied.

So you also have one minute for general, so please begin with the item first.

I won't take a whole minute on this.

Uh uh Carol Rutz wrote a book called Nation Betrayed about Young People and the CIA.

I hope uh it's uh out of print.

Speaker, this doesn't appear to have anything to do with it.

Number one, so I'm gonna move it to general public comment.

Go ahead, you have one minute.

Okay, uh, I'm going on to mine, which is um Patricia Cornwell uh is a very popular writer that writes about directed energy.

Um last week, city attorney you told me that I, by talking about the two uh uh Robert Duncan's death, it has nothing to do with uh city business.

Well, I'm gonna tell you something city business.

I'll all I went to uh office depot, not about the conversation that we've been talking about, but to get a uh my windows measured because the CIA is interested in promoting sex, they don't want me to have good covering of my windows.

Can I bring that up here?

I brought it up as a commission of uh women and they did nothing about it.

My other one is that my doctor, uh optometrist is trying to fuck me.

This guy is named um Carrick Kahali, and um it's on he doesn't even know what he's doing.

It's he's under speaker, your time has expired.

Next speaker.

Hello, my name is Shannon.

I'm gonna speak on item 44 and general public comment.

So you have one minute for the item and one minute for general.

Please begin with the item.

Go ahead.

Thank you.

On behalf of Inner City Law Center, we asked the members of the LA City Council to refer item 44, which asked the city to oppose Senate Bill 79 back to the rules committee for a full hearing.

SB 79 is a bill that allows mixed income multifamily housing in areas around subway, light rail, and bus, rapid transit stops.

Inner city law center joined as a sponsor of SB 79 because we believe this bill will help solve the housing and homelessness crisis by incentivizing the production of affordable and mixed income housing in Los Angeles.

Recent amendments to SB 79 protect rent controlled units and add affordability requirements that will spur the production of deeply affordable housing.

The increased production of affordable housing will ensure more low-income tenants can afford to live in a decent home.

However, recent misinterface uh misinformation has been spread online that attempts to put SB 79 in a bad light.

We ask the LA City Council to refer item 44 back to the rules committee so the public can receive a full hearing on the benefits of this bill.

I'm moving on to general public comment.

Okay, so you have one minute.

Additionally, on behalf of the Keep LA House Coalition, I asked the LA City Council to agendize a vote on improving the Los Angeles rent stabilization ordinance.

Larso is an essential policy tool that helps keep hundreds of thousands of Angelina stably housed.

However, the recent rent increases allowed, however, the current rent increases allowed under the uh formula are too high, and it contains additional loopholes that cause unnecessary rent increases for renters.

In short, the current rent formula is unaffordable for Angelinos, who are already already struggling to make the rent.

I urge LA City Council to adopt keep LA House demands for the RSO formula.

Specifically, we asked that the base rent increases be set to 60% CPIL items, a rent increase cap be placed at 3% with no floor, that there be no rent banking allowed to the formula, and that we eliminate loopholes that allow landlords to raise rent if they provide utilities and raise rent if there are additional occupants.

We have been waiting and waiting and waiting for the LA City Council to act to protect renters.

Please agendize this item.

Thank you.

Before the next person speaks, I will call more names.

Brian Spratlin, Brendan Fisher, Michael Ackerman, and Barbara Brody.

Good morning.

Which items would you like to speak to?

Item number 44.

Okay.

So you have one minute.

Go ahead.

Good morning, Council members.

My name is Shada Ashley.

I represent Century Glen Neighborhood Association, and we urge you to oppose SB 79.

I was here a few months ago when the council voted to approve the housing element as it as it left out the single family homes out of the upzoning as it should.

If you do not oppose 79, you reopening this issue again, which goes against the vote that you already took a few months ago.

This is not consistent voting.

So I ask you, do not send it back to the rules committee and stick with what you what was agendized for today, which was to decide on this item, and we urge you to oppose 79.

Thank you.

Good morning.

Which items would you like to speak to?

Uh, item 34 and general comment.

Okay, so uh yes, you'll have one minute for the item and one minute for general.

Go ahead.

My name is Bob Mingle.

I'm uh item 34.

I'm here representing my neighborhood.

Um we've done our due diligence.

We've filed four appeals, we've gone to uh the planning zoning commission, we've done uh the CPC commission.

Uh we've followed everything by your standards to this point.

Uh everything that we've done is been stonewalled.

We we've been passed over.

Um it seems like everything that that is focused on this is on paperwork.

I've asked over and over, I asked Phyllis of Planning Commission, I've asked other people city officials in the city if they've come by and looked at this project.

Nobody comes by and looks at it.

All they do is look at reports and pass it on.

The only people that we've getting any feedback from is Tim McCosker.

He's been a stand-up dude.

He comes to us, we've we've issued stuff to him, he acknowledges it, and he files motions.

Um, this is wrong.

This is a wrong project.

The city council needs to wake up and they need to focus on this here.

This is a small issue that's gonna be citywide if it's not handled right now.

We need to stop this.

We've been uh we filed complaints with building building in uh LA DBS and all of those were no replies, they've never come back and even talked to us about anything.

Nobody wants to deal with us, but they want to allow the permits and everything to go through, and that's wrong.

This needs to come back and needs to be investigated.

The all the council needs to get on a bus and they need to drive out there and really look at this project and what's going on here.

Because I'm telling you, in each one of your council districts, this is gonna happen.

This man has not followed the rules one bit.

If you look at what we've done and look what he's done, he hasn't filed any type of appeals, he hasn't done anything.

All he's done, we went to the pump committee, and they're talking about Ms.

Raman.

They were talking about uh the city being sued.

Well, you're already being sued.

He's suing you.

He's already he's already put two or three lawsuits in, and he's gonna put more lawsuits in.

We're fighting for our lives in Harbor City.

Speaker, your time has expired.

Next speaker, good morning.

Which items would you like to speak to?

General public comment.

Okay.

So you have one minute.

Go ahead.

Morning, everyone, or at least the few council members who are still actually here.

Um my name is Brendan, and I'm a resident here in CD 14, and I'm here to advocate for the keep LA House Coalition's lost reform demands specifically to change the allowable range of rent increases to be based on 60% of CPI with a range going from 3 to 8% down to 0 to 3% to get rid of the additional utility bumps, the new occupant bump, and to eliminate rent banking from consideration.

I mean, it's hard to go a day without seeing some headline about our federal government taking an axe to our economic or civil liberties.

And frankly, we live in a time where everyday people lack any sort of real protection from our elected officials.

Last spring you had an opportunity to reform Larso and you missed that opportunity, and yet you still have a chance to actually provide some much-needed relief to everyday people in your communities.

So I would highly encourage you to stop acting like politicians and be the public servants you're elected to be.

Thank you.

Good morning, speaker.

Which items would you like to speak to?

Uh, number 34, and in general also.

Okay, so you have one minute for the item and one minute for general.

Go ahead.

Hello, my name is Brian Sprath and I want to remind the council that CEQA is not optional.

I want to follow up on Ms.

Paulson's comments.

It is the law.

Secret Guidelines Appendix G specifically list projects located on or near abandoned wells as posing potentially significant hazards.

This project sits on nine abandoned wells with risk of methane migration, soil contamination, and even explosion.

Ministerial processing under LAMNC cannot bypass EQA when these hazards exist.

The courts have been clear.

If discretion is required or environmental hazards are present, full sequel review is mandatory.

Ignoring this would not only endanger residents, it would expose the city to serious litigation risk.

This project must undergo conditional use permit with CQ review.

Anything less is unlawful.

Our neighborhood recognizes the need for housing, but this is not the proper development for our quiet neighborhood.

Before the next speaker begins, I will call a few more names.

Lucia Abad.

Dana Banana.

Alisha Balterzar.

Good morning.

Which items would you like to speak to?

4546 in public comment.

Okay.

So you have two minutes for the items and one minute for general.

Please begin with the items.

Go ahead.

You have a couple items marked for closed session, and potentially any item can be put into closed session with little or no notice.

This is a problem.

In normal times, I would suggest that recordings of these closed sessions be published as soon as settlements have been reached.

But I'm sure you would find some justification for keeping them confidential.

Regardless, these are not normal times, and I have no confidence that the Brown Act will be followed.

If you wanted to, you could just text each other, and no one would be the wiser.

And if it came out that you were violating the serial meeting prohibition, it wouldn't make any difference because as I said, the Brown Act is not being enforced.

There is a solution, and it takes no money and almost no effort on your part.

It does not require an official vote, but it does require that you act individually as public representatives.

You need to each send public letters to the governor asking him for military-level oversight of the police.

I absolutely do not want troops in the street, but I do want a handful of National Guard investigators to look into police potential police misconduct.

General comment.

I want to remind you that the primary purpose of public comments is not to communicate with representatives.

If people wanted to do that, they could just send you a letter.

The primary purpose of public comments is to alert the public and officials about important issues at the same time.

So if anybody here or anybody watching on smoke and scan thinks a National Guard investigation of the police doesn't make sense, please tell me why.

Thank you.

Good morning.

Which items would you like to speak to?

Good morning.

I'm here to speak on item 44 on behalf of the West Side Neighborhood Council.

Okay, so there's a couple things.

So you're requesting for the formal community impact statement that's been submitted to the clerk's office.

Are you also looking to speak in your individual capacity as well?

Or just on behalf of the neighborhood council?

I'm speaking on behalf of the neighborhood council on this item alone, and I'm going to expound.

We have two different uh CIS statements, one that was filed in March and one that was filed in April.

And I sent a note to the clerk today about that.

Okay, so you'll have three minutes for the community impact statement for the neighborhood council.

Go ahead.

Okay.

Is by the way, where before you start the time, the council president is gone.

Oh, again, I believe they're in the back, but for now, you have to provide we have to start the clock for the community impact statement.

So you have three minutes for the community impact statement.

Go ahead.

Okay.

Barbara Broidy speaking on behalf of the Westside Neighborhood Council, respectfully urging the council to prove item 44 that opposes SB 79 unless amended to exclude cities with approved housing elements.

This needs to be taken up today because the Assembly in Sacramento will be voting tomorrow on it.

It should not go back to the rules committee where it has languished since March.

Let's be very clear.

A vote for this resolution is not a vote against housing density, as many housing advocates wrongly claim.

A vote for the council file is a vote to fight back against Sacramento's efforts to override our city's land use plans and authority with one size fits all mandates that are ignore the diversity of Los Angeles and of our state.

LA invested significant resources to develop a housing element that meets the state's RENA housing goals.

It was the result of a massive community participation effort.

While the housing element plans and requirements are applied statewide, Senator Weiner has presented SB 79 as a one size fits all measure, but it is anything like that now.

He has been making deals behind the curtain to exclude cities and counties who will exchange their votes for their exclusion.

LA is not in that mix, and we need to go on record opposing this measure.

Scott Wiener has attempted to explain California's high housing costs as a result of regulations and zoning.

It is anything but that.

Can't build multifamily housing in hillsides and high fire severity zones.

Recent studies of housing markets document that SB 79 fails to address the root causes of the cost of housing.

San Francisco Federal Bank, the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco concluded, contrary to the prevailing beliefs and influential policy narratives, our empirical results consistently demonstrate that higher income growth predicts similar growth in housing prices, housing quantities, population, and living space per persons.

In other words, housing costs so much in California, largely because people make so much in California, and private developers charge what the market will bear.

SB 79 is a blank check for developers, allowing them to cherry pit locks to maximize their return.

Thank you.

Good morning.

Which items would you like to speak to?

Adelante.

Good morning to the council.

I am a member of Ace from District 9.

Adelante.

I am here because I'm a single mother and I am also a street vendor.

Adelante.

So you're not there during the tempo.

I'm asking guys to cap the rent at 3%.

I'm a street veteran, as you guys know, the with the aggressive rates, a lot of us haven't been able to go out and make money, and so I'm very behind on rent.

Adelante.

Avoid yet, vote yes to the KLH's proposals for LARSO to remove extra increases for utilities and extra occupants.

Remove the minimum rent increases and cap the rent at 3%.

For la proposta de Larso, somos inquilinos canosfalta nuestra renta.

Finally, it's time for you guys to vote on vote on LARSA.

Next speaker, thank you.

Good morning.

Which items would you like to speak to?

I'm speaking on general public comment.

Okay.

So you have one minute.

Go ahead.

Thank you.

My name is Alicia Balthasar and I'm here with my fellow ACE members to ask you to cap the rent at 3%.

I am a member of the CD 15 or what we like to call the 1-5.

And I became a member of that community 10 years ago.

I almost passed away in a homeless shelter.

Due to my disability, a social worker then helped me get housing, and I thought that was gonna be the end of it.

I thought I no longer had to worry about that.

But here I am 10 years later living under a Nazi resume, having to fear for my housing, having to fear for my health care, for my stability in general.

You know, right now my son is 16, and I would really like to see him graduate while living indoors.

So I really ask you to please cap the rent at 3%.

If our rent goes up anymore, programs like Section 8 won't work, won't keep us housed, and won't help us.

So we're desperate today.

