UnGovr Transcript
iHow this transcript is madeUnGovr transcribes the official recording with automated speech-to-text, separates speakers by voice, and matches voices to the seated roster. Names and attributions are AI estimates and may contain errors.Verify any quote yourself: click anywhere in the transcript and the official video jumps to that exact moment, so you can check any quote against the recording.0:00 – 0:035 turns
Good morning. Buenos dias! We welcome everyone to our regularly scheduled meeting of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. Today is Tuesday, September 1st, 2026 and we take note that a quorum of the board is present. The Chief Executive Officer, County Counsel, Executive Officer and the Sergeant at Arms are all here to assist. And before we begin today, I want to highlight that we are introducing a pilot public comment registration system which creates a more consistent and accessible experience. And I would like to have our executive officer, Annie N., please go over and provide information on how it can be utilized. Thank you.
Good morning, members of the public.
All right. A little bit of translation.
Well, good morning members of the public. We are pleased to present to you our new public comment system. Whether someone is participating by phone or in person they will be able to register for the items they want to speak on and have a clear understanding of where they are in the process including registration confirmation and text message reminders. Members of the public can call in directly but now there is a registration option that expedites the process Individuals participating in public comment either by phone or in person will have the opportunity to register for their desired items prior to the agenda item being heard. We encourage all members of the public to register to speak during today's meeting on our website at www.public comment.lacounty.gov that's www.publiccomment.lacounty.gov Registering online will allow you to identify the agenda items that you are interested in addressing You will receive a confirmation email with further instructions To receive notifications via text message on your phone when the item you wish to address is next just enter your phone number on the website If you do not have a computer or wish to make a comment at any time when the agenda item is active, you may call 213-444-2600 and press star.
Then follow the instructions to register. An operator will be on the phone to assist. You can find more information on our website at bos.lacunty.gov, that's b-o-s dot l-a county dot g-o v. Please click on the remote participation instructions for more information. This new service will help everyone connect and share their comments more easily. You will have the opportunity to address the board throughout the meeting. For items not held by the board, you will receive one minute for one item and up to two minutes for two or more items. For items held by supervisors, you will have one minute to address the board and one minute to address the board on general public comment. Please clearly state your name and indicate the agenda item numbers you will be addressing.
Please note once your time has expired we will immediately
move to the next speaker. When it is your turn to speak, your name or the last four digits of phone number will be called. To ensure we hear both from in-person and remote speakers, we will alternate between the two speaking cues. Members of the public who are in attendance when you hear or see your name displayed on a screen please come down to the front of the room and staff will assist you. Please do not approach the podium until directed to do so. Also, for members of the public in attendance, please note that we have a constituent assistance team that includes representatives from the Departments of Mental Health, Public Health, Health Services, Public Social Services, Children and Family Services, Homeless Services and Housing, and Parks and Recreation in the audience should you need assistance from them.
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Tataviam Band of Mission Indians, Gabrielino Tongva Indians of California Tribal Council, Gabrieleno Tongva San Gabriel Band of Mission Indians, Gabrieleno Band of Mission Indians Kish Nation, Yahavia Tom To learn more about the First Peoples of Los Angeles County, please visit the Los Angeles City-County Native American Indian Commission website at lanaic.lacounty.gov And with that, this morning the invocation will be led by lead pastor Will Vukovarich. I'm sorry if I apologized if I didn't say that correctly. Representing Grace Long Beach from the 4th District followed by the Pledge of Allegiance which will be led today by Leo Hernandez former specialist SPC United States Army representing the 5th District. If you are all able please stand and join us this morning.
County supervisors, the burden of leadership is heavy, lonely and costly. As a representative of the faith community, we thank you for your service and leadership. You are not alone. We are in this together. I'm honored to dream with you this morning as we imagine and work toward an LA County as it ought to be. An LA County where all families are fed, housed, and flourishing.
An LA County where access to resources reduces the need to self-medicate the brokenness away. An LA County where folks have enough margin to enjoy the beauty of our beaches, our neighborhoods, our parks and museums. The Instagrammable coffee shops and the roses that despite all odds continue to sprout from our concrete streets. An LA County where all our neighbors, our friends, our families and our children are welcomed and actually feel welcomed.
An LA County whose streets are safe enough to be filled with the laughter of the young and the wisdom of the elders. An LA County that experiences peace, wholeness, flourishing and plenty. Where justice flows like mighty rivers, dreams are no longer deferred but realized and life feels better for all. From Lancaster to Long Beach, from Malibu to Pomona this is our hope our desire and our prayer.
Supervisors this is the work you have been entrusted with and we stand with you in it. God Almighty this is why we need your help bless these leaders with wisdom courage humility and compassion and make us all people who seek the common good of this place not merely for ourselves but for the flourishing of all our neighbors May this distant dream continue to materialize amongst us. Amen.
Good morning, please face the flag place your right hand over your heart if you're a veteran you may render a hand salute and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all.
Supervisor Hahn you're recognized. Thank you
Madam Chair. Thank you so much. Where are you? There you are. Thank you so much and we welcome Pastor Will Bakurvich. You were close. The only reason I know how to pronounce it because I struggle with it, Madam Chair, and he gave a voice memo that I listened to on how to pronounce it. So don't feel bad. Pastor Will, thank you so much for leading us. I feel like that was more than an invocation.
That was a vision of I think what we all think LA County should be like and should behave like and should look like for everyone. So thank you for setting that forth to us and reminding us that is of course what we've all been entrusted with doing in each and every one of our districts So Pastor Will, we're going to call him Pastor Will for the rest of this.
Pastor Will is the co-lead pastor at Grace Long Beach where he serves as the pastor of ministry mobilization and focuses on local community engagement. In his role, Pastor Will has guided the church in using an asset based approach to learn and understand Long Beach's wriggly neighborhood It's history, it's strength, its resources and its needs. I spent about 10 years in Wrigley at one point of my life and by actively listening to residents of the community Grace Long Beach has been able to focus on serving under-resourced children youth and their families. One of Grace Long Beach specific focuses is their legacy of supporting children and families involved in the child welfare system Those at risk of entering it and youth transitioning out of foster care.
To do this, Grace Long Beach works directly with our LA County Department of Children and Family Services. They also have a thriving foster care ministry and supports groups for resource. I know Catherine Bargan will love this because this is one of her focuses. They support groups for resource parents that provide care for children in the child welfare system. And together, Grace Long Beach and DCFS are able to help meet tangible needs for countless of our families in the county. And their commitment to the community was recognized in 2025 when they received the inaugural Faith In Action Award from the DCFS office. I didn't know we gave that award but yes!
Will's vision for Grace Long Beach is simple and powerful, to lead a church that loves Long Beach well. They are committed to supporting their neighbors and finding new ways to collaborate with leaders throughout the city and the county to ensure that their community is cared for. Pastor Will and his wife Erin have three boys ages 15 12 and 3 Thank you Pastor Will for your dedication to Long Beach, your commitment to children and families and your continued work to strengthen our community. And thank you all particularly Jeanette Christian my Long Beach deputy we had a time getting here this morning the entire 710 freeway from Long Beach was closed down all lanes which meant that all those cargo container trucks were now on the 110 and we had a difficult time getting here so it felt like the universe was conspiring against us this morning but we're all here and that was a beautiful invocation.
And as a token of our appreciation, five county supervisors would like to present you with a certificate of appreciation for what you did for us today
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Supervisor Barger.
Thank you Madam Chair please join me in thanking behavioral health specialist Leo Hernandez for leading us in the Pledge of Allegiance this morning. Leo served in the United States Army from 2014 to 2019 in Kuwait and Jordan. During his service, he received numerous accommodations including Army Achievement Medal, Army Good Conduct Medal, National Defense Service Medal, Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, Global War on Terrorism Expidentiary Medal Army service ribbon and the overseas service ribbon. Talk about an overachiever.
He earned his Bachelor of Arts in Sociology from Cal State Northridge. Leo is a proud resident of Palmdale, He came across the Angeles Crest Highway to get here this morning, so I take my hat off to you for that. Where he works for JVS SoCal as a peer support specialist connecting veterans to the community resources that they have earned and that they deserve.
In his free time, he enjoys working on cars and spending time with his children Leo and Luciano. Thank you Leo for your service to our nation Your ongoing service to our communities and for joining us here this morning. Let's give him a round of applause. And now I would like to introduce to you our dog of the week. We're back and we have a very sweet and special pup for you to meet. This is Eggie, a four month old German Shepherd who is absolutely the sweetest dog. He's been through a lot the first few months of his life. He was rescued from a hoarding situation and has been eagerly looking for a forever home since. He was temporarily adopted but later returned because the owner's other dog wasn't ready for a sibling.
But Eggie is ready to be someone's best friend, sibling and quite frankly just someone to cuddle with. Eggie endured so much change and transition and we're hoping to find him a loving home that he can settle down and make his own if you'd like to make Eggie Yours called the Agora Care Center at 8 1 8 9 9 1 0 0 7 1. Again this is Aggie and given all that he's been through he is very very very well adjusted and now I'm going to turn your attention to the screen for our pet from Palmdale meet Hank. This is a one year old German shepherd who was surrendered by his owner because they didn't have time to give him the attention That he deserves and he needs Hank is a happy kind dog who loves affection similar to Aggie.
He's still gaining his confidence in the play yard and while he may be a little slow to warm up, he is very friendly once he is comfortable. If you'd like to adopt Hank come out help Hank come out of a shell and adopt him. Call the Palmdale Care Center at 6 6 1 5 7 5 2 8 8 8. Our animal care centers are open Monday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.. For walk ins I would encourage you to go and bring home someone to be your forever best friend Visit animalcare.lacounty.gov to see all the pets who can be yours, and thank you for bringing Eggie down. Thank you Madam Chair.
Thank you! All right hopefully Eggie finds a home. And with that members Executive Officer will you please call the agenda?
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Good morning Madam Chair and members of the Board. Today's agenda will begin on page 2, Consent Calendar, Board of Supervisors items 1 through 20. On item 19, Supervisor Barger requests that this item be held. Also this includes a revision as indicated on the supplemental agenda. On item 20, Supervisor Mitchell requests that this item be held. This also includes a revision as indicated on the supplemental agenda. On page 12, Administrative Matters, items 21 through 92. On item 21, Supervisor Mitchell requests that this item be held. On item 22, this item will be held for report. On item 23, Supervisor Horwath is recusing herself pursuant to Government Code section 84308 because she received a contribution or contributions of more than $500 within past 12 months from Mark Landver who was a party participant or agent of a party participant in the proceeding.
On item 37, Supervisor Solis is recusing herself pursuant to Government Code Section 84308 because she received a contribution or contributions of more than $500 within the past 12 months from Al Ballesteros who was a party participant or agent of a party or participant in the proceeding. Also, Supervisor Horwath is recusing herself from the vote pursuant to Government Code Section 84308 because she received a contribution or contributions and more than $500 within past 12 months from Anthony Mills who was a party participant or agent of a party participant. In the proceeding on item 38, Supervisor Barger requests that this item be continued to September 29th 2026 as indicated on a supplemental agenda. On item 39 this is a recommendation to adopt and instruct the chair to sign a resolution to undertake bond financing in an amount not to exceed twenty million three hundred thousand dollars to finance acquisition construction rehabilitation and or development of the Mercy Claremont project located in the City of Claremont On item 44, this includes a revision as indicated on the supplemental agenda.
On item 48, this includes a revision as indicated on the supplemental agenda. On item 56, this includes a revision as indicated on the supplemental agenda. And item 62, Supervisor Mitchell requests that this item be continued two weeks to September 15th, 2026. On page 50, this includes miscellaneous additions to the agenda which were posted more than 72 hours in advance of the meeting as indicated on the supplemental agenda. Items 98 through 90F.
On page 51, separate matters items 93 through 94. On items 93 and 94 the board will take a separate vote on these matters also on item 93 this includes a correction as indicated on the supplemental agenda On page 52, Special District Agendas. These are the agendas for the meetings of the Board of Directors of Sanitation District Number 27 and the New Hall Ranch Sanitation District Items SD1. The Los Angeles County Development Authority Item 1D and the Regional Park and Open Space District Item 1P. On item 1P this is an addition as indicated on the supplemental agenda. On page 54, notice of closed session items CS1 through CS10. On item CS2 through CS5, CS7 one case and CS9 the Chief Probation Officer requests that these items be continued two weeks to September 15th 2026.
Also item CS7 includes a correction as indicated on the supplemental agenda. On item CS7, County Council requests that one case be continued two weeks to September 15th 2026 as indicated on the posted agenda. The request for continuances through CS10 are before you. That completes the reading of the agenda Madam Chair.
Roll-call vote Moved by Holly J. Mitchell · Seconded by Barger
Show transcript
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Ladies and gentlemen, may I please have your attention. The meeting of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors is about to commence. A code of conduct will now be read and we request that you comply with it to ensure the efficient administration of the meeting. Members of the public, it is your right to participate in today's board hearing and the Board encourages such participation. However, the right of the public to address the Board must be balanced with the need to ensure that public comment does not interfere with the orderly course of the Board's business.
All are reminded to abide by the following rules. Speakers must cease speaking immediately when their time has ended Public comment on agenda items must relate to the subject matter of that item. General public comment is limited to subjects within the jurisdiction of the Board. Public comment does not include the right to engage in a dialogue with Board members or staff.
Please remain respectful of the forum and refrain from uttering, writing or displaying profane, personal, threatening, derogatory, demeaning or other abusive statements toward the board, any member thereof, staff or any other person. Members of the audience should be respectful of the views expressed by speakers, staff and board members and may not clap, cheer, whistle or otherwise disrupt the orderly conduct of the meeting.
Any person engaging in conduct that disrupts the meeting is subject to being removed from the board meeting. And finally, if you witness conduct or behavior by other members of the public that disrupts your ability to remain engaged or participate in this meeting, please notify the sergeant at arms or other county staff. Thank you for your cooperation.
Today's meeting order will be the following. Public comment on items not held for discussion by the board, including the closed session matters followed by items 20 and 22 then items 19 and 21 followed by general public comment and finishing up with closed session. Executive officer.
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At this time, we will hear from members of the public wishing to address the board on all items not held for discussion by supervisors including closed session matters. The consent items will be acted upon with one motion. For members of the public already on the phone if you have signed up to speak for these items you do not need to do anything further. If you are on the phone have not signed up to speak and would like to comment on these items please press star now and follow the prompts to be placed into the speaking queue If you are watching the meeting and would like to address the board on these items, please call 213-444-2600. Press star and follow the prompts. An operator will be on the phone to assist. Please be prepared to indicate the agenda item numbers that you wish to address.
We will now call an in-person speakers and while they're coming forward, we'll take remote speakers. This will be for all items not held by the board for discussion in closed session matters. Will the following individuals please come forward? And staff will assist you. Greg Crum, Ismael, Michael Mecca, Colin Campbell, and Daniel Garcia. Aaron Garcia your line is open.
Please begin.
Hi, my name is Edwin Garcia. I'm the L.A. County Director of Advocacy for Streets Are For Everyone. I am here to talk in support of the agenda item for the Hollywood Bowl season pass tickets. My favorite movie is The Princess Bride. It's a movie full of adventure and romance. Revenge, and it was a low-budget film at the time so they couldn't get like a live composer to record the soundtrack. So it was all done digitally. Fast forward like 20 years The Hollywood Bowl hosts a screening of the movie with a live orchestra. It was the first time ever that this entire soundtrack was played live and that's like the beauty of The Bowl.
A place where history is made and it's done by Angeleno showing up. You see the old chaps with their fedoras, you see older women with most beautiful flamboyant dresses and they bring a new life to the artist work. And that's why I'm talking in support of this agenda item because... Thank you.
Maya Coleman your line is open please begin
Good morning, Supervisors. My name is Maya Coleman and I'm with the Reimagined LA Coalition and a member of District 3. I am calling in opposition to Agenda Item 62. We urge the county not to confuse surveillance with community care. An ankle monitor is not housing, mental health care, substance use treatment, a job or the support that people need to successfully return home. It simply extends the reach of our criminal legal system into our communities. At a time when the county continues to acknowledge overcrowded deals, inadequate health care, unsafe conditions and preventable harm expanding electronic monitoring is moving in the wrong direction. We cannot monitor our way out of a broken system if LA County is committed to Care First's last vision we should be investing in affordable housing behavioral health services employment education and re-entry support not expanding contracts that profit from surveillance Real public safety comes from stability, opportunity and community investment.
Thank you.
Thank you. Item 62 is continued I believe just so that speaker is aware.
Madhu Katwani your line is open please begin. Madhu Chatwani? Your line is open. Please begin.
Can't hear
her. Madhu, your line is open. We'll go to the next caller. Dr. Lawrence, your line is open. Please begin.
Hi, it's Dr. Lawrence Winston founder of Wise Up Ministries. I'm speaking on behalf of item number 41 the Hollywood Bowl tickets in our experience The tickets for the Chance the Rapper event on Juneteenth, the tickets were $19 and it was very affordable. And then they moved down to $16. That way we were able to buy tickets for 30 of our community members and we were able to get there. However parking was quite expensive but the discounted ticket rate allowed us to cover the parking For everyone that attended and we carpooled. We also attended previously I attended Little Wayne versus Drake concert at the Hollywood Bowl, and it was a good experience that where the tickets were very pricey. Thank you. This was very years ago.
Your line is open please begin. Go ahead. Allison.
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Allison McDew? Hello?
Yes, please begin.
Yes. Hi good morning Board of Supervisors my name is Allison McDew I want to applaud the LASL for creating a reduced price program for Angelenos from low incomes at the Hollywood Bowl really supporting item 41. I really want to ask the Board of Supervisors to establish this countywide reduced price programming for all Angelenos For our cultural institutions, because it's the opportunity to close a socioeconomic and educational gap. So many studies have shown that these immersive trips to cultural landmarks boost students' critical thinking and empathy.
And really these educational breakthroughs are twice as large for youth from low-income families who lack these opportunities. We would really just love to see this lowering of entry barriers at these county venues. I feel like especially with what has been done in the 4th year It's really thinking about entertainment not as a luxury, but as an educational tool to students who really need it and families.
Thank you. Caller ending in 7127 your line is now open please state your name and begin.
Good morning, Board of Supervisors. I'm Lydia Scott. Item 41 on your agenda. I'd like to thank L.A. Phil for creating a reduced price program that allows all Angelenos with low income to experience performances at the Hollywood Bowl. I'm asking for the board to build on that idea by establishing a county-wide reduced pricing program for Angelenos with low incomes and at county cultural institutions, including museums and event venues. Too often public cultural assets have seats and admission spaces that go unused. An empty seat generates no revenue and provides no benefit to anyone. Why not use those vacant spaces to expand access? Offering discounted admission to residents with low income when capability is available would create opportunities for people who might otherwise be excluded.
Our cultural institutions belong to all Angelenos, I respectfully ask the board to
establish Thank you Madam Chair there are no other remote speakers to address the board on these items we will now go to in-person speakers please begin.
Greg Crum speaking on agenda item 56 Good morning, Supervisors. I'm here on behalf of the Los Angeles County Lifeguard Association and the more than 900 lifeguards who protect 72 miles of coastline across L.A. County. Supervisor Mitchell, Supervisor Horvath, Supervisor Hahn, our beaches and coastlines are within your respective districts. Supervisor Solis, Supervisor Barger, thousands of your constituents visit our beaches on a regular basis.
And I want to thank you all for your continued commitment to the safety of our beaches, our beach communities and the public programs supported by our county lifeguard system. Supervisor Hahn, thank you so much for your work in keeping LA County Lifeguards at Cabrillo Beach. Our coastline is a regional resource and protecting it's our responsibility. LA County Lifeguards have built a coordinated regional lifeguard system with staffing training equipment and experience necessary to protect millions of beachgoers We're in the middle of one of the biggest summers we've ever had, and we hope that the work at Gabrillo shows that we can keep all of our beaches and Will Rogers, Doc Wyler, and all of our other contract cities.
Thank you so much.
Hello. I'm speaking on 32 for MLK Library, 35 Family Visitation DCSF, 36 Medical Upgrade and 38 for Local Health Emergency for the Fires. So we have some new technologies for Stargate. We were wondering if for MLK we could do a demo of these new AI models for Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Black Panthers To protect African American cultures that have been systematically beaten down. If you read the Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution, it does institutional racism so we want to identify it and help people lift up. The budget is $238.5 billion. It's with Japan.
So this is a federal budget, but it's a joint partnership. And if we could use it for DCSF, Sacagawea is one that I wanted to be able to implement. It's from my hometown of Charlottesville, Virginia and she's a Native American so at the beginning of our speeches every day with LA Board of Supervisors you want to honor Native Americans. So this should honor Native Americans and should protect their culture.
Sacagawea was sold as a sex slave into marriage at age 13 which I think is inappropriate. So this would be able to protect children for DCSF as the recommendation. For the fire emergency that we're dealing with right now, I've been to Altadena, Pasadena. This is critical infrastructure. It's new technology. It also a fusion reactor is potentially what we want to do but we want to start with police, fire, EMS first and eventually roll it out to citizens as the recommendation.
One fun one I picked was Geronimo, named after the Apache medicine man. And it's basically Geronimo would be medical diagnostics to understand people holistically and how to help them. So if you're interested we'd love to do it and I'm in South Pasadena in Katherine Barter's district under five. Thank you.
Thank you next speaker please.
I'm Michael Mecca with the Pacific Water Quality Association and we're opposing the New Hall Ranch Sanitation District ban on water softeners. From what I found on this, New Hall Ranch is a proposed development and while it's in the middle of the big Santa Clarita ban and removal on water softeners, we have tens of thousands of new residents that are going to be denied water treatment options before they ever move into their new houses.
I was heavily involved in the Santa Clarita ban and removal with Senator George Renner. We're realist, we understand that things need to change. Chlorides are an issue for sanitation districts to deal with however it needs to be done properly. And in the case of Santa Clarita a lot of things came out that should not have been done. Lost my train there. I was involved where, on the removal of softeners to set a value.
Thank you. Next speaker please.
My name is Ismael Ysias Ramirez. I'm here speaking as part of the public. Thank you to Holly Mitchell, Supervisor Holly Mitchell and thank you to LA Phil for leading the way for different Angelenos to experience cultural landmarks in an affordable way when cultural landmarks like the Hollywood Bowl... Oh! I'm speaking on item 41 sorry about that number 41 And when cultural landmarks like the Hollywood Bowl are made affordable to everyone, it reestablishes important community hubs for people to connect. So also shout outs to the Ford Theater for also leading the way to this. Thank you to the Hollywood Bowl for recently implementing a program for EBT users.
More needs to be done and I personally hope Hello, members of the board. Antonio Garcia speaking from my experience with my disability
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I just want to say that if you are going to do anything about the corridors or commercial things, please think about people with disabilities because they need a pathway through. They need to be in any way a pathway to A, to B, to go through and do anything in the corridor So it needs to be clean. It needs to be accessible for people with disabilities. Thank you very much, and I appreciate your decision to come here. Thank you.
Thank you. Next speaker please?
Yes, hi good morning. My name is Tara Taylor and I'll be speaking on item number 41. Good morning supervisors. I'd like to begin by thanking the LA Phil and Supervisor Mitchell for leading the way in helping to reduce Prices for Angelenos to participate in our cultural institutions and, in particular, in visiting the Hollywood Bowl. The EBT program is a trailblazing effort to get more of our population to our major cultural institutions And I believe that this is only the beginning.
Given the complexity of living in Los Angeles and the various economic positions of many of our residents here, I would encourage the supervisors here that this body would consider a comprehensive program for all of our cultural institutions.
Thank you.
That
concludes the time for public comment on these items.
Madam Chair and members of the board, the following items are before you. 1 through 18, 23 with Supervisor Horfath recusing from the vote, 24 through 36, 37 with Supervisors Solis and Horfath recusing from the vote, 39 through 61, 63 through 89, 90A through 90F, SD1, 1D, 1P, and please note we will take a separate vote on items 93 and 94. These items are before you.
Moved by Supervisor Horvath, seconded by Supervisor Hahn to approve these items with the exceptions noted by the Executive Officer. Executive Officer will you please call the roll?
Roll-call vote Passed 5–0 Moved by Lindsey P. Horvath · Seconded by Janice Hahn Moved by Supervisor Horvath, seconded by Supervisor Hahn to approve these items with the exceptions noted by the Executive Officer. Executiv
Show transcript
motion carries Madam Chair, we will now vote on the separate matter items. Item number 93 is before you.
Moved by Supervisor Barger seconded by Supervisor Mitchell to approve these to approve the item executive officer call the roll.
Roll-call vote Passed 5–0 Moved by Barger · Seconded by Holly J. Mitchell Moved by Supervisor Barger seconded by Supervisor Mitchell to approve these to approve the item executive officer call the roll.
Show transcript
Motion carries 5-0 We now have item number 94, which is before you.
I will move that item seconded by Supervisor Horvath to approve the item Executive Officer call the roll.
Roll-call vote Passed 5–0 move that item seconded by Supervisor Horvath to approve the item Executive Officer call the roll.
Show transcript
Motion carries five to zero we will now
move on to item 20 implementing commercial tenant protections to prevent small business displacement and deliver on thriving commercial corridors which is held by supervisor Mitchell For members of the public already on the phone, if you have signed up to speak for these items, you do not need to do anything further. If you're on the phone, have not signed up to speak and would like to comment on this item press star now and follow the prompts to be placed into the speaking queue. If you are watching the meeting and would like to address the board on this item, please call 213-444-2600.
Press star and follow the prompts. An operator will be on the phone to assist. As a note we have many speakers who have requested to speak on this item in order to finish today's meeting efficiently and address all agenda items. We are requesting that if you're with a group please identify one person to speak on behalf of your entire group Additionally, if you do not have any additional comments other than what has already been stated by other speakers please indicate only your name and your support or opposition to this item. Kelly Lopianko, Director of Economic Opportunity is available for questions. For the departmental speaker please state your name and title for the record when you address the board.
You at this time will recognize Supervisor Mitchell. This is her item, thank you.
Thank you very much Madam Chair and good morning to all my colleagues. Small businesses are the backbone of LA County's economy. They're where jobs are created, where our hyper local communities diversity is reflected and celebrated but they're disappearing They're seeing rent increases as high as 400%. One of my very own second district small businesses saw his monthly rent jump from $2,500 to $10,000 per month.
Leases can be terminated with no recourse and no relocation help even when a landlord's harassment is confirmed. Redevelopment can displace longtime businesses even as our communities desperately need more housing and revitalization projects. Last year, the state took a first step with Senate Bill 1103 which requires advance notice for rent increases over 10 percent.
Notice prior to lease termination and translation of leases into language that tenant can understand. I think this is the opportunity for the county to do its part to implement this law locally and keep small businesses in place. This board has a significant track record of supporting both small business and commercial landlords through grants, rent relief and technical and legal assistance.