We're asking you, we've been here several times to ask you guys please cap the rent at 3%.

And if we could fund the public bank.

Hey, so thank you for inviting those people in this uh to the chivalro and all those people.

They were great speakers.

One question that I was weirded out that you guys kept asking them for solutions.

I wish y'all would be creative and come up with solutions yourself or work with them.

Um the rent moratorium is very important.

Uh businesses are losing money, starting with that curfew that Mayor Bass gave.

I'm really sad that Marquise left and we have you because Marquise avoids public comment.

He hates listening to us.

I'm sad that Soto left because we need unions.

I don't know which one of you knows how to work with unions.

I know he does, but there's going to be a general strike, and we need the unions to be all on board.

And you guys need to help us.

I'm not getting paid to do any of the activism that I'm doing.

And you you hopefully you're activist for the people.

And so, oh, my time is up.

I understand that one maybe have a great day, bless you, et cetera, et cetera.

And fuck you.

Okay, so I want to check.

I believe that there were a couple formal community impact statements that were filed.

I know that we heard from one, but is anyone here to provide a formal community impact statement that was approved by your neighborhood council?

If so, yes, please come to the podium.

And again, this is a formal community impact statement that was approved by your neighborhood council and adopted by your neighborhood council and submitted to the clerk's office.

And we'll just give her one moment to get to the podium.

Good morning.

Good morning.

You have three minutes for your neighborhood council community impact statement.

Go ahead.

Okay.

Hi, my name is Lydia Grant.

I'm the president of Sunland Hunga Neighborhood Council.

And today I'm here on 79.

I'm very involved in the housing as far as the state of California and watching the bills that have been going by.

One of my biggest complaints about that is that Sacramento keeps doing unfunded mandates.

Those are illegal.

They're putting the pressure on the city to pay for the infrastructure of things that they're demanding.

It is illegal.

Um the pay the money to back them up for the infrastructure.

Now I'm going to switch to the reason I'm here today, and I did pass out our CIS on the issue.

We are opposed to SB 79, and we are opposed for a lot of reasons.

But one of them is people believe this is gonna bring the housing that is needed.

With it, it could also bring the deaths of community members due to poor planning.

And the reason why is for example, I live in Sun Lantahunga.

I live in a community that's a high-fire danger area, a community that has already been evacuated with a hundred thousand people having to leave due to fires.

We have had some of the biggest fires in LA County and LA City.

The issue is if they are going to be continuing to overbuild in our community, which is a hillside area with only one way in and out, Foothill Boulevard.

You are saying that without these parking regulations, and without people having transportation, that they will be allowed to just sit there and die.

Because we all know that we're building a lot of housing on the public transportation routes, and as we know in Palisades, as soon as, as soon as an emergency happened, was it's a tsunami, whether it's a fire, the emergency the transportation system shuts down.

They are not going to endanger bus drivers and trains and people on those and push them into areas that are on fire or are being flooded or in the middle of a mudslide.

So you are potentially causing the future that may create deaths for people.

That's not safe housing, and that's something that needs to be considered.

So please vote no on SB 79 and back it up on any of these bills that are bad for the people and are unsafe.

Thank you.

And I've been informed that we have one more community impact statement that was filed by a neighborhood council.

So before you begin, just so everybody's aware.

What these are is we have a wonderfully robust neighborhood council system in the city of Los Angeles.

And the neighborhood councils, you can go to those community meetings.

They are subject to the Brown Act, they're open to the public.

The local law allows affords them the opportunity to adopt formal statements on behalf of their neighborhood councils, and that's what's been done.

Those formal statements have been submitted to the clerk's office.

That's what we're hearing right now.

So good morning.

You have three minutes for your community impact statement.

Good morning, and thank you for your time.

Again, I'm Lori Lathrip.

I'm from the Harbor City Neighborhood Council.

Um we had submitted a CIS, stating, dear council members.

We the Harvard City Neighborhood Council hereby express our strong opposition to the establishment of Silver RV Park owned by Stuart Silver operating within Harbor City limits.

While we recognize the importance of economic development and growth, we finally we firmly believe that allowing the silver RV to operate here would have profoundly negative consequences for Harbor City by the appearance of the current RV parks in operation that Mr.

Silver owns, these are the concerns.

Community character, the introduction of the Sylvia Silver RV part would alter the unique character and charm of Harbor City.

Our community values in small town feel and close-knit relationships among residents.

Presence would invite, sorry, my glasses are old, would invite more RVs parking on residential streets around Harbor City to wait for a spot in the Silver RV park, allowing the older RVs to park out on the streets.

Traffic and infrastructure, silver repark operation would inevitably lead to increased traffic congestion and strain on our already burdened infrastructure.

Our roads, utilities, and public services are not equipped to handle the influx of RVs and visitors that Silver RV Park would attract.

Some RVs might not be well maintained, leading to higher chances of breakdowns, fluid leakage, or other issues that would strain local infrastructure and resources.

Quality of life is the noise pollution, trash left outside, non-working vehicles, and other disruptions associated with Silver RV Park would diminish the quality of life for residents in the garden, the green meadows, and nearby neighborhoods, families, seniors, and other vulnerable populations would bear the brunt of the disturbances.

Mr.

Silver has faced scrutiny for its numerous zoning violations and expansions without permits, posing health and safety risk and other social responsibilities.

The lack of public announcement and input about the development of the RV part betrays transparency.

That always should be a cornerstone of any proposed use.

Thank you for your time.

All right, that concludes public comment for today's meeting.

Thank you for everybody who came to participate.

Mr.

Clerk, can we take up item seven?

First, which we lose Mr.

Price on uh item number seven.

This is a recusal.

All right, uh let's open the roll.

Close the roll, tabulate to vote.

Twelve eyes.

Alright.

Well, I invite Mr.

Price uh back in.

And uh what's next, Mr.

Clerk?

Mr.

President, the council may now vote on items one, thirty-seven, thirty-nine, forty, forty-one, and forty three.

All right, let's open the roll on these items.

Close the roll, tabulate the vote.

Thirteen ayes.

All right, what's next?

The council may now vote on item 38, call special by council members Hernandez and Jurado for a separate vote.

Alright, comments.

Either of those members, Ms.

Hernandez, Ms.

Judato.

All right, item 38 is before us.

Call special by Councilmember Hernandez and Councilmember Jurado for a separate vote.

Let's open the roll.

Close the roll, tabulate the vote.

Ten ayes, three no's.

All right.

What's next?

The council may now consider item 31.

Call special by Councilmember Rodriguez for comments.

Councilmember Rodriguez.

Thank you.

Colleagues, today we're considering a series of initiatives and motions that reaffirm our city's values in the face of growing federal overreach.

From demanding transparency through FOIA requests to strengthening our ability to respond when federal agents trample on our civil rights to rejecting the militarization of our neighborhoods and supporting legislation that stops secret policing.

Each of these measures is about defending the dignity and constitutional rights of Angelinos.

At the center of this work is the need for comprehensive immigration reform.

For too long, millions of people, including dreamers, TPS holders, ungreen card veterans that have served this country in multiple battles, our essential workers have lived with great uncertainty despite their vital contributions to communities and our economy.

Families should not have to live in fear, and our cities, like LA, should not be forced to respond piecemeal for federal failures.

Real reform would provide a pathway to citizenship, reduce backlogs, and create a system that honors both the humanity and the hard work of our immigrant communities.

Colleagues, our votes today are more than just symbolism.

They are a declaration that Los Angeles will not shrink from our responsibility to lead.

Let us remember that our North Star is to protect the people we serve and defend the rights and dignity of every Angelino.

And with that I ask for your eye vote.

Thank you so much, Councilmember Rodriguez.

Let's open the roll on that item, close the roll, tabulate the vote.

13 ayes.

Alright, what's next?

The council may now consider items 28 and 30.

Call special by Councilmember Hernandez for comments.

Councilmember Hernandez.

Thank you, Council President.

Real quick, though, is it possible that I could be recorded as a no vote on number 38?

Mr.

Clerk.

Hernandez has been requested to be recorded as a no vote on 38.

Uh, sir.

If uh if the council would like to wish to reconsider the item.

All right, if it requires reconsideration, let's do that after we deal with the item that's before us.

Great, thank you.

Um, thank you, Council President.

No one should be dragged out of a truck, stopped on the street, or confronted in public by someone claiming to be law enforcement and refusing to prove it.

And yet for the past 10 weeks, this has been the reality for too many of our constituents.

This morning we heard directly from Chidla Caresin and the ACLU of Southern California about the way federal migration enforcement agents have been terrorizing our communities.

Raids without warrants, agents refusing to identify themselves, parents and workers left powerless in the face of fear.

Think about how vulnerable that moment is.

Someone approaches you, their faces covered, they won't identify themselves, they say they have authority over you, your body, your family and your kids and your freedom.

What are you supposed to do?

Who do you call?

What this council is doing as a city's legislative body is seeking a policy standard for how we expect our departments to act in these high-risk, rights-sensitive situations.

We want to work in partnership with the police commission and the mayor to make sure these policies are modern, practical, and effective, and as clear as day.

At its core, this motion is about trust.

Trust that the city will protect its people.

Trust that our immigrant communities will not be left alone in moments of fear and uncertainty, and trust that when someone claims the authority of the law, they will be held to the standard of proving it.

That's why, alongside this motion, I also want to uplift items 28 and 30.

Resolutions in support of state legislation that reinforce the same values.

No secret police operating in our communities, and no federal migration agents harassing students or accessing their personal data.

Also, want to thank my colleagues, uh Councilmember Blumenfield and others who have signed on uh and and co-authored these uh co-presented these with us.

Every Angelino deserves to feel safe in their own city.

And as as the council, we have a responsibility to do everything in our power to keep that promise.

Thank you again to Councilmember Blumenfield for co-presenting this motion.

Thank you to everyone who has thrown down to protect our neighbors and families.

Colleagues, I ask for your support on this motion.

Thank you, Council President.

Thank you so much, Councilmember Hernandez.

Seeing no other members on this item, let's open the roll.

Close the roll, tabulate the vote.

13 ayes.

All right, what's next?

Mr.

President, in regards to item 38, since the outcome would not change the vote for Councilmember Hernandez, her vote will be called as a no vote.

And that would change the vote to nine eyes and four no's.

All right.

What's next?

The council may now consider item 34, call special by McCall, Councilmember McCosker for Council Member Bloomfield, for which amending motion 34A, McCosker for Bloomfield Lee has been introduced, circulated and posted on the bulletin board.

Mr.

Blumenfield, Mr.

McCosker, Mr.

McCoster.

Thank you very much.

First, I want to thank the residents for coming out and speaking to this item.

Just to give it a little bit of context, what's happening today is the item was vetoed, was recommended for veto and remand back to the planning department for further consideration on the appeal that was filed by the neighbors.

The amendment, however, though, does add some language.

It adds a request that the city attorney provide an analysis of whether or not the RV park in this site requires a conditional use permit or not, and if not, why not?

Just to give the city attorney a little head start, I want to just speak to this briefly.

Later provisions, more general provisions, did amend the way that certain other uses can come in ministerially, and one of those uses described as RV parks.

However, it does not modify the definition, and that very section also says the RV park shall be lawfully, shall be lawfully permitted as of the time before or after the ordinance, which in its itself assumes that there's going to be a CUP or some other discretionary action.

I will say also, in case the city attorney needs a little more help, the language also says that if performance standards aren't met that are laid out in this code, that a CUP shall be required.

This developer has missed on virtually every single performance standard.

And our amending language today asks for a brief analysis of those standards and the arguments that were made below.

And so to give the city attorney again an opportunity and a head start, performance standard one, violated the dry violence are not at the required safe circulation and access provisions and code sections have been submitted by the appellants.

Performance standard two, setbacks.

Utility pedestals have gone into the required setback area, thus eliminating the setback.

Performance standard four, front yard setback, same.

The developer has manipulated the data to shrink the required setback.

Performance standard five, landscape buffer.

The landscape buffer was taken away with utility hookups and prefab structures and asphalting.

Performance standard six, the landscaping is well below the minimum required.

Performance standard eight, maintenance and ADA compliance.

ADA parking has been taken away and replaced with utility infrastructure.

Performance standard nine, parking and neighborhood impacts.

There is not sufficient parking under the code to allow this use.

Performance standard 10, fencing.

The wrong fencing has been put instead of a wrought iron or masonry fence.

There's barbed wire and chain link.

Performance standard 12, plan conformance.

And this is kind of a big one because it also shows a pattern and practice of this developer.

The thing was built out with 48 to 54 stalls when 46 were approved on the plan on the purported plan.

The plan that was unlawfully approved was passed through without a CUP, but they don't even comply with the thing that they did without the CUP.

This is a pattern that occurred in the north part of the county in the Santa Clarita area and the county of Los Angeles had to prosecute this very developer for doing virtually the same thing for putting a whole bunch of stalls that were not allowed into a floodplain zone.

There is more, and it's all been submitted.

We don't have to decide this today.

It's been it's been put on remand, but I do want to put the city attorney in a position where they can open the code, look at the definition of RV park, and apply the law.