Since the county's Department of Economic Opportunity was created back in 2022, the county has delivered over $83 million in direct cash relief to 9700 businesses hit by a variety of disruptions like COVID labor strikes and natural disasters. We've now funded a permanent business interruption fund with an additional $2 million. And through the Economic Mobility Initiative, we've invested over $33 million in technical assistance and business formation grants reaching more than 4,000 businesses.
We've also invested $11 million to refresh storefronts for over 120 businesses. And after the 2025 Palisades and Eaton fires, DEO matched displaced businesses with available commercial space. Our vision is that DEO is the chamber of commerce for all businesses countywide. And as a result, DEO has funded free legal representation for small businesses since 2021. They've also put on business forms touching over 1200 businesses and the list goes on.
Despite these investments, commercial tenants still face exorbitant rent hikes, terminated leases, redevelopment displacement and coercive eviction tactics. A Commercial Rental Property License, a CRPL since the government loves acronyms. Again that's a commercial rental property license would allow the county to clearly identify where pressures are occurring.
It would show which corridors are facing chronic vacancies and which businesses need direct outreach and support rather than us guessing or basing it on hearsay. or anecdotal stories. Following the fires, DEO had no list of which businesses had burned down or were partially damaged and had to rely on door-to-door outreach to deliver relief. A licensing system would mean that we would be able to reach effective businesses more quickly in future emergencies.
The CRPL is as much about outreach as it is about enforcement against landlords who violate the anti-harassment ordinance. I'd also like to acknowledge the community members who've correctly said that a remedy after displacement is not enough. A small business can lose its customers, workers inventory and their neighborhood presence long before a court case reaches a final resolution.
So that's why the county's report back should evaluate accessible administrative options for reporting commercial tenant harassment including complaint intake, investigation, emergency review, anti-retaliation safeguards and referral pathways for legal assistance. So let me just be clear about what this motion does and does not do This motion closes the gaps in state law, helps us deliver relief to businesses more quickly and holds bad actors accountable.
It asks our business licensing work group to design a commercial landlord license similar to models in major cities across the country including Chicago, Tacoma, New York and here locally Santa Monica. For the first time, the county would have reliable information about who owns commercial buildings and which storefronts are sitting empty. If a landlord is found by the courts to have harassed a tenant out of their space, the tenant would receive financial assistance to relocate.
It also asks DEO to study what fair rent looks like around the county. And when redevelopment pushes a small business out, it asked County Council to return with real options for relocation assistance and incentives rather than allowing our community anchors to be displaced without support. Again let me be clear about what the motion does not do as I've heard that there's been some perhaps confusion It does not cap commercial rent.
It does not make landlords share any copies of their leases, and it does not slow down or block any redevelopment project. The motion is a result of pretty significant stakeholder feedback, and I'd like to thank my team who met directly with organizations who expressed their opposition which is why we took it to Cluster to create an opportunity for full and transparent discussion.
And as a result what we're considering today is different than what we first introduced. As a result of feedback, we added a cap on the amount of relocation expenses that could be awarded. We spelled out exactly what counts as a redevelopment project so landlords will know where they stand and we asked for departments to come back with more incentives for landlords who choose the special status license.
I appreciate the commercial property stakeholders for raising serious implementation questions and their point that the rural and other unincorporated communities have distinct economic conditions is well taken. And that's why this is a report back motion, we're not setting a commercial rent cap or adopting a final relocation program today. We are directing our departments to conduct the analysis, engage stakeholders across the county and bring the board options.
We shouldn't have to choose between attracting investment and protecting the small businesses that create jobs, provide essential services and give commercial corridors their character not to mention giving commercial landlords rent through their tenancy. I believe we have to do all of the above. So, I look forward to the report back with options to promote a fair and vibrant marketplace for all of our businesses across LA County. Thank you Madam Chair.
Thank you. And I also want to join you and thank you for adding me, Supervisor Mitchell as a co-author on this particular issue. It's a challenge for our small businesses there is no doubt about it and I want to thank you Kelly LoBianco in your department for helping us in the East Los Angeles corridors as well as in the San Gabriel Valley helping us to renovate storefronts and revitalizing areas that have been dilapidated and have been left behind, particularly in corridors that I represent in the unincorporated area. Not just in East LA but also in the San Gabriel Valley near unincorporated West Puente Valley closer to areas for many is home and small businesses thrive there. They do make up the backbone of our economy, and it's disgraceful what is happening to them right now having to deal with tariffs, having to deal with uncertainty because of ice raids that has really suppressed and depressed people from coming into their shops and to their stores, and people also trying to maintain their economic stability.
If there isn't a business open then they don't have a job And likewise, I want to reference the recent tragedy that we went through in East LA and Boyle Heights. The lineage crisis that we just faced where many small businesses there and I know that Kelly your group is going to be looking at doing outreach and have been to help us decipher how many people Commercial owners of buildings and what have you, and also their tenants have been impacted. And what we've heard anecdotally is that it's way above maybe close to millions. And that doesn't include the oil spill that happened in East LA as well. So there are a lot of things that are impacting many of the folks that I represent currently. And I would ask people to be patient with us but also understand that this is a report back And I think some of us here are very responsive and want to be more responsible, and I have even put in my own discretionary funding to build into a business relief interruption fund for those that have been interrupted because of disasters or because of man-made intrusions.
Like the recent ice raids that have really hurt our corridors here, even in downtown Los Angeles in the garment district. All of these places have not recovered and this is multiplied on top of what happened during COVID unfortunately many of those individuals happen to be people that we represent people of color but it's no accident They're striving, many of them are hardworking immigrants that came here with the hope and desire of not depending on federal government or state government or county but also being able to thrive. And I think that is what makes the LA County economy what it is. The fact that we have entrepreneurs and micro enterprises too by people who want to start their own businesses starting even from maybe selling to now getting a vendor cart that we're providing through DEO and also establishing safeguards so that they can become permitted, and then go hopefully later on if they want to into brick-and-mortar.
So there's a plan here. It isn't just throwing things out there unnecessarily. We really do want our communities to thrive, so I am fully supportive of this, and I can't wait to hear back from the report back but also to thank you Kelly for the work that you've done, because we don't need to see more people displaced at this time. Unemployment is already high in this area and we know that we are going to be heading for some more heavier challenges for the time being but that's not gonna be forever so now is a time for us to help stabilize our community so I wholeheartedly support the motion and thank you again Supervisor Mitchell and your staff for their good work on this issue. Thank you Okay.
Supervisor Barger, you're recognized.
0:53 – 1:0010 turns
Thank you and thank you for bringing this forward and Supervisor Mitchell thank you for the transparency in how this has been handled going to cluster and all that is why we have this process and getting input from stakeholders or from people that are impacted so I want to thank you for that but I have a couple of questions for Kelly. I understand there are examples of small businesses who've claimed that they've been displaced due to landlord harassment or because a landlord increased the rent with the intent of forcing the tenant to move out.
Under the proposed ordinance, a tenant would need to take this to court under the existing County Anti-Harassment Ordinance to get relocation costs and other costs like rent covered so that they can move. Since the county anti-harassment ordinance was passed in 2022, how many small businesses have filed complaints under this ordinance that we put into play and what was a result of those complaints?
Thank you, Supervisor Barger. As you heard from the supervisors that spoke before and I think we're going to hear from a lot of folks today issues of affordability and displacement and harassment are very real for small businesses. We know we are a A county of small businesses and they face many, many barriers to both startup and growth and legacy in succession here. And so we certainly have been providing education and technical assistance and support since our beginnings four years ago, and that has included engaging With our L.A. region small business legal aid program, and so we've been engaging with hundreds if not thousands at this point of individuals who brought a variety of legal challenges to us and we've worked with Beth Cedic and public counsel to support There that said under the Anti-harassment ordinance right now.
There's no single custodian of that case data so The ordinance essentially offers a private right of action to individuals who are experiencing And so while they might engage with our office of small business and partners. Right now, we don't have a good sense of the actual numbers. But what I will offer is that the City of LA has set up a more proactive approach around residential tenant harassment complaints and has since they set it up received about a dozen and supported tracking of those into court.
And I want to sort of lift up what I heard Supervisor Mitchell say, that I think the licensing program here and a more proactive approach to receive complaints to the county help triage to legal support will enable us to track what is essentially a private right of action over time and better understand the full scale and scope.
So the Count Anti-Harassment Ordinance that was passed in 2022 has done Nothing we have not we have no data to support the efficacy of that ordinance
I Will say
yes or no. I mean, I heard you I Heard a lot of what you said But really I just want to know we have things on the books and I look to County Council is there not enough teeth in the ordinance because you know, we are We band-aid, but I think the goal and we all support this goal because there are bad landlords. There are bad landlords that make it really difficult for those like up in Alphadena when I think of the Galloways who quite frankly are the gold standard for what you want in a landlord because they had people that suffered and actually they lost a building but yet they still recognize the importance of keeping businesses in the community so my question is In the anti-harassment ordinance that we voted on at this board and was sold as something that was going to protect.
And I'm hearing today, I'm glad the city of LA is being proactive on tenants maybe we need to look at that as well but proactive versus reactive so County Council what in the ordinance and I don't know if you have it in front of you, that is not working or that we need to do. And why are we not collecting data? And why are we not working with organizations such as the ones that are in the audience right now to capitalize on what's already on the books?
Supervisors, I don�t have the ordinance in front of me and I will certainly go back and look at it. I don�t know in terms of the data collection That certainly would not be something that we would have. I think the goal of the ordinance was for it to be self-enforced. I'm going to have to defer back to Director LoBianco in terms of when they are reached out to by persons with complaints and they're working with public counsel in terms of how that can be tracked perhaps going forward in the future.
Yes, I'll just say so the ordinance created a right but we do need to create an infrastructure for education and support for businesses. And then also for tracking that long term. That does require like the investment of infrastructure and resources to enable us to better track that. But it does create a right...
So do you need the board to tell you to do that or is that something that should be done? I mean I talk about proactive versus reactive And this is reactive to a problem. And we just talked about the anti-harassment, and now you're saying what we need to do. So do we need to write a motion telling you to do that? Or is that something that should just be an obvious based on common sense?
No, it's not a necessary about emotion. It's so we when we are engaging with small businesses that have a challenge which they are many right? That require a variety of resources and potentially including legal aid. We refer folks to our legal aid program to support from many folks in this room including Bed Cedic and Public Council to actually implement, like to receive complaints, triage complaints. You need to build an infrastructure they need to be resources that expand the opportunity for education and compliance. I believe that having a license and a program built out in this way would enable us to better do that here in the county. I'm just saying that it's not that we don't want to do it. I think we need to build out the infrastructure to make that happen.
That's fine. I don't buy it, but that's fine. I respectfully quasi disagree with you in terms of which came first. I believe that we should be more proactive and it shouldn't be the board. Directing that should be in response to the needs of the consumers. And in this case, the consumer is a tenants of small businesses across the board which brings me to my next question and this is something that is anecdotal and I understand that some small businesses have claimed that the landlord increased their rent in order to have them move out so that the landlords are eligible for state financial incentives Can you explain a little bit more about this and has it had an effect on any small businesses in the county?
1:00 – 1:1931 turns
Can you say that last part again, I'm sorry. So you're talking
about... I'm being told that landlords are intentionally pushing tenants out because there is some state financial incentive if businesses are left empty for the landlord.
I would have to, what I do know is that rents are increasing. You know we've had, in our review we did an HRNA study and there are increases that we're seeing across the board and we know that sometimes those costs are passed on to the commercial tenants and it makes it unaffordable for
folks- That's not my question. My question is, is there a state run policy?
I would have to come back to you to give you more-
That incentivizes businesses to be empty over an extended period of time.
I appreciate that question, and I'd like to come back to you with a fuller answer. I want to better understand some of the policies that you're referencing so that I can give you an answer there.
That is what is being presented as a way for Landlords to price out go ahead.
Yeah, I like wise we'll look into it further But my guess is it's probably a tax incentive and they're claiming it as a loss That's what my guess is but we will look into that as well
yeah, I mean I think these are important things to take into consideration because again We can put together a registry and my concern is the cost that's going to be Put into play to create a registry that's gonna be passed on to the tenants as well And it's like a domino effect. And I think that we need to look holistically at what is taking place and try to address it from the standpoint of both the state and local.
My last question is, the motion focuses on the experience of small business tenants in Directive 1, a proposed definition of a commercial landlord and tenant are requested. What is your understanding who a commercial landlord is for the purposes of this motion. And is it all commercial landlords of property or commercial landlords of small businesses of nine or fewer employees? I just need to get a clarification on that.
Your clarification will come back in the report because the reality is there's a variety of commercial definitions being used. The definition under the anti-harassment ordinance is very broad, the definition that we use at the department is more focused on 100 employees and We are going to come back with a clear definition of commercial landlord, commercial business as part of this program because that's going to be necessary for us to engage in a commercial rent study which is part Really operationalizing this and I do just want to share supervisor Berger. I hear you And I think that making sure that when we have a law in the books that we have a way to make sure that it's Shared with the public and that they can activate it, and we do believe that we've supported folks in referring to no-cost legal aid where we can And I think building the infrastructure within the Department of Economic Opportunity, our partners at the Department of Consumer and Business Affairs will be needed to make sure that we fully reach the hundreds of thousands of businesses that are here in LA County.
Just the scale of that and making sure that education a process and technical assistance can reach everyone so that we can fully realize the compliance intentions of the law is necessary. And so we look forward to helping build the capacity and doing that in this report back, ensuring what would be needed to really meet the anti-harassment law and the intent of this
motion. And the report back is in how many days? 180? Is that correct?
I'd have to double
check. Are you confident you can do this in 180 days?
I believe that we can come back with a report back. We're going to be working with County Council and the Department of Consumer and Business Affairs, who are all part of this motion. As
well as the industries that have submitted letters? Even the L.A. Chamber of Commerce who typically kind of stays under the radar on things like this has come out expressing concerns. Are you going to bring them all in to discuss?
Certainly, we will engage our business community for sure and a lot of that has already happened up into this point. We know but like anything a proper infrastructure for implementation is going to be important and so we look forward to thoughtfully bringing back a proposal to this board.
And then it's just gonna go under business license? Is that the goal is to have it under the Business License Commission?
There's, I think that those are all things that are going to be considered in the report back. There's a separate report back that's underway between DCBA and CEO right now on the business license program.
So I'd look to the authors just out of curiosity because I know that the Business License Commission oversees an incorporated area for like massage parlors and things like that Is the vision or the thought that there be something similar to that so that the commission oversees and has a hearing based on people submitting requests for business license? Do you follow me?
I did not.
So there's a business license commission that right now hears requests for, I mean I think of massage parlors because that seems to be the bulk of what they are acting on and award business licenses to unincorporated areas. This is going to be a registry and my question is it gonna go before the Business License Commission or do you expect it just to be separate entity that's gonna be directly Reporting because that allows the public to come in and be a part of If there's a if there's a problematic Landlord,
it would absolutely include that is my expectation. It would allow for the public to be involved and bring forward I understand that the CEO was looking at moving That from one department to another and so I don't know that I can say it will go before I'm just that entity but it is my expectation that the public have the opportunity and it'd be reviewed by an entity
Joe,
like what you just identified.
Thank you. Good morning. So what we're looking at in our report on Business License Commission is the appropriate location of that program. Right now it's with TTC and there's some analysis to look and see whether it belongs in another department like DCBA or DEO and what that process looks like. This motion would ask us to come back or ask DCBA to come back 60 days after we're done with our report. And so in that follow-on report, I think that's an important question that they should be answering which is do we create a new entity? Does this align with Business License Commission?
Does it align with the current rent protection program that we have existing at DCBA and so I expect that in the report that is filed in response of this motion they will have to say where this is best administered
Thank you. I mean, I guess I have a lot of questions and I am concerned because you've got organizations like BizFed saying that LA County is the most unfriendly toward businesses and I just want to make sure we're not creating another layer of bureaucracy that similar to the ordinance that we just talked about makes promises but delivers very little at a cost. And so, I am going to be abstaining on this because it is report back and I think it's important to get that information but I will tell you that if we do enact something Transparency is going to begin at this board, and I will literally be questioning the data to make sure that our bureaucracy is doing what they promised to both the tenants and also the landlords because I think that is important.
When I hear that the anti-harassment ordinance is just that something on paper but we have no data to really support the effectiveness or the efficacy of this program it Raises a lot of concerns with me because I think that we have an obligation if we act on something and make promises when we vote on ordinance that we think is going to make a difference. And we find out that out of sight out of mind, that disappoints me and concerns me so I will be abstaining and that is out of respect to the fact that this is report back and I would encourage Both the tenants, but also the landlords. But also the business organizations to play a part in providing information and recognizing that we need to focus on those that are being irresponsible and being bad landlords.
And then people like the Galloways who I work with closely, and Alfie and I know you have too Kelly, Fairly making it because they are giving breaks to their tenants do not have an unfair burden placed on their shoulders. Thank you Madam Chair.
I would just like to add something. A couple of months ago, I also introduced a motion to look at creating a way of getting our departments to look at how we are providing fairness and equity in our business licensing because I have heard for many, many years now that there are many tenants who will not even come forward Thank you. The economic impacts that this will have in terms of displacement, what that really means. And let's put it in numbers as well. I'd like to see that and given all the different challenges that we have gone through in the last few months here in the county and last year, the fires everything. It's all very important for us to have this data. I don't just put it on you. I don't see that is just your burden I think it's our departments, and that's what we need to think about as well.
So I believe we're trying to go in the right direction, and I hope these discussions will help us get there. So thank you. With that, Supervisor Horvath, you're in the queue. Thank you,
Madam Chair. Small businesses are the lifeblood of our commercial corridors and the heart of our neighborhoods. They're more than just commerce. They are small businesses and gathering places for the community, and they help define a sense of place and culture. But many of our commercial tenants, especially our legacy small businesses face displacement from growing economic inequality, competition from online retailers and harassment. Not to mention the impacts from the January 2025 wildfires as well as the federal immigration actions and tariffs. And I will say while this proposal will seek to create policy that will serve unincorporated communities I did hear from businesses in incorporated cities like Malibu even, which is not always known for being a rent-controlled city.
But we heard from some of those businesses that they even needed more protection given what they have been facing. And smaller cities don't always have the resources, the departments and the infrastructure that the county does to be able to explore in depth what this motion proposes. So I'm glad that we are doing the work because I know it will not only benefit us in the county and whatever policies we do decide to move forward with but it will also benefit other incorporated communities who are looking to the county as an example. I'm proud that our county has established initiatives like business interruption funds, the commercial acquisition fund, the facade improvement program, shop LA local and other programs to help small businesses remain and thrive in their communities.
But there is more that we can do, and I appreciate that this motion gives us an opportunity to carefully and thoughtfully evaluate additional tools. As these recommendations are developed the commercial rent study legal analysis and stakeholder feedback should help ensure that any new requirements are appropriately targeted to the businesses most at risk of displacement We should also be thoughtful about the information that the county collects through any potential licensing program. The report back should consider strong privacy and data minimization standards that protect sensitive information belonging to small businesses and property owners, while still giving the county the information it needs to understand displacement trends and connect businesses with resources.
Most importantly, the stakeholder engagement process should be broad And including commercial tenants, independently owned small businesses, landlords and property owners, business organizations, community-based organizations and other affected stakeholders. And I know we've already heard from many of these organizations I hope that we will continue to actively engage many organizations and agencies that will represent those who will be impacted by any potential policies. I also want to highlight that BizFed, as well as the Building Owners and Managers Association And LA Chamber have submitted information that I think will help inform how we can carefully and thoughtfully craft policy while also meeting the stated intention of protecting businesses that are signature to what Los Angeles County is and what it means to so many different people.
So I look forward to the recommendations, the proposed program design and the analysis resulting from this motion and to developing policies that protect small businesses in our unincorporated communities. Setting an example for incorporated communities to consider and keeping our commercial corridors thriving. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Next in the queue we have Supervisor Hahn.
Thanks, Madam Chair. And obviously I think we can all agree that our small businesses are the backbone of our economy. I mean everybody says that. All chambers of commerce say that they They create jobs. In fact, they create more jobs than the big businesses in our in our region and our neighborhood so anything we can do and I was talking to supervisor Barger and I and we did see true landlord I want to start by saying that we have seen a lot of character come forward during COVID, right? Particularly for our commercial tenants. Right? There were some landlords of commercial property that understood that it was through no fault legally and healthfully during the COVID. Some of the landlords were good, and they appreciate that. And then we saw other landlords who absolutely had no sympathy, and they had mortgages to pay so they didn't give a break to some of those.
And some of those small businesses did not survive, and some of them never came back Some of the restaurants, the small businesses. So we know that there is an opportunity to protect small businesses where we can. Supervisor Barger brought up a lot of concerns, many of the concerns that I think our office has also been hearing and so I think for me it will be...I'm going to vote for this because I am curious about the report back and I really want to urge you Kelly to be have a very thorough report back and really lean into a lot of the concerns that you've heard today and I would agree with supervisor Barger make sure you're talking to. The stakeholders who are going to be impacted, both the landlords and tenants.
Because I think the more people that are involved in this, the better the product will be at the end. I've always believed that. And I think that's a cluster process sometimes by the time it gets out on the other end, it's better. And I think that's what we're going to urge you to do. The worst thing, I think, that could happen is a report back that's one-sided because I think if we're gonna do something like this, we really need to get the buy in of everybody. For me...
I think for me it's going to be the cost. What is this going to cost us? You know, in a county where our budget is always tight and we've got priority mountain and there are certain things that are priorities for this board and things that are gonna be unforeseen by this board. Hopefully the report back... And I don't know if you want to speak at all. What is our thinking right now?
Is, are we going to ask the landlords to pay for the cost of this? The cost of tenant protections. Is there going to be another funding source that will help because we're gonna drag in a lot of our departments on this and anything we do really speaks to the audience that's already on the books. Anything we do is not worth the paper it's written on unless the enforcement is robust And I think we found that with a lot of things. We've had very good intentions on this board and then it boils down to is it being enforced? Do we have the money, the staffing to really carry out a priority like this? So maybe I mean that will be interesting to me in the report back but maybe you can speak to it what's the thinking right now is how do we pay for this are there different funding sources not only for the tenant protections but for our extra department staff work
1:19 – 1:266 turns
Yeah, I think we'll fully consider the scope of something like this in the report back and do our best across County Council and Department of Consumer Business Affairs and DEO to estimate cost for an infrastructure and an implementation. Plan that helps us fully achieve the intention of the motion in the program You know, I hear what the board is saying and I agree a policy is great it create you know The anti-harassment ordinance created a right and that is something that Whether we have a robust technical assistance Apparatus or not is important for the public to be able to have access to because they didn't before and so I don't want To minimize that but I also recognize that as smart and thoughtful cross departmental and right sized implementation strategy is important and I look forward to bringing that back.
Because we know every budget process, we have our departments lining up and speaking to our priorities like kind of quoting us word for word about things that we've asked for. But then saying, we don't have enough staff and they ask for more staff at every budget. And sometimes they get it and sometimes they don't. So just really want to make sure upfront if we're going to build this infrastructure that we really understand the cost Thank
you very much. I just wanted to respond to some of the issues raised by my colleagues and Supervisor Hahn, I couldn't agree with you more. I couldn't agree with you more! And I would suggest that we as a board exercise a similar discipline for every motion or ordinance or ballot initiative that comes before us. Oh, I hate it when you use my own words against me. In terms of asking ourselves the question how are we going to pay for it? So I agree with you and like I said, I think that should be for this motion and everything else that we consider. How are we going to pay for it is really important.
Specifically, as you talked about in terms of staffing and I agree with you. In terms of the proposed commercial license program and how it will be funded? As we heard from the CEO they're in the process of figuring out studying if they should move the existing small business licensing program from TTC to either DCB or DEO well It would be my expectation that the 18 positions for that existing program that are in TTC would have to move wherever the program moves. And so, that would be one issue with regard to the staffing. The work moves, the staff, the 18 staff need to move along with it. So I appreciate you raising that.
To Supervisor Barger's question around the anti-harassment policy and whether or not it's enough, and why we haven't seen any action there. It's my understanding that the Anti-Harassment Ordinance is only for a private right of action which means it requires a citizen to hire a private attorney to enforce the law because it's a private right of action There is no governmental administrative kind of oversight to pursue it.
And so Bet-Zedek Public Council have come to us because of the limitations around the anti harassment ordinance, to pursue what we are considering with this. So that's what we're considering. I think that's the challenge. I appreciate your line of questioning but if it only can be done through private attorneys, that may not be enough. The state program, I look forward to hearing back from County Council or Ms. LoBianco if there's a state program it does sound more like to me that people are talking about as municipalities are. I don't know if the state addressed the issue of a vacancy tax but it is certainly something that we hear a lot in public discourse and how a vacancy tax could be helpful. That certainly is not what this motion is attempting to do We are attempting to address these issues from a very different perspective.
But so I wanted to respond to issues raised by my colleagues and hope that we can move forward. Oh, lastly Supervisor Barger, I think I did say when you said the report back there are various time frames but It is 180 days to prepare with regard to the anti, for introduction adoption and ordinance amending the Anti-Harassment Court Ordinance. So it's 180 days. 120 days to conduct a commercial rent study so there are varying time frames within it but the meat of the motion and the report back is 180 days.
Thank you Madam Chair
Thank you very, very good. With that then seeing no further questions from my colleagues and let's go to public comment Executive
Officer. Member Chair given a number of speakers who have signed up to speak on item 20 in order to finish today's meeting efficiently and address all agenda items the time for public comment on this item will be up to 50 minutes or until all speakers who have registered have spoken If you are with a group, please identify one person to speak on behalf of your entire group. Additionally if you do not have any additional comments other than what has already been stated by other speakers, please indicate only your name and your support or opposition to this item to allow others the opportunity to speak. Should you like to provide more detailed comments, you can do so by submitting written comments to our customer service staff with badges. Additionally, you can provide your written comments online at our website at www.bos.lacounty.gov by clicking the link submit public comment online.
All comments submitted online will be filed in the official record. Thank you for your understanding and participation in today's meeting it is now 1102 a.m Public comment for this item will end at 1152.
Will the following individuals please come forward and staff will assist you? Mihan Tumajan, Alexandra Melgoza, Francisca Corona, Deanna Brown, Carlos Singer, Lourdes Ocampo, Corina Echevarria, Rafael Acevedo, Steve Quinones, Rosalind Segarra, Irma Juarez, Ramya Sinha, Cajo Mayera, We will hear from in-person speakers first. Please begin.
1:26 – 1:328 turns
Honorable Chair Solis and honorable supervisors, I'm Miran Tumajian with CRETA SoCal, the Commercial Real Estate Development Association. We respectfully oppose the motions under agenda item 20 in their current form. We've submitted a letter for the public record. We represent commercial real estate owners, investors and the entire commercial real property ecosystem across Southern California. Our members go to great lengths to ensure that their commercial properties are tenanted and not vacant We recognize the county's interest in protecting small and legacy businesses from potential harassment and displacement by bad actors who should be the ones targeted.