I would urge your I vote on the veto and the remand and on the amendments.

Thank you.

Thank you, uh Mr.

McCosker, and thank you everybody who came to uh weigh in on this issue this morning.

Uh I know it's a little bit of a track, so we appreciate seeing you.

Let's open the roll on this item.

Close the roll, tabulate the vote.

No.

Alright, what's next?

The council may not vote on item three, held for a separate vote.

Alright, this is item three, um, called special for a separate vote by council member Hernandez.

Let's that's what it says.

Oh, you want to comment?

Council?

Alright, item number three.

We're sure.

All right, let's open the roll, close the roll, tabulate the vote.

Thirteen eyes.

All right, what's next?

The council may now consider item 44, which was held on the desk and call special by council member Rodriguez for comments.

All right, members, I asked that this be held on the desk uh for the purposes of uh hearing this in committee.

Our team uh agendized this in error, and I know that threw people for a little bit of a loop.

I know there was a press conference, I know there's a lot of excitement and energy and passion around this issue.

Uh I would still like to hear it uh in uh committee, um, but I know there are members that would like to speak on it today.

Um I spoke, I called Sacramento and spoke uh with the clerk and the author.

This will not be heard according to them.

This will not be heard in Sacramento till at least the middle of September.

So we have at least three weeks uh to consider this in this council here from our planning department, building and safety, so on and so forth.

Um, again, that's the understanding I had this morning.

I was someone uh members of this council told me they will be voted on on Friday.

Uh so I called to confirm that, and that was not the information I was given.

So I'd still like to hear this in committee, but uh I know there are a number of members who'd like to speak this morning, beginning with council member Rodriguez.

Thank you.

Um, the information I got was that it was going to be scheduled for the 20th uh in the assembly.

So uh colleagues, this body had engaged in a great deal of work around helping to ensure that we maximize density and building opportunities for housing in areas appropriate in our city.

We know that we have a number of dynamic interplays where we have transit oriented development happening, but also we've limited where we can maximize those densities based on the experiences that so many of our communities have, like in the Northeast San Fernando Valley with high fire hazard severity zones.

SB 79 proposes that even a proposed transit line would qualify for the maximum densification for building housing in an area.

The challenge with that, for example, in my own district in the Northeast San Fernando Valley, where we are still awaiting the full construction and realization of light rail to connect us in the Northeast communities.

The second phase of our light rail project is not only not funded, it is not likely to fully materialize in the manner that it was originally projected to be delivered in our community.

The challenge with that is that merely a SB 79 says that merely the proposed development of this transit line would qualify that area to achieve maximum densification up to seven stories.

That is a problem for the Northeast Valley that continues to still be strung out and limited with its quality access to public transit.

We've done a great deal of work here on this body to ensure that we are taking the unique dynamics of each of our communities, whether it's our equestrian communities, whether it's high fire hazard severity zones, SB 79 would essentially say that one size fits all, and it takes nothing into account about the work that the city of Los Angeles has engaged in with respect to CHIRP and all of the community engagement that we that our planning department and so many of our offices were involved with.

We went through the laborious task of making sure that we are in sync with our housing element and that we actually build housing that helps to meet the demand of the pop of the growing populations here in Los Angeles.

But SB 79 is not the solution for Los Angeles, it actually does more harm than good.

So, colleagues, I really urge that in the timeliness given what the state legislature is about to engage in, LA needs to send a strong response, and we can't delay because the legislature is gonna continue to sweep away our local authority that ensures our ability to represent our communities and to ensure that our communities have a voice, and so uh I want to thank you, Mr.

Lee, for introducing this resolution, and it is my hope that we will vote on it today.

Thank you.

Councilmember Park.

Thank you, Council Presidents and colleagues.

Um, we all know that LA needs to plan for growth.

We need more housing, and it needs to be housing that people can actually afford.

But that doesn't mean that we can be reckless about where and how we build a one-size-fits-all mandate from Sacramento is not safe and it's not responsible.

With SB 79, Sacramento is hijacking local planning, stripping away neighborhood voices, ignoring safety and infrastructure, and handing the keys to corporate developers.

All of us here, as well as the mayor, adopted the citywide housing incentive program, and unlike SB 79, CHIP isn't cookie cutter, it strategically incentivizes development where it makes sense.

It often offers greater incentives than the state.

It also reflects the cultural and historic diversity of our districts and their monuments, environmentally sensitive areas, and public safeties.

It's also rooted in exhaustive community engagement, and it is already part of our housing element, which the state has approved.

Cities that have done the work to responsibly address housing shouldn't be lumped in with the same mandates that apply to cities that have done nothing.

SB 79 overrides our progress, it disregards our communities and opens the floodgates for developers to target vulnerable neighborhoods, places where families have lived for generations.

And Sacramento isn't footing the bill.

The costs of upgrading schools, utilities, roads, public safety, all of that will fall squarely on the shoulders of Angelinos.

And that's government overreach at its worst.

We all agree we need more housing, especially affordable housing, but it needs to be done thoughtfully and with respect for the people in the neighborhoods that we serve.

SB 79 fails that test.

What's worse, we have little time to act.

Council President, SB 79 is on the appropriations committee agenda for this Wednesday.

We need to take a vote on this today.

If we don't, we are giving up our voices as a body and abandoning the voices of the very constituents that we represent to Sacramento.

If you don't agree with the resolution, then vote no on it.

But doing nothing means that today we are giving up our ability to protect our residents and their interests.

So with that, I ask for your no vote on the referral and an I vote in support of the resolution.

Thank you, Councilmember Park.

And uh I hope everybody's recording that.

There's a contention it's gonna be voted on tomorrow.

Councilmember Lee.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

Colleagues, before you today is the resolution that I introduced to oppose SB 79.

And like the other two council members that just spoke before me, we all agree that LA is in the midst of a housing crisis, which is exactly why we as a city have done the hard work over the course of many years to adopt the housing element and implementation plan unanimous unanimously approved by this council and accepted by the state earlier this year.

SB 79 is a blunt tool that does not take into account the years of painstaking work all of us have put into crafting and adopting our housing element and citywide housing implementation plan with extensive public engagement with our communities and technical department staff.

But the consequences of this proposed bill are too far-reaching for this body to delay.

Time is of the essence.

I've heard the same information as my two colleagues that the Assembly Appropriations Committee will be hearing this bill tomorrow at 9 a.m.

with a full assembly vote expected shortly thereafter.

This body, again, regardless of outcome, must be on the record for this bill.

Kicking this item back to committee will leave our city without an official position while the bill keeps moving forward in Sacramento without input from our great city or its leaders, or more importantly, the people of the city of Los Angeles.

Why would we not take a stand against Sacramento trying to take local control away from us?

No one knows the city of Los Angeles more than the local leaders that represent it.

I urge your no vote in referring this back to committee, and I urge you to support my resolution to oppose SB 79.

Councilmember.

Thank you, Council President.

Uh, the resolution seeks to maintain local control over land use, which can have major implications for my district, specifically Boyle Heights.

And looking at the maps, almost the entire Boyle Heights community plan area would be subject to new zoning under SB 79.

As drafted, this uh policy paints a broad brush on a neighborhood without regard to equity and the history of marginalization and disinvestment in a community of color that is low income.

The Boyle Heights community plan was recently adopted and includes the latest and greatest thinking around protections for longtime existing tenants, the majority of whom are very and extremely low income.

The zoning approach is specifically tuned for tenant protections.

At the same time, the plan strategically locates significant new density around along transit corridors.

We are looking to add more housing in a way that allows multi-generational households to age in place.

All this comes after over a decade of hard work by the planning department in close consultation with my constituents there with a lot of hardship, rebuilding of trust between planning and really trying to focus on racial equity in the planning process.

And I feel this plan, though not getting everything they want, does incorporate Boyle Heights values to protect long-time low-income residents while identifying new residential capacity.

And I don't want to stand in the way of that and um support SB 79, that would destroy that work.

At this point, it's unclear how the bill would impact those tenant protections.

The loss of RSO, naturally affordable and covenanted affordable units in Boyle Heights is well documented.

This bill seems simple, but city planners tell me it will require site-by-site analysis to understand which units are impacted and which are not.

And in the time that it takes to assess that, that means that things may get demolished and RSO units may be lost, and we'll never get them back.

And I'm not willing to gamble losing Boyle Heights.

That's a gamble I don't want to take.

Considering the lack of clarity around the issues of tenant protections, how it may or may not impact my district, I cannot support this bill at this time.

Councilmember Padilla.

Members, I too, I'm going to vote that we not send this back to committee where I fear it is just going to sit there and potentially die.

And then as a council, we won't be able to give our position on this.

Most of this year I have had very heated emotional conversations with my community related to density.

And this is work, right?

It is work to get together with the community and listen to them and explain to them, you know, the different intricacies related to the different types of housing uh related to how we increase our density.

Um, and while sometimes it might be heated, and while sometimes it might be uh it might feel like a ton of conflict, when you engage with your community about what sort of land uses you want to see, you do negotiate and you do reach a compromise, and then you reach multiple goals, including the housing supply, while also uh keeping the dignity and bringing amenities and mitigations that are appropriate for your community, and SB 79 would completely take that away.

So I just want to emphasize that we were elected to do the work, and SB 79 would eliminate our ability to do the work, and it's not going to create any better conversations with our community members as we decide what our our communities and our city looks like in the future.

So I hope that the majority of you will vote to not send this to committee and support um Mr.

Lee and uh Councilmember Park's uh original motion.

Councilmember Raman.

Um colleagues, I was going to suggest that we do send this back to committee because the resolution is geared as essentially an oppose unless LA is exempted for a bill that does have big implications for Los Angeles, and I think it behooves us to provide real feedback to a bill that has momentum in Sacramento.

If it does pass, how will it impact our neighborhoods?

How can it actually address some of the very real issues around fire hazards and tenant protections that have been brought up around this body?

But it sounds like there is momentum to move it forward today and to take a vote on it.

And I will say I am torn about this item, but I will be voting against this unilateral oppose resolution.

Not because I am in agreement with the design of SB 79 in its current form in totality, but our housing crisis is too dire for us not to engage constructively with this bill and its goals, which is to build more housing near transit, which LA does not currently do in adequate amounts.

If I thought that this body was acting in good faith to address our housing crisis, I would support this reso, but I don't think that we are.

We have not demonstrated that in the past.

Just in the last few months, we've tried to stop multiple already approved privately funded 100% affordable housing projects from moving forward, and we've wasted hundreds of thousands of dollars in court defending the city's actions and lost.

We've also tried to stop already approved publicly funded affordable housing projects on public land and have spent more money uh defending those projects in courts and so far have lost.

We're waiting years before responding to appeals on entitled projects that approve thousands of units because we are willing to continue with our highly politicized and clunky appeals process, which allows projects to sit in limbo for years.

I voted on something in Plum yesterday, which had been appealed three years ago.

That hundreds of units that have not been built.

We are making efforts to gut and narrow successful programs like ED1 instead of expanding them.

Overall, we talk a lot about our housing crisis on this body, but our actions have not met the moment, and the only times that they have met this moment are when Sacramento forces us to do something, as they did through the housing element, which was a mandate from Sacramento.

That's why we did it.

And that's why Sacramento keeps intervening.

We have not been responsible with our efforts to really spur housing growth, which I believe is the biggest problem facing Los Angeles over the near term.

And until we demonstrate that responsibility locally, I am going to oppose any effort that doesn't engage constructively on these questions.

I'm not saying don't engage, I'm just saying you have to engage constructively and really focus on this issue, which I think is so important for us.

We have to build more housing, and we have to demonstrate that we as a body are willing to take the political risks to do it.

Thank you.

Councilmember Soto Martinez.

Thanks so much, Council President.

Councilmember Raman, yeah, you you hit the nail on the head.

Um, you know, we first of all, I want to put those things in perspective.

This is a resolution, and so it's unfortunate that most of the things we're debating is not actual things we control ourselves.

Uh and second of all, I think the point that Councilmember Raman made about the state coming in because the city's not doing their job, and I'm not saying we're not doing our job, but there's a lot of cities in California that are do not want to build more uh dense places, uh dense buildings in their neighborhoods.

And there are council districts and council members who do not want to build dense uh density in their own districts, and and that's it we gotta be real.

We're gonna we're having a real conversation now, so you can't have your cake and eat it too.

If you want the solution to these issues, the homelessness, uh permanent supportive housing sites, then build them in your district.

And don't say vulnerable communities will be affected when you are stopping projects yourself.

So let's just keep it real.

We're gonna keep it 100 today.

So I support sending this back to committee because I want to hear a report from planning department.

I want to understand the effects that we're gonna we're gonna have, and but it sounds like the will of the body is not there today, and I respect that.

But I will be supporting the council president's referral to uh to rules.

I will also be voting no on this position because I want to have a discussion.

I want to have a discussion with my state partners and see how this bill evolves over time.

And once again, right, we're using uh we're we're listening to the most the loudest voices in our district, but that is not the majority of the people of the city of Los Angeles.

The majority of people in Los Angeles want to see more housing.