I'd like to focus my comment on the proposed commercial rent study component. The revised motion shortens the study period from 12 months to 120 days, specifically includes a survey of small business renters given the complexity of the commercial real estate market CRETA SoCal believes the study would be strengthened by involving the participation of commercial property owners, finance professionals and brokers alongside commercial tenants. Consideration of differences in property type operating expenses.
Thank you. Next speaker please.
Good morning, my name is Francisco Corona and I am a Los Angeles County resident and a supporter of local small businesses. I'm here today to ask the Board of Supervisors to vote yes on item 20 and move the commercial rental property license forward. Small businesses are just are not just places where we shop or receive services. They're part of the fabric of our communities. I especially want to recognize Carlitos Tires and Auto Repair, a small business that has served the Florence Firestone community for more than 27 years. Carlitos Tires is more than just an auto repair shop.
It has also been a place where community members can receive information, connect with resources and feel supported. But businesses like this face a real challenge. Their future could depend on the commercial lease. And when those leases expires, the businesses may have very little certainly about what comes next. That is why transparency matters. Small business owners deserve to know who owns the property.
Thank you. Next speaker please.
Good morning, Madam Chair and supervisors. My name is Carlos Singer and I'm speaking on item number 20. I'm the Chief Policy Officer at the LA Area Chamber of Commerce. I submitted detailed responses to this motion already, so I'm going to just cede my time to the other folks who are making time to address the board but I would just like to say that the reason I'm here in person is to clarify that we were in no way involved in a stakeholder process and would absolutely welcome the opportunity to do so going forward. Thank you.
Thank you, next speaker please. Good morning my name is Alexandra Melgoza president of the Florence Firestone Community Leaders and local business owner in Florence Firestone. I'm here strongly in support of item 20 to ask the Board of Supervisors to vote yes and move The commercial rental property license forward. As a business owner and the community leader, I understand how important stability and transparency are to small businesses. Garlitos Tires & Auto Repair has served our community for more than 27 years. It is not only a successful local business it has become a trusted community resource and a place where residents connect with information resources and support. Its lease expires in May 2027 creating uncertainty about whether This longtime community serving business will be able to remain.
We need transparency so small businesses owners understand their property lease and options before facing displacement. This is about more than one business, it is about protecting the small businesses jobs. Thank you next speaker please.
Good morning my name is Diana Brown to our esteemed supervisors I am a resident of Los Angeles County and a member of the Florence Firestone community. I have worked for over 20 years at Charles Drew Middle School, and I spent most of my life in this community with the families. During this time, I became a member and a customer of Carlitos Tires. For 27 years, this service, this business has been here and it's been in place where families are welcome, community members come and gather.
The possibility of losing this small business has troubled this community and myself. I respectfully and humbly ask the board to vote yes on this agenda item number 20. Thank you. And please remember that when we protect long-time small businesses, we protect more than jobs. We protect community services and relationships. Thank you.
Thank you, next speaker please. My name is Karina Charria and I am a Florence Firestone resident and a proud supporter of our local small businesses. I'm here today to ask the Board of Supervisors to vote yes on item 20 and to move the commercial rental property license forward. I want to speak about Carlitos Tires and auto repair and what this business means to our community For more than 27 years, Carlitos Tires has been serving Florence Firestone not only as a small business but as a place where people can find help information support and someone they could trust. If Carlitos Tires is forced to move we will lose more than a business. We could lose a great community leader mentor and someone who has dedicated years Good morning, board members.
My name is Rafael Juan Diego Acevedo Villalobos
1:32 – 1:3910 turns
I have been a resident of the Los Angeles County for more than 55 years. I am asking the Board of Supervisors to vote yes on the item 20 and move the commercial rental property license forward. Small businesses are the backbone of our neighborhood. They create jobs, provide essential services and build relationships with the residents they serve. But long time small businesses can face serious uncertainty when dealing with commercial property owners.
In the case of Carlitos Tires, his lease will expire in May of 2022 after 27 years.
Thank you. Next speaker please. Hi, my name is Rosalind Segarra. I'm with the Los Angeles Conservancy here to speak in support of item 20. The LA Conservancy supports legacy businesses by connecting longtime business owners across LA County with small business resources that help to safeguard strengthen and grow their businesses. We support expanding protections for commercial tenants through the creation of a commercial rental property license, guaranteed relocation pay after harassment, a countywide commercial rent study, protections to tenants displaced by redevelopment and funding to bring on legal and community partners to help design and carry out these protections.
Relocating a business is very expensive and mom-and-pop shops rarely have large cash reserves Landlord funded relocation assistance in circumstances as outlined in the motion give legacy businesses a lifeline to prevent permanent closure. Thank you. Next speaker, please
Hello, my name is Rebecca Helm and I just want to say thank you all for all that you do for our county. I'm a Northeast LA resident and part of Snella's and I'm here today in enthusiastic support of item 20. I know the shopkeepers up and down my neighborhood they're my friends their kids go to school with my friends and this is the outline of an ideal Community and I've heard from some of the people that are being displaced their rents have actually gone up seven times And they have no money to or it's very difficult to get the money to be able to relocate and I know that we have a chance today To be able to although it's not rent cap yet. We have a chance to protect our And spread these types of ideal situations in our county. And I know that you all are behind, it seems like y'all are behind it and I want to just say again thank you for even putting this forward and making this a reality in this beautiful county.
Thank you.
Thank you next speaker please
I'm here in strong support of item 20. Every day, I speak with hard-working small business owners who are struggling to stay afloat. As their attorney, That is the gap this motion seeks to fill. The cost of uprooting and re-establishing a business is enormous, and it should not fall on the shoulders of a tenant forced out by landlord harassment or redevelopment project. When landlords are held accountable for relocation costs, displaced business owners have a real opportunity to reopen retain jobs and continue serving the communities that depend on them. That is why I urge the board to pass this motion and adopt these crucial protections for small business commercial tenants. Thank you
Thank you. We will now go to our remote callers. Aces Harris, your line is open. Please begin. Aces Harris, your line is open. We'll go to the next caller. Mona Hartin, your line is open. Please begin.
Yes, good morning. My name is Mona. I am a small business owner as well as the landlord in LA County Firestone District. I understand there's a lot of protections already in place for tenants especially the harassment clause That needs to be enforced if that's what the problem is. The problem with doing something like this as you are scaring people away from the county to invest in your county and owning building, which is going to only cost more unemployment.
And it's already a very hard business climate in the county. I urge you to delay this vote, we were not asked to be part of this, we were part of stop the down zone when they tried to lower our zone from industrial down to jewelry shops a couple years ago and they promised us, the county that they would include us in anything they'd be doing. I haven't received one call
Thank you. Christopher Bowen, your line is open. Please begin. Christopher Bowen,
your line is open. Good morning, Chair Solis and Supervisors. Christopher Nikhil Bowen here with the Building Owners and Managers Association of Greater Los Angeles representing nearly 2,000 commercial real estate professionals in 135 million square feet across LA County. Since August 20th when we submitted an opposition letter to the Economic Development Cluster, BOMA GLA has worked constructively with Supervisor Mitchell, Horvath and Vargar offices. We appreciate the accelerated rent study protecting some sensitive lease details extended ordinance timeline proposed relocation cap and direction to better define who and what it covers. However the motion still prescribes broad licensing, requires sensitive lease and rent reporting, rent determination restrictions and gross receipts relocation formula far beyond targeted protection of vulnerable small businesses.
Please limit any program to qualified small and legacy businesses as was clearly outlined in the preamble. Require the study and legal analysis to inform every proposal and require another board vote before any license
Ani Boyajian, your line is open. Please begin.
1:39 – 1:4918 turns
Good morning my name is Ani Boyajian speaking on behalf of the Central City Association and we respectfully oppose this item. We share the county's goal of supporting small businesses that contribute to the vitality of our communities and ensuring that they are not unnecessarily displaced however we are concerned that the motion is too broad and could extend protections beyond the mom-and-pop businesses that need them most The mandatory licensing reporting requirements, annual reviews, potential rent restrictions and relocation mandates would add additional costs and uncertainty for commercial property owners. These added burdens could discourage investment, increase the cost of doing business and make it more difficult to activate commercial properties.
We encourage the county to pursue targeted protections that provide meaningful support to the small businesses most in need while avoiding blanket policies that could unintentionally discourage investment and limit opportunities for growth. Thank you.
Thank you. Natalie Allen, your line is open. Please begin.
Hi this is Natalie Allen. Responsible property owners are not the enemy of small business. We invest our own capital pay property taxes insurance and and take significant financial risk to create the commercial spaces that these businesses occupy. If LA County makes owning, improving or redeveloping commercial property increasingly expensive and unpredictable there will be consequences for us.
Property owners will be less willing to invest. Redevelopment will become more difficult. Some owners will simply avoid leasing to smaller or higher-risk businesses. Ultimately those costs and risks will work their way back into commercial rents and that would hurt a very small business this motion is intended to help. I am particularly concerned that the proposal does not adequately distinguish between a landlord who has actually done something wrong and responsible property who wants to simply improve, redevelop, sell or change the use of a property. Those are very different situations and should not be treated the same way. I respectfully ask for not to move forward
with the
broad... Thank
you. Matthew Lyons your line is open please begin.
Good morning, my name is Matthew Lyons and I'm calling on behalf of the San Gabriel Valley Economic Partnership. The partnership supports fully the goal of protecting small businesses from unlawful harassment and displacement. This proposal unfortunately goes far beyond protecting tenants from unlawful conduct. It contemplates a significant new regulatory framework for commercial property owners.
All of this has a cost we will pay Will this be another unfunded government mandate that actually falls on the backs of small businesses and commercial property owners? We look forward to being part of the stakeholder engagement, and to county staff conducting a thorough analysis and distinguish between unlawful displacement and lawful redevelopment. We are concerned about the potential unintended consequences for an investment throughout the county, and we believe we can protect small businesses while also preserving property rights, encouraging investment, and maintaining a healthy supply of commercial space.
Caller ending in number 0716 your line is now open please state your name and begin
Roy Humphreys, did you say that you are spending millions to combat labor movement strikes as you watch the state farm shaft with palisades burn victims as featured in Senator Hawley? Predatory practices are the nature of the human beast. Yes, Hilda Solis scapegoats ICE law enforcement as Democrat 4 organized crime definition spends millions aiding and abetting illegal agents. Supervisor Barger, the adult in the room, enforcement costs money as Democrats defund the DA and prosecution system hence failure. You must contact the state officials who are undermining your efforts AI computer systems are essential. God protect President Trump from the Democrats, socialists, communist assassins. Thank you.
Thank you. Caller ending in 1550 your line is now open please state your name and begin. Caller ending in 1550 your line is open please begin.
This is Mark Granger Commercial real estate broker, small property owner. I have two concerns regarding this ordinance. The first is directed specifically to Supervisor Mitchell. I have repeatedly attended the Avalon Gardens Community Center. We've been assured That you are going to reach out to the business community. I have never heard anything about this ordinance until recently, meaning yesterday.
Secondly, I am currently going through the green zone which you enacted without any comments or input from the business community. That process has taken two years, and I'm up to spending almost $60,000 on that process. And I ended up having to put in a five-foot setback on the back of my property. You need to start communicating with the business community.
Ordinances of this nature are extremely expensive. Thank you.
Caller ending in phone number 5618. Your line is now open. Please state your name and begin.
Hello, my name is Diane Foster. I'm a small business owner in Highland Park and I just wanted to make sure I was on the record saying I was in favor of this motion. It's been really hard as a small business owner to see all of my neighbors be pushed out by larger private equity firms Corporate landlords coming in, pushing them out and the spaces are still vacant and aren't helping the other small businesses thrive. So I wanted to be on the record but I am in support of this motion. Thank you
Thank you. We will now go back to in-person speakers. Will the following individuals please come forward and staff will assist you? Selly Hernandez, Mariana Luna, Carlos Vasquez, Diana Sanchez, Antonio Hernandez, Alberto Santillan, Alma Valdez, Marco Ortega, Memphis Perez, Miguel Montero, Carlos Gonzalez, Jeremy Kaplan, Amy Chong, Sylvia Maraquin, Luis Herrera, Manny Mireles, El Campillo, Lena Salovan, Anahi Gonzalez, Lorena Herrera, Irma Juarez and Claudia Jerez.
Next speaker please begin.
Good morning, my name is Jose Steve Quinones. I am a small business owner community leader CEO president of the Florence Fires Community Organization and owner of Carlitos Tires and Auto Repair Where I have served our community for over 27 years I'm here today to strongly support item 20 and ask the Board of Supervisors to vote yes And move this important motion forward My business has more than auto repair shop for 27 years that's also been a trusted community resource where residents connect to the Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Javier Martinez and I'm the Executive Director of the California Landlord Connect with Information County Services Local Leaders and Community Programs. But today I am also speaking as a tenant. My commercial lease expires in twenty twenty seven in May after investing twenty seven years of my life, my livelihood, my business and my community relationship into the location.
I have serious questions. What happens if the landlord decides not to renew my lease? I am not asking the county to take away property owners' rights. I'm asking for transparency, fairness, accountability and level playing field. The commercial rental property... Thank you.
Next speaker
please. Good morning supervisors my name is Kaho Maeda and i'm with public council but speaking today on behalf of our partner Little Tokyo Service Center in strong support of item 20. LTSC builds and manages both affordable housing and limited commercial spaces in Little Tokyo and throughout LA. We support this motion to create standards for treating commercial tenants, specifically those that are mom-and-pop small businesses with fairness and respect. We have tried to support legacy owned small businesses in Little Tokyo as they faced harassment from their landlords. Unfortunately because commercial rent protections are non-existent we have not been able to prevent some of them from displacement. When these businesses close, they not only impact the business owners but also all of the workers and the communities they serve.
Even when they find a location elsewhere, the disruption can be very challenging to overcome. While this motion will not directly impact LTSC tenants, we support efforts to set this as a normalized precedent that affords rights to mom-and-pop small businesses that make up the backbone of our neighborhoods and communities. We respectfully ask that you vote yes on this motion. Thank you. Next speaker please?
My name is Kerry Martin speaking today in favor of item 20. I'm a staff attorney at Public Council where I work to support small businesses, micro entrepreneurs and community serving nonprofits. Commercial tenant protections that foster transparency accountability and community investment are common sense for far too long corporate landlords and real estate conglomerates have been allowed to operate unregulated and we are all seeing the effects Block after block of business closures for rent signs and big box stores replacing local commercial districts that once served as vital community hubs, while the business diversity that once defined Los Angeles County disappears before our eyes.
Nothing being proposed today radically tips the balance in favor of tenants or impacts the ability of property owners to set rents Thank you. Next speaker, please?
1:49 – 1:5511 turns
Good morning, supervisors. My name is Rosa Maria Marquez. I'm a business owner in Highland Park. I've had Rock Rose Gallery for the past 27 years. It came out of my work more as an incubator to bring the arts to the community, to bridge communities through the arts. I've learned a lot in this 27-year process. I was recently evicted. I moved. Two months ago, I'm still looking for a place. I'm somewhere temporarily but not leaving Highland Park It's a community that I've come to know and love.
I've been in Los Angeles working in the arts for the past 60 years, but Highland Park is a really special community and I want to support this motion please. You mentioned that it would take time to put information together. I'm a resource. I've learned so much about what it means to be evicted. I'd love to share that with you. Thank you. Next
speaker please. Can we have someone on my staff that will talk to you? She's coming ma'am. Next speaker.
Good morning, my name is Irma Juarez and I'm a small business owner woman for Los Angeles, the city of Los Angeles. I own a small protein delight store named Healthy Protein Nutrition for the last seven years and I am here to support item number 20. It is the right way to do I was recently displaced by the property owner using harassment tactics, and they refused to do any repairs needed. That was bad for my business and for my customers as well. The landlord didn't want to as well renew my lease after so many years.
I lost a lot of money, time and most of all my customers. And I cannot find any affordable place at this moment to continue my business and to sustain my livelihood for my family especially my two children. I want to continue running a protective business and continue as well, continue paying my taxes because we are the backbone of the economy. Thank you.
Next speaker please.
Good morning, my name is Luis Herrera. I own a barbershop in the Florence Firestone neighborhood of Unincorporated SD2. My business supports not only my family but also employs people in the neighborhood. I am speaking in support of item 20. My family has owned businesses in the neighborhood for over 20 years. It's been really challenging to keep our businesses afloat all these years with lack of tenant protections We have had landowners refuse to make needed repairs, terminate our tenancy for no cause and threaten to triple our rent for setting the rights. How can small business owners be expected to keep their businesses afloat when their lenders won't even make needed repairs? And we are displaced due to property being converted into big box retail in high-rise condos.
We need more commercial tenant protection to stop small business displacement and maintain the storefronts that clothe, feed, and care for our community.
Thank you, next speaker please.
Good morning my name is Jesse Sainz I'm here with the Los Angeles Tenants Union as tenant organizers what we're hearing from commercial landlords today is very familiar regulation gets called an attack as though landlords have a protected right to extract the maximum possible rent from somebody else's work We see the same forces displacing tenants and neighborhood businesses. Rent hikes, harassment and holding storefronts vacant for higher rents are the machinery of gentrification. We need real infrastructure that puts obstacles in the way of displacement and shifts power towards the people who actually sustain these communities. Being business friendly cannot mean being friendly to extraction. Our neighborhoods are homes and livelihoods not just investment opportunities.
Support item 20.
Thank you next speaker please
Good morning Board of Supervisors, my name is Memphis Perez. I'm here representing our small business movement and the many mom-and-pop businesses that are fighting to keep operating in their communities. LA County has already taken important steps by including commercial tenants in their Tahoe ordinance. We're here today to ask for more transparency as we apply this policy. Don't just protect the property, protect the businesses inside the property. We need this Tahoe upgrade ASAP. Let's create that Commercial Rental Property License so the county can understand what is happening in our commercial corridors and whether there is a history of violations.
From this license we can also create incentives for those good landlords that are already helping keep our small businesses operating in our communities. Second, relocation assistance for small businesses displaced because of confirmed landlord harassment. This is more fair than to just destroy a legacy business that was thriving and was a staple in the community. Last, protect businesses from redevelopment displacement. Development should not require displacement so we ask the Board of Supervisors don't just protect the property- Thank you next speaker
please
Hello, my name is Jeremy Kaplan. For 20 years my wife and I owned the Red Books, the only used bookstore in Northeast Los Angeles until Systems Real Estate purchased our building, raised our rent 133% and gave everybody 30 days notice. No intro, no negotiation, no acknowledgement of SB 1103. Unfortunately, this is happening all over Los Angeles. It's an existential crisis where corporate landlords are buying every available piece of property, doubling, tripling and quadrupling rents and evicting stable long-term tenants.
There are no guardrails. They're making more by writing off overevaluated properties than they would by leasing them at reasonable rates. I believe in the Los Angeles of Jonathan Gold. We're vibrant Thank you. Next speaker, please?
1:55 – 2:0113 turns
My name is Elida Hernandez and I have been a vendor for more than 25 years. I'm here in order to ask for support for laws
For the unincorporated areas. From my personal experience, not having protections in these areas
has been a barrier that prevents us from growing and strengthening businesses in our own communities. At this
time, I would like to open a business but when I found out that there's no rent control in the area where I live.
That shuts the door to these projects and to the dreams of bringing small businesses to our areas. I thank all of the people who are supporting these laws, and I ask for those of you who are not in support that you would consider supporting us. Because having a business is not easy at all, we go through a lot of challenges. So I invite you to walk in our businesses and get to know our problems. Thank you. Next speaker please. Am I up?
Hello, my name is Alberto Santillan. I have owned a vintage shop in Boyle Heights since 2022. My business is more than just a place to shop. I've used my commercial space to host mental health support groups for Spanish speakers and to screen LGBTQ themed movies. It represents Boyle Height's essence and there's really no place like it and unfortunately it's in danger of closing.
For the past five months, I've had no electricity in my business because of an old faulty electrical panel and meter box that exploded causing an enormous fire hazard. LEDWP issued an order directing the corporate landlord to replace the panel but they refused to do so. I believe they have no incentive to fix the issue because they're awaiting permits to redevelop the property and I am struggling to make ends meet with no electricity. And my landlord has now filed an eviction lawsuit against me for paying reduced rent during this whole ordeal.
If I'm forced to move out, I'm not entitled to any financial assistance from my landlord and will need to completely shut down. This type of harassment has to stop. How can small business owners be-
Thank
you next speaker please
Good morning, my name is Lorena Herrera. For 25 years I've had businesses in Florence, Compton. I support the proposition for Code 20. My business has been used to give employment to a lot of people, barber shops that are surrounding where I am.
80% of them are my
ex-employees. All of us go through challenges in our businesses, with unexpected raises of rent. In one
of my businesses where I renewed the contract, they raised it by 500 last month.
So I've gone through so many challenges during the pandemic. My husband passed away and then so many other things between the fire, immigration, heat We want to move forward and we ask for your support. I'm the mother of two children, and I provide for them by myself. We want the laws to be changed for us as business owners. Thank you. Next speaker please. Good morning.
2:01 – 2:0610 turns
My name is Carlos Vasquez and I am the Entrepreneurship Training Director at LIFT Los Angeles. Our mission is to help Angelenos break the cycle of poverty by investing in parents and entrepreneurs. I am here today in support of the motion before the board, and the protections it would provide to small businesses and commercial tenants across Los Angeles County.
Small businesses are essential to the economic and social fabric of our communities But commercial tenants often face rising rents, limited information about their landlords and leases. Displacement and harassment leaving tenants with no options but to close. Small businesses play an important role in the financial success of our city and county governments. They provide jobs to thousands of Angelenos and pay taxes to our government. This motion will help them stay in business and we appreciate you approving this motion. Thank you.
Hi, good afternoon. My name is Alma Valdez and I'm here in support of Article 20 because I am already tired of going against the current. I have five years with
my business
And
ever since the second year, the roof was not in working condition.
And the owner of the property said that all of the maintenance and anything that needed to be repaired in the building, that that was my responsibility. So I had to do that. And then months after that, the plumbing and the floor burst. 1950 was the cost of the plumbing. I had to close down the business for six days to be able to fix it. It was $15,000 to fix the electrical which was not working.
I spoke with the property owner and he said the same
thing, that it was my responsibility to do it.
And I have one and a half years left on the contract. I have not received all of the investment that corresponds to me for the property. And so last year I found out that they transferred the ownership to, I don't know it might be a family member. So that means I can go outside and we need the support of this motion. Thank you next speaker please
Hi, my name is Amy Chong. I'm an SD5 resident and a proud daughter of former small business owners. And I'm an advocate with Inclusive Action for the City and Economic Justice Organization working to build an economy that works for everybody. We are in a state of an emergency. Community serving small businesses are closing left and right while commercial tenants have no protections. Let me be clear about what we're asking for here.
We're asking landlords to be transparent about their properties, commercial tenants to have basic protections against harassment, to understand what fair market rents are and to provide relocation assistance when businesses are displaced. Responsible landlords should have nothing to fear from reasonable protections. However, we all know that there are landlords who have caused real harm to small businesses and communities they're supposed to be serving.
This motion creates accountability, transparency and stability to keep small businesses in our neighborhoods so please support this motion. Thank you.
I am a Los Angeles County resident and I support item 20. I work for an organization that supports over 500 entrepreneurs, and every week we have many come to us and we have observed harassment, displacement, and rent increases of up to three times in the past five years. Current protections are not enough. They need relocation assistance, more information, and the registry.
Small businesses provide almost a third of all jobs in Los Angeles County. Small businesses need more certainty, because this will not only help business owners but also the employees keep employment. Increase wages and also improve outcomes for hundreds of thousands of Angeleno families. Money stays in Los Angeles County when small businesses remain creating a sustainable economy and tax base. We urge the Board of Supervisors to pass the motion and adopt these protections of item 20. Thank you.
2:06 – 2:128 turns
Hi, everyone. My name is Karen. I am a small business organizer with Strategic Actions for a Just Economy or SAGE. I'm here in favor of item 20. First of all, I want to say thank you to Supervisor Holly Mitchell for taking bold leadership here today to protect the fabrics of our community. Small businesses need strong I want to start by saying that we have strong protections against displacement. The county has great business programs already, but it does not address the root cause for the issue. Commercial units do not have any form of rent control therefore rents are skyrocketing. Without these policy protections, we will continue to lose small businesses to harassment, hurtful redevelopment practices and businesses will ultimately just close.
The report back will bring back both sides of the story and I agree when supervisors say Many small businesses have faced climate gentrification, ice rates and it's leaving our communities destabilized. There are neighbors friends families and community let's keep our neighborhoods together thriving and protected thank you
Thank You next speaker please
And a current resident of SD3 in the Guatemalan and Salvadoran corridor where there's a lot of small businesses. So this is a topic very near and dear to my community in my heart. Supervisor Han brought up the idea of cost, and as a middle class taxpayer I couldn't agree more. We cannot afford to be reactive. Prevention may require initial investment upfront but the cost of an action often poses a far greater toll. When a neighborhood grocery store closes, the impact doesn't stop at the storefront. Our elderly residents who cannot move as freely as some of us lose access to essential food and services. And what does that do? It places a greater burden on our health care system economically as well. When a small business with indoor seating that has served a community for a long time is pushed out by an unsympathetic landlord, residents lose more than a place to shop.
They lose a place to gather, connect, and escape extreme heat. Please invest in our small community, please invest and not be reactive. Thank you so much.
Thank you next speaker please.
Good morning supervisors. Just wanted to thank Supervisor Mitchell for taking the leadership in this motion. My name is Francisco Arvizu, I'm with SAGE over the last three years we've been working closely with small businesses and we always hear all kinds of stories so I echo some other comments that some of my colleagues have made already but voting yes on Los Angeles County commercial rental property license Boarding yes on amending LA County Commercial Tenant Protections Ordinance to include relocation assistance. Voting yes on LA County Commercial Rent Study, the rent study and voting yes on Relocation Assistance to Commercial Tenants Displacement Displayed by Redevelopment Projects is a Thank you, next speaker please.
Good morning, Claudia Jerez, DPSSDWC. The changing landscape of our community means that we are either evolving or we are in need of a necessary change to keep subsisting. In a way that we keep our standards and the spark that we have here in LA is maintained in LA County. Implementation of this tenant protection is necessary. We must evolve and with it comes change.
I support all Hispanic businesses, and I support them. My father was a businessman such as those businesses. We went to the SWAT meetings. He had a Christian library right there at the corner of my house so I completely understand. I do support Hispanic businesses. I support Hispanic people in that community. Thank you. Next speaker please?