They want to see those projects being built with affordable as much affordable as possible, and I myself want to see those projects being built and making sure that they have labor standards because over 40% of the people building these buildings uh are undocumented, and yet we depend on them for so much.

So those discussions are happening right now in Sacramento.

And so I'd rather wait and see what happens and then take a position, but I just want to point out the hypocrisy of some of the comments that we made here.

You can't have your cake and eat it too.

Either you're gonna be part of the solution, part of the solution, or you're gonna impede progress.

So uh, but whatever the the council decides, you know, we have to respect that decision.

Thank you so much, Council.

Councilmember Yaroslovski.

Thank you, Council President.

Um, so I believe that the city and this city council should take a position on one of the largest land use decisions facing this council.

This resolution was introduced in March.

Since then, SB 79 has passed the state senate and is scheduled to be heard tomorrow morning and assembly appropriations committee at 9 a.m.

And could potentially be law in three weeks.

The state's legislative agenda is officially over in August, so that we don't have time.

I agree that we probably should have had a more robust conversation about this in committee, but we didn't have that conversation, and so here we are.

The window for us to weigh in on this for all the reasons that have been brought up today, is closing, and a delay is no longer tenable.

So, colleagues, I urge you to oppose the motion to refer this back to committee and take up this item today.

On the substance of SB 79, I support the resolution opposing 79 as someone who strongly supports adding more housing and density near transit.

Well-planned housing built near transit is critical to meeting our climate goals, reducing traffic, and ensuring that Californians of all incomes have access to opportunity.

My district is gearing up for three new metro stations opening up in the next few months and two more in the next two years.

On Metro, we're about to consider plans for the Sepulveda Pass transit corridor, which is gonna transform the lives of millions of Angelinos on the west side and San Fernando Valley and provide that critical link in a regional system.

We've invested billions of dollars in our infrastructure.

We have to make sure people live close enough to these stations to actually use it.

I want housing density, but I don't believe that SB 79 in its current form gets us there in a way that is smart or responsible.

It's a blanket approach that overrides the targeted, context-sensitive local planning tools we have just implemented here in Los Angeles.

CHIP was designed to do exactly what SB 79 says it's doing, but it does so in a way that is thoughtful.

It adds capacity for hundreds of thousands of new units, many of which, if not most of which are in Council District 5, and I supported it.

It integrates affordability requirements consistent with state density bonus law and local inclusionary housing policies.

It's in alignment with environmental review and displacement protections, already vetted and approved by the California Department of Housing and Community Development.

And it's one of the most ambitious transit-oriented housing expansions in the state, with rezoning that meets and exceeds state housing targets, and it's already proving to be delivering new housing in high resource areas.

We're starting to see people pull permits.

Does it go far enough?

No.

Our housing process is not gonna be solved by one piece of legislation, which is why we're still working to eliminate barriers to housing construction.

We're working to fix our broken permitting process that takes way too long where departments don't get out of their own way.

We're modernizing our building codes with policies like single staircase reform.

These policies matter and they're gonna make a real difference.

But these conversations should be happening here in Los Angeles and not in Sacramento because we know our communities and what we all need and the nuance of different neighborhoods better than Scott Wiener does.

And it's on the last piece that I think we should all be in agreement.

Whether or not you agree with the zoning changes that SB 79 would bring, this is yet another bill from the state that takes away local control over these decisions.

If you believe in the idea of home rule within parameters and limits set by the state, which is what we did with CHIP, this trend should concern you.

And so, colleagues, I asked for your support to vote on this today here and to vote in opposition of SB 79 with uh Mr.

Lee's resolution.

Thank you very much.

Thank you so much.

Uh members, thank you for your comments and engaging engagement on this issue.

Uh, look, the the main reason I wanted to send this committee is to committee is uh I feel like this bill, like a lot of things, is rife with misinformation.

So just today, three members of the body have different ideas about when it's going to be voted on.

I literally just looked on my phone and it says for tomorrow morning's assembly appropriations committee meeting.

That bill is in suspense and will not be voted on.

There's just a lot we don't know, and committee usually solves solves that uh on the on the content of the bill.

Uh look, my general feeling is there's nothing in, even if I agree with some of the things in SB 79, there's nothing that this body couldn't do itself for Los Angeles.

The thing we cannot do, which is important and we're passing on, is we can't get the other cities in the county to come along.

That's and a big part of our problem is the other cities don't come, they don't do even what we're doing now.

For all the criticisms of Los Angeles and our unwillingness to be as embracing of density as we can, our neighboring cities do even less, and the state is the only way we have to compel them, and so that's why I think this is uh worthy of a longer uh a longer and more in-depth discussion.

Uh, again, because of our neighbors, and all of us have neighboring cities that not only don't produce housing, but they send their working poor to Los Angeles to get affordable housing that we've built, and they make the profit off that worker.

So the restaurant or whatever business it is makes the profit off that worker, and the city of Los Angeles bears the cost of housing them, providing public safety for them, education for them, and all the rest.

And at some point, we've got to do something about this.

This is not a burden Los Angeles can bear alone.

Uh, again, your your council president has lots of faults.

Uh, counting is not one of them.

Uh so I can count and feel the energy of the group, and so I'm gonna withdraw my um my request to send this back to committee, and we'll we'll hold the vote uh on this item at this time, Mr.

Clerk.

So we'll open the roll on item number 44, close the roll.

Tabulate the vote.

Eight eyes, five nine.

This item is adopted.

All right.

What's next?

Mr.

President, would council like to convene in closed session for items 45 and 46?

All right, we will prepare the room for closed session.

Staff, city elected officials, city attorney's office.

In this case, the CAO and personnel will be with us for this hearing.

So it's important to also say there's no need to call the LEFD brush unit when you're ready for your reinspection.

That reinspection will be automatically uh scheduled as appropriate with their time frames.

It's all computerized.

So if your property remains in non-compliance after a failed reinspection, then it's going to be cleared by city contractors.

And the property owner or you will be invoiced a non-compliance fee of $668 plus an administrative fee of 1,498, on top of the contractor's fee.

So you certainly want to avoid this.

We get asked a lot of questions.

Here is your top seven most frequently asked questions and the answers.

So number one is how can I check the brush status of my own property?

Again, that's that important website that we're driving home, the VMS3.lafd.org.

You can register a new brush clearance account there and check the status.

Now use your APN or the assessor parcel number as well as a PIN, which is your personal identification number.

It's going to be printed on the bottom of the owner notification that was mailed to you annually in March.

Often we get asked, well, what is the best way to contact the brush unit?

Simply put, the best way is to send an email.

You send it to LAFD brush at LACity.org.

Now, if you incorporate your APN and a brief description of the issue or the problem that you would like to discuss, that greatly assists us determining who you are and what the issue is.

And then a member of our brush unit will respond to you within 48 hours.

Also, you can feel free to call if the number is 1800-994-4444.

But we do ask for your patience in advance because it's very busy and there's minimal inspectors, so we have a limited resources to take your call.

But the office hours are from 7 a.m.

until 3 p.m.

Monday through Friday, excluding holidays.

So what if you received a notice of noncompliance in the mail?

What are you supposed to do then?

Well, start by reading that notice very carefully.

Identify the actual violations that were mentioned on your property.

See what was cited there.

And then you could follow the steps in the frequently asked questions, the first one there, to see photos that was taken by the inspector of your property and where the problem is.

Then you want to correct those violations by the due date.

So look at that due date.

It'll be located at the top right corner of your notice.

Here's another question we get.

Okay, you were issued a notice of noncompliance, and now you did the right thing.

You finished clearing your property of the violations that you were cited.

Now what?

What's next?

Well, truthfully, you don't have to do anything at this point.

After the allotted 30-day period, a fire inspector is going to reinspect your property.

And if your property is still in non-compliance, then you get that second notice to abate the fire hazard.

That'll be mailed to you.

Now the city will start the process to have your property cleared by a contractor at your expense.

So you want to avoid that.

Some ask if there is a particular contractor that should be used to clear your property.

Well, simply put, the city does not provide a recommendation, nor do we endorse any contractor.

So really it's you as the property owner, it's your responsibility to request the current proof of insurance, if they're bonded, if they have a license, and obtain any other relevant information about that contract.

But we do try to help.

So there is a brush clearance contractor list on the website.

So what do you do if you feel that the inspector is wrong and that your property is in compliance?

And can you file an appeal?

Well, the answer is yes, yes, you can.

Visit the LEFD brush website to view the detailed inspection process, and that includes appeals.

However, note that a failed inspection will subject you as the owner to fees that continue to increase with each failed inspection.

All billing is conducted through the city's accounting services section.

So if you have questions about that concerning your fees or your invoices or any fees that even could be attached to a tax bill, you should direct those to the source.

That's accounting.

So you can either call them at 213 978-3424, or you can send an email to LAFD.brush, ACCTG, at LACity.org.

We understand that many people might be worried about their neighbor's property and that they might have a fire hazard because of some overgrown brush.

And how would you report that?

So, first off, we want you to know that the fire department wants to hear your concerns.

So we can provide the clearance necessary for our firefighters to protect your property and your neighborhood.

So you can report a brush fire hazard by email to LAFD brush at LACity.org.

Now please make sure that you include the exact location of the brush hazards, the address.

If you have the APN, that would be even better.

But of course, you need to put a brief description of what the hazards are and where those hazards are on the property.

And of course, it's best not to go looking at those hazards on that neighbor's property without permission.

You also can make your complaint by phone.

That same phone number we've provided before to our brush clearance unit is one-eight hundred nine nine four four four four four.

And again, we welcome your complaint, but remember too that we have limited resources to take your call, and those hours are from seven AM to three PM Monday through Friday.

Angeles, LA Sanitation and Environments team of solid resources workers are up with the sunrise to tackle the vital task of keeping LA clean and sustainable.

Operating a fleet of over seven hundred collection trucks, LA SAN provides collection of approximately two million containers of trash, yard clippings, food waste, and recyclables per week.

All these services are paid for by the solid resources fee, also known as the trash fee on your LADWP bill.

But now, rising costs mean changes are needed.

The city is proposing an increase to the solid resources fee, the first in 17 years.

This adjustment is necessary to ensure that LA SAN can maintain reliable collection services and comply with updated environmental mandates.

These updated fees will help maintain weekly trash, recycling, and composting service, expand food waste and organic recycling, and ensure equity and service across all our neighborhoods.

And this fee covers more than just trash, like unlimited bulky item collection, safe centers for household hazardous waste, a twenty-four seven customer care center, and much more.

Everything we do is to help better our communities.

We are all in this together, LA.

Let's help build a cleaner, greener city for everybody.

Because a cleaner LA isn't just a service, it's a promise.

Financial assistance may be available to those in need.

To see if you qualify, visit us using the links in the description below.

For more information, visit us at LACity San dot org slash SRF Rates 2025.

Or contact our customer care center at San SRF Rates twenty twenty-five at LACity.org.

Or call eight hundred seven seven three two four four four four four four eight nine.

We're tucked in a corner between the Barnstall Junior Art Center, and then on our other side is the LA Municipal Art Gallery.

So often we hear, I didn't even know this was here.

I'm gonna come back.

And that is the greatest thing we can hear is knowing that we're gonna have Angelinas come back, visit our space, share our space, and enjoy everything that we have to offer here.

We're primarily a rental facility.

So we try and make everyone's dreams come true.

It is incredibly popular with different arts centers and different arts groups, community theaters, professional theaters, we have dance companies who do their concerts, we have local colleges and high schools and elementary schools that do their graduations and their culminations.

We do film screenings, young artists, emerging artists, groups with very small budgets are treated and welcomed the same way as big commercial productions.

What's super exciting about the Barnes Gallery Theater is that everybody has an opportunity to be on the stage.

That you can be a very seasoned veteran and come in here and feel like you're having a wonderful intimate conversation with the audience.

You can be a four-year-old with your first recital and being able to feel like this is your stage, and it's sort of sized for someone little, someone big, whatever you're looking for is perfect.

So many people have told us the Barnstall Gallery Theater, or we call it BGT, feels like home to them.

And that BGT is where they always go.

It's a go-to space for their annual event.

And I think that kind of relationship in a community is so important these days.

The performing arts are intrinsic to the quality of life for Angelinos, and it's invaluable to have the opportunity to be able to elevate and support the communities in which we are based who are creating a legacy of artwork that will enrich the city of Los Angeles and its cultural identity in terms of performing arts.

You can always find out information about the Barnstall Gallery Theater by going to our website, and that is the best way to find out more information about who to contact and how to get more information.

The Canoga Park Youth Arts Center is an after-school music and art program operated by the Department of Cultural Affairs of the City of Los Angeles.

We offer music and visual arts classes to youth in the area, mostly from six to seventeen, however, we also have pre-K classes to introduce young children to music.

All the teachers here have been involved in the arts their whole lives.

So this historic building was first built in 1929 as the first operator-assisted phone company in the San Fernando Valley.

After the building was abandoned by the phone company, it fell into disrepair.

So this is a dedicated youth arts center.

During the year, local schools walk to us during their school day to supplement or to include an arts program, which they may not be able to receive at their school.