Good morning. My name is Akia Benbow, founder of Honey Queen Juice Bar. Our mission is to help heal our community through the power of fresh juice. I'm speaking in strong support of item 20 commercial tenant protections. I ask if you cannot legally sell someone a lemon car why should you be allowed to lease a lemon building? Commercial tenants like me suffered when landlord neglect repairs, lease unsafe non-compliant properties and impose unjustifiable rent increases. Forcing tenants to spend limited business capital correcting problems they did not create. I spent most of my investment bringing my landlord's property up to code yet after taking my rent and benefiting from my improvements the landlord quickly forced me out before I could fully launch a major loss for the food desert community awaiting fresh beverage options I am now trying to relocate without any resources, assistance or any leads.
We need landlord accountability mean for relocation assistance protections against harassment and displacement reasonable rent caps especially at least renewal and pathways for small businesses who are interested to get to ownership themselves thank you.
Thank you Madam Chair all members of the public who registered to speak on item 20 have been heard that concludes the time for public comment.
2:12 – 2:1423 turns
Thank you. Moved by Supervisor Mitchell and I will second to approve the item. Executive Officer, please call the roll.
Roll-call vote Passed 3–0 Moved by Holly J. Mitchell Moved by Supervisor Mitchell and I will second to approve the item. Executive Officer, please call the roll.
Show transcript
Supervisors... Supervisor...
There's Item 20.
I
was being distracted. I'm going to abstain on this one.
Supervisor Solis?
Aye
Motion passes three ayes one abstention
Please raise your hand if you're in agreement. Thank you, okay? Okay, thank you.
We will now
move on to item 22. Oh
did you already vote?
Supervisor Hahn will also register an aye vote on item 20.
So there
are four
votes for the item. Thank
you. Yes, that's 4 aye votes of with abstention.
Thank you next item
We will now
move on to Item 22 verbal presentation on a summary of
Can people please settle down? Thank you Appreciate it. Thank you very much
We will now
move on to item 22, verbal presentation on a summary of potential impacts and planned strategies to mitigate El Nino during the 2026-27 storm season which was held for presentation. For members of the public on the phone if you've already signed up to speak no further action is needed. If you're on the phone and wish to comment but haven't signed up press star and follow the prompts to join the speaking queue. If you are watching the meeting and want to address the board, call 213-444-2600.
Press star and follow the prompts. An operator will assist you. Kevin McGowan, Director of the Office of Emergency Management, Chief Executive Office. Dr. Ariel Cohen, National Weather Service. Andrew Weiss, Acting Director of Countywide Communications, Chief Executive Office. Mark Pastrella, Director of Public Works. Sheriff Robert Luna, Fire Chief Anthony Maroney, Murall Caracusian, Director of Aging and Disabilities. Carter Hewley, Senior Manager, Department of Homelessness and Housing Services. Gary Jones, Director of Beaches and Harbors. Michael Sylvester, Chief Deputy Director Department of Public Social Services will give a presentation. For the departmental speakers please set your name and title for the record when you address the board
2:14 – 2:275 turns
Thank you and thank you to the panel for being here. I know Supervisor Horvath wants to begin.
Thank you very much Madam Chair, and I want to thank our county departments for being here to present today and for preparing our county and our residents for this winter and El Nino emergency events. As we have all heard a very strong El Nino is threatening our communities and county infrastructure this storm season which begins October 15th Though I know recent reports have put us on alert as early as this weekend. This is particularly concerning for communities near wildfire burn scars and that's why we brought forward the motion asking for this panel to come forward today. Communities like the Santa Monica Mountains in Altadena could experience intense flooding and landslides due to the heavy rainfall, and our coastal communities and vulnerable infrastructure are also of notable concern.
especially after a large storm surge cut off Westward Beach Road in Malibu, restricting public access to Point Dume Beach. Proper planning and prevention can reduce the impact of these types of emergencies on communities, particularly our most vulnerable populations. It's imperative that the county work alongside our cities, nonprofits, land management agencies and our residents to coordinate a strong unified response and promote awareness and visibility on potential El Nino impacts It's my goal that all county departments, our cities, community groups and of course our residents understand their risks how best to prepare and where to turn when they need help. I'm looking forward to the county-led emergency drill that will happen later this month to ensure that we're coordinated.
And I know my office is also holding a virtual El Nino Town Hall on September 28th to educate residents and answer their questions. We welcome everyone to attend, to learn more about how our county is supporting you and details on that particular event you can find at our individual website lindsayhorvath.lacounty.gov under events but I look forward to today's presentation and i will have some questions for our respective departments thank you all for being here I know my colleagues were saying, wow it looks like everyone's here and when we say we're showing up in force, we mean it. Especially to keep our community safe so I thank you all for being here.
And I'll turn it to you for the presentation.
Good morning Chair Solis and members of the board. Thank you for the opportunity to present on this important topic. For the record, I'm Kevin McGowan, Director of the Los Angeles County Office of Emergency Management. This morning, the National Weather Service will begin by explaining El Nino and its potential effects on Southern California. I will then discuss how OEM is preparing the county for the possibility of more frequent and more severe winter storms. Following my remarks, you'll hear from our partners at CEO Countywide Communications, Public Works, the Sheriff's Department, Fire Department, Homeless Services and Housing, Beaches & Harbors, Public Social Services, Each will discuss their respective preparedness efforts. And with that, it's my privilege to introduce Dr.
Ariel Cohen, the meteorologist in charge of the National Weather Service's Los Angeles Oxnard Forecast Office who will be providing an overview of El Nino and its potential weather impacts. And can you please advance the slide?
Good day everyone. My name is Dr. Ariel Cohen, I'm the meteorologist in charge of the National Weather Service in Los Angeles-Oxnard. Thank you for having me here today. In terms of understanding El Nino and its true influence, El Nino is defined by ocean warmth but for danger to actually be realized locally the atmosphere must actively couple with that heat to steer storms towards Southern California and that's highly uncertain. For this upcoming winter, this is significantly tilting the regional odds toward a wetter than normal winter bringing the potential for significant storms, flooding, severe weather, coastal impacts as well.
However, El Nino is not a single storm and it does not guarantee a wet season or dictate individual storm tracks. Here's an analogy. Facing a top-ranked sports team increases the statistical chance of a difficult game But it does not guarantee an automatic loss. Similarly, an active El Nino does stack the deck toward a stormy season but it does not predetermine a disaster. Outcomes will be decided play by play as individual storms develop.
When it comes to messaging location specific hazards, high impact threats such as peak hourly rainfall rates or debris flow potential for burn scars cannot be reliably forecasted months in advance. Actionable site-specific forecasts require current observations and high resolution numerical modeling and are delivered within a few to several days of the onset of a storm when predictability allows.
Now, considering operational reality versus hypothetical extremes. While long-range research models frequently explore worst case theoretical scenarios and there are many that are of particular significance the National Weather Service focuses on real world actionable forecasts We will escalate the messaging of reasonable worst-case scenarios only when sufficient scientific evidence exists near a storm's arrival. Very importantly is preventing public warning fatigue, framing seasonal climate signals as confidence shifts And dynamically involving certainty rather than inevitable emergencies is critical. We are concerned that overstating long-range risks now can lead to warning fatigue, significantly reducing public compliance when high urgency short range life safety alerts like flash flood warnings or tornado warnings potentially are issued later in the winter.
To conclude regarding our Operational National Weather Service, cadence and support for our core partners. We are maintaining consistent communications with the Los Angeles County Office of Emergency Management, Los Angeles City Emergency Management Department, all of our core partners as the conditions evolve. We're actually hosting two times a week every single week A briefing rhythm throughout the entire season to all of our core partners, highly technical Tuesday sessions tailored for our core partners such as the Office of Emergency Management and Public Works. And then a broad Friday risk messaging briefings including the media. Thank you very much for having me and I'm happy to address any of these items at anytime. Thank you.
Thank You Dr. Cohen Can you please advance the slide? Thank you. Our collective objective with the county is not simply to prepare for El Nino as a climate pattern, it is to strengthen the county's readiness for operational consequences that may accompany severe and repeated storms including flooding, debris flows, damaging wind, coastal erosion and flooding, power outages, road closures, evacuations, sheltering needs, and impact to critical infrastructure. The Office of Emergency Management is coordinating a countywide preparedness effort that's focused on readiness, public awareness and operational coordination. First we are working with county departments and our county wide partners to conduct hazard and operational assessments. These assessments help identify communities in facilities infrastructure and essential services that may be particularly vulnerable as well as resources and capability gaps that we can use to address winter storm seasons.
On October 18th, OEM convened the County's Emergency Management Council bringing together county departments, cities, public safety agencies, utilities, the National Weather Service, disaster management area coordinators and other partners. In that meeting we established a common understanding of the potential threat and the priority preparedness actions that people can follow as we approach the storm season.
Continuously working directly with our cities, our council of governments, disaster management areas to ensure that there's detailed coordination and planning across the entire Los Angeles County. Second we are developing plans that clearly define how the county coordinates significant storms response. These plans address emergency operations center activations, information sharing, emergency notifications, resource support, evacuation coordination, mass care and shelter operations and the transition from response to recovery. Of particular importance is evacuation planning for areas of increased risk following recent wildfires including the Eaton and Palisades burn scars. This planning establishes detailed processes for coordination with local jurisdictions and clearly defines agency roles and responsibilities.
For example, Public Works assesses hazards, identifies areas potentially at risk, and provides recommendations for emergency actions such as evacuations. The Sheriff Department coordinates and implements those evacuations within its jurisdictions while other law enforcement agencies do the same for theirs. The Fire Department conducts rescue operations And the Office of Emergency Management coordinates and issues countywide emergency notifications. This planning also places particular emphasis on ensuring that the needs of vulnerable communities and individuals with access and functional needs are incorporated into our evacuation, notifications, transportation, sheltering, and other response activities.
Third, the county departments are assessing county-owned properties and critical facilities and identifying measures to protect them from rain flooding wind damage and the potential of power disruptions. We're also developing preparedness information and planning guidance that jurisdictions can use to conduct similar assessments On September 30th, OEM will host a tabletop exercise facilitated by the Naval Postgraduate School Center on Homeland Defense and Security. County departments along with operational partners including some select jurisdictions and our disaster management area coordinators and agencies responsible for communities will participate in this.
Most importantly, the exercise will allow us to identify gaps and response actions that we can continue to work on throughout this storm season. Clear and coordinated public information will also be essential. Andrew will provide a more detailed update from countywide communications, but I want to emphasize that OEM is an integral part in all of the county's emergency communications.
With that we provide emergency management expertise necessary to ensure public messaging is timely, operationally accurate, and coordinated with the actions of emergency responders and public safety agencies. Finally and most importantly, preparedness must extend beyond government. Every resident should understand the flood risk where they live and consider purchasing flood insurance. Standard homeowners' and renters' insurance policies generally do not cover flood damage, and flood insurance typically has a waiting period. Residents should act now and not wait for storms to arrive. Residents should also inspect their homes, clear drains, rain gutters, secure objects, address roof drainage problems and prepare for possible power outages. We strongly encourage every resident to register for emergency notifications at alert.lacounty.gov and follow information from trusted government sources.
Depending on the emergency and its location, alerts may be issued by a city, the county, a state agency, the National Weather Service or other authorized public safety agencies. In closing we can't predict precisely how much rain El Nino may bring but we can and must use this time to strengthen our plans, protect our facilities, coordinate with our partners and help our communities prepare.
Preparedness now will reduce our risk, improve our responses and help protect lives when the next major storms arrive. Thank you for your time I'm available for any questions and with this it's my pleasure to introduce Andrew Viest the acting director of CEO County YCOMS
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Sorry about that. Good morning Madam Chair, members of the Board of Supervisors. My name is Andrew Vease and I'm the Acting Director of Countywide Communications. LA County's working collaboratively across multiple agencies to prepare ourselves and the public before the first of any potential El Nino-driven storms arrive. In July, we partnered with OEM to host the first-ever countywide emergency joint training exercise for County Communicators.
More than 100 communicators from all 39 departments experienced a simulated Joint Information Center activation providing everyone with valuable hands on emergency communications experience. And since early July, the department seated with me today have been meeting weekly to take early proactive steps to ensure one voice messaging and to share how LA County is preparing for storm season and how the public can too.
We have three main communication objectives. First, to prepare all communities across LA County for severe storm weather by providing multilingual culturally relevant information and resources. Second, to share facts about what an El Nino storm season means for LA County and identify related storm hazards so people can start preparing with resources like flood insurance.
And third, to amplify storm preparedness resources including advisories and weather forecasts early and proactively while driving residents to ready.lacounty.gov slash rain We have been proactively pitching to media outlets resulting in more than a dozen stories to date, including yesterday's story in the LA Times. A three-part KNX series on El Nino. Interviews with Univision, ABC, CBS, Fox and ethnic and hyperlocal media outlets reporting to their audiences in language.
The CBS story I just mentioned has been viewed 300,000 times on their YouTube channel. Our initial work is focusing on earned media given the natural interest in this topic and it's been very effective. We will also look for opportunities for pro bono advertising as the season continues. As we head into storm season, we will continue to do targeted media pitching on resources for people experiencing homelessness, older adults, residents with access and functional needs and other populations with specific needs.
This outreach will include presentations on community preparedness to cities, community groups, town councils and other municipalities. We are also going to be launching a weekly El Nino Preparedness Newsletter, which will provide the public with preparedness tips and resources sourced from these very departments. Residents can sign up for that today at ready.lacounty.gov slash RAINN. Thank you and I'd like to hand it over to Public Works Director Mark Pastrella
Thank you everyone, thank you supervisors for having me here today and recognizing the role that Public Works plays and has played for over 100 years with respect to flood protection for LA County. My name again is Mark Pastrella I'm the Director of Los Angeles County Public Works and as a part of that I'm the Chief Engineer at Los Angeles County Flood Control District. Public Works approaches flood risks the same way we approach other major infrastructure risk We start with the science, we evaluate the consequences and direct our resources where they can reduce the greatest risk.
Our regional flood control system here in LA County is prepared for the upcoming storm season. We prepare that every year all year long for the worst case scenarios but preparedness is not simply about the capacity of our dams channels debris basins and storm drains it also means understanding where flooding is most likely to occur which communities are most exposed and where the consequences of flooding could be greatest That is particularly important this year as we prepare for the potential impacts of a very strong El Nino.
So what is the science telling us? I want to thank our partners from NOAA that are here today, did a great job. I like the analogy, that was great. I would say one thing just to put it in context, we don't see this at the Super Bowl, at flood control district of storms. We would see the season as a potential Super Bowl and it would take many storms to reach like the highest capacity we've ever seen in terms of storm damage and flooding. However, we are treating this condition as if it could produce those kind of conditions and preparing community as if we are going to have our Super Bowl.
NOAA is currently reporting a greater than 90% chance, probability that this El Nino will become a very strong event during the fall and winter. A very strong El Nino as stated before does not guarantee that LA County will experience above average rainfall or damaging storms. In fact the last very strong El Nino I recall we had no rain but you should know we were prepared and learned a lot from that event because we found some of our partner agencies weren't prepared and were taking the risk that we wouldn't have rain In this year, we are actually reaching out to all those partners including our great partner the Army Corps of Engineers to be sure they are prepared.
For us, this means preparing for a range of possible conditions rather than planning around a single rainfall event. We evaluate storm intensity, duration, soil moisture, watershed conditions, burn scars, debris potential, drainage capacity and the possibility of storms arriving in succession. These factors matter because flood risk is cumulative When soils are already saturated, reservoirs and debris basins have received runoff from earlier storms. Another storm arrives significantly next to it, it can cause major problems. We lose what we call flood control.
This looks like the dams filling up and spilling over the top of the dam which did occur in 2004-05. All 14 dams spilled over in a 2004-05 event. And we lost no lives and had no major property damage even though they did spill over so we had the capacity to handle significant events. Of course, our job is to continually evaluate these conditions and adjust our operations as risk changes.
So it's a risk-based approach. We think about flood risk as the combination of three things – the hazard itself, who and what is expected exposed to that hazard, and how vulnerable those communities are and infrastructure may be. We use FEMA flood information, historical flooding, rainfall and watershed modeling burn area conditions, infrastructure capacity, field observations and our friends at NOAA to help us draw a picture for each event as they're coming in. We then use that information to prioritize the work and areas with the greatest probability of flooding become the most important but probably probability alone does not determine priority we also can consider the potential consequences including threats to life homes critical infrastructure evacuation routes and communities that may have fewer resources to prepare for our recover from a flood.
So prioritizing vulnerable communities is our highest priority. Our goal is not simply to distribute resources equally across the county, that would be wasteful. It is to deploy resources according to the risk. That means giving greater attention to communities where significant flood exposure overlaps with greater social and physical vulnerability. This can include communities with limited evacuation routes, older drainage infrastructure or places where there is no flood control system. The Malibu and also our North County.
We look at historical data for what we call our skeletons, repeated historical flooding. We look at the geography, topography and again first and foremost the residents and their ability to deal with and prepare for a significant flood event. This year we're also placing significant attention on Altadena And the unincorporated areas of the Santa Monica Mountains affected by the LA wildfire, and I'm sure you all know why. Because these areas will produce the highest level of potential debris flows and therefore significant potential loss of life and damage to properties.
Wildfire changes watershed behavior. Loss of vegetation changes the soil and can cause rainfall to run off more rapidly. It can mobilize mud, rock and sediment. It can clog not only affect our homes, affect our businesses but also affect our transportation system in significant ways. The PCH is one area of transportation that we're most significantly watching this year because of its potential impact to be lost to high sea conditions as well as the rainfall conditions that are existing there, because the area continues to be highly vulnerable to erosion. As you know, Supervisor Horvath, we managed through that with the construction and we continue to manage through it.
The North County is also an area of transportation in which we have learned and continue to learn lessons about what's going on with climate We've seen more significant damage to the drainage systems and the road system in the North County than any other area in terms of transportation damage. And these are due to sheet flow and the flows that you maybe saw in the Grand Canyon this recent week, that type of flow where it's a debris flow that runs across the land and destroys the road system and everything in its path.
The purpose of our flood risk assessment is not simply to produce a map, it's to drive operational decisions. As storm forecasts become more precise we use the latest information to determine where crews, equipment, patrols Inspections, emergency resources should be positioned. And these folks this winter will be on 24 standby from October until April and be ready to stand up to about 600 department employees who operate the flood consult system for LA County.
We continually move from regional forecasts to watershed level assessments, ultimately to community-level action. And I'm mentioning this and as it was mentioned by the previous speakers, those calculations are being made in real time so it's not easy for us to tell you when it's going to rain and where it's going to rain today but as we get closer and closer to the storm event, we get better and better information. So there's this balancing act of when should we pull the trigger on something? We know we can move things to certain areas But this issue of evacuation becomes very technical. So, this year we decided amongst ourselves Kevin myself the fire chief sheriff that public works myself will be the entity that's will be making the calls on evacuations so I will be taking that responsibility formally although we had previously done that I would formerly be playing the role of evacuation warnings.
System readiness. The backbone of that effort is one of the largest urban flood control systems in the nation, something that this Board of Supervisors should be very proud of. It includes 14 dams and reservoirs, 178 debris basins, 483 miles of flood control channels, more than 3,300 miles of storm drain and 82,000 catch bases and 27 spreading grounds It's a huge investment that this board has made through the years. You currently spend 90%, 80 to 90% of the money that we receive for flood control on maintaining the existing system, maintaining it in a world class level providing a specific level of flood protection.
Our crews inspect and maintain these facilities throughout the year. Before storm season we use our risk assessment and we identify vegetation needs to be removed and just generally prepare the system so that it can catch the debris and rain. Prioritizing our response, before and during major storms we do not treat every part of the county exactly the same. So one of the things I want to remind everyone is, I know when you see rain, we get concerned. Residents, I know the board does too, that doesn't mean it's raining the same level everywhere at the same time. In fact that's the nature of rain. It can be very intense in one neighborhood and it can be sunny in another.
We don't generally get rain over the entire LA County at the same time. We could have a cell of rain That would be a 500-year event occurring for maybe 30 minutes and could cause localized flooding. So you can imagine, this requires the ability to be flexible but also it requires us to be educated and educating you as about where are the actual areas to be concerned about so we don't over resource or thin out our resources and not be able to respond properly to the right locations.
Working as one regional system. Flood protection in Los Angeles is a shared responsibility, very important. You can't expect your public works department to cover everybody. It's a joint effort. Everybody from our major partners like the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to our local cities who have their own floodplain managers and have their own PDs right down to the neighborhood level of property owners taking care of their business on their property.
I want to guarantee you this year The Corps of Engineers is fully engaged with us on this year's forecast, and we agree that storm readiness is our top priority. I met directly with General Butch Graham, Chief Engineer to the Commanding General of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and Colonel Bost, the new commander of the Los Angeles District, to make sure we are all aligned in preparing community together for this event that's coming up. And I'm proud to tell you that—I'm happy to tell you that the Corps is all on board in taking care of some of the routines that we normally don't see them take care of So I'm happy to report that this isn't a year where we find deficiencies that could potentially be a problem. Again, stormwater doesn't recognize jurisdictional boundaries.
For that reason our preparation must also cross those boundaries. Throughout the year we work with city engineers, public works directors, emergency managers The National Weather Service to share information about conditions. Again, as storms approach with that team of regional flood fighters, flood control folks, weather forecasters are all working together around the clock to make sure that we meet our KPI of no lives lost and limited property damage.
So the same approach guides our long-term investments. We study where flood risk exists today, I can tell you where I expect there to be flooding. If you call me and say in my neighborhood, my staff can tell you at any place, any location in LA County what we expect will happen with any kind of rain event. And to that end property owners can call or your staff can call my staff at anytime and I have a number I'll give out here in a minute 1-800-933-0930 if you want to become aware of your specific property's potential flood hazard.
And if you're just concerned about this weather coming, we have people who are engineers who can answer the question and have real time data right down to property level about the potential for flooding on any property in L.A. County. So that's our preparedness. So how can we prepare? Preparedness is also totally local. Government has important responsibility for reducing regional flood risk, including not hyping flood and not creating fear for people.
Some of the biggest hazards we get are people that get scared and they leave their property and they drive improperly through the rain system Or they underestimate again, the raining. So it's taking it seriously but not being to the point of having fear drive us. The final level of preparation occurs at the neighborhood level and I talked about that earlier. We're asking residents to take four actions. Know your risk.
Understand the conditions around your home. Are you in or near a map floodplain? You can look this up on our website. Are you below a hillside or burn area? Are you near a channel, a creek? Debris basin or low-lying roadway, and on that one let me be very specific. Most tragic losses we have had in L.A. County have been children entering into the flood control system going across channels or crossing creeks at any level of flow. It's very, very important that we educate our children and educate folks to stay out of floodways when we have rain.
Has your property or neighborhood ever flooded? It's important to know and know the historical issues. Have an emergency plan. Know when you leave your neighborhood if conditions are deteriorating. Consider family members, older adults, non-ambulatory relatives, people with disabilities, pets, medications and transportation needs. In communities with limited access or evacuation routes early preparation becomes even more important. Prepare your property. The basic thing of clearing your gutters is and making sure you have a flow path on your property so it runs off your property. Know where the water comes into your property, know where the heaviest inundation is. Stay informed.
Weather risk changes rapidly. A seasonal outlook tells you what may be more likely over several months but a local forecast during that week is critical to people's safety. Stay in touch with LA County, listen to the news and be prepared. So we are helping communities prepare. That is the objective as Kevin said, our main objective. We recognize that every household has the same ability to repair. Some do and some don't. Some residents have more financial resources and transportation options information or ability to protect their property than others. That is why LA County preparedness must focus additional attention on communities where vulnerability is greatest. Public Works will continue working with cities community organizations Emergency managers, residents to get information assistance to those communities before a major storm arrives.
Residents who are concerned about flooding mud or debris affecting their property can also contact Public Works as I said at our free engineering number 1-800-933-0930 they can also go to ready.lacounty.gov for the latest information about this El Nino event In closing, thank you supervisors for helping us. You play a major role obviously in preparing community and today is a very good start for our preparation for community.
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Mr. Sheriff I think you're next.
Good afternoon everybody, Robert Luna your Sheriff of Los Angeles County. So Madam Chair members of the board thank you for having us here today. The sheriff's department focus for the upcoming El Nino storm season is protecting life and property through early preparation coordinated evacuations and our ability to rapidly deploy resources as conditions change Pre-storm planning and resource positioning. Our department maintains emergency operation procedures specifically addressing severe weather, flooding and post fire mud and debris flows and hazards as the Public Works Director has articulated.
Before significant storms, our Emergency Operations Bureau and affected stations coordinate closely with the Office of Emergency Management, Public Works, County Fire and other county departments and public safety partners. We monitor forecast and anticipated impacts, brief personnel, inspect equipment, identify vulnerable locations, prepare roadway closures and pre-position resources based on anticipated threat.
In regards to evacuation and life safety operations, evacuation and life safety operations are among our most important responsibilities during significant storms. The Department of Public Works continuously monitors conditions and provides a technical assessment of potential flooding and debris flow impacts and provides debris flow forecast hazard maps and list of identifying properties that may be at an elevated risk.
When an evacuation warning or order is issued, our station personnel are responsible for notifying residents in the affected areas and conducting the law enforcement evacuation operation. We also use our new citizen evacuation tracker that we started back in April of 25 to document these notifications so incident commanders have situational awareness of the evacuations progress. So, in a sense it gives us a live picture of evacuation status.
The Department of Public Works identifies the hazard, county partners coordinate. The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department prepares and conducts law enforcement evacuation operation. The Office of Emergency Management supports coordinated alerting stations conduct evacuations and document resident notifications. Vulnerable Communities and Burn Scar Areas. Recent burn scar areas will require particular attention. Our planning identifies vulnerable properties and communities before the storm arrives so our personnel know where the greatest risk may exist, and where evacuation notifications may be required.
Patrol stations located near recent burn scars will conduct regular patrol checks, continuously reassess conditions as storms develop and provide timely updates regarding changing conditions and take appropriate action. Several days before the storm our Community Partnerships Bureau Homeless Outreach Services Team better known as HOST And station personnel will conduct outreach to the unhoused population in riverbeds, washes and other high risk locations. Personnel will provide warnings, conduct welfare checks, assist with evacuations and coordinate with county agencies and service providers regarding relocation to safer locations or available shelters. This protects vulnerable individuals and reduce the number of emergencies requiring additional public safety resources, including swift water rescue operations during severe storms.
During evacuation operations personnel will remain mindful that residents with access and functional needs may require additional assistance, additional time or other considerations to evacuate safely. In regards to roadway and flood response, our stations identify roads and intersections susceptible to flooding and debris flows as part of their local planning. Stations will implement pre-planned road closures at flood prone intersections and other locations that routinely experience significant water accumulation during storms. During significant storms, our deputies will be available to establish road closures and access controls, provide traffic direction assists for stranded motorists, support rescue and evacuation operations Evacuation operations, I should say and establish detours around hazardous areas.
I do like to remind people at this time if you see a sign that says flooded or do not enter Do not enter we end up having to rescue a lot of folks That go through those and that creates a high risk for all of our folks These activities will be coordinated with Public Works, the California Highway Patrol, Caltrans Fire and other agencies so emergency access can be maintained and resources can be adjusted as conditions change.
In regards to emergency coordination in specialized resources if an incident exceeds the capabilities of an individual patrol station the department can rapidly expand its response Our Department Operations Center can be activated to coordinate department resources, support affected stations and the field incident itself. Commanders maintain department-wide situational awareness and coordinate with County Emergency Operations Center and our partner agencies. The department also maintains trained Incident Management Teams And command and coordination support during large-scale or complex incidents by helping manage operations, planning logistics resources and other critical incident functions. The department also maintains specialized resources including swift water response capabilities that can be deployed when the conditions warrant.
In regards to public information and department readiness. Finally, timely consistent and accurate public information is absolutely critical to keeping our communities informed and prepared. Our emergency operations bureau, Sheriff's Information Bureau 24 hour operation center and affected stations will coordinate timely inaccurate public safety information regarding evacuation warnings and orders Road closures, flooding hazards and areas residents should avoid. We will work with the Office of Emergency Management and our county partners to ensure coordinated emergency messaging. I also at this time want to emphasize that when you get directions Evacuate, especially a mandatory evacuation that you comply.
That has gotten our folks in grave danger in the past. Our focus going into this El Nino season is making sure our personnel are prepared, our resources are strategically positioned, our facility stations are ready and our coordination with county partners is established before the storms arrive. I wanted to mention with the urging of the county CEO, Mr. Nikita that on the 8th of September of 26 we have a meeting with all of our contract city partners to make sure that they are looped into what the county family is doing so that we can help each other keep each other informed and so on.
And then I also want to make sure, and we've mentioned it but I'm going to reinforce it. Have your family prepared for any and all emergencies including an earthquake. Make sure you have sufficient food, water, and remember the six P's. People, pets, prescriptions, papers which mean important documents Personal needs, priceless items and a communication plan with all of your family members because the first thing that's going to happen is that Don't depend that your cell phone service is going to work. So prepare your communication plan with your cell phones going down.
That is very, very critical and then just as important take care of your at risk neighbors. And with that I want to introduce my partner chief of the LA County Fire Department Anthony Maroney
So good afternoon honorable chair and members of the board. In regards to fires preparedness efforts, this begins with preparedness before storm related events. The fire department does participate in interagency training for mud and debris flow and swift water incidents. We monitor forecasts and inputs and implement augmented staffing and the pre-deployment of specialized resources in identified areas.
We also participate in active patrol during the storm. When an incident occurs, we participate in a coordinated emergency response along with our partners at the Department of Public Works, LASD and OEM. In addition, the fire department does amplify the public one voice messaging and we do participate in education and safety awareness before our storm season starts.
I'd now like to pass it on to our partners at Homeless Services and Housing for their report.
2:54 – 3:0917 turns
Good afternoon, Supervisors. Director Mahan was unable to be here today. I'm Carter Hughley, Chief of Strategy and Partnerships with the Department of Homeless Services and Housing. HSH has initiated our operational readiness by reviewing areas of greatest need and identifying accessible emergency interim housing sites that are connected to those areas, and to the outreach teams that serve unsheltered residents in those areas. As you know here in LA County two-thirds of our homeless neighbors are already surviving outside which means we already don't have a housing solution for everyone So we work every day to get vulnerable people safely out of vulnerable areas. But for folks who are unable to come inside due to shelter and housing capacity constraints, we're already working with them to educate them about their risk, empower them with information about their options, and protect them by distributing emergency supplies and equipment directly to them and our partners who serve them.
In coordination with our sister departments, we're also finalizing our emergency activation standard operating procedures for our unsheltered response. And we're taking steps to train our staff on the protocols related to severe weather events. We are also creating pathways for additional interim housing capacities which will include identifying existing vacancies in our interim housing portfolio using emergency motel vouchers and augmenting our emergency shelters at alternative and existing interim housing facilities. Next slide please.
In addition to participating in the tabletop exercises and being part of the communications working group that Andrew mentioned, HSH is undertaking additional communication efforts to inform our partners and the public about climate-related events and responses. Our goal is to ensure the right people have the right information at the right time which includes those surviving unsheltered in our highest risk areas and the partners that serve them. Our Emergency Centralized Response Center pushes climate-related notifications to HSH administered and partner outreach teams for targeted communications to people experiencing unsheltered homelessness.
HSH also maintains timely and accessible digital content on our website, social media channels, and e-newsletter, and our communications team will distribute relevant information in multiple languages to the public via these channels. Regularly updated digital content will include county weather alerts, resources to connect folks experiencing homelessness to emergency services, information about LA's 2-1-1 and other key updates and community resources as they become available.
We continue to remain committed to this important work alongside our partners here with equity, accountability and transparency at the forefront of our decision making. And now I'll turn it over to my colleague Gary Jones with the Department of Beaches & Harbors.
Good afternoon, Chair Solis, members of the Board. Gary Jones with the Department of Beaches and Harbours. Our department is responsible for 23 miles of LA County coastline including world-famous surfrider Venice and Manhattan beaches. We also manage Marina Del Rey, the largest constructed small craft harbour in the United States. Our approach to coastal preparedness extends beyond a single weather pattern. Our seasonal preparations reduce risk and allow us to respond quickly when conditions change, while investment in the long-term resilience of our coastline is a year-round commitment.
Our preparations for this year's El Nino and the predicted combination of strong storms, sea level rise and super king tides are the same as they are every year. That's because we proactively prepare our beaches and Marina del Rey for the worst winter conditions. Our seasonal berms are the most visible form of coastal wall protection. These berms are long piles of sand about 15 feet high, without them waves during high tides and storm surges could quickly rush over the flat beach and flood parking lots and other facilities.
The tall berm makes it much more difficult for water from the waves to cross the entire beach and enter facilities. Our crews monitor, maintain and rebuild these berms as needed throughout the winter. We also deploy sandbags in flood-prone areas to protect the county's facilities but please remember sandbags should never be filled with beach sand or emptied onto the beach after use.
Other preparations include lifeguard tower relocations and routine inspections to help reduce impacts before storms arrive. Preparedness also means making sure people have information they need. We amplify safety and preparedness messaging from the L.A. County Lifeguards, and from the Marina del Rey Harbormaster to Marina del Rey Lessees, the boating community and the public as conditions change. We also amplify beach safety messaging from lifeguards and other agencies.
When conditions change, we respond quickly to protect public safety, infrastructure and beach access. This requires a coordinated emergency response. Our response to the recent erosion at Point Jumex simplifies our ability to rapidly implement emergency mitigation measures in partnership with other agencies. Seasonal preparedness addresses today's risks. Our Coastal Resilience Initiative focuses on tomorrow. Through the initiative, we invest in long-term strategies that help protect beaches, public access and coastal infrastructure from evolving coastal hazards.
These strategies include living shoreline and beach nourishment projects. We're also working with cities and other stakeholders to create comprehensive adaptation plans that benefit the entire coastline. Together, these efforts reflect the department's comprehensive approach to coastal preparedness, preparing for the season, protecting during emergencies and preserving Los Angeles coastline for the future.
And with that I'd like to turn it over to Michael Sylvester with the Department of Public Social Services.
Thank you, Madam Chair and board members. I'd like to update you on DPSS's efforts. My name is Michael Sylvester. I'm Chief Deputy of Administration. I am here on behalf of Dr. Jackie Contreras. And we have two roles, obviously as many of our partners have during emergencies. One is to take good care of the over 4 million clients that we serve and a million of them children and making sure that they can still obtain and maintain their benefits throughout an emergency. So making sure that alerts and all information shared on the emergency is distributed out to our clientele. We do use The Get Ready LA website to make sure that it's consistent information that's provided to them.
We also have an additional responsibility for our IHSS population, we do wellness checks during emergencies to make sure they have the resources needed. Our social workers do that on behalf of their clients. And then in addition, we have our lead role for the county and that's in the Mass Care and Shelter role. In that role, we are sending out notifications as well but we are using the County Distribution Network for that.
We also pre-identify potential shelter sites In doing that, we work with our partners in American Red Cross at Los Angeles County Parks and Rec to pre-identify shelter sites, prestage equipment that would be in locality to where we think the shelter sites might be needed. We obviously use the zip code impact zones that are distributed by our emergency partners We look for alternative locations, because as you know during emergencies we have to make swift changes and plans because the fires or floods in this case actually pop up in different areas. And when those change we have to change where we might have shelter sites.
We compile a list of locations where vendors can provide us with ADA showers and in also locations where showers can be alternatively provided through YMCA's, community centers and the like. We participate in shelter exercises we're actually the ones that work with American Red Cross and we do shelter exercises. We plan to do that in accordance of preparation for these emergencies.
We have approximately 1,000 county employees who are trained in shelter services and many of them are DPSS employees. We do have some that are in other departments. I'm going to make a plea we'd really like to expand that to become a county-wide staffing resource. In fact one of our recommendations would be to look at that as part of the DSW program so that DSWs can be shelter ready but we do have over 1,001 in DPSS alone But we have to take them off the line, just like everyone else, to man the shelters.
We also work with American Red Cross on messaging. On preparedness, we direct them to the same messaging that's going to be put up on the Readiness LA website. Red Cross is actually here. They were here in case there were any questions for Red Cross but Red Cross is a major partner for L.A. County. They have helped us with the shelters quite a bit throughout the last emergencies.
We also, I just want to remind the board as well. We also will be pursuing disaster CalFresh if it is appropriate during depends on the disaster impact but we did do that during the fires. It was very helpful to the public and that would be another thing that were actually the lead on. So that concludes DPSS's portion of the presentation.
Okay, Supervisor Harland did you have any questions and then we'll start with the other board members that want to ask.
Thank you Madam Chair I really appreciate that and the purpose of today's presentation is not to alarm anyone but to alert everyone to make sure that they are ready they are checked in and have the information that they need To that end, I know many of us woke up to reports that potentially this weekend there would be a hurricane coming in this direction. Is that real?
And what should people actually be prepared for this weekend?
It's extremely unlikely that we have direct impacts from the lower latitude tropical systems that have been occurring very, very far away from the area. And in fact, we're talking about extremely small odds. Our biggest concern is going to be the significant swells, southerly swells that are going to be impacting coastal areas. It's certainly possible that a lot of people are gonna Around the holiday weekend at the beaches and the rip currents are going to be extremely strong, potentially deadly. And the amount of energy from that swell, a long period swell is gonna be of particular concern to folks headed towards the beaches especially if it's sunny outside we could have sunny conditions and still very dangerous conditions at the beaches not to mention Significant coastal erosion can occur with such tremendous energy from these distant storm systems, as well as coastal flooding.
So those are the main concerns even if it's completely sunny outside.
Thank you for that. I know many people have had that question, and it sounds like from your answer we don't want to put our lifeguards to the test any more than we already have. We want to make sure that we're keeping people safe but it's helpful to know what we should actually be preparing for. To that end if people walk away with one piece of information of where they should go to stay on top of information throughout this season, I'll ask our comms where should they be going just to reiterate that?
So, for preparedness resources they should go to ready.lacounty.gov slash rain and if there's a significant enough event we will activate our emergency page on lacounty.gov slash emergency.
Thank you and each of you have touched on this in different ways but obviously residents impacted in the burn scar areas are paying particular attention to the weather conditions what should they be on the lookout for? And what specific information Should they be checked into as we're entering this season?
Supervisor, we measure I believe you know in these not only the recent burn scars But anything less than five years in recovery Public Works is assessing those specific properties and identifying the most vulnerable locations And was touched on with Sheriff Luna who said who? Announced that we do have a list of properties that we consider most vulnerable We reach will be reaching out to those property owners Specifically at the beginning of the season here October 15th that they're about to prepare them. They themselves, just very simple there could even be renters and properties like that what we want them to do is if they know there was a recent fire in their neighborhood To go to the backyard or the front yard and look for hillside slopes that come down onto the property And if though if the vegetation is burned and still scarred We want them to contact us directly so that we can talk to them about a plan for their specific property
So individual homeowners can contact you directly?
Yes they can.
And I know that we also hear from people, you know there are routine areas that experience flooding. People are frustrated. We know this happens every time there's a rain and yet it feels like nobody is really responding so what sort of preventative measures have we been taking especially in those areas that have been routinely impacted?
So we finally call those places skeletons at the Department of Public Works. They're better known as deficiencies in the system, they're not really true deficiencies, they're just places that do not drain at like 100 year protection. They drain something less than that and the places this storm this week I could see the Venice area, the low-lying areas of Venice and that potentially having. So what we do is we pre-deploy pumps and other devices to drain those areas that we know are a problem. And we have an ongoing list at the department throughout the cities and the county in the flood control district area where we will pre-deploy facilities to make sure that those things get taken care of.
It's interesting though because if somebody doesn't maintain their drain on their property, it could flood. So there is any number of things that can come up but the known ones we are on them on top of that and already preparing for that.
And is that countywide regardless of incorporated city versus unincorporated area or are you doing that only in the unincorporated area?
It's a good clarification. It's in the flood control district boundaries which is 85 of the 88 cities, everything south of Avenue S to be technical and we do not cover the island, Catalina Island.
And for the property owners as well, the information you shared. Is that only for unincorporated residents
3:09 – 3:2525 turns
or
is that countywide as
well? That's countywide supervisor within the LA County Flood Control District boundary.
Okay, I know that another thing that we hear in our district and I'm sure Supervisor Barger does as well, the landfills get particularly impacted with this wet weather season. So what are we doing to prepare? What are we doing to address what we know impacts the awful odors and things that take months to recover from? What are we doing now?
So we've already reached out to all the landfills in LA County that we have jurisdiction with or partnership with. The county agents are coordinating the landfill with the operators themselves and disposal facilities, ensure wet weather plans are updated and facilities are prepared for anticipated heavy rainfall. They are mandated to have a wet weather plan supervisor of any rain of any consequence And as you know, we went through several of these where we had not only odors but we also had some facilities that took off in an unusual way in terms of underground fires and things. Some of that was triggered by leaching water into the ground.
So the landfill operators are responsible for facility preparedness with regulatory agencies providing oversight and public works is providing technical support and coordination. Specifically at Sunshine Canyon Landfill, preparations are starting earlier and incorporating lessons from the recent storms including improvements to drainage, slope preparation and erosion control.
Public Works participates in regular inspections and reviews wet weather plans with facility operators and partner agencies to identify potential issues and maintain readiness throughout the storm season. So yeah, we are in contact with them already. We're making sure not only that they have their wet weather plans but any open construction site during the wet weather season within the unincorporated area also has its wet weather plan in place before the October 15th rainy season deadline.
And how have we prepared for stormwater capture given that this will be an unusual season? It's also an opportunity to capture water.
Yeah, so that's one of our dual operations, dual mission at Flood Control is to capture as much of the precious rainwater as possible just safely to do. So as I stated earlier all our debris basins are ready to regulate those flows. The spreading grounds 27 of them are prepared and been cleaned and ready to take inflows They will be going and then all of the investments you've been making through Measure W, making sure that those systems are ready and operable for the season so we can again capture safely, capture the flows. Gives me an opportunity to remind the media that we can't capture every drop because water is very heavy, it can be dangerous to capture. And so we will prioritize people's safety in flood control first and water conservation will be the second priority.
Okay and my final question is really related to the impacts on our unhoused population. I know we touched on that there will be pre-identified locations for shelters, there will be a unique role for our ECRC to play and we're also people we know will be calling into 211 so how where are we actually identifying those locations? How are we making sure 211 has the capacity to take the calls, and what should people expect out of the ECRC as it relates to that operation.
Thank you for those questions. So I'll start with the ECRC. There's several roles that ECRC plays first is on training, they're providing training to outreach teams and practicing how we respond to emergencies in advance of them doing case conferencing to coordinate spaces and teams can so they can talk about vulnerable clients and vulnerable spaces and helping figure out how to connect those clients to the services they need. They're also doing situational awareness pushing out situation reports to our teams into our partners about what's happening, any emerging threats that they're seeing in the areas. And then monitoring sort of how not only our unsheltered locations but our shelters might be impacted by events. Wildfires was a good example of how we did that at ECRC.
And then finally just really serving as that central referral and coordination point where they're working with outreach teams to receive referrals and coordinate connections to things like emergency vouchers or interim housing placements. So that's a lot of different roles that the ECRC is playing. To the question about capacity and what can be done, our primary strategy is to reduce demand on 211. Instead of thinking of it only as we have staff up to meet the demand, we want to prevent that from happening as much as possible by first working now to get vulnerable people out of vulnerable areas.
Also looking at how we can use existing interim housing capacity near some of our watersheds and river basins Also looking at our provider contracts and seeing like how can we add cots and beds at sites that already exist. Our emergency winter shelter capacity, so just looking sort of across the entire system and thinking about how do we make the most of what we already have? How do we add capacity to what we don't have? And then once it gets to like how do we add motel vouchers working both with 2-1-1 and with our outreach teams to refer directly into those vouchers.
Okay and DPSS I think you wanted to jump in as well.
Yeah, so for general population shelters we do work very closely with Red Cross as I indicated before. There's approximately 75 county documented shelters but there are several hundred
And are those throughout the county, including our incorporated cities? Are they only in unincorporated areas?
No. They're throughout the county so some are in incorporated areas and some are in unincorporated areas. Now the cities take the lead in incorporated areas for shelter and we have the lead in unincorporated areas but if the city can't, if they don't have that they have a capacity issue, we step into assist them. So that's why the shelters are important to cover the entire county from a geographic perspective Red Cross has several hundred, and so what we're doing with Red Cross is we're going through the listing, updating them all, making sure that we have master facility use agreements with them. All of our terms are updated and then we'll basically pull all of the impact areas and overlay that, and then look for shelters that would be outlying those impact areas because we don't want shelters In the impact area, and sometimes that forces you further and further out depending on how far the impact becomes.
But that's how we handle that. And also in terms of... We work very closely with HSH in the shelters to make sure that as we have unhoused come into a general POP shelter that we can get them to shelters where they might actually have better services for them, more appropriate services for them. And we also case manage individuals who are in the shelter, who are looking for a 211 hotel voucher. Other options that might be more formidable for them.
Thank you all very much. This was incredibly comprehensive and I think useful for everyone who's been paying attention and really concerned about what this season might mean. Thank you Madam Chair.
Thank you Supervisor Barger. You're in the queue.
Thank you and thank you Dr. Cohen for actually Making it understandable. Supervisor Hahn, right before you talked about the fact that we hear that word, the El Nino, we think it's going to be all about rain. But I will say and this, I don't know if this is a question or statement or both when I was growing up, it rained. It rained and the thing that changed was we didn't walk to school now when it rains, Armageddon coming upon us.
And I guess my question to you is, do you know what has changed in terms of is it perception because we haven't had rain over periods of time? But what has changed that's created this for lack better term hysteria as it relates to rain?
Supervisor, I appreciate your comments sincerely. This is on my mind a lot because public safety is our core mission. It's what we're all here for and we want to make sure that our alerts are taken seriously and it's the difference between saving lives and otherwise I think a lot about the question that you asked. I don't have a single answer for it, I would imagine that over time social media may be playing a role in terms of that. I'd imagine that over time perceptions just change overall. We've had an El Nino, significant El Nino that was completely dry. A very strong El Nino that was completely dry and we've had very strong El Ninos that had much significant weather and we know when people are Expecting there to be significant weather and it doesn't happen, there's the concern about desensitization of alerts subsequent to those seasons.
So I'm not completely sure exactly what has driven what you mentioned, the evolving perception but we're doing from the National Weather Service proactively is having these twice a week meetings every single week With our core partners and on Fridays, including the media to really be leading the messaging because that messaging I can give a completely factual statement it could be perceived completely different than the actual words I'm using. And the goal is to work collaboratively together With our partners at Los Angeles County Office of Emergency Management, emergency management departments across the board to really unify the messaging so that when catastrophe does strike and we know it does strike people are ready. People are prepared as we work together in advance And they're also listening.
It's a community effort, and I appreciate all the work we do collaboratively to make that possible. You asked a great question. I'm always thinking how can we do better? So that's at least as a step why we're doing these meetings twice a week, to really get everyone on the same page. Thank you for that question.
Yeah, and thank you. And I would say though that things like what's happened in Tibet, Nepal, as well as the Grand Canyon, I think further put fear in people's minds. But I will say, and look to you Mark, We talked about the burn scars and thank you, Supervisor Horvath for highlighting that because that is something that even last year when it rained I had concerns about the Alpdena area because it's on the foothills and there had been There was burn scars and their vegetation had not had time to have regrowth. And so my biggest fear was we'd have mudslides So I mean I feel that I'm I don't want to say, well maybe they are a norm in the high desert or even down in Riverside County in the deserts. When you have a lot of rain coming up in the foothills and coming down fast it's got to have a place to go.
So how prepared do you feel that we are this year as relates to that?
Supervisor, we're prepared as we have been in every year. We have such a great track record in L.A. County for our preparedness for systems and that's because you all made this great investment in a system to protect people. That includes the road system. The road system itself provides a tremendous amount of flood protection including the area of North County. And it was a tragedy last year as you said what happened and I want to communicate again double down on what Chief said if you see Our sheriff said if you see a sign that says don't enter, don't enter. And as I said, don't let Chenner go in. I do want to address one thing, Supervisor, is you said what has changed? There is there is a change in our climate that has been happening and it's caused us to have more severe events at a higher frequency.
Our rainfall has changed in its nature in that it's less frequent but higher intensity
And I appreciate that, Mark. But I think my frustration is, and Dr. Cohen touched on it, is that every time there's a rain coming, it's all hands on deck Armageddon. And I think it's important for us. I mean, you know, I think back to when Lucy Jones, when someone asked like when I was in my teens, they asked, Is it appropriate to panic during an earthquake? And she turned and said, It's never appropriate to panic.
And so I say that, you know, what we're doing today and we're going to do it with the earthquakes is education. Preparedness. Personal responsibility. Is government ready to respond? That's an important calm way of letting people know that you should always prepare for the worst with the chances of that happening probably not likely but you always prepare for the worst.
Correct? We prepare every year for the worst conditions. We maximize the capacity of the system that's built to take those storms, so you know I started this by saying fear is the enemy for us because it's usually where we have someone make a mistake because they're fear so we do have to be careful and we have to be moderate Modulate the way we talk about it. We don't pull the word out safety or unsafe lightly and we're precise about when something's unsafe, but we don't want all of LA County to think it's unsafe every time it rains. In fact, it's a natural phenomenon as you know. It provides a critical rainfall is a critical component of our water system here in our water supply here And so if we get rain in a regular year, we'll do like we did last year.
Did a tremendous amount of water. We captured like 1 3rd of the drinking water supply for LA County and we had a fairly good storm season. However, we do need to prepare as if it is going to be Super Bowl because
you should be preparing right now expecting the worst. That's why we cleaned out Devil's Gate. That's right. A lot of heat for it.
Yeah,
but we did it not because it was gonna happen that year But we need to be prepared in case it did. So I believe that preparedness across the board, even when we're not talking about El Nino is common sense. If not us who?
Supervisor, if I could add on. One of my first years here as the meteorologist in charge 2022-23 was actually La Nina year and we had some of the most catastrophic floods along the central coast during that time frame while Los Angeles was a little bit south. We had the Montebello tornado if you recall during that time. That's during a La Nina period pretty significant La Nina actually overall The correlation between El Nino and La Nina and precipitation storm patterns is much greater well east of here, Texas to Florida. That's where that correlation is much stronger. Here where storms are first hitting the coast not quite to that same extent but what you mentioned preparedness every year we can get storms in La Nina years neutral years and El Nino.
You've hit it spot on.
3:25 – 3:4132 turns
I like you. I like you too. Chief Moroni and Sheriff Luna, the CERT team. I can't remember who the CERT team falls under. Is it under both of you in terms of training? Similar to what you have, Supervisor Horvath, the brigade that you've got doing the CERT certifications or training. Yes sir. Are we going to create a more robust... We're both engaged in it but yes, we have it. I mean, are we really pushing that out? Because that is a program where you do empower the public to be the emergency preparedness for that community if there's an emergency.
I think both departments do a pretty good job of pushing it out but you can argue we can always do
better. Well yeah because I should be doing it and you haven't recruited me yet. Well we should all be doing it. And then I always want to say don't put baby in the corner, Chief Maroney. Swiftwater Rescue, are you all doing like with LAFD training on that?
Yeah, we're participating in training with our allied agencies, our mutual aid partners. We did have a significant number of swift water rescues in the Antelope Valley in December. You know that we rescued many of the people with our department helicopters. We will be prepared again especially on Labor Day if we were to have flash floods in the Antelope Valley.
The Santa Monica mountain area that was impacted by the fire So we will be ready to not only augment our resources, but pre-deploy them to the right areas. We do monitor the mud flow and debris flow a plan that comes out from DPW And we use that as our staffing guide so that mud flow and debris Debris plan that Director Pastrella's staff puts together is really key to how we prepare to respond to any incidents along with our sheriff's partners.
Excellent. And so and then I'll just say and Janice has been proud of me over here when we talk about the unhoused and I worry about the flood control because how many of us turn on the TV? And when there's a lot of rain coming, they're rescuing the unhoused that have been living down there. I hope we are doing outreach today In anticipation of, I mean they shouldn't be in there anyway.
In anticipation of any amount of water that may come down from the foothills. So I'm looking to you and then last but not least Jennifer Aniston listen to
me.
Yeah I did. Janice Han. Janice and I were talking so you've got the shelters you're ready to set up correct?
You're talking to me? Yes, we have shelters
already. Let's do it right now just for the unhoused on the street I mean I'd love to talk to you about that because The public is going to talk to us now when they hear that and say if you can do it during an emergency Why can't you do it in what some would argue as an emergency on the street which is a whole different Discussion dr. Cohen, that's not that's not does not fall under meteorologist although you probably have an opinion I'd love to hear it sometime but but seriously, um all kidding aside III when I hear that it starts it It makes us think well if you can do it for an emergency This is an emergency that we're facing on the street and so I think that we need to be cognizant of The fact that standing up an emergency shelter Should not be just for El Nino, it should be across the board.
And I'm not chastising you but I'm just kind of highlighting the perception that leaves with people when they hear that.
Yeah and just to clarify our use of emergency vouchers in some of our augmented system is not reserved only for El Nino we do that for extreme weather all the time.
And again, thank you Supervisor Horwath. I think this is important. I look forward to this discussion as it relates to the earthquakes as well because I again think it's important for us to empower the public with knowledge and then Mr. McGowan thank you for the work that you do and if you can get insurance companies to actually honor their policies even on fire let alone flood you are a better person than the regulators Thank you,
Madam Chair and
thank you. This has been a really good conversation and much needed but you know listening to everything I still come back to what I think a lot of the public Dr. Cohn is feeling like is it gonna be a wet one or is it gonna be a dry one? We just don't know when do you think we will know are we talking about October, November, we're talking about January, February. When is this event happening?
Really great question and we still have a lot to look at as we look at the storm horizons. Probably a week, maybe a week-and-a-half out before the onset of significant storms.