I think by now hopefully everybody knows that arts education helps children to work together in groups, it helps them to focus critically think.com or call eight six six six oh two eight eight six one today and get rolling.

On Saturday, August 23rd, the Board of Public Works and the Office of Community Beautification presents the seventh annual beautification conference, celebrating people, purpose, presence.

Connect with fellow Angelinos to share stories, learn how to get involved, host your own community cleanup, and discover all that local partners and city agencies have to offer.

Find out more under the Keep LA Beautiful tab at LAOCV dot org.

Enjoy a guided walk with the Cabrillo Marine Aquarium Educators on Saturday, August twenty third, when they will be interpreting the various habitats of the Cabrillo Beach Coastal Park.

Along the walk, you'll see fossils, native plants, and other interesting finds of the coastal park.

Pack a snack, head outside, and meet at the aquarium for this Cabrilla walk on Saturday, August 23rd at one PM.

For more information, see the events calendar at Cabrillo Marine Aquarium dot org.

This will be a coastal wellness experience and community celebration dedicated to supporting families, celebrating youth, and showing up for those impacted by the January wildfires.

Um, I don't know.

Every day, over one hundred Americans die from second-hand smoke.

Second hand smoke in children can cause asthma, fear infections, and increased risk of sudden infant death syndrome.com.

Learn how you can protect your home from second hand smoke.

The twenty twenty five Greater Los Angeles homeless count reported that the unsheltered homeless population in Nazarian's district had decreased by thirty six percent since twenty twenty four, according to Nazarian.

In the last eight months, interim shelters and a navigation center in his district have provided services to more than fifteen hundred individuals and shelter to eight hundred sixty-six.

In addition, Nazarian says the new tiny homes support his goal of helping those living in dangerous conditions and will help residents enjoy a cleaner and safer neighborhood.

For more information, visit cd2.gov.

Mayor Karen Bass announced the completion of the ELAN Solar Plus Storage Center, one of the largest solar and battery energy storage projects in the country.

According to Bass, this center pushes the city's clean energy share above sixty percent, marking a major milestone in LA's transition to one hundred percent clean energy by twenty thirty-five.

For more information, visit mayor.gov.

The U.S.

Department of Housing and Urban Development PUD gave the HACLA program top marks in accountability, transparency, and resource utilization.

With bonus points added, Hackla attained a score of one hundred and two percent.

According to HACLA, the score represents the above and beyond dedication of its team in administering the Section Eight program.

The authority added that Section Eight is a lifeline to over fifty thousand low income Angelinos who might otherwise find themselves out on the street.

For more information, visit Hackla.org.

Here's what's happening in LA this week.

This is about all of us.

It's about choosing to believe in our city.

The number one cause of preventable death after injury is bleeding.

Someone who is severely bleeding can bleed to death in as little as five minutes.

Minutes count, and your LAFD thanks you for learning how to stop the bleed by following the ABCs.

If someone has an injury with blood spurting out of the wound, clothing soaked in blood, bleeding that won't stop, or loss of any part of an arm or leg, you need to act quickly.

The first step is A for alert.

Have someone called nine one one.

The next step is B for bleeding.

Locate the bleeding injury and remove any clothing covering the area so you can see the injury.

The final step is C for compress.

Use any clean cloth.

Apply the dressing directly to the wound and press down hard.

Push down on top of the wound with both hands as hard as you can.

If blood soaks through the dressing, do not remove it.

Add another dressing on top and continue applying steady pressure.

Do not release the pressure to check the wound.

Keep steady pressure until help arrives.

Often people ask us really what is brush clearance and why is it important?

So simply put, brush fires continue to threaten life and property in the very high fire hazard severity zone.

So that means areas that are prone to wildfires.

And having brush clearance provides us the defensible space to save those lives and property.

So particularly when you're clearing all of those ground fuels or the lower vegetation, that really helps us because it'll present what is called the fire ladder.

And that's when the fire starts off low on the ground and it starts to climb upward to where it gets spread by winds.

So what you might see is an ember would land on the ground, it would ignite the grass that is there, what we call as light flashy fuel.

Then it's going to jump to those lower hanging limbs or those branches and starts to climb up the tree, ignites that heavier fuel, and that just exasperates the problem.

So this requirement does not apply to your healthy fruit trees or privacy hedges or ornamental shrubbery.

As long as that's all well maintained, meaning that it's free of all dead and dry material.

Also, people ask, well, what are the basic brush clearance requirements?

So your basic requirements are this you want to trim the weeds and the grass down to three inches.

You need to trim the bottom third of a bush, the bottom six feet of a tree.

Now around your home, you'd want to maintain five feet clearance from the roof line.

So if you're five foot tall and you're walking the perimeter of your roof, nothing should hit you in the head.

And then you want to double that to 10 feet from the chimney fences and roadways.

It's important to note that these requirements are all within 200 feet of any structure or home, regardless if that structure or home is on your property or adjoining properties like your neighbors.

So it's those areas that need to be clear in order to limit the spread of fire and to provide the defensible space for us firefighters to safely operate.

So simply put, we'll provide the offense if you provide the defense.

So here's your basic inspection process.

It begins with the owner's self-inspection.

So you want to compare your native brush and your landscape vegetation on your property with the information that you're going to find in the mailer and also on the lafd.org slash brush website.

Now, if you have difficulties and you're not able to do that yourself, you can hire a professional who can both understand the information and then apply it to the properties that you own.

But you want to clear your property as required prior to May 1st this year.

And that way you're going to pass the fire department's inspection and your avoid a $33 noncompliance fee and also a time-consuming second inspection, which comes with a costly $668 non-compliance fee.

So it's important to note too that there's no need to call for an inspection at any time.

You don't need to call for an inspection.

We're going to do that automatically.

Our computer system tracks all the properties that are due for an inspection.

So then we'll have an appropriate inspector.

They're going to be notified that your property is due and they're going to come in and inspect and or reinspect if needed.

Now for the first inspection.

That first inspection is done by us, the fire department.

And it is in May 1st, and it continues until June 30th.

However, we want people to know that it is a year-round requirement to have brush clearance.

And all parcels that are within that very high fire hazard severity zone, they will be initially inspected.

Those parcels that are found in violation are going to be issued a notice of violation.

And they'll be assessed, and that's when you get that $33 noncompliance fee.

Then the homeowner has about 30 days to comply with that notice of violation.

And the owner can check the status of their property by registering an account at VMS3.org.

So now when we come to the second inspection, that means that you as a homeowner were issued a notice of violation on the first inspection.

So then you're going to be inspected a second time after that 30-day period.

That gives you that grace period of 30 days to correct the violation.

Then owners can check the status of their property again by registering your account at VMS3.org.

Now, if the property is not fully in compliance upon initial inspection, that owner is going to be notified via mail or email if you registered within that website that we mentioned.

So it's important to also say there's no need to call the LEFD brush unit when you're ready for your reinspection.

That reinspection will be automatically scheduled as appropriate with their time frames.

That's all computerized.

So if your property remains in noncompliance after a failed reinspection, then it's going to be cleared by city contractors.

And the property owner or you will be invoiced a noncompliance fee of $668 plus an administrative fee of 1,498 on top of the contractor's fee.

So you certainly want to avoid this.

We get asked a lot of questions.

Here is your top seven most frequently asked questions and the answer.

So number one is how can I check the brush status of my own property?

Again, that's that important website that we're driving home, the VMS3.org.

You can register a new brush clearance account there and check the status.

Now use your APN or the assessor parcel number as well as a PIN, which is your personal identification number.

It's going to be printed on the bottom of the owner notification that was mailed to you annually in March.

Often we get asked, well, what is the best way to contact the brush unit?

Simply put, the best way is to send an email.

You send it to LAFD brush at LACity.org.

Now if you incorporate your APN and a brief description of the issue or the problem that you would like to discuss, that greatly assists us determining who you are and what the issue is.

And then a member of our brush unit will respond to you within 48 hours.

Also, you could feel free to call if the number is 1-800-994-4444.

But we do ask for your patience in advance because it's very busy and there's minimal inspectors, so we have a limited resources to take your call.

But the office hours are from 7 a.m.

until 3 p.m.

Monday through Friday, excluding holidays.

So what if you received a notice of noncompliance in the mail?

What are you supposed to do then?

Well, start by reading that notice very carefully.

Identify the actual violations that were mentioned on your property.

See what was cited there.

And then you could follow the steps in the frequently asked questions, the first one there, to see photos that was taken by the inspector of your property and where the problem is.

Then you want to correct those violations by the due date.

So look at that due date.

It'll be located at the top right corner of your notice.

Here's another question we get.

Okay, you were issued a notice of noncompliance, and now you did the right thing, you finished clearing your property of the violations that you were cited.

Now what?

What's next?

Well, truthfully, you don't have to do anything at this point.

After the allotted 30-day period, a fire inspector is going to reinspect your property.

And if your property is still in noncompliance, then you get that second notice to abate the fire hazard.

That'll be mailed to you.

Now the city will start the process to have your property cleared by a contractor at your expense.

So you want to avoid that.

Some ask if there is a particular contractor that should be used to clear your property.

Well, simply put, the city does not provide a recommendation, nor do we endorse any contractor.

So really it's you as the property owner, it's your responsibility to request the current proof of insurance, if they're bonded, if they have a license, and obtain any other relevant information about that contractor.

But we do try to help.

So there is a brush clearance contractor list on the website.

So what do you do if you feel that the inspector is wrong and that your property is in compliance?

And can you file an appeal?

Well, the answer is yes.

Yes, you can.

Visit the LEFD brush website to view the detailed inspection process, and that includes appeals.

However, note that a failed inspection will subject you as the owner to fees that continue to increase with each failed inspection.

All billing is conducted through the city's accounting services section.

So if you have questions about that concerning your fees or your invoices or any fees that even could be attached to a tax bill, you should direct those to the source.

That's accounting.

So you could either call them at two one three nine seven eight three four two four, or you can send an email to LAFD dot brush.

ACCTG at LACD.org.

We understand that many people might be worried about their neighbors' property, and that they might have a fire hazard because of some overgrown brush.

And how would you report that?

So, first off, we want you to know that the fire department wants to hear your concerns so we can provide the clearance necessary for our firefighters to protect your property and your neighborhood.

So you can report a brush fire hazard by email to LAFD Brush at LACity.org.

Now please make sure that you include the exact location of the brush hazards, the address.

If you have the APN, that would be even better.

But of course, you need to put a brief description of what the hazards are and where those hazards are on the property.

And of course, it's best not to go looking at those hazards on that neighbor's property without permission.

You also can make your complaint by phone.

That same phone number we provided before to our brush clearance unit is one-eight hundred nine nine four four four four four four four four four four.

And again, we welcome your complaint, but remember too that we have limited resources to take your call, and those hours are from 7 a.m.

to 3 p.m.

Monday through Friday.

Angelus, LA Sanitation and Environment's team of solid resources workers are up with the sunrise to tackle the vital task of keeping LA clean and sustainable.

Operating a fleet of over seven hundred collection trucks, LA SAN provides collection of approximately two million containers of trash, yard clippings, food waste, and recyclables per week.

All these services are paid for by the solid resources fee, also known as the trash fee on your LADW key bill.

But now, rising costs mean changes are needed.

The city is proposing an increase to the solid resources fee, the first in 17 years.

This adjustment is necessary to ensure that LA SAN can maintain reliable collection services and comply with updated environmental mandates.

These updated fees will help maintain weekly trash, recycling, and composting service, expand food waste and organic recycling, and ensure equity and service across all our neighborhoods.

And this fee covers more than just trash, like unlimited bulky item collection, safe centers for household hazardous waste, a 24-7 customer care center, and much more.

Everything we do is to help better our communities.

We are all in this together, LA.

Let's help build a cleaner, greener city for everyone.

Because a cleaner LA isn't just a service, it's a promise.

Financial assistance may be available to those in need.

To see if you qualify, visit us using the links in the description below.

For more information, visit us at LACTSAN.org/slash SRF rates 2025.

Or contact our customer care center at San SRF Rates 2025 at LACity.org.

Or call 800 773 2489.

We're tucked in a corner between the Barnstall Junior Art Center, and then on our other side is the LA Municipal Art Gallery.

So often we hear, I didn't even know this was here.

I'm going to come back.

And that is the greatest thing we can hear is knowing that we're gonna have Angelinas come back, visit our space, share our space, and enjoy everything that we have to offer here.

We're primarily a rental facility.

So we try and make everyone's dreams come true.

It is incredibly popular with different arts centers and different arts groups, community theaters, professional theaters, we have dance companies who do their concerts, we have local colleges and high schools and elementary schools that do their graduations and their culminations.

We do film screenings, young artists, emerging artists, groups with very small budgets are treated and welcomed the same way as big commercial productions.

What's super exciting about the Barnes Gallery Theater is that everybody has an opportunity to be on the stage.

That you can be a very seasoned veteran and come in here and feel like you're having a wonderful intimate conversation with the audience.

You can be a four-year-old with your first recital and being able to feel like this is your stage, and it's sort of sized for someone little, someone big, whatever you're looking for.

It's perfect.

So many people have told us the Barnstall Gallery Theater, or we call it BGT, feels like home to them.

And that BGT is where they always go.

It's a go-to space for their annual event.

And I think that kind of relationship in a community is so important these days.

The performing arts are intrinsic to the quality of life for Angelinos, and it's invaluable to have the opportunity to be able to elevate and support the communities in which we are based, who are creating a legacy of artwork that will enrich the city of Los Angeles and its cultural identity in terms of performing arts.

You can always find out information about the Barton Stall Gallery Theater by going to our website, and that is the best way to find out more information about who to contact and how to get more information.

The Canoga Park Youth Arts Center is an after-school music and art program operated by the Department of Cultural Affairs of the City of Los Angeles.

We offer music and visual arts classes to youth in the area, mostly from 6 to 17.

However, we also have pre-K classes to introduce young children to music.

All the teachers here have been involved in the arts their whole lives.

We serve about 200 students per week when we have our class sessions.

We are located in a historic building off of Sherman Way.

So this historic building was first built in 1929 as the first operator-assisted phone company in the San Fernando Valley.

After the building was abandoned by the phone company, it fell into disrepair.

The importance of arts education, I don't think can be overstated.

I think by now hopefully everybody knows that arts education helps children to work together in groups, it helps them to focus, critically think.

Self-expression is also incredibly important creativity, and also it could be a path to uh a career for many uh young people.

For example, all of the staff here are involved in the arts in their art form outside of uh teaching here.

We have a lot of kids that come here as you know six-year-olds and then they go all the way through the program until they they age out of it, and they they have good memories, they come back.

So we see how the arts is shaping these kids.

Having on healthy societies, having healthy uh investment in the arts.

We have uh several ways of getting into contact with us.

We have an Instagram page at Canoga Park Youth Arts.

We have a Facebook page, Canoga Park Youth Arts Center.

Bye everyone.

I'll see you next week.

Hi there, California drivers.

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But I've got good news.

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It's peligroso not in their unsecure the auto.

But think of when it's noticias.

Yes.

On Saturday, August twenty third, the Board of Public Works and the Office of Community Beautification presents the seventh annual beautification conference, celebrating people, purpose, presence.

Connect with fellow Angelinos to share stories, learn how to get involved, host your own community cleanup, and discover all that local partners and city agencies have to offer.

Yes, Mr.

President.

All right.

Um, Mr.

City Attorney, anything to report out of close session?

No, Mr.

President.

There's nothing to report out of closed session.

All right, uh, Mr.

Clerk, where are we?

Council has motions for posting our referral and for an announcement, the joint crey ads a civil rights equity immigration, aging and disabilities committee with the economic development jobs committee.

We'll start at two thirty p.m.

Two thirty p.m.

Okay, Council Member Yarzowski.

Thank you very much, Council President.

We're going to start the budget and finance committee at 2 30 in this.

All right, Council Member Rodriguez.

Yes, I wanted, given the timeliness, I wanted to request that item forty-four get sent urgent forthwith.

Without objection.

Do we need a vote on urgent forthwith?

Yes, sir.

If we could take a vote on uh the urgent forthwith for item forty four.

All right, let's open the roll.

Close the roll, tabulate the vote.

15 ayes.

All right.

Any other announcements, members?

Seeing no other announcements, I'll ask everyone in the chamber to rise for adjourning motions.

All right, we'll begin our adjourning motions with Mr.

Lee.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

I'm waiting for good friends.

I think you got some folks coming up to join you.

I've been waiting, my good friend Howard Wang to join me.

Howard.

Colleagues, I'm um.

I was joined by my good friend Howard Wang to adjourn in the memory of his beloved wife, Ellen Wang, a true visionary, a trailblazer, and a beloved member of our community, who passed away at the age of 78.

She was a force of nature whose impact on the San Fernando Valley and particularly Sierra Canyon School will be felt for generations to come.

Ellen Wang was born in Culver City in 1946 and spent over 70 years in the San Fernando Valley, where she built a life defined by family, purpose, and service.

She attended Patrick Henry Jr.

High, where she be where she quickly became an active student leader, and later Granada Hills High School, where she became a spirit cheerleader.

Early signs of her leadership energy and dedication to the community.

After briefly attending Cal State Northridge, Ellen chose to follow a calling into nursing.

It was at that age of 18 that she met the love of her life, Howard Wang, her husband and partner for 58 years.

Their journey together was one of vision and shared ambition.

When Howard received a Pulbright Fellowship at Claremont, Ellen supported him by working at a bank.

Upon returning to the Valley in 1972, they opened Sierra Canyon summer camp, driven by their shared love for education and community.

That camp quickly became more than a summer program.

It was a place where children could learn, play, and thrive, and kids loved it so much that they didn't want to leave.

That joy inspired the expansion of Sierra Canyon's summer camp into a full-fledged private school in 1978.

A place that if you visited, you would know, is built on love, values, and the belief that learning should be both meaningful and fun.

Ellen did everything while raising two young children.

She managed HR, ran the office, secured permits, handled zoning, and even cooked meals in the school cafeteria.

There was truly nothing that she could not do or was not a part of.

In 1985, with the school thriving, Ellen chose to return to her education.

She applied to the computer science program at Cal State Northridge, and despite being initially rejected on the basis of gender, she stood her ground.

She petitioned, went before the board, and won.

Four years later, Ellen Wang graduated with honors as the first female graduate at C Sun's computer technology program, all while while raising her young children.

Her remark, excuse me.

Her remarkable career continued with when she was recruited by Panavision in Woodland Hills over the next two decades.

Ellen computerized the entire global corporation and ultimately became the first female vice president.

She shattered glass ceilings, not only for herself, but for the generations of women who would follow.

She was deeply committed to women's rights and civil rights, a woman who marched with Dr.

Martin Luther King Jr.

and who always stood on the side of justice.

After retiring from Panavision, Ellen returned to Sierra Canyon in the early 2000s to help guide the school's further expansion into a high school.

She was instrumental in establishing the founding board of trustees and served as a board member for over a decade.

Her leadership extended beyond education because she also served on the board of the West Valley Boys and Girls Club, where she was honored as board member of the year in 2008.

In 2022, Ellen was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease.

True to her resilient nature, she faced this challenge with courage and dignity.

She passed away surrounded by her family and loved ones.

Over 450 people attended her memorial, a testament to the lives she's touched.

And the legacy that she leaves behind.

She is in every sense the all-American Valley girl.

Someone who loved her family, someone who loved her community deeply, and someone who gave herself of herself without hesitation.

Her life was an extraordinary extraordinary blend of heart, grit, and vision.

Ellen is survived by her husband Howard, who took her two children, Scott and Karen, and a three grandchildren, Lindsay, Tyler, and Sarah.

May her memory be a blessing and may she rest in peace.

Thank you so much, Mr.

Lee.

Thank you for being with us today, Mr.

Wang.

Any other journey motions?

Alright, seeing none, we're adjourned.

Thank you so much, everybody.

Wander through.

And they have many missions.

They're trying to give you a big you know choice of things.

They're trying to capture what's essential or what's new.

And so to be in the space, you're entering a space of love, a space that many, many people have created through an act of love, a love of reading and the love of people.

Exactly.

And you you know the world is in there.

It's I I just so clearly remember thinking as a child.

What is in those books?

There must be something important because people are walking around with books.

So I want to know what that is.

So it's one of the reasons I'm so glad that we're here at a library that is literally your local library.

I'm Dora Suarez.

I'm the branch manager of the Oreo Seco Regional Library.

I'm responsible for the day-to-day activities as well as doing reference and the adult programming.

I've been with the library for 28 years, 17 years here at the Arroyo Sequo Library.

I went, walked into the library, and the librarian was hosting a program for the summer.

I was like, oh, this is fun.

So I decided, I asked her what it took to be a librarian, and she guided me.

And as a matter of fact, she is still the senior librarian at Pospelis.

So I still know her.

I mean, she was my motivation.

I love it.

Every day.

Every day's a new adventure.

Working with the public.

We're aiming children specifically, creating programs for them.

That's that's the best.

For programs, we've had a running book club that's lasted 15 years.

They meet every fourth Saturday of the month at 3 o'clock, as well as children's programs.

We have Baby and Toddler Storytime at 10:30, Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

We've been at the same location for 110 years.

We have three buildings in the same location.

Our first building was a Carnegie Building.

Open in February 1914.

Our second building was a 60s building.

And we also got um a mural in 1995 by Luis Becerra.

That mural stayed with us when we had this particular building and that opened in 2002.

And the building itself, the uniqueness of it is at the front.

We have the Royal River Rock that mimics neighborhood um buildings like the Lummas House and the Abbey.

And also it mimics the old building, the Carnegie Building with its Art Deco and Mission Style architect.

Some people say, Oh, I didn't know this was a library.

I thought it was a castle because of that, because of the front.

The exterior.

But yeah, we are a public library.

It's very big, it's very nice inside.

It has two floors.

And most libraries do not have two floors.

We're unique to that.

And we also have a very large community room that's always used.

Check out LEPL.org.

And they can find our calendar of events with all the activities that we have.

I'm wondering for our audience how we can help our children who are either the children or grandchildren or maybe great-grandchildren of immigrants who have perhaps a very different idea of what America is than their children do who are trying to assimilate into this culture while their ancestors, their elders are saying, but you need to re retain a little bit of home.

Either through the foods or the language or boat or something else.

How do you think of that, perhaps with your own children?

Well, I think that there is a deep hunger among the young generation of today, and I see this in my students, to connect with something that's meaningful beyond this consumerist culture in which we live.

So I know that there's a hunger for a lot of students to learn about their indigeneity.

Yes.

Um to learn the history of their home country, to think of it.

They know that there's something really essential about that village in Mexico, that town in Colombia, you know, the that town uh in in the Caribbean.

Yes.

I have a student who's Dominican who writes about going back to his mother's village in the Dominican Republic.

So I think there's a real hunger uh for that.

Um I think that there is a sense that it's what makes us strong when you know in the challenges of our time.

We live we live through a time of challenges, we live through a time of growing inequality.

Um, young people are dealing with so many things that sort of feed depressions and anxiety, and and just having something solid in your roots.

I think this is why, you know, this is one of the main gifts of um of black and Latinx and Asian identity is this it's it's a set of ideas about who I am that help me survive uh you know difficulties, help me survive a catastrophe.

One of the reasons I think that um Henry Lewis Gates' program, Finding Your Roots.

People love that program, and they're saying, I didn't know this, and my dad didn't tell me, and my mom didn't tell me, and so there's clearly a hunger there to understand why do I feel this way or don't I feel this way?

What did I get from my family who so often are reticent to talk about it?

And absolutely, and there are real important lessons to be learned from our personal histories.

Absolutely.

There are lessons about power and empire, inequality, yes, uh, resilience, yes, you know.

Uh you know, your average African American family has this story of a migration of resilience of oppression of degradation and survival never.

Survival.

And this is, and and these are things that are present in our being.

Yes, yeah, you know, they're in our marrow.

They're in our marrow, even though we might be middle-class college educated people in the present.

Um, you know, we have these, the these experiences that are part of our cultural DNA.

Absolutely.

And and and it they're not really, they're not in the mainstream, really.

They're not spoken of.

They're not spoken of, and even more so these days, it feels as though you really shouldn't talk about those things.

When they're the most fundamental to who we are as human beings, and to trying to develop an empathy for the other.

Absolutely.

So you're from Guatemala, my mother's from Beckway.

But there's a lot of commonality there in terms of what your mother and my mother experienced coming here.

So to me, that contributes to the richness of what this country is, despite the current public discourse.

Well, I didn't want to let you go before I asked.

You know, I've been traveling recently and reminded how Americans think we're the center of the universe when we are so not the center of the universe.

And how it's being received, if you know, particularly in Guatemala, but in other parts of the world.

Oh, wow.

Uh it's it's going to be translated.

It's being translated into Spanish.

And in the fall of uh 2024 will be released in Spanish and in paperback.

Um, you know, I've I've heard back from my mother.

And what the most important critical who was very very pleased that there's a picture of her.

Yes.

Uh, you know, in the inside cover in the inside, the first pages, the cut the title page has a picture of my mother and me in uh when she when she arrived, and I was a little baby.

In front of the Griffith Observatory.

So my my mother is very pleased.

There were some things about our family that I revealed that I was worried about.

She's managed to read over those.

Just turn the page.

But you know, uh, every you know, my mother in uh every year uh tells me the story of my conception.

You know, I say in the book there's two kinds of moms, those who will tell you the dirty details of your conception and those who won't.

Right.

And my mother is in the former category.

And so this year for Mother's Day, I called her, and once again she remembered the moment in which she became a mom.

Yes.

And uh no, it's uh you know, I'm it's it's it's been widely read among many different kinds of people, and I look forward to its insertion into Latin America soon.

Absolutely.

I I think that it's going to be such a treasure to look from the other side of the story of how we're relating to it here in this country.

But we we don't forget you.

We know that you're reading this and thinking about the children and the grandchildren that have crossed the border.