That's shocking with all the technology out there satellites out there all the meteorologists the Doppler 7000 it's shocking to me that a week and a half out is all we will have
We can say that over the seasonal cycle, over a few months we're looking at large chances of above normal precipitation. But in terms of the specificity, the granularity of a forecast dam to say point scale, we could only be looking at an hour or less sometimes so that public education aspect that you brought up You know, I think we all want to know exactly what it's going to be like where we are a year from now for instance. But that's beyond the bounds of the scientific predictability that we have and we want to make sure that precision we provide is matched with the accuracy and that's based on the science. So at this point when we look out over three month four month time span Good chances of above normal precipitation, but that does not imply catastrophic flooding.
Are the odds tilted in that direction? They are.
But again, are we talking about October?
We will definitely be, and great question. This is why we're having these updates twice a week with our core partners with the media on
Fridays. I appreciate that and I think you know just so much I'm leaning into a lot of what Supervisor Barger was talking about because it is true we really don't have much weather to speak of in LA so all of our meteorologists No offense meant, and everybody on TV. I mean they really have nothing to talk about most of the time because we're just like sunny and clear you know all the time.
And so when there is even a chance of participation you get Storm watch 2027 news at 11. It becomes, you know a major event and then I do remember the last time we had a potential hurricane. I was the chair of the board. You know how we all have our own disasters as a chair and it was Hillary Hurricane Hillary And Kevin, we were down there in the EOC. We were preparing. We had the superintendent. We were canceling classes. We were trying to evacuate Catalina. Remember? There was a last boat leaving at 1.
You better get on now. And then there was nothing. There was a few little drizzles that hit our windshield. So I think the public is a little bit in this The Boy Who Cried Wolf. And so I think our biggest challenge, and I think you said that Dr. Cohen is the our ability to communicate to get them to take us seriously. One of the things I was thinking about Sheriff and Kevin maybe you can share if you were talking about working on the communication system that sometimes we get over.
I'm thinking about our cable TV. You know, Very aware of those regular, that screeching noise. Most people are just annoyed that it interrupts their program and it's a very archaic box letter message. And in my opinion they're too vague and they're too broad. The last time we had a flash flood warning it came across my TV saying for the following counties and I listed like seven counties And I think the average person sitting there in their living room, is there a way Kevin that we can work with this emergency messaging system to change the lettering, change the music, change the message so that it becomes If we needed to be more specific about what we're asking the public to do.
Thank you, Supervisor Hahn. I'm going to actually kind of tackle both questions or the premise of both topics kind of together. So building on what Dr. Cohn was saying, I think it's important for our communities, I think it's important for the board, our public servants to know that as we approach a storm forecast when we get into that five-to three day window so if If the storm is going to impact us on Friday, that's the forecast. The closer we get to Friday, the accuracy of that storm increases and what we did last year and the year before was we went into a much more intense preparedness posture in that three day to 48 hour window because that's when we have much higher certainty from the National Weather Service that these storm impacts are going to cause debris flows.
And using last year as the model, that's when we did our press conferences and that's when we did proactive notifications and emergency messaging to tell people to take specific actions. So I would, that is going to be the model that we use this year. In relationship to the emergency alert system, EAS for short. It's more than just the county system that is a federal system that's through the integrated public alert and warning system.
The Sheriff's Department and OEM actually jointly can access that system following the January fires. OEM and the sheriff we test that system- It's
not good.
Correct, yeah and it's the system's limitations. We maximize that system to the highest level it can be used in addition like the one that you're referencing when it's a flash flood that's actually the National Weather Service that accesses that system so it is a system that multiple... I
don't know if you guys are familiar with the one that comes across your cable right we get for a lot of but they're so broad and so vague and again even Maybe we work with our own county channel, Channel 36. Is that our channel? 36? 37? I just feel like if we're really serious about this being serious even that emergency messaging becomes people become numb to it. Because it is so rote and so, most people feel it's irrelevant to their particular situation that they're just not paying attention. I think that's what I'm most worried about listening to everybody. How do we get the public to take this seriously?
We'll work, we'll take it back with the comms teams and
we'll work through
it.
Yeah let's, Sheriff did you want to say something about that? Catherine Barger thinks she didn't want to speak.
I remember during the fires there were a lot of concerns and questions. What you're asking completely legitimate, and I think we do have to figure out a way to make it better. But please remember that as we are on a path to make things better, it usually means better technology. And in our world of emergency response actually the more techie you get the more it's probably going to fail at the time you need it the most.
So some of the most archaic systems that we have may be the best mechanism to communicate when that huge earthquake hits, when communication goes down. When your cell phone's not working because that was a big issue for us during the fires both for Eaton and the Palisades. So just something for you or all
of us to consider. I got it but maybe there's something in between. Yes?
Sorry Supervisor, Andrew Viest with the Countywide Communications. We do have the capacity to do that with the county channel and we regularly do. Following the fires our partners at ISD actually built an alert banner that we can activate from lacounty.gov that will actually put a message onto every county website that has the plugin including your websites so when there's extreme heat or a big rainstorm coming we will activate that and that will display across the county system
Right, thank you. And that leads me to asking Meral, our Director of Aging and Disabilities. I see you back there. Those are two populations aging and disabilities that I think we've got great concerns for. We heard a little bit during the fires of the difficulty of evacuating people who had mobility challenges or I'm wondering what you're thinking on both those populations, how do we make sure they are going to be safe? But I'm also thinking there's a lot of our senior populations that when they hear the word website or www.gov backslash, They can't do it or nor do they want, they just don't.
And I feel like during COVID we had some of the issues of insisting people signed up for vaccines online and it was extremely difficult you remember that? Yeah what's a better way to communicate to those who just aren't literate when it comes to websites
Absolutely. I mean, I'm going to answer the second question first and thank you for having me here as the added bonus to this presentation. I promise I wouldn't say any jokes but I think it's really important to focus on community-based approach right? And I think this is where board offices play an integral role. You are connected to countless community based organizations faith-based organizations etc. I think county departments have been here for almost a year, which has just flown by. We're not so good at that. So I think that's something I really want to focus on in the midst of hiring my team and developing that. So I think it's credible messengers. We talk about it on the juvenile justice side but it's also like how do we get people who are clear with the messaging on where to redirect talking to your neighbors?
I think we've lost that in our communities. So, I think that's also hard. I think government can, and this is going to sound controversial but government puts all these messages out but how are we communicating it and how is it trickling down? And so I think that's something we want to focus on. To answer the first question, we have two distinct populations that we serve and access and functional needs is something that I've been honing in on and I think emergency preparedness is something our department is going to prioritize and I just need to have the proper expertise. We're moving in that direction but we're gonna get there.
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Thank you. I'm really looking forward to your office, particularly working with our office and maybe helping us put together something for direct communication with our seniors for a lot of issues. But I think we could use the help too as well.
Absolutely, and also just acknowledging that we have over 200 senior and community centers countywide. And so I think that's a good targeted approach as well, right? That's a good idea. So I think there is a piece of it we run. We have 13 of them in our department but there's over 200 in the region. So, I think really kind of anchoring some of this emergency management around training our senior staff or train-the-trainer type situation is just really...I don't think our department has done that as a region, so I'm really looking forward to building
that up. Great, thank you. And I know Mark you said it in all sorts of ways, but I just want to hear one more time. You talk about maintaining our systems, but I just want to hear one more time and I think the public wants to hear have all major storm drains Channels, catch basins and flood control systems been inspected and cleared. We can have the best system but as you know even your own gutter system if you haven't cleared it it's not going to work. Have you cleared all of our drains?
Supervisor our maintenance regimes will be finished on technically on October 14th of the week before 95% 98% of them are complete and ready to go We have a few basins in the Altadena area they're going to finish up on. So that's our annual goal, October 15th all systems are completely 100% go and ready for any rain event that comes.
Great thank you I just wanted to hear it one more time. The public wants
to hear it. I wouldn't mind if you let me give some practical answer to what you were just bringing up being in the rain business for so many years part of my entire career has been... Did you
say being in the rain business?
Yes you know it's a tough business I think one of the messaging we want to do better at this year is saying if it rains, This area should be avoided or that area should be avoided. We are very precise in letting homeowners that we know are vulnerable like the mountain areas, we go to them, we doorknock, we talk to them, we tell them beforehand you should be aware with the vulnerable communities as you said maybe some of these locations of the county residents are located in non-ambulatory and that. We do know in a county facility specifically where the skeletons are where the drainage areas are with them so what we want to do is prepare them for that it's that thing know your drainage You have a staff at Public Works that know the entire hydrology and hydraulics of LA County.
So you know where the
likely places are.
Practically, I would tell you is we don't want to overhype it. It is very dangerous to drive in rain if you don't have to drive on a day when it's raining hard. Don't drive. That's an easy thing to say because people have to go to work. The flood control systems will keep those road systems safe and going, but there are areas where the roads are vulnerable too. We will map those in our communication. We will prepare people for when it rains. We always say it always rains and you should know where it is. People do move into places. You'd be surprised we'll go and tell people did you know there's a dam behind your house two miles behind your house? They don't know there's even a dam and that's because it doesn't rain enough in Los Angeles for people to be highly aware of their drainage.
So in this year, I think one thing we can do, we've been doubling down on that is instead of getting everyone scared and saying, in these areas you are susceptible to raining when it rains if you can avoid driving, avoid driving.
Yeah, that's great. And you know, I was a huge proponent of work at home. I had some disagreements with some department heads like you were one of
them. Well my flood control people needed to be at work
But I think this is a message to all department heads right now, right? Because we got really good at working from home during COVID. There was infrastructure that was put in place. People had systems to work from home. Again it doesn't work for everybody but I think this would be an opportunity when we get the week and a half away from a major storm event if we can as a department head Tool yes. Allow your employees to work from home during the... How many
inches would trigger that?
Yeah, you know me a few drizzles and I'd like to work from home.
I think we would have to come up with some parameters as you said on the main rainfall.
Yeah, I mean, I'm just putting that out there. That's a board policy but I'm just putting out this and let me just touch briefly. I know we're talking about the burn scars but as you know Mark my big concern will be the Palos Verdes Peninsula and Kevin you know that too very well and the sheriff knows that very well how and we know the land movement was directly connected to Rain, that's what made it happen. It accelerated. It's always been moving but that accelerated we know that and the last major rain event caused it to move in an incredible way. What are we doing Mark Kevin you know fire to support our Palos Verdes Peninsula cities?
You know I've been meeting with the
city
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All the cities in that area, we've been going over their plan which is to pump the groundwater and they've been successful at pumping ground water. They continue to do that as you know Supervisor. Their surface drainage is also a problem because it's the surface drainage which is infiltrating into And there is no practical way to conduct that surface drainage over the surface into the ocean quickly. It just is the nature of the beast up there. So one of things they have worked on is, and they continue to place temporary systems in place—and you know we supported them last year with technical advice on how to do that— And they are going to prepare again this El Nino season as if it's going to rain. You'll probably see your fist queen cover up there again.
Right, the
giant slip and slide.
Yes, giant slip and slide. Good way to say it. So they're prepping their city engineers in contact with us for working through any difficulties they may have. We're making sure our utilities aren't part of the problem as well. Thank you. And so we're prepping
for that. Madam Chair, let me just ask one more. Thank you and just keep your eye on them please because okay Kevin because the chair is like reining me in.
I was just going to say they're also hosting a peninsula prepared expo in October that the county is a participant in and that's for all of the peninsula cities
Thank you. And the last thing that I just want to throw out there is Catalina, which is certainly there's unincorporated area there and just want to make sure we are working with them to make sure that we can protect their residents, their wildlife if there's any left. And as you know, the whole evacuation issue for an island is extremely tenuous
So the camps on Catalina are the most vulnerable locations. They don't occupy the camps, they're not authorized to occupy the camps during rain events. This is an unincorporated area. The City of Avalon is in contact with us routinely on rain events as you know Supervisor so it's much like the peninsula and we could conduct maybe we can go out and conduct a similar prepping. Maybe Kevin knows that we're already going to do that.
Well, one specific thing that came up with Hurricane Hillary that drove some of the decision making was some of the impacts to SoCal Edison's infrastructure. And we've been meeting with SCE ever since then. They've made investments, they've armorized certain things, they've already deployed backup power. So there is more capabilities out there for Edison that change the decision making around evacuations too.
Thank you Madam Chair.
Thank you very much, Madam Chair. And thank you for bringing the issue to the table. It's clearly an important
one and I support all of the comments made
by my colleagues. To morale, you know when I think about faith-based organizations, churches, synagogues, mosques they certainly know the seniors in their membership and so as you do outreach to community based organizations we've had a variety of motions. The chair has carried some. bringing faith-based organizations into the county infrastructure. So reaching out to them, you know I had this broad idea when I was in the legislature to get have churches mosques and synagogues to get generators because that would be a great place if you know that your place of worship had a generator if there was an emergency you can go plug in your phone because individual residents we can't afford them but if they had them in every community it would be great so I hope that you will include them in your outreach planning We've talked a lot about burn scar areas and that's important, as well as I want to make sure previous slide areas too.
It occurred to me the one department I don't see here is Park and Rec when we think about some of their large regional parks that's been my experience Some of the Kinnehan Park property and neighboring properties that abuts residential areas. So I know park-and-rec was not included in the motion, but I'm hoping that there's coordination. We still have tarps in the second district from previous so just want to make sure that that's on our radar in communication with park-and-rec
It is supervisor. The area you're speaking about is one of the quote unquote skeletons or vulnerable locations in our system listed will be inspecting and I'll work with Norma to make sure that the county property isn't contributing to the problem
Two quick questions, Madam Chair. We've heard thank you for the PowerPoint that was very helpful. I was over there cheering Mr. Sheriff when you said if there's a sign that says don't cross, don't cross. I was like could you say it a little louder for the people in the back because it always amazes me that there will be a news segment where the sign said don't enter danger and someone drove through it so thank you for repeating that directive. You know Are there areas where any of you feel we remain most vulnerable still, even with the communications plan and all the plans that you shared with us today? Is it something that we should know as a board where you feel vulnerable?
It's human behavior supervisor. And it's individual responsibility that we will always be vulnerable and we will never educate enough Because there will always be someone who didn't hear, didn't know. So as I said before make way for the flood. Don't cross a stream. Don't drive if you don't have to. You know, heed the warnings when we ask you to evacuate. Evacuate. But again, we cannot spend enough money on education because we have found as our experience has been that everyone will need to be re-educated given the Mediterranean climate we live in because it doesn't rain enough for people to get—you go to other communities and it rains all the time? This isn't even a question as Supervisor said but in a place like L.A. with a Mediterranean environment and it's very flashy, it's high hazard, low frequency, high hazard event so education.
I appreciate that. How is OEM engaging with utility companies to ensure services are maintained for our shared constituents during the upcoming storms? I think that we have all looked at the travesty of Gary, Indiana and so wondering if there's been communication with utility companies.
There has been and it's kind of a two pronged approach. One is from us in emergency management in the National Weather Service, there's engagement with all of the utilities so that they have awareness of the potential storms and the impacts. The other side of it is our utilities have been hosting their own internal, well it's not internal but utility led processes that we've been participants into this is still going on. It's gonna continue to go on for the next few months.
And so we have different utilities that have stepped up to lead utility coordination efforts. And this spans across just like the major investor owned utilities, to even some of our municipal utilities and across different utility sectors. So not just power but gas and the other ones water sewage. So it's a broad effort.
Thank you Madam Chair
Thank you. I appreciate the panel and my questions by my colleagues, but I wanted to thank you Mr. Cohen for coming and spending time with us and humoring us. But can you explain when this was taken? The picture of the proposed El Nino?
That's a conceptual model that applies to what we have.
It's conceptual?
Yeah, and that's why we're having as many touch points as possible to give the latest expectations going forward
So what draws my attention to it is that on the upper portion here in this corner, it's warm right? That's northern. It's a northern continent there and then below where we're at in Los Angeles, it says wet and then it says wet and cool around Mexico and below so what does that mean though? It's kind of more of a lighter green or lighter shade. What are you saying?
Is it going to be
3:55 – 4:1124 turns
The odds are tilted towards above normal rainfall in aggregate over the course of the wintertime. It doesn't guarantee flooding, it certainly tilts the odds in that direction of significant storms but far from guaranteed at this juncture. So the overall what we call jet energy in the atmosphere, what's steering these storm systems has the potential regionally speaking to bring more storm systems through. Doesn't guarantee it at all because El Nino is a state of the water temperatures that atmospheric coupling is not perfect one-to-one.
Great questions.
So this isn't a quiz for our students then, right? For our staffs. Because when I saw it, I thought okay well what's the real message here and you're predicting. This is a prediction and it can change that's why I asked when you took it or when this was made available But anyway, I'm glad you're here. I'm glad you were able to add to our discussion and the lively discussion that we've had in everybody here. I think every single one of us has gone through some weather disaster, man-made or whatever it was.
Speaking about Montebello, we had that freak tornado and it displaced about 6,000 workers. One warehouse, two, three blocks. And so there are ramifications to when there are disasters. And I don't tie that to El Nino or El Niña, but nonetheless those things happen as well and that just makes me think how well are we prepared for anything similar to that? No one could predict that was coming is my understanding.
If I could elaborate on that, Supervisor. When we issue warnings, we're constantly balancing the detection of the phenomenon versus false alarm. When we issue a warning, there are going to be many people that are not directly impacted by life-threatening conditions. And we're very respectful of the false alarm desensitization concerns but at the same time those that do get impacted by the catastrophic weather they need some time and so there's a public education aspect I think a great opportunity that we have to work together to ensure people understand that a warning doesn't guarantee that you're going to personally experience those conditions, but that those conditions somewhere in that area are aligning to be favorable for destruction. And that even without a warning if we're talking about those conditions possibly coming together it might be worthwhile to take some extra steps.
It's a very dynamic situation overall, and there's no yes-no with a lot of things which I know folks want to have. And so having that communication, that public awareness about what are the bounds of predictability is really critical for being prepared.
Well let's hope people aren't betting. I mean that's the other question. I mean it's unfortunate that people actually bet on these things too. And it's unfortunate, and that's a message. That's something else but I just think it's important as well. I did want to ask questions of our public works. Mark, we've been working together a lot on a lot of different issues in our district and what I'm concerned about with an immense amount of rain coming down in certain areas in the unincorporated area for example City Terrace East Los Angeles. We have cliffs. We have city terrace where high hills Where water will just come straight down, nowhere to go. And I'm not sure that our community is really fully prepared in understanding what's taking place there.
And with the recent oil spill, that can still be impacted at this time because the timeframe doesn't allow for that to be cleaned up. By October so
give me a
sense of what that
on the oil spill I'm confident That will be in good shape come the time that we have real rain supervisor. I'm not that concerned about that Of course, we've got to keep pressurizing them and they have to have any construction They're gonna be doing to remediate will have to be controlled may not be able to do may have to shut them down If we get into a rainy season and we don't want them to cover the soil on that, so we'll be monitoring that for erosion control.
In your area like every area, we have these deficiencies or well-known areas where there's ponding or there's hillside movement. They're documented in our department. Every time we go on one of those investigations they're kept undocumented and then what we do in each rain season, we prepare and we pull those out and we look has anything been done to mitigate what mitigation and when we're in mitigation season, which is usually the summer.
If there hasn't been mitigation even by a private property owner, we've got them on the list and then we're visiting those locations to remind them. And so yes you mentioned a few there and again every one of the districts has some locations like this where drainage becomes a problem when it rains any kind of significance And then of course landsliding is a phenomenon in LA County given our geology and topography, the steepness of it that we look to trigger after multiple storms so cumulative flows.
Cumulative rain can cause landsliding. Debris flows are part of regular debris flow and we map those as was mentioned previously and we're mapping those and giving those to all first responders with each event as they're coming through. So preparedness has a lot to do with us planning pre-planning and then warning
I did want to raise the issue about the homeless too, particularly in Whittier Narrows and Lario Park. And I know that in the past we've had assistance by host committee, Sheriff's Host Committee, and I know they do a lot of work. Are they going to be going out regularly before? I'm sure, I'm certain before October and all of that to help us begin to identify the homeless
Yeah, our host team will be a significant part of our preparedness plan with all of our county partners.
And that's going to be ongoing?
That's year-round Supervisor, the host teams.
Especially.
Our department is apart of it as well as our folks from the homeless.
I'm really concerned because the last time there was a significant rain that we thought was coming, Hillary and what have you. Folks were cleared from the encampment, and they were taken to cities that were kind of far removed from where they were placed. So I would like to ask for us to start looking at how we can get the cities from the cogs that surround these areas to also provide incentives so they put aside vouchers. They have to put some skin in the game here, in my opinion and they have not. Some cities have taken that on and helped in my region for example City of Albany and Malden Park I want to say but I'm just saying it's not fair And there has to be some fairness when we talk about disasters. We're talking about people's lives who are impacted, and I don't see that discussion going on.
You say you want partnerships with cities but how willing are we really to make that demand? That they need to put up vouchers. And that's not directed at the weather service but obviously to our housing, our homeless OEM as well as you know our sheriffs can also play a role here because it's life. We're talking about taking care of people who are in distress finding them places when There isn't maybe sufficient shelter, one big congregate shelter. But the fact that we need vouchers so
is there any response? I can speak to that Supervisor. Thank you for that comment and we do have a very strong and growing relationships with our COGs in our cities that are funded by LSF for things like interim housing and voucher capacity. So we're increasing our awareness of what they're funding and how accessible those resources are in times of need There have been examples where we've called on our COGs to pitch in at situations where we don't have a resource and we need help, and several COGs have sort of pitched in to help there.
I think Hurricane Hillary was a really great example of partnering with HOST to get folks out of those dangerous areas and into programs like Pathway Home and getting them on a long-term path. We know how to do it. The issue is always resources, and we agree with you that partnering with our cities and our COGs to make all the resources on the table is what we need to be focused
on. I would really like to make a recommendation that the next report we have or if we can ask for a report on that very issue because I can't wait for October and to find out cities are calling me and saying well Supervisor, we have people out here. We don't have any vouchers. Well wait a minute. you do have funding that's available through your local, your local funding that you receive or homeless through your COGS and your cities has been made available. And why can't we identify a ratio or percentage? You know and start to develop some kind of metrics there. And it isn't just for my district I would think that it may be impactful in other areas as well but I do want to see something more granular and a real metric to be used
Yeah, and if you have cities that you want us to connect with directly that are calling you and saying like we don't have resources We can make sure they understand what's at those cogs that they can tap into
Well, it's disappointing because we've gone through this already with some of them. And they don't seem to take us serious and they put the blame, the onus on the county and that's not what this is about if it's really about partnership and coordination then I would say that's not a one way street here. It's gotta be two way. So I would ask for that to come back to us, CEO if you can. I don't mean to be rude with anybody but I'm just saying this is a fact that's happening in the county and it's not fair because we're responsible for a broader population than many of our cities are and there are many people right now that I know are very scared just overall they don't even want to accept public assistance in any way because they think it's going to impede them from getting anything else or Might even hurt their ability to establish citizenship and that's a fact.
And so I really want to be careful how we address our community, how we articulate, how we message to them and not just always micro-ethnic because 50% of this LA population speaks different languages While English is the dominant language, I understand that. But we need to start messaging in different ways and I would really implore our departments to do a better job. Some of you are but some can do a lot better and help each other.
Some are doing really well and some can do better. That's my plea for you. And then I think with that I would just say let's hope there isn't a big catastrophe We have other man-made catastrophes that are happening in D.C., but the ones that are here, at least we can work together and say we're going to work on it as a team. And I do want to thank OEM staff. I do want to thank your staff, Kevin, for their help on lineage and even on DPW and what have you The oil spill and all of that, because those are disasters that also impact our communities. And with this bad weather that we've had what almost a whole month or more of degree, weather degree over 90. And if you're in a home and you don't have air conditioning it's like 100. It's been pretty miserable for people right now in LA County and a lot of folks I will tell you some in my district don't have a lot of faith in anything we say.
So that to me is very important, that we do the very best that we can. Thank you. There's no further questions from my colleagues? Okay, we've beaten El Nino to death! All right, we'll go to public comment.
Will the following individuals please come forward and staff will assist you. Sean Patrick Patterson, Claudia Jerez, Luciano Haber, Colin Campbell and Daniel Garcia. Paloma Bustos your line is open. Please begin. Paloma Bustas your line is open.
Thank you, my name is Paloma Bustos with the Sanita Yoneta Trafficking Initiative at Loyola Law School. I just want to encourage the county to include human trafficking prevention in its planning for this storm season Last year the board passed a motion specifically focused on preventing human trafficking after natural disasters. That work recognizes that disasters can create conditions that increase vulnerability including displacement, lost income, unsafe work and an urgent need for housing or services.
Since the county is now planning for renewal this is an opportunity to build on that policy already in place and we asked the county to include trafficking prevention in its emergency planning community outreach and future reports to the board Doing this now will help make sure trafficking prevention is part of the county's response before the next emergency happens. Thank you.
Thank you. Caller ending in 0716, your line is open. Please state your name and begin.
Roy Hunker's Rollin Heights. I fought efforts to maintain modernized disaster readiness as to establish the risk to environment both natural and man-made, as evidenced by the City of Los Angeles and others who have failed us i.e., the Rollin Heights sewage flow into the Los Angeles River Data centers pose a new set of risk which the elected officials have been negligent and especially when I have suggested the county develop a homeless, a county-wide homeless and transient campsites i.e. crossroads how different this all could have been on the positive side there's a possibility that our historic drought status will be mitigated Thank you.
Thank you. Caller phone number ending in 5957, your line is open please state your name and begin.
Yes this is Mel Bailey and I just wanted to add I do appreciate the motion and I just wanted to tag on to one of the latter things that supervisor said as it relates to The language barrier. I wanted to know at what point or if the county is doing anything to assist our multilingual citizens or constituents to be able to learn English, and I think that would be helpful as well because we won't be able to control everything. Obviously the board can control departmental approaches but for the private businesses I think it's also important that Fellow community members of learning English and you know, I think it'd be a much safer situation for them So hopefully that's something that we can look into as well Thank you.
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Thank you We will now go to our in-person speakers. Please begin
Sean Patrick Patterson on program director of the next 5000 The next 5,000 emergency plan proposal was submitted. It is on public comment. The proposal will establish a major emergency distribution and temporary shelter center capable of supporting LA County during the natural disasters that... That's the Skid Row District. The Skid Row District already serves as a distribution center for the homeless.
If during a natural disaster all the homeless people are sent to the Skid Row District, we can consolidate the tents, the food, the medical supplies and it will serve not only the residents of LA County but also the homeless. And so I'm asking the board to consider the proposal by the next slide.
Thank you, next speaker please.
Hello, I'm Colin Campbell. District 5, Katherine Barger out of South Pasadena. I'm trying to do a pilot right now and I volunteered to share, elect to share my information with all federal state and local systems. This is for Stargate and one of the things that they're talking about is communication issues. So this uses all the communication networks that we have but we also have quantum internet And so quantum internet allows you to be able to communicate instantly faster than light. And so, you essentially could alert people if telephone network is down to evacuate them and I'm trying to get them to do the pilot out of South Pasadena. I'd like to show some new technology and I would like to demonstrate U.S. Cyber Command's best capabilities So this is new technology, and it's our AI.
And South Pasadena is concerned because of privacy issues but we can contain them.
Thank you next speaker please
Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen my name is Luciano Haber I'm a firefighter with Southern California Wildfire Response We're a community fire department based up at the Santa Monica Mountains First of all, I'd like to say thank you for your leadership in times of emergency preparation and items like this. Listening to this presentation, I've identified problems that have the greatest solution, community involvement as a community fire department. That is what we specialize in.
We are initial attack, tactically capable and I believe in old-fashioned retail politics. I've gone door to door with 19 HOAs with every LAFD station in the San Fernando Valley most of these city council offices in person that is something we strive to do and I would love the opportunity to make you aware that we are capable, we are mobile and we are ready to assist in any and all natural emergency or wildfire crisis thank you.
Thank You next speaker please
Hi, and then you go here. I appreciate all your wonderful participation in making sure that the people would be in a continuous eye on them fully prepared for this MMS and police My question is more to do with the issue that has not been discussed. The issue is how many are available? Thank you, next speaker please.
Good morning, good afternoon. Claudia Jerez, DPSS DWC. I can say that on that map, I can tell you, I can recognize the verbiage of that map, that wet and cool in that way. I think we can advance to something greater than wet and cool. It's a little bit elementary, wet and cool. You know I think we can advance it to something more I guess I don't know more you know scholarly I would say that's my comment for that.
It's necessary to be prepared for all types of weather events. La Niña and El Nino to hit in the month of September is an out-of-normal condition, it's a special circumstance for all of us. The impact of destruction these hazards bring to our community requires all hands on deck approach. El Niño and La Niña and the destruction this represents requires an analysis due to the extreme nature of its capacity for destruction. The dissemination of our communities could be a real possibility.
That concludes the time for public comment on this item.
Madam Chair, this report will be received and filed.
Thank you. Hearing no objections that will be the order.
We will now
move on to item 19, protecting Eaton and Palisades fire survivors from fraud, predatory practices and contractor scams which was held by Supervisor Barger. For members of the public on the phone if you've already signed up to speak no further action is needed. If you're on the phone and wish to comment but haven't signed up press star and follow the prompts to join the speaking queue If you have not registered or registered but watching the meeting to address the board, please call 213-444-2600 press star and follow the prompts. An operator will assist you. Rafael Carbajal, Director of Consumer Business Affairs and Mark Pastrella, Director of Public Works are available for questions. For the departmental speakers please state your name and title for the record when you address the board.
4:17 – 4:253 turns
Thank You Supervisor Barger.
Thank you and I want to thank Supervisor Horvath for co-authoring this motion As more Eaton Fire survivors move forward with rebuilding, my office has heard increasing concerns about contractor fraud and bad actors that are targeting homeowners in Altadena who were very vulnerable at this time. As the region contends with more home building than was anticipated new companies are emerging to help rebuild our communities but with that comes the need to protect homeowners from potentially fraudulent and unprepared contractors. And I would say if it's too good to be true, it is too good.
While there are predatory and fraudulent actors out there some companies and builders also find themselves completely beyond capacity on unwittingly harming survivors. However at the end of the day our residents have already lost far too much and need support to make individual decisions that help them rebuild and come home. They should not have to worry about being victimized again and again by unscrupulous contractors or scammers.
That is why we are bringing in this motion today. We need to make sure the county is responding to what we are seeing on the ground, and our consumer protection and enforcement partners are working together. It also puts a strong emphasis on prevention, and I know we started off when we began the rebuild process trying to educate. The DA did a press conference. We've been very proactive. In trying to educate people to make sure that your contractor has a license, because the liability will fall on you if something happens on your property or they are not licensed and have some sort of workman's comp insurance.
This motion directs county departments to develop and execute a coordinated plan of action to address contractor fraud and other scams that are impacting the survivors This includes establishing a specialized task force made up of county departments and law enforcement partners to ensure that all the tools and resources necessary are being deployed. And by the way, these are already in existence just not on a coordinated effort. Survivors need clear trusted information before they sign a contract or spend their recovery dollars including how to verify a contractor's license, understand the contracts they are signing, recognize the warning signs of a scam and report suspected fraud.
By integrating these resources into our one-stop permitting centers and working with trusted community partners we can reach survivors where they are in the rebuilding process. While we have done previous outreach through workshops and consultations it is clear that we must do more to educate survivors on ways to protect themselves. Our goal is to protect survivors and make sure the people rebuilding in our communities are legitimate, licensed and accountable.
I understand the DCBA needs to move quickly to enter into agreements for paid media including billboards and other advertising in the fire impacted areas As well as in-person support and outreach with legal service providers. And so to expedite those efforts, I would like to read in a minor amendment to Directive 3 and it would be as follows. The board shall waive the requirements of Board Policy Number 5.100 for these agreements. These agreements and any amendments shall be approved as to form by county council to keep a checks and balance And thank you, Rafael for pointing that out to us because this is a sense of urgency. I've talked to someone whose family member handed over 50% down payment and never saw the contractor again and took off with the money.
You know, even with those that are contracted or that are licensed. We also have businesses and there was one prefab business where the gentleman thought when he paid the amount of money that it was for everything because that's kind of the way it's advertised and then he found out it wasn't and he took his life. Now did the company do anything illegal? No.
But if he had known what he was signing and that the little footnotes were, by the way you have to pay for a slab moving the building on, hooking up to sewer, hooking up to water. He may have thought twice about paying $450,000 for what he thought was ready to go. So these are lessons learned but these are also things that are happening today So, I would ask you Rafael and again thank you and your team. You're in the community and it's greatly appreciated. What are the most common contractor scams or violations that you are seeing in Altina and maybe even in the Palisades burn area?
And what happens after a complaint is filed?
Thank you very much Supervisor Rafael Carbajal, the privilege and honor of being the Director of the Department of Consumer and Business Affairs. And thank you Supervisor Barger and Supervisor Horvath for bringing this motion. The concerns that we're watching closely include unlicensed contracting, improper payment practices, misrepresentation about licensing and qualifications. We see a lot of that. Incomplete or problematic contracts, which is people not understanding exactly what's in the contract or how they're written. Work that is abandoned or substantially different from what they thought they were purchasing or paying for.
Contractors taking advantage of residents who are under tremendous stress and they're putting high pressure tactics on them to execute these agreements. So we do at DCBA recognize that when people come to us and reach out with these issues, they're already frustrated, scared, and don't understand where to go and turn around and turn to for help So we simply don't just look at the complaints, we actually sit down and we triage them to determine not only do they fall under our jurisdiction but we review the facts. We triage the entire situation, review documentations and we provide counseling and connection to other resources that they might need. And even if it's not within our jurisdiction or authority, we work with our partners collaboratively.
Including the DA, the Attorney General and our very own County Council Affirmative Litigation Team. And ultimately what we like to do is collect the data too so that we could start forecasting potential issues in the region. So we can start addressing them before people actually fall victim to some of these issues. And like you noted, Supervisor, prevention is just as important as helping people when they're already in trouble. So one of the things that we want to do is scale up the outreach. Anytime you drive through Altadena or the Palisades or anywhere there's been an emergency, the first thing you see is billboards on attorneys and how to sue and how to find some assistance. We need to do the same to make sure that folks understand what their rights are and the resources that are available to them.
Another thing I'd like to add is that our team, our counselors actively support folks Who are going through these situations of folks need assistance understanding a contract, understanding their rights or responsibilities. They could also call us and we'll actually walk them through some of the paperwork and some of the process themselves so that they can understand what they're facing. And in regards to the additional reading language, really appreciate that because we do want to execute some agreements immediately using leveraging some of the dollars. Our county council has already helped us acquire results from other work that Affirmative Lead has already been doing to get advertisement out both on the radio billboards, print ads, bus benches and then also bring in some support from the legal service community to help folks already stuck in these situations.
4:25 – 4:305 turns
I've got more, but I'm going to consolidate it into one because I know my co-author wants to say something. But to both you and Mark, obviously what you're hearing in terms of the fraud, are you all coordinating to best leverage both communication to the public? Because not everyone's going to come to a permitting meeting that we hold in Loma Alta Park. So are you all leveraging communication channels to make sure that we are touching at every touchpoint possible?
Yes, we are. We're actually working with multiple departments including LACDA, Public Works, the DA, all of our partners even some of the city staff to get information out. We hold regular workshops around this information but like anything there could always be better coordination and that's why I appreciate this motion it actually pushes us forward to continue to build on what we already started
You know, I can confirm that Supervisor. There's a presence in our one-stop center not only of the DCBA but also the Contractor State Licensing Board is also present in the one-stop centers. As you said though there are multiple touch points and we're not sure where they're going to touch point first in the system. They typically homeowners, I'm sorry survivors will find a contractor first and that's sometimes too late because they've already been convinced to go with that person But we are continuing to provide vetted names of contractors who've done work in LA County at our one-stop centers.
We're educating the public when they come in. One of the things that has come to our attention, there's an interesting thing going on with people coming in and we noticed an uptick in people who are applying to be their own builders. It's called builder-owner, owner-builder. Under state law, homeowners can build their own home but it's a very significant effort to do so and it's wrought with danger because you still have to hire the subs and subcontractors. And there's another little twist to that I know about personally is if you go owner-builder And you have a mortgage, and you are taking insurance money to pay that down. The mortgage company will be very, very anti-owner builder. They will want a licensed contractor to give that money—to send the money too.
So it can be a delay in your reimbursement of your insurance as well. So this is another thing that's going on. I'm aware of several folks that don't have the right licensure to build, but they're guiding property owners to go owner-builder. We normally cannot tell them they can't do that, but we would push them away from doing that given the insurance requirements and what I just described you in terms of reimbursement from their mortgage companies. It's a difficult approach.
You never know where it's coming from. Thank you for that. Again, thank you Supervisor Horvath for co-authoring this. It's unfortunate we have to do this but the reality is that when I hear someone say they're excited they paid $200 a square foot... A red flag, because the average right now is about $350 to $400 a square foot. And so that's what the contractors are leveraging is the price per square foot and you get someone unsuspecting and they're desperate.
So thank you
Thank you very much. I appreciate you bringing forward this motion, Supervisor Barger to better protect our wildfire survivors from fraud scams and other predatory business practices as thousands of families continue the process of rebuilding their homes and their communities The last thing they need is to be taken advantage of by scammers and predatory actors. My team has heard from constituents in the Palisades Fire areas who have already lost thousands of dollars to unlicensed contractors.
Our seniors, those with limited English proficiency and vulnerable households in particular need clear consistent and frequent communication to understand their rights and access consumer protection resources. This should include how to file complaints and how to report fraud. In addition to directing a plan of action from departments to address and curb fraud in 30 days, this motion also directs an expanded awareness campaign and the expanded communications will utilize both online methods and in-person resources at our county one stops in Altadena and Calabasas as has been said and with community partner organizations like the long term recovery groups The awareness campaign should include materials in multiple languages. Our wildfire survivors have already been through far too much, and I look forward to the plan of action and awareness campaign to increase consumer protection for our LA County residents.
And my one question is that we increased the penalties and enforcement power for DCBA in terms of violations for price gouging protections earlier this year and certainly last year. Are there additional enforcement tools or authority you need that could deter some bad actors and provide more remedies for victims of fraud?
4:31 – 4:358 turns
That's a great question that I'd like to sit down with our colleagues at County Council. They actually have the authority to pursue unlawful business practices, unfair business practices under the 17200s which is something that we can leverage to try to pursue some of these bad actors if the existing laws don't exist and that's why we coordinate really closely with them on that.
When the price gouging protections were in place, there were rebuilding protections in place. But once they expired those rebuilding protections expired along with the protections
All right, well I think given that we know people are being preyed upon unfortunately and they're incredibly vulnerable and they just want to get home. Making sure that you have the tools that you need to protect our residents is important so if there are additional tools at your department needs in order to achieve that end please do let us know thank you
I just want to add, I support the motion Supervisor Barger and Horvath. This is something that has been a continual, I guess challenge for the county for so many disasters and things that we've gone through. For me, recently it was the lineage fire where we had people that were actually increasing funds or asking for additional funds for purifiers. They're going door to door and they were charging like $300 for maybe a hundred or seventy-five dollar purifier. And then also we're seeing attorneys Very similar to attorneys that are taking advantage of some of the folks that have been involved in or alleged involvement in things with the county, with children and family services etc. In this case these attorneys are actually corralling residents paying them their dinner and saying, hey if you have a claim there's one two three four five things and you fit this mold we'll take your case on.
And it's not towards us it's towards the corporation but nonetheless I don't know What the standards are for the law firms that are doing this, but they're advertising and they are going out to communities and they're also leaving leaflets at people's homes. We've already found that so I would just say that when we think about this let's think about it in a broad sense too So that way we can defend what we're doing and then
move on to the next But I do support the item. Thank you Seeing no more questions from the board, let's go to public comment.
Will the following individuals please come forward and staff will assist you? Catherine Peoples, Roxanne Nazario, Claudia Jerez and Luciana Haber. As a final reminder for remote participants in order to address the board remotely you must call 213-444-2600 whether you're registered or not. Madam Chair, there are no remote callers to address the board. We will go to our in-person speakers. Please begin.
Good afternoon, Board and Chair. My name is Catherine Peoples. I am the Executive Director of HPP Cares. I represent the Rebuild Center for both the Eaton as well as the Palisade Long-Term Recovery Center where we provide rebuild case management as well as support to all of our survivors. We have seen unbelievable predatory activities happening in the community up to the tune of a million dollars. I've had a survivor lose $1 million to an unlicensed contractor So I am so thankful that you brought this motion. We must all agree to this motion, our survivors need this and I cannot stress it enough.
Countless days after day we see numerous survivors $300,000, $700,000 that they have paid individuals that are not licensed. We must stop the ability for anyone to be able to pull an owner builder permit If you made that one change for me, it would make my day amazing. It would allow us to have immediate prevention. Thank you. Next speaker
please.
Back at the podium this is uh my name is Luciano Haber again with Southern California Wildfire Response. This was not something I initially was planning to speak on but I just wanted to because as we spoke two victims of the Palisades and the Eaton fires I just wanted to personally say thank you for addressing this. There has been a lot of problems and a lot of attention on the illegal contracting side, fraudulent practices side and just general fraud. We've spoken to three families in the Palisades who were actually convinced Thank you. Next speaker, please.
4:36 – 4:397 turns
My name is Roxanne Nazario, I'm the Director of Policy and Advocacy at HPP Cares. I just want to thank Supervisor Horvath and Barger for bringing this forward as my boss Catherine Peoples was just sharing we are the eyes on the ground. We are at the EFC, we are rebuilding, we're dealing with these survivors every day and we've kind of become the place that everybody goes to when they have nowhere else to go So my boss is on the phone for hours at a time meeting with survivors, trying to give them hope. Trying to give them a path back to home so we started sounding this alarm and thankfully you guys were already on it. So you guys were already putting this together which we appreciate. We've been doing educational contractor events, especially when it comes to building in the burn zone which is different right?
So a lot of these contractors coming in even if they're licensed and have everything in place They still may not have the experience of working in burn zones. So that's important we need to keep the education up because most people don't really know what's happening
Good afternoon, Claudia Jerez, DPSS-DWC. Public awareness community engagement back we must be we must go back to the old community getting together to make sure these practices do not occur it takes a village to raise a child and it takes a village to maintain that child and that's our environment Our environment, our atmosphere, our homes. It takes really a village and this is a village here and we are you know in a way together you know going through this. And so I think that grief is very important when the fires are happening. Grief is important that people understand that They do need support for that, emotional support. People to understand how to move forward with the grief, losing your home, losing everything and having everything in destruction.
I think that people have to understand that people do need support. Thank you. Thank you. That concludes the time
for public comment on this item.
Madam Chair, Item 19 as revised is before you.
Moved by Supervisor Barger, seconded by Supervisor Horvath. As amended to approve the item, Executive Officer call the roll.
Roll-call vote Passed 5–0 Moved by Barger · Seconded by Lindsey P. Horvath Moved by Supervisor Barger, seconded by Supervisor Horvath. As amended to approve the item, Executive Officer call the roll.
Show transcript
Motion carries 5-0 We will now
move on to item 21, report on the strategic plan to curtail street racing in Los Angeles County which was held by Supervisor Mitchell. For members of the public on the phone, if you've already signed up to speak no further action is needed. If you're on the phone and wish to comment but haven't signed up press star and follow the prompts to join the speaking queue. If you have not registered or registered but are watching the meeting to address the board please call 213-444-2600. Press star and follow the prompts. An operator will assist you. David Carroll, Director of Youth Development. Steve Berger, Deputy Director and Julian Garcia, Principal Engineer, Department of Public Works. Commander Terrence Bell, Sheriff's Department. Victor Puebla, Captain, Sheriff's Department.
And Carrie Miller, Branch Manager, Policy Implementation and Alignment Branch, Chief Executive Office will give a presentation. For the departmental speakers please state your name and title for the record when you address the board.
4:39 – 4:484 turns
Supervisor Mitchell
Thank you very much, Madam Chair. And I want to thank the Street Takeover Reduction Work Group and all the departments who are here today and working collaboratively with you. You know, I continue to hold this item because I think it's important that we make it a priority and that the general public continues to understand the work that's happening. So I think I'll turn it over and hear the presentation then I'll come back, Madam Chair, and we'll have some questions.
Supervisor Jeremy Gray, just like to quickly open Chief Operating Officer for the CEO. We submitted our seventh report on this matter last week. If you recall when we presented the last time, we presented that during the period of 2024 to 2025, we actually saw a decrease of around 33% in activity. And we have since as you can see from our last report seen a spike and I'm going to have Dr. Carrie Miller and our panel talk about some of our analysis and some of the remediation strategies that we plan to execute to address those fluctuations in our numbers. Dr. Miller?
Thank you, Jeremy. Good afternoon. Pleasure to be here. I'm Carrie Miller, the branch manager for Policy Implementation and Alignment Branch with the Chief Executive Office, and I'll walk through the presentation and then open it up for questions. Next slide please. So as you know, we have a full group of private partners, public partners, community-based organizations and advocates that we are working with to try to really get a handle on this problem moving forward. Next slide.
So what we saw, as Jeremy mentioned, we saw a 33% drop since for the year after we implemented our original action plan. That number and that drop actually held for five straight quarters and then we saw a spike. And if you see the spike it's pretty dramatic and disturbing. We went up 41% from the exact same time period over the last two years. Next slide please.
With that, there was a lot of activity that we did to implement the action plan that our partners here worked really hard on. As you see over 3,000 students and community residents participated in prevention and education workshops. And 84% of participants did say that they would be less likely to participate in any type of this activity after participating in those workshops. Next slide.
If you look at the infrastructure that DPW has been working really hard to put in place, over the last quarter they installed three installations in East Gardena, two in Walnut Park, two in East Rancho Dominguez and eight in Florence Firestone. This represents the most significant installations of any quarter that we've had since we started doing this work and you see there's four additional planned installations underway. Next slide please.
This is a picture for folks who don't know what an intersection installation looks like of the work of DPW installing one of these. Next slide, please? Looking at enforcement operations for LASD, they conducted eight solo agency operations in the last quarter. A combination of LAS and CHP's activity issued 134 citations made 46 arrests and towed 47 vehicles. The DA we know diverted 31 people using the street racing kills diversion program and collected restitution in the amount of $3,000.
And they're still prosecuting two felony cases of organizers of street takeovers as we speak. Next slide, please. We are continuing with our community and communication strategies. As you know, the Department of Youth Development Services last quarter put out a PSA on the dangers of these events. This was informed by youth and largely constructed with youth input. And they've seen really significant performance on the channels where they have posted this PSA. Next slide please.
In terms of identifying safe and legal alternatives, we have our first event that is scheduled for September 19th at Santa Fe Dam. We are looking at targeting youth using go-karts so that they can learn how to safely participate in these activities and we can use that as an opportunity to stress that legal drifting is far better than the illegal options. Avenues with Antelope Valley Fairgrounds and Pomona Fairgrounds, both who have expressed interest in holding legal alternative events. Next slide please So if we look at the data this is CHP data We saw that their numbers jumped 21 which is almost doubling from where they were at the last quarter next slide please Looking at LASD's jurisdiction, we did see a 200% spike over the previous quarter.
This was largely in Supervisorial District 2. Next slide please. What we did to try to better understand this data is, we did a breakdown between unincorporated areas and contract cities. And it was interesting when we did that because what we found is there are actually zero events happening in the unincorporated areas except for SD2 but what you see is a big jump in contract cities much higher than what we've seen in the past. Next slide please.
And so we further dug into this data to see, well what is happening here? And when we looked at the data for contract cities comparing this last quarter, quarter two, to one year prior. So that we're looking at apples-to-apples comparison there was a 200% spike in contracted cities. Next slide please. However, when we looked at the unincorporated area data this is what was really interesting. We only saw a 16% spike which could be what we would expect from like regional differences however what was really important if you look at the central division There was a drop of 28. So in the middle of this incredible spike that we saw, there was a drop in this central division so we wanted to understand that more. Next slide please.
So when we started to break down what was happening in Central Division that might be different than other areas, we know that LASD had Considerable enforcement efforts in that area, so that was certainly something that happened. But we also then started to look at our DPW installations to try to better understand what that picture looked like and what you will see here is that in the last year through last quarter they installed 14 intersection installations and all of them were in central division boundaries. So that is significant that every single place that they put them is in the very same area where we saw this drop.
Next slide please. So looking forward, DPW has as you can see here additional installations planned and now what we're going to look at is the south division because that's where the spike happened. Next slide. And then as we've always report out, what are the costs of these impacts? DPW reported a $410,000 cost just for last quarter. Not only because of the installations that they were doing but also because there was significant damage to the installations they did do and required a number of repairs to those installations.
Next slide. So with this, the workgroup has spent a lot of time trying to understand and figure out what has been going on and what can we do to remedy this situation? So we know that this is a complex problem. We know there are a lot of factors driving it, and it's gonna take a lot of different types of interventions to really get a handle on this spike and get it back down to where we were. So across the partners, they will speak more about this but just at a high level. They have already committed to expanding school and community prevention programming, planning installations in the South Division intersections which is where the spike occurred, deploying additional enforcement resources and we are increasing our social media monitoring and trying to remove as many of these posts that we possibly can since we know that drives a lot of the activity.
Next slide please. And with that we open it up for questions.
4:48 – 4:543 turns
Thank you very much. Thank you, Madam Chair and thank you. To the panel, I don't, the 200% increase is alarming but I want to start by acknowledging the collective work that you all have done. Who's to say it wouldn't have been larger? I think we were very optimistic about the trend that we'd seen over the last several quarters and we knew summer was coming and we knew what the trends showed us for this summer and so I certainly wasn't Nowhere near anticipating a 200% increase, particularly when you give the disproportionate number of those that are in the second district.
Both contract cities and the unincorporated communities. We recently, my team did a work group community walk in East Gardena and Willowbrook the 18th of last month And again, I want to thank Public Works Sheriff's Department and our other partners for participating in that and hearing directly from residents and beginning to identify concrete next steps. You know this is an interesting issue where people have all kinds of ideas and I do believe this multi- I understand the Sheriff's Department conducted an operation at 157th and Broadway.
And there was a great reduction, and yet then we heard from and got video from constituents that showed that the crowds returned this past weekend. So it's like we've got a presence, and yet people come back. So I'm hoping that is an area that we can continue to monitor and focus on. So, I guess really my question is what are next steps? I appreciated seeing the data.
Separated by unincorporated areas and contract cities. Identifying the area where there was a slight reduction, you know what could have caused that? Acknowledging the fact that it's public works interventions that are helpful. What are our next steps? What mitigation strategies are we going to consider moving forward for SD2 as well as the county as a whole?
I can take a stab at that, Supervisor Steve Berger, Deputy Director for Transportation LA County Public Works. Yeah so as I think you heard from Carrie and as you alluded to we're starting to see data that's informing us that some of these interventions the physical interventions are working and so we're using that data. I love the fact that we're getting really solid data now.
And we're using that to focus where we want to do the next installations. The other thing that was notable, that is a lot of the uptake was in the cities and we've already begun reaching out to those cities to offer our expertise or collaboration. This is all one county and although they'll have to be the ones to put in these installations in their jurisdiction, we definitely have the ability and the desire to work with them to share our expertise, our experience And help them get, if they decide that these physical interventions are meaningful and helpful to help them with that as well.
Good afternoon board and happy to see you I'm David Carroll director of the Department of Youth Development You saw earlier the 3336 workshop or folks that were served through about 127 workshops We are fortunate that we were able to continue that work with Street Racing Kills, but expand and focus it. So we're moving from one-off workshops to sustained engagement where we can work with the same group of young people over an extended period of time so they fully understand the dangers of street racing and in the alternatives etc. We're focusing on multiple school districts including in Compton, Montebello and Pomona among many others, but we have those specific relationships already set up. We're expanding our reach across the DYD school-based programming so we've got about 10 schools that are served through the Bloom Initiative and another ten that are served through the DYD Rooted Initiative.
So all those schools will be receiving the workshops through SRK. on a regular basis. We're going to continue to participate in community-based prevention and outreach, again going to the community events, partnering with Parks and Recreation, Our Spot Teen program as well as JCOD stores locations to offer the workshops in those facilities as well as our 42 youth development network providers that are spread across every spa, across all five supervisorial districts. We're going to ask young people what's working, right? Increase their youth engagement so they can tell us what we need to do to hammer the message home so that they really understand why we are providing the workshops and what the goal is.
And continuing to work with our provider to strengthen their workshop delivery model so it is having the impact that we expect.
4:54 – 5:1010 turns
I wanted my partners to go first, because obviously for the Robert Luna of the Sheriff of LA County. I want to make sure everybody understands that we do support the multi-pronged approach. Education is critical. Engineering is critical and our partners at Public Works just talked about that so I'm not going to talk about the enforcement portion of this. Our department was doing very well, you saw the statistics up until this year we actually had a significant reduction again it was shown on the chart but this last summer things went into completely opposite direction I find it to be unacceptable.
Obviously, when we're talking about street takeovers, it is something our community is becoming less tolerant of and we're getting a lot of complaints. But what I want to spend a couple of minutes talking about is in the last month or so, we have seen a very disturbing trend Where there are individuals that are coming in to do these street takeovers, and there are burglaries or what people call looting attached to it.
These videos are extremely disturbing you have dozens and dozens of young men and women running into Whether it be auto stores, markets and I just want to bring specific attention to an incident that happened in Bellflower. And we just had another one in Bellflower early last this morning but you had a very hardworking family immigrant family who worked their whole lives to put this market together.
They had a street takeover at an intersection in Bellflower and parts of this group went in there and caused what's estimated at about $30,000 in damage. I've seen enough of this to where I'm just making a public statement That if you are involved in these street takeovers and you choose to go out and impact our businesses in our community, there's going to be some significant accountability.
We're trying the engineering we'll continue to do that will continue to do our education which I fully support But if you are specifically burglarizing our businesses here in Los Angeles County, we are not going to tolerate it. One I have asked our department leadership to put more focus on issuing more citations and seizing more vehicles. So in a way when we're talking about education, I am warning our community that if your kids are out there partaking in this type of activity There is a high probability That there's going to be a citation and arrest or your vehicle being impounded as A result of the activity that's occurring out there.
Please know that as I've given that direction, we have more of our specialized units in investigations and other parts of our department that will be assisting our patrol stations that are heavily impacted by this activity. I have personally called the CHP Commissioner Sean Dury and I've asked him for help He has been, him and I have an extraordinary relationship.
He's already sending additional units. And I also want people to know that the US Attorney here has called me and he's asked to be involved in the enforcement of this. And people may say, well how does the US Attorney's Office get involved in this type of activity? We will be working with the DA's office because there will be conspiracy charges filed specifically on individuals who are doing the burglaries or looting as people call them. So it's a very serious and I'm putting out this warning to our community please we need to stop this nonsense. It's illegal, it's very serious We've had violent crimes at these incidences.
This cannot continue. I have authorized the use of drones over some of these more problematic intersections, and just going to give an example because I don't want to get into too much detail that as a result of the drone footage We were able to capture vehicles that may not have been directly involved in doing the donuts around the intersections, but they were blocking the intersection so other cars couldn't get in.
And our detectives on follow-up investigations went out, got a warrant to seize these individual cars And we impounded seven additional cars on top of what we're doing already. We're going to continue to do that kind of work. So again, this is not without warning. I'm tired of it. Our community's tired of it. This behavior is unacceptable and so I would like as much help as I can get And I know one thing that we're looking at, and I think it may just need a little bit more data research is that some of the cities that are being very successful in impacting this problem.
I'm going to use the city of Pico Rivera for example. They are now issuing administrative sites for spectators. It's $2,000. That sounds like a lot of money. It is a lot of money. But until we start doing this, I believe in our unincorporated areas. That'll further give us an additional tool to impact this and hopefully keep these individuals who are involved in this away from this. And the last thing I'll say, and I want to go back to the US Attorney's Office and That if you are involved in arranging these, setting these up and somehow profiting from this.
I'm going to use every tool at my disposal to come after you, whether it's through the L.A. District Attorney's Office or the U.S. Attorney's Office. You cannot impact our communities in this fashion anymore. So that's the end of my report and I stand ready for any questions any of you may have.
I appreciate that Sheriff and I appreciate you coming today to participate in the panel. Let me say, I agree with you it's horrible that small businesses have been impacted but I want to add there are communities that have been terrorized for years and so I appreciate us highlighting businesses that are being looted but I don't want it to be lost that there Family, friends and neighbors who have had loss of life and are being held captive in their houses week after week after week. And so I appreciate you bringing the fire today and I hope that's sustained not only for our small businesses but for our residents who have been held captive in their homes. They are the people who have brought this attention to us, who have come here quarter after quarter to testify who reach out to you all, who talk about not being able to leave their homes on the weekends because out of fear of not being able to get back into their homes.
So I appreciate that. I don't want their lived experiences minimized at all given kind of the new heightened attention when I wanna appreciate the media's attention on this. It takes it to another level when people see businesses Impact it. I don't want the community members lived experience for years now lost in that
Yes, ma'am and I was my head was shaking up and down just acknowledging what you were saying and please know That our residents have not been ignored. I know how frustrating it is yes But I think if you look at the statistics that actually showed That our different stations were we're starting to impact this up until this coming year So we we were listening to our residents a lot of frustrated residents And as you stated there has been violence At some of these incidences that we take very serious and that's why we were responding the way We are or have been I just wanted to make that clear
I appreciate that. I think it's also really tragic, you know this is as we talk about our budgets and all that we're trying to do and all that you are trying to do the fact that this is completely avoidable. You know we just spent hours talking about El Nino and things that we don't have any control over and how we have to devote resources to keep people safe. This is completely preventable. I think it's also important to acknowledge out loud that specific communities continue to be targeted Period.
And the question for me is, as a result of your arrests, if there is a sense that there are people who are coming into these communities to engage in this illicit behavior? Or if it's local residents who are tearing up the streets in their own neighborhoods?
We can definitely dig in to get more specific information and the commander can correct me if I'm inaccurate. It's a combination of both, unfortunately.
So that's not lost on me that particular communities are being targeted for this behavior. That's deeply disturbing. I would like if possible that the new Data today in terms of how you're being able to burrow down specifics was very helpful. But if we can, if prosecutions are increasing and arrests are increasing it would be I think helpful for us to have a sense of people coming into the community or not. Particularly as we begin to target or continue to target the multi-pronged strategy.
If we're targeting schools in districts where it's happening, but that's not who's committing the crimes. And we need to figure out how to partner with neighboring municipalities to make sure that the public education is going to where the people are who are engaging in the activity. So that's why I think it's important for us to actually know.
I acknowledge that thank you.
Thank you very much Madam Chair.
Yes Supervisor
Hahn? Thank You Madam Chair. Yeah, I was really frustrated at the increase. Both my district but certainly in the second district was the largest and in my district they went up by almost 50. In Supervisor Mitchell's district they had 96 last quarter and 323 This quarter so I was frustrated, especially listening carry to everything you're doing and all the statistics about all the workshops and the education and the outreach and the intersection barriers. I mean we've done a lot since this first started and so it was extremely frustrating to me.
Supervisor Mitchell is calmer about this than I was when I saw these numbers. But there's lots of theories about why World Cup celebrations, sporting events, media promotions around attractions for racing and new trend video game driving that promotes reckless driving The fact sheet says, recent decentralization of the LAPD street takeover task force and or disruption to intelligence sharing among law enforcement agencies. And I know you're going to address all those trends. You don't have to tell us now exactly how you're doing that but I think all those Contributing factors are not necessarily going away. I mean, it's not the World Cup but it'll be something else and I'm wondering after listening to the El Nino preparation right? I'm wondering how much this task force is really preparing for at least one of those factors which would be of course you know the Olympics And Sheriff, I'm really glad you said what you said because.
You know that what happened in Bellflower was just shocking, shocking and it was almost like this street takeover almost looked like a distraction to what they were actually there to do. They were actually there to loot and rob that liquor store but Street takeover and the, you know, the spinning and the sparks. And I think there were some fireworks seemed like it was a big distraction.
And thank you for being sensitive Sheriff to that family that was devastated now they reached out to our office because I represent Bellflower and the family felt they have not felt comfortable Walking around at night since that incident occurred. They also felt like what they reached out to us was that our Bellflower substation, which is just a substation was understaffed and I appreciate Sheriff and Commander Bell, your work on maybe increasing some penetration there in that area. But sometimes when we just have a substation it is not highly staffed. There's not as many personnel as a regular station.
What would you say Sheriff to the community and particularly to this family that own this store? How do we get them to feel safe?
5:10 – 5:2429 turns
First of all, I just spoke about the sensitivity towards the family. I'll make sure that they connect with our captain at the Lakewood station, which also covers Bellflower to make sure that we do everything we can to make sure that they know that we are there. We respond, we investigate and our deputies do an amazing job of doing that 24-7 Obviously, I will never use any excuse like staffing or anything else but we are a department that's understaffed. We've talked about that on many occasions here.
But when I go out and communicate consistently with our community, one, I want them to know that I have the authorization to hire between 800 and 1,000 deputies per year. You guys have given us that authorization so that's a misnomer out there based on past history And our staffing is actually, I'm sorry, our hiring, recruiting and hiring is actually up. Our applications are up about 50%.
Anytime we talk about recruiting, I remind everybody that we are hiring and so if anybody knows anybody who wants to be a deputy sheriff please come on out. And, but there's you know we're still at the negotiating table. I think all of you know that. That impacts staffing. We're talking about this STAR program which impacts our retention. That all impacts everything we're talking about.
But if you're talking about nightly deployments Whether it's in the city of Lakewood, Bellflower or any of the unincorporated areas that impact all of your districts. Our deputies are out there. We have the staffing we have out there that's usually not following falling below the minimum staffing standards so I get it when somebody there's a crime in progress people are going to say hey they didn't get here quick enough or there wasn't enough of them
right
I respect that and understand that, but we are responding in
significant numbers. You can't be at every intersection everywhere and this whole problem to me is a little whack-a-mole right? We solve it at one intersection. The sheriff's department was able to arrive on the scene quickly and prevent the overtaking of the entire intersection. And maybe either you or Commander Bell can talk about what worked there. Like, why did that one work to prevent?
It was trying to happen clearly they had all gathered to make it happen but something
The
key there is that somebody saw the
activity and called us immediately. And the quicker we become
aware of it, reminding the community that you are our eyes and ears
Get a hold of us immediately. Either we put air assets up through our helicopters, they can immediately show up and give the ground units specific information about how many cars, how many people. And then we start bringing in black and whites, other type of resources. And if we can do that, we would definitely impact this before it becomes a significant problem for us. That's a big help to us.
Right, so that's a good message. If you see something say something and yeah You know Commander did you want to say something?
Yes Commander Terrence Bell I just wanted to add an echo the sheriff as you know that in Los Angeles In East LA that was a similar situation where we had were it was a street takeover about to occur We were able to prevent that but what we've seen now with the technological aspect to it We were putting up cameras, surveillance cameras. This will only help us to respond faster with these cameras that are live feed to our sheriff stations will give us a live feed and we can see some of these cars start to build up and that will help us respond in addition to what the community calls if they just gives us call we will respond so we're going to reassure the community that if they call we will respond. We're gonna use all resources and technology to address this problem And cameras will be one key component helping us resolve that.
Thank you and I appreciate, Sheriff, I appreciate the air assets because I think that also can relay important information on the ground but as you said could capture license plates and vehicles to then hold accountable If in fact it turns into a full-blown intersection.
And that's for drones, but if somebody calls our helicopters are in the air and they have minutes of response time and get there quickly to start coordinating our units coming in to be more effective.
Yeah, thank you. Well again I appreciate the all the education the outreach I think that's important but to me when I read that the incident reports of these most recent You know these are not you know the kids it could have been in school Listening to outreach about why street racing is bad this seems to be an elevated level of folks who have criminal intent to harm It is troubling and I know that for my district it
hasn't grown increasingly, but there's still activity. I'm here to talk about retail theft occurrences that happen at the AutoZone there in East L.A., and it's really troubling because, too, I'm concerned if we're addressing students in high school and what have you, that's one population, and that's preventive. But if we're talking about people that are 21 and older or whatever, Then we're looking at a different population and I'd love to see that information provided to us. And I agree with Supervisor Mitchell if these folks are actually from our area, from the immediate zip code or precincts so to speak. And then have that information, because I think that's probably another way of doing more investigation into really deterring who those folks are and who they're connected to.
And I do think that our businesses need to be made aware in our communities that they have some rights and that they should also be vigilant. So I want you to reaffirm what you said If they see something, say something to call and not to be afraid. And I get it some of our businesses are intimidated right now because they're afraid of everything especially in East LA if it's ice, if it's anyone wearing a uniform even if its DPW I'm speaking their language, culturally competent and making sure that those relationships are lasting and not just a one-off. Otherwise it's going to continue and my sense is things aren't gonna get... I hope they get better. I really do but I know that there's always opportunity for someone to do something negative and I really want our business people to know that we support them and it's really dangerous For our young people to continue to understand that there's consequences to their actions.
So I would just say that thank you Supervisor Mitchell.
Thank you very much Madam Chair, I just wanted to clarify something perhaps with County Council because we brought forward motions to increase penalties and we were going to bring forward a motion with regard to admin citations but it was my understanding that the federal court deemed them unconstitutional so if If that is happening in Pico Rivera, I'd like to know how Pico Rivera gets to not pay attention to federal court.
But make sure I'm following the comments made and is that correct or not?
Hi Supervisor Mitchell. Craig Kirkwood, Deputy County Counsel. They haven't changed the law yet. That hasn't happened. Pico Rivera hasn't changed it. That's my understanding but the case you cited is correct and still on point with respect to spectators Being penalized, if that's what you're referencing.
So when you say Pico Rivera hasn't changed the law yet, you mean they have not come into compliance with the federal ruling? That's correct, Supervisor. OK. So does that mean... so what does that mean for Pico Rivera? Are they going to... if they are still issuing admin citations, what does that mean?
They are not in compliance with federal law. I mean at this point those types of spectator Citations are a violation of the Constitution in terms of right of assembly and free speech.
So I just wanted to clarify because we were going to put that in one of our past motions and understood about that ruling, so I am open and we should continue to collaborate on ways from your perspective Sheriff additional tools you think you need that isn't one of them. So let's continue to have conversations about ways in which we can empower you based on your experience about what we need to try to turn this corner I thought admin citations were not correct, so I wanted to get that clear on the record. Thank you.
Very good. Seeing no other questions from the board let's go to public comment.
Will the following individuals please come forward and staff will assist you. Claudia Jerez, David Matthews. As a final reminder for remote participants in order to address the board remotely you must call in by phone 2213-444-2600 whether you're registered or not. Caller with phone number ending in 7204 your line is open please begin.
Yes, I live in the 5th District and I ask that you please don't forget about us in the Antelope Valley. The South County takeovers get a lot of attention but actual street racing out here is a big danger. Just a post today in Lancaster Sheriff's Station says there has been over 29 fatal traffic collisions and over 800 injury collisions with 60% of that attributed to speed. While the focus on youth outreach is appreciated we have Ronan Dell suffering midlife crisis also driving around in cars modified for racing being used to race from stoplight to stoplight on busy streets. This creates noise pollution, law enforcement is also spread thin up here but maybe in partnership with the local police department more efforts can be made to target those that are creating a public hazard to people on the roads and those being a nuisance to those in their homes.
The idea of the fairgrounds opening up with a double-edged sword, we're close to Willow Springs and there is open track days and that doesn't seem to help. This might end up being more of a double-edged sword and opportunity for people to gather and race legally on their own after or prior to legal events. Thank you.
Thank you. We will now go to our in-person
speakers. Good afternoon, Claudia Jerez at DPSSDWC. I can say that I see youth all the time when they come out of school and I see them with their backpacks and everything and I think wow they're really learning so When I see these violations, don't think it's all of them. I can say that youth are and can be manipulated easily or they can be instructed easily.
It's important that these street takeovers are a representation of the youth being derailed from normal standards. We must bring them back and teach them useful techniques, forms of expression that are useful and constructive. And also we have to give them good examples and good instruction and make sure they understand the consequences but we have to provide them with a good example. And we have to also help them grieve. Because they are also grieving with us in all this. Thank
you. That concludes the time for public comment on this item.
Madam Chair, this report will be received and filed.
Hearing no objection that will be the order.
We will now move on to general public comment. At this time, we will hear from members of the public wishing to address the board on general public comment. This is an opportunity for the public to address the board on subject matters within the board's jurisdiction but not on items on meeting agenda. For members of the public already on the phone if you have signed up to speak on this item please stay on the phone. If you are on the phone have not signed up to speak and would like to comment on this item please press star now and follow the prompts to be placed into the speaking queue If you're watching the meeting and have registered or you have not registered and would like to address the board on this item, you must call 213-444-2600. Press star and follow the prompts.
An operator will be on the phone to assist. Please be prepared to address the board on subject matters within the board's jurisdiction.
5:24 – 5:3219 turns
We will now call in in-person speakers, and while they're coming forward we will take remote speakers. Will the following individuals please come forward and staff will assist you? Daniel Gonzalez, Claudia Jerez, Luciano Haber, and Daniel Garcia. Joseline Tucker, your line is open. Please begin.
Good afternoon, Board of Supervisors. My name is Jocelyn Tucker and I am calling because I am disappointed regarding the status of the skilled nursing facilities. It has been a horrible experience for my family trying to deal with those facilities and The lack of care and concern and empathy, and supervision. It would be nice to have a hearing to allow for other families to speak.
If you could do that I'd really appreciate it.
Thank you. Caller ending in 0716 your line is open please state your name and begin.
This is Roy Humphries, Rollin Heights Supervisor Mitchell et al. Racism in O2 yesterday today and it ain't going away as the ignorance of this board needs only to visit my YouTube channel for Black History Education Enlightenment and abandon the BLM in which 25 blacks were murdered by blacks and billions in burning and looting of black businesses by blacks. Hilda Solis has been a master enslaver of Latinos in Los Angeles County, legal and illegal, a la Reconquista forever. Why are there 53 Mexico consulates in the United States of America? Now we all are faced with the Islamic insurrection. Again, go to my channel and eye-opening experience. The madame's imam says death to the infidels and martyrdom. You will never be the same. The invisible coup...
Thank you. Cash, your line is open. Please begin.
Okay. Yeah so I'm live right now?
Yes, go ahead
I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I've noticed a very disturbing pattern with the Board of Supervisors that you keep announcing these decisions or legislations that you're making that are supposed to help LA County citizens and then it'll say in the kind of the fine print that is only for people living in unincorporated parts of the county and I looked it up on Google only 10% The whole population of LA County lives in unincorporated areas.
I don't know what kind of folks you guys think you're pulling here, but the citizens of LA County we need to be making decisions that affect if not 100% of us.
Thank you. We will now go to our in-person speakers please begin.
Hi, my name is Ejegosia and I want to speak because I'm a speaking baby.
This is for Daniel Garcia. The Collective Troop presents Action T4, it's a powerful new play by Daniel Garcia and A.M. Sanzaro, an exploration of the chilling history of the Action T4 program. This deeply historical and urgent work examines the Third Reich's clandestine euthanasia initiative, a precursor to the Holocaust that served as a testing ground for mass murder and systemically targeted individuals with physical, mental, and psychiatric disabilities.
It starts tomorrow, Wednesday September 2nd. It will be on September 2nd, 3rd, 9th and 10th at 730 p.m. This is at the Thymel Arts Shirley Dunn Studio 5481 Santa Monica Boulevard in LA. It's also on Sunday September 6th and Sunday the 13th at 3 p. m. Doors open at 2 30 for that and seven for the evening one General admission 20, students 15, ADA and companions $12. The Instagram is at the collective troop and also you can find tickets there in the bio.
Next speaker please.
Speakers are available.
Next speaker please begin.
Luciano Haber I know I've spoken today so far, and I know the topic of wildland fires is especially sensitive to Supervisor Barger and Supervisor Horvath. Now I'd like to take a moment to why it's personal to me. Last year in March, I had the unfortunate responsibility of making a call to the next-of-kin of a friend of mine who was a wildland firefighter out east.
From that call, I made a promise that I would do everything in my power where I live in my home to fight the crisis of wildland fires. And fortunately, Southern California Wildfire Response is ready to take up that mantle. So I ask you, the board of two things. Help us engage with the community and open the doors to the agencies that we can work with. Thank
you. Ian Jamieson, Hilda Solis on August 25th last Tuesday there was a second gas leak at the Hilda Solis Rose Court for which you have ponied up 7.5 million dollars in county funds. The first occurred on April 22nd on April 22nd LA County Fire Department I don't know why you're filming me did not evacuate us that was violation of safety protocol. You need to do an investigation of LA County fire as to why the first evacuation did not occur Additionally, you need to instruct Steve Fowler of El Monte Community Development to meet with the residents as to any financial medical and or other hardships they suffered. And you also need to direct City Councilwoman Julia Rueda's to do the same.
I filed a report with your office on Friday. I've heard nothing back from you. And I'll just conclude by reminding you that we are nearly three years into Israel's genocide in Gaza and none of you have condemned it all of you have stood steadfast with Israel and therefore all five of you genocidal psychopaths can rot in hell. Thank you so much
Thank you. Next speaker, please.
Good morning. My name is Danny Gonzalez and I'm here on behalf of the Los Angeles LGBT Center in strong support of restoring $24 million cut in transition age youth homeless services. TAY services are critical for young people experiencing homelessness Including LGBTQ youth who rely on housing, supportive services and a consistent network of care to build stable futures. Disruptions of funding between fiscal years can have catastrophic consequences pushing vulnerable young people back into homelessness and instability. We urge the county to backfill the full 24 million providing greater transparency around funding and implementation and work closely with the city to ensure that there are no gaps in services. We ask that you make TAY homelessness services a priority and protect young people who depend on them.
Thank you.
Thank you, next speaker please.
5:32 – 5:344 turns
Hello I'm Collin Campbell from District 5, Catherine Barger. So I contacted LA Board of Supervisors Melissa at the front desk and my emails are blocked to go to Measure G LA Gov I was wondering if you guys could help me send in the information. They're requesting us to have meetings with local churches, so South Pasadena, St. James Ethics Commission for Measure G. We want to discuss ethics as well as also I'm promoting the Stargate AI. So we want to make certain our AI for health care is ethical which would be really nice and that's basically it. Thank you.
Thank you. Next speaker please. Claudia Jerez, DWC-DBSS Fires, youth takeovers and lenial fraud. All those things, these are all representations of issues we must tackle. We must come together and ascertain with a sound mind if we are the leaders of this county. We must confront them with firmness and conviction and maintain our wholeness. These are events that are very tragic to all of us and cause very serious emotional upheaval in us.
And we must confront them with standards. The issues are volatile, difficult but we must meet them with a sound mind and that is something that I want to share. Thank you. Thank you Madam Chair and members of the board. That
concludes our time for general public comment.
We will now proceed with adjournments. Madam Chair, we will now proceed with adjournment.
5:34 – 5:454 turns
I'm sorry. Okay, we're going to start with the First District. Colleagues today I would like to adjourn in the memory of a good friend of mine that I had known for over 30 years. He was a pioneer in environmental justice and so many good things. David Allgood was a very good friend of mine, helped me in my career when I got started back in 1992. He was born in Vallejo, California in 1947 He served in the Air Force from 1966 to 1972 as a Russian language interceptor, and he spent his early years as an artist and was responsible for the development of fine art embossed serigraph printmaking. And back in 1980, he opened an art publishing company Mines Eye Studio in Los Angeles where he promoted his work along with many other artists He thought needed support by creating and marketing limited edition works.
He was an advocate for artists' rights. David was always helping someone or organizing people to stand up against injustice, and after 10 years he closed Mind's Eye and devoted his time to politics which was always a thread in the fabric of the man he was. David served as the Executive Director of the California League of Conservation Voters known today as the California Environmental Voters. He continued to organize progressive groups to fight for clean air, clean water and against corporate domination in state politics.
David was a true renaissance man with an ability to connect people in order to innovate and solve problems. He loved history, art, music, making pies and spending time with his family, friends and his dogs. I remember him fondly because he worked so tirelessly with me on crafting many pieces of environmental justice legislation in my community. And I give him and his family our blessings and our thanks.
I'd like to join you on that.
Yes. OK. So OK. Yes, absolutely. I think all members Next members I'd like to move that when we adjourn today, we do so in the memory of Samuel Foz who passed away on August 14th 2026 at the age of 83. Born on February 28, 1943, Mr. Paz lived a life defined by service, advocacy and unwavering commitment to civil rights. Mr. Paz honorably served in the US Navy in the 1960s before pursuing higher education at UCLA from 1969 to 1971 and later earning his law degree from USC where he became deeply involved in student activism Beginning his legal career in 1975, he quickly emerged as a pioneering force in police accountability winning one of the first major legal victories involving police surveillance. He dedicated his practice to serving communities in need particularly Spanish-speaking clients and became widely recognized as one of Southern California's leading civil rights litigators.
Mr. Paz's influence extended nationally, he joined the ACLU of Southern California Board in 1978 and later the ACLU National Board in 1988 serving for more than 30 years until his retirement in 2018. His leadership contributed to landmark victories, including multiple million-dollar settlements against the LAPD and his pivotal role in opposing Proposition 187, protecting vital services for undocumented immigrants. He was widely honored for his contributions receiving the ACLU Certificate of Honor and the ACLU Lifetime Achievement Award in 2019.
As an educator who served as an adjunct professor at Loyola Law School, the National Institute of Trial Advocacy and the People's College of Law, shaping generations of civil rights attorneys. Mr. Paz was a brilliant litigator, a generous mentor, and a visionary leader whose guidance and examples strengthened the national movement for police accountability. His humility, kindness and willingness to advise others made him beloved across the legal community. Mr. Paz leaves behind a profound legacy marked by courage, integrity and decades of service to justice. His life work continues to guide the efforts of countless advocates and institutions committed to civil rights.
And lastly members Finally, I move that we adjourn today in the memory of former West Covina Mayor Dr. Forrest Tenet Jr., who passed away on August 13th. Mr. Tenet was a remarkable physician, humanitarian community leader, historian and philanthropist whose lifetime of service touched countless people. He dedicated much of his distinguished medical career to the understanding and treatment of chronic pain. He became a pioneering voice in the treatment of archnoditis, bringing hope to patients who were often misunderstood, overlooked or told that little could be done for them. Through his research, clinical work, teaching and writing he tirelessly advanced medical understanding of the devastating condition while helping patients achieve relief and a better quality of life.
He authored numerous medical books and publications on pain management, sharing his knowledge with physicians and patients around the world. His compassion for those who suffered remained at the center of his life's work. Beyond medicine, Dr. Tennant was a dedicated servant to the City of West Covina serving both as mayor and city council member. He understood that a community's strength comes not only from its institution but also from its people, stories and history. That vision led him to help establish the West Covina Historical Society creating a lasting home for the preservation of the city's heritage. Dr. Tennant's generosity also extended through the Tennant Foundation, which for more than two decades has provided grants to non-profit organizations in San Gabriel Valley.
His belief in giving back became a powerful force for good, strengthening organizations and supporting communities in need. Dr. Tennant leaves behind a legacy that is founded in the lives he touched, the patients he helped The history he preserved and the organizations he strengthened, and the hope that he gave others. That concludes my adjournments. Second District.
Holly?
Thank you very much Madam Chair. Colleagues I ask that when we adjourn today, we adjourn in the memory of Charlena D. Price. Mrs. Price passed away on August 10th at the extraordinary age of 100. Born on January 8, 1926 in Hammond, Louisiana, she was the eldest of six children and was raised in a faith-centered home that shaped her lifelong dedication to service, leadership and compassion.
In 1941, her family made a pivotal decision that forever changed her life by joining the historic migration of millions of African Americans who left the South in search of greater social and economic opportunity. At the age of 14, she moved to Los Angeles to live with her aunt and graduated from Jefferson High School in 1945. She later completed a dental assistant program at LA Trade Tech College.
During her daily commute, she met Curran D. Price Sr., whom she married in 1947. Together, they welcomed their two sons, Curran Jr. and Charles, and built a loving and supportive home. In February of 1965, Mrs. Price became an economic pioneer when she purchased