Um, well, before we go, would you give our listeners just a little hint of what your new novel is about?

Yes, I am writing a series of novellas about Los Angeles' future and its history.

Nice.

So it's nine novellas that are grouped into three trilogies, so three novels of with three sections each, and it begins 500 years in Los Angeles' future, and is eventually goes all the way back to uh the arrival of the first Europeans and the establishment of the Tonga people here in some of these.

Oh my goodness, it sounds like a little bit ambitious.

Just a little ambitious.

This is why I'm a poet.

40 lines, you're in, you're out, you're done.

So I I have great admiration for for prose writers, but we will look forward to that with great enthusiasm.

I want to thank you so much for coming in and speaking with me today.

Thank you for having me.

It was an honor.

Thank you so much.

Thank you to all of you for joining us.

Hope you enjoyed this episode.

Read our migrant souls.

It's a fabulous book.

You'll be glad you did.

Um, Okay, good morning, everyone.

Fellow commissioners, Chief Choi, Executive Director Django Sibley, Inspector General Matthew Baragan, Madam Secretary, Mr.

City Attorney Carlos Delaguera, and members of the public.

Today is Tuesday, August 19, 2025.

It is 9 30 a.m.

This is a regular meeting of the Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners.

Madam Secretary, please call the roll.

Good morning.

Please let the record reflect that Commissioners Shields, Garcia, Sanchez Gordon are present, and we have a quorum.

Madam Vice President.

Thank you.

And I hear some people talking in the audience.

If you continue talking, you will be asked to leave.

So we welcome everyone attending this morning, both in person and online.

We want to ensure all members of the public can access our meetings.

So if you need any translation services or accommodations, we encourage you to contact the board secretary in advance of our meetings as explained in our written agenda.

These meetings are regular meetings between the board, the department, and key stakeholders.

We welcome feedback from the public during the public comment period, which will be heard during item number three on the agenda today.

Public comment is your opportunity to address the board.

You can speak to any item on the agenda or any matter within the jurisdiction of the Board of Police Commissioners.

We will dedicate a total of 45 minutes to public comment.

As explained in the written agenda, each member of the public can have a total of up to three minutes to speak if you wish to speak on both agenda items and general public comment.

While we welcome public attendance at our meetings, disruptive behavior will not be tolerated and will be cause for removal.

You will receive just one warning, and if you continue disrupting the meeting, you will be asked to leave and be removed from the meeting.

And before I move on to item one on the agenda, we have a couple of changes to the agenda.

Item 5A will be taken off this agenda.

Item seven will be continued to another date.

So today I'm going to be covering key events from the past two weeks, sharing our latest crime trends and providing an update on our staffing levels.

A vandalism hate crime occurred at the Israeli American Council Council located at 6530 Wineka Avenue, where Schwastickers were joined uh drawn in and around the property.

This location serves as a gathering place for Israeli and Jewish communities.

Officers responded, documented the crime, recovered surveillance footage, and coordinated with the city graffiti task force, which quickly removed the graffiti.

One week later, on August 17th, at approximately 1 35 p.m., West Valley Patrol officers responded to Wilbur Charter Elementary School for a vandalism hate crime.

Officers found multiple schwastikas drawn on a vinyl sign attached to the school's exterior fence.

During the investigation, they also learned that a similar crime had taken place at the school in July, but had not been previously reported.

In this most recent incident, nearby video captured a male suspect pacing in front of the sign before defacing it and then leaving the area.

Both of these crimes involved the use of swastika symbols, swastika's symbols meant to intimidate and spread fear.

For our Jewish community, they are not just markings on a wall or fence.

They are deeply painful reminders of hatred and violence.

LAPD's major crimes division has assumed investigative responsibility and is working to turn to see if these incidents are connected and to identify the individual or individuals responsible.

Then on August 14th at approximately 6 15 p.m.

Mission patrol officers responded to a radio call when assault with a deadly weapon, suspect armed with the firearm in front of Arlita Avenue and Bradford Street.

While en route, multiple callers reported that the suspect later identified as Lorenzo Sandoval, who was walking along Arleta Avenue pointing a gun at passing vehicles.

Officers located Sandoval walking on the south walking south on the west sidewalk of Arlita Avenue, armed with a firearm in his right hand.

The officers issued commands for Sandoval to drop the weapon, which he ignored and continued to walk away.

Officers notified communications division of their location and that Sandoval was armed, prompting the generation of a help call.

Multiple units responded.

Suddenly, Sandoval turned and faced the officers while armed and resulted.

This resulted in an officer-involved shooting.

Sandoval was struck by gunfire, fell to the ground, was taken into custody.

He was transported to a local hospital and treated for a gunshot wound to his left leg and cleared for booking.

No other officers or community members were injured during the incident.

A replica handgun was recovered at the scene and was booked as evidence.

Force investigation division personnel responded and are handling the investigation.

On August 15th, around 3 p.m., officers from Southwest Division responded to a shooting call at the 1800 block of West 38th Street.

Air 18 from our department helicopter fleet also responded and was overhead during the incident.

Officers located the suspect and recovered an AR-15 rifle along with numerous 556 casings.

Unfortunately, fortunately, no victims were found at the scene.

The suspect was taken into custody for discharging a firearm in the city limits.

Shortly after, when the oncoming flight crew conducted a pre-flight inspection of Air 18, they discovered that the aircraft had been struck by gunfire during the incident.

One round went through the tailboom and hit, and another hit the stable uh horizontal stabilizer.

The estimated repair costs for this damage is $350,000.

Because of this discovery, robbery homicide division homicide special section assumed investigated responsibility.

The suspect's charges were updated to include assault with a firearm on a peace officer, and detectives also served search warrants at the suspect's residence the following day and recovered additional ammunition.

This case will be presented to the district attorney's office at crimes against peace officers section for prosecution.

On August 7th, Metropolitan Division's B platoon had been tracking a burglary crew known as the Celebrity Crew, believed to be responsible for numerous high-profile burglaries across several areas of the city, including West Valley, Hollywood, Wilshire, West LA, West Hollywood, and Northeast.

Officers conducted surveillance in Compton at the residence of one of the suspects and observed four individuals leave in a cold plate in Mercedes.

The suspects were tracked to a home on Los Palmas Avenue where, with the assistance of our air unit, officers confirmed that a burglary had just occurred.

Officers continued to track suspects, the suspect's vehicle while waiting for additional resources.

The suspects eventually stopped in an alley on Mettler Street within our 77th division and fled on foot.

Metropolitan Sea Platoon responded and a perimeter was established.

And with the help of canine, all four suspects were located and taken into custody.

Detectives later served a search warrant at two locations, the one on Mettler Street and the one residence in Compton.

Both locations, stolen property connected to burglars were recovered.

In addition, officers recovered a high capacity firearm magazine in Compton, leading to additional arrests for possession of that item.

In total, four suspects were booked for burglary, and one additional suspect was booked for possession of a large capacity magazine.

Detectives are continuing their investigation to determine the full scope of crimes committed and are working to return stolen property to its rifle owners.

On August 13th, LAPD's Operation South Bureau Human Trafficking Task Force, in partnership with federal and local agencies, conducted a significant operation targeting a local criminal street gang.

The operation was a coordinated investigation by the U.S.

Department of Justice, the U.S.

attorney's office, Homeland Security Investigations, and our community safety unit.

This effort resulted in multiple federal indictments, arrests, and the rescue of victims.

11 federal indictments were issued against gang members under RICO conspiracy, including sex trafficking of minors.

Four suspects had been previously arrested nationwide and given, and seven were outstanding at the time of the incident.

In addition, a female gang member was indicted for firearms offenses.

On August 13th, LAPD led four search warrant operations, arresting two suspects through mobile takedowns, while HSI supported by LEPD served five additional search warrants.

Resulted the results included six suspects arrested on federal warrants, one suspect arrested for human trafficking of a minor, one suspect remains outstanding, and a warrant is entered into the national or NCIC, one juvenile female rescued by the task force, one adult victim provided service through DCFS and saving innocence.

Eight firearms received and 35 bottles of uh promedazine were seized.

This operation demonstrates LEPD's commitment to dismantling organized crime and protecting vulnerable populations from human trafficking.

And then finally, before I move on to our crime trends, on August 11th, detectives from our robbery special section with the assistance of our operations Westbrook Gun Violence Reduction Task Force apprehended two suspects connected to a crime spree targeting multiple 7-Eleven stores.

Over a two-day period, August 7th and August 9th, these individuals were responsible for six robberies across Van Eisen Foothill.

These same suspects were also tied to several additional robberies in neighboring jurisdictions, including Glendale, Pasadena, Norwalk, Temple City, and La Palma.

Both suspects have an extensive criminal history.

The Los Angeles District Attorney's Office has filed 16 felony counts against each of them.

Then moving on to crime.

For the four-week period from July 20th through August 16, 2025, compared to the prior four-week period, overall part one crime in the city is down nearly 9.9%.

That's 812 fewer crimes.

Person crimes are down 8.5%, and property crimes are down 10.3%.

Our homicides continue to trend downward.

Year to date, we're down to 54 homicides compared to the same time last year, a decrease of more than 27%.

For the most recent four-week period, homicides are down 11% compared to the prior four weeks.

Our victim shot are also down year to date.

We have 55 fewer victims shot than last year, representing an 8% reduction.

And comparing the past four weeks to the prior four weeks, we see victim shot dropped almost 8% as well.

Aggravated assault citywide are down 6.4% over the past four weeks.

Robberies citywide are down 11.1% or 65 fewer cases over the past four weeks with a reduction in both strong arm robberies and robberies involving firearms.

In addition, firearm recoveries are up nearly 8% year to date.

Burglaries are down 10% overall for a four-week period.

Residential burglaries dropped 14.7%, which represents 74 fewer incidents.

On the non-residential side, we saw a decrease of 8.1% or 28 fewer cases than the previous four weeks.

And finally, motor vehicle thefts are down over 8% compared to the prior four weeks.

Overall, while we're seeing a citywide reduction in violent property crime, we continue to monitor areas with localized increases to ensure we're deploying our resources properly.

Our personnel strength, sworn personnel as of August 18th is 8,711.

Civilian personnel staffing is at 2,595, and our reserve officers are at 345.

This concludes my report.

Thank you, Chief.

I will start with questions from my fellow commissioners.

Commissioner Garcia.

Good morning, thank you, Chief.

So you you share the crime sets, and seems like a lot of them are down.

I'm curious to know if 911 calls are down as well.

Um and really I ask that question because is there a trend in the recent months with what's happening with the ICE rates where folks are just not calling 911 or report and stuff?

I don't know if the number of uh one calls are down, but I can get you that information today.

Okay, thank you.

That's a great question.

And hopefully, we're not preventing people from actually seeking help from law enforcement when they need it because of the continued ICE rates.

Commissioner Sanchez Gorin, any questions?

Yes, Chief.

I'm also curious to find out uh more information about 911 calls.

Uh compare them to perhaps 911 calls that came in uh the first quarter of the year to what we're we might be seeing now, and uh towards the end of the year, uh if that could be given, that would be great.

Also, um regarding the incident um on August 13th, the South Bureau uh operation on the street gang, uh, was it a more than one street gang or was it a focus of one particular street gang?

It was one particular street gang.

Okay.

Um also my last question is uh I congratulate you on your crime report.

Uh it seems like um in every uh factor, the the crime incidents were down, and uh that's always good news for our city.

Uh I know that the uh property crime is also very challenging, and I'm I'm looking forward to also hearing in the near future that that property crime statistic is down as well.

And I think that's all I have this morning.

Thank you.

Um Chief, thank you for your report and condolences uh to both the uh family of the officer who was tragically killed, and um all of his friends um throughout the department.

Uh, with regards to the hate crimes uh that you were discussing, um it is unfortunate to hear that there was an incident of like a hate incident that was not previously reported because that does undermine the department's ability to investigate.

So uh, and we really want to encourage the public whenever this happens, and in the event that there's any videotape that could be gathered right at that moment, uh, are you, you know, something can you uh confirm to the to the you know community that this is something that the department's taking seriously and wants to investigate and make sure that they're aware of.

Yeah, absolutely.

Again, we say it often if we don't know about it, we can't do anything about it.

Um, this was discussed with the school itself.

Um, and you can even report hate incidents online now through our core system.

So we're making every effort to make sure all these crimes, whether they're incidents or they're crimes of hate, are reported and brought to our attention so we can properly take action, even if they're just in not just, but even if they're incidents, uh, we can start to see trends or patterns and take some you know preemptive action as well.

They don't have to just be crimes to be reported to us.

Thank you.

Um and I commend all of the department personnel that were involved in the significant arrests that you uh mentioned, particularly those involving you know the trafficking of minors and other vulnerable uh members of our community and uh those targeting you know the the serial robbers.

Um I get those citizen app alerts a little too frequently of another 7-Eleven getting robbed, so um hopefully those will decrease um in the future.

Um, one a couple of things that I did want to ask about that that um it wasn't part of the report, um, is you know, as these ICE enforcements continue, so do the First Amendment assemblies.

Um I drive through areas of people raising signs, peaceful, uh, you know, people honking all good things.

Sometimes that the the protests are ones that um cannot continue um for you know certain types of conduct happening.

Um can you and without getting into too much detail about ongoing litigation, I do want to ask about the department's treatment of media during First Amendment assemblies, and really I want to understand like explaining to us, you know, what is the department's expectation on officers of how they're supposed to treat media, both those that are visibly media and maybe those that are not visibly media, um, and then also how is the department communicating those expectations on the officers?

Sure.

So we've done we've done a lot of things.

This has uh been an issue that we've we've been dealing with for quite some time.

But um back in May, our training bulletin regarding uh media was updated and now is distributed uh to all department employees.

Um there was another notice that the chief put out uh probably three to four weeks ago regarding um a restraining order, temporary strain order not to target uh media in these First Amendment protests that was distributed, but we've been doing ongoing training.

Even when I was an interim, we updated our uh media manual with also addressed um identifying media and what to do if you can't identify media.

So a couple things when media is present at at a First Amendment uh protest or First Amendment event, several media you can just identify readily.

Mainstream media they have uh their network on their shirt or they're easily identified, but then there's other media that you can't identify that don't have anything identifiable and they're using a cell phone to film, which is still appropriate.

There's still a media uh, you know, media member, journalist, whatever they may be, but our officers have a difficult time identifying them quickly prior to being detained or arrested after dispersal order.

So it would be helpful so we don't have these detentions.

Sorry, please.

You will have an opportunity for public comment.

If you continue to interrupt, we will um ask that you leave.

So uh please listen to assistant chief.

Yeah, and I but if media doesn't feel that the need or the want to identify themselves prior to uh being detained, but if a dispersal order has been uh broadcasted and uh the officers are moving the group and somebody doesn't uh doesn't move and ends up getting detained, and then afterwards is identified that there'll be a process, and we ask our officers to do whatever is reasonable to try and identify the person as media if they're claiming so, and if they can't immediately call a supervisor and have that supervisor deal with that issue, and that that is being done out there.

And how how like what are the different ways that someone who hasn't previously identified themselves as media doesn't have like the big camera crew that like what are some of the things that they can do to identify themselves as media?

Because obviously you don't want everyone at a protest to claim that they're media once there's a disability dispersal order just to avoid getting detained.

Yeah, I I mean unfortunately, when they're detained, um the person that is being detained is gonna have to be patient until the officer can determine reasonably take efforts to determine if they're media or not, right?

We can't stop and pull everybody off the line for that purpose, but that's why part of our policy is to immediately request a supervisor and let that person handle that.

Also, we have media teams that'll respond as deployment allows at work for our media relations division that'll go out there and take that task over from the officers that are doing the tactical operations so they can move off to the side and and handle that issue.

So there's several ways that uh we try our best to identify as quickly as possible if somebody's uh part of the media, so we don't have to keep them detained.

And I know we don't require like credentials, like you know, specific press credentials, but are there other types of like you know, uh a card or something that identifies themselves as media?

Is that other types of you know information that they can readily have on them that they could provide to sure sure?

There's there's business cards or um networks that somebody may be associated with.

Um we just ask that our officers are using reasonable means to try and identify that they're media.

So, thank you, Chief.

Um, one other question I had was about um street takeovers.

They seem to be continuing, and I know that there are, you know, members of our community that are very frustrated by some videos and images that they see where it looks like again they're they've really taken over an entire area and and police are not visibly there.

Um, can you talk about you know what what the department is doing to try to um even potentially changes in legislation that could help solve this problem?

Sure, so obviously we can always use more resources, um, but uh that that's not an option at this point, right?

And um we want to be at every street racing uh takeover, but we can't be.

But we are strategic about what we do.

We have a street racing task force that um uses a variety of means to identify where and when certain street takeovers occur, and they work several nights out of the week.

Uh, timing of their deployment is based on the activity of street racing that they that they are takeovers that they identify.

Um, when they respond to these takeovers, they respond in in numbers because you can't go there and one or two officers, you have to go there in a group to address it.

But what happens when they do go there, on average they're writing between 15 to 50 citations for a variety of violations.

Oftentimes they'll identify some key players and then they end up going in pursuit.

The most common felony arrests that are occurring in these street takeovers are for felony evading, or surprisingly, or maybe not surprisingly, for possession of firearm, unlawful possession of firearms.

Those are the type of arrests that are coming out of these.

Legislatively, again, I said they're writing between 15 to 50 citations.

Legislative, we'd love to see legislation change where um penalties are more stringent.

In fact, we'd love to see if key key participants in these takeovers, their vehicles can be impounded and destroyed because we're seeing repeatedly um the same players at different places, but uh so legislatively to your question, we'd like to see that.

There was some effort early in the year to request that legislation change, but that that didn't go past assembly, and that won't be a bill or a law anymore.

Thank you, Chief.

And as you continue to analyze this issue if there's like certain technology or other things that could potentially help, that might be something that the commission would be interested in knowing about.

Um, okay, thank you, Chief.

Um, now moving on to item number two on the agenda, the report of the inspector general.

Mr.

Baragan.

Good morning.

Thank you for the opportunity to provide an overview of the Office of the Inspector General's current activities.

The OIG continues to focus on advancing its mission to provide strong, independent and effective oversight of the LAPD.

Ensure that all LAPD employees act with honesty, dignity, and respect toward the public, and conduct community outreach to educate the public about the OIG, the commission, and the department.

I'll provide a brief summary of the structure of my office and activities of uh of the OIG.

The OIG is entirely outside the chain of command of LAPD's reporting structure.

Uh, my office reports only to the Board of Police Commissioners and has no direct reporting authority to the chief of police.

The office can initiate an investigation into any area of the department and has access to all department facilities, documents, audio video files, and personnel.

The OIG is arranged into five primary sections, each of which is critical to meeting the office's responsibility.

The complaint section is responsible for intake of complaints from both members of the public and department employees.

Staff also conduct complaint investigations involving allegations of misconduct against the chief of police and occasionally other investigations as directed by the commission.

The section also conducts case reviews of completed investigations in certain circumstances.

The audit section conducts systemic audits, reviews and investigations of a wide variety of matters relevant to the performance of the LAPD as an agency and makes recommendations based on findings when applicable.

The reports produced by this section are typically based on data analysis, standardized auditing techniques, and extensive research.

The use of force section conducts reviews of all investigations involving categorical uses of force.

Staff respond to the scenes of all categorical uses of force to be able to provide real-time initial assessments of what occurred in these critical incidents.

OIG staff in this section also conduct conduct assessments of use of force trends and patterns that occur over time.

The community relations and strategic initiative section is responsible for all public inquiries, meetings, social media posts, and other communications involving the OIG.

The administrative section supports all of the other sections in their work and also handles all office personnel, operational and administrative matters.

Our ongoing activities include.

Since I joined the office, I've participated in multiple meetings involving various stakeholders and groups, such as meeting with the League of Women Voters of Greater Los Angeles last week to provide an overview of my office and answer questions.

My office will continue to participate in additional meetings and organize listening sessions going forward with the intent to gather community concerns and address questions related to the LAPD.

Specific to recent protests relating to LAPD's role in connection with federal immigration enforcement actions taking place in the city of Los Angeles.

The OIG will continue to monitor efforts connected to the department's after action review and other activities in response to the protests.

My office is engaged in discussions with the department regarding protest-related complaints as they proceed through the investigative process.

The use of force section is further monitoring the department's efforts to classify and investigate categorical uses of force related to the ICE protests.

The use of force section is also tracking the department's delayed interview pilot program, approved by the police commission in April for six months.

The OIG has worked with the department to identify metrics and indicators to support the evaluation of this pilot.

My office continues to attend monthly tactic review committee meetings where the department's officials and the OIG discuss critical issues related to use of force, training, and commission priorities, including de-escalation, intermediate force, and tactical disengagement.

As part of a SWAT project, the audit section recently observed SWAT call outs.

That concludes my report.

Thank you.

Thank you, Inspector General Badagan.

That can be a whole we could have hours of discussion on just what you and your office are doing.

But I look forward to periodic updates from you on that.

Do any uh commissioners have any questions for the inspector general?

I don't have a question.

I have I have a comment, and uh I welcome these reports and I look forward uh to receiving them more often than not.

Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner.

Thank you.

Okay, uh now we will move on to item three on the agenda public comment.

Madam Secretary, please call on the first speaker.

Andrew Graibner.

So let's start off with the Chiefs report, which should be limited to a maximum of three minutes at every meeting.

If the chief's report exceeds three minutes, we shall match the amount of time that she takes, regardless of how long the chief takes to give us a report.

Everyone should be able to speak both in person and on the phone.

So we have the Chief's report.

So the chief talked a little bit today about how the department is responding to the temporary restraining order, how you're trying to identify press and such so that you don't brutalize and arrest them.

You know, you wouldn't have to do some of that work if you weren't doing that the kind of stuff on anyone in the first place.

If you if you weren't attacking protesters, too, you wouldn't have to make sure that you're not attacking press as well.

So that would be the easiest way to comply with a temporary restraining order is to just stop being violent at protests.

Stop arresting and targeting protesters, and while you're at it, stop assisting ice.

You keep lying and claiming that you're not assisting ICE.

The police chief who's now skipped his second meeting.

Where is McDonald?

What why isn't he ever here anymore?

This is like the second meeting he skipped.

Is he just hiding from the public now?

Look, where is Jim?

Okay.

Now, let's move on to the report of the inspector general.

Alright, let's move on to the consent agenda now.

I don't know, just but we can wait.

That was pretty much a whole pile of nothing.

Just nothing.

Are you inspecting anything?

Like, you just said, oh well, I'm I'm doing some meetings, I'm looking into a few things.

I'm not gonna tell you the results of anything I've looked at recently, anything like that, but I'm certainly doing work, and I'm apparently independent.

Uh-huh.

And we also can barely hear it anyway, so you know.

Yeah.

You need to s when you use a microphone, you need to actually speak into the microphone, speak up.

You know, things like that.

Okay, so we have the consent agenda.

So on the consent agenda, we have over a million dollars for vehicles, for we have a like $10,000 TV structure.

Um, just all kinds of stuff.

We have $50,000 for lockers.

Why do the lockers need to be $50,000?

They're that expensive.

Why don't you save some money and just tell them to bring their own bags and just stick them in there somewhere instead of having to buy all these lockers?

Um, we have all kinds of equipment, no on all the equipment, no on all the militarization, no on all the violence.

You have a heart of LAPD walk.

That's news to me.

I didn't know the LAPD had a heart.

I didn't think they did.

Um, maybe maybe the heart's the giant flat screen TV in the lobby.

Next we have Mona M on zoom.

Hello, can you hear me?

Hi, yes.

What items would you like to speak on?

All items, please.

Okay, three minutes.

Thank you, Commissioners, Deputy Chief Hoy, Troy, OIG.

Thank you for the opportunities to speak.

I will be brief today.

The past several months I have been commenting and pleading with Chief McDonald to remove the Scientology representative from CPAB.

I don't know if that is happened at all.

However, I am here today to commend you for making the other changes that I have been requesting.

One of which is providing a safe space for individuals that have been victimized and victims of crimes perpetrated from the cult of Scientology.

Thank you for appointing a deputy chief and an investigator specifically to address the reports of crimes from the survivors.

I know that your opinion of the peaceful protesters and the perceived relationship with the family destroying child abusing human trafficking cult will change because of these reports.

Thank you, and I yield back my time.

Okay, next we have Margarita Caranza.

Okay, William Good.

Good morning.

So for the first time in two months, somebody in our government has finally spoken up and spoken out about the violence against journalists at protests.

Two months ago, your department went and brutalized and detained journalists, and they went and got a restraining order.

And none of you guys said anything, said nothing.

The LAPD heard that loud and clear.

And so what they went and did is they went out and beat the shit and detained ten journalists.

One of them is back there right there, Nick Stern.

Well, you talk about journalists need to identify themselves.

He had an oversized press pass on, showing it to an officer as he batonged him in his face and split his face open.

How about that for self-identifying?

And another journalist, Sean Beckner Cart Mitchell, came over, raised his hand, approached, asked for a PIO, which is required under 409.7.

They refused him and then batoned him in the ribs, fracturing his ribs.

And then from there, this is why he's wearing his press pass.

They detained him for an hour in handcuffs with other journalists.

While you guys sat around for the last two months refusing to say anything about their abuse of the press, they heard it loud and clear.

And they said we're gonna go out here and do what the fuck we want to do.

How dare you fuck all of you for that?

Now you talk about what's your protocol for identifying press.

They are identifying themselves.

They are saying it outwardly.

They are wearing press masses.

But their supervisors on scene are not honoring them.

Nate Gowdy and Carrie Shrek were detained, two really reputable journalists.

They said, Well, we can't verify that they're actual journalists.

You had a lawyer there on scene identifying them, and they were not accepting that.

Nate Gowdy is a guy who has his work on the cover of Time magazine.

And then the LAP had the nerve to go to ABC and say that they were pretending to be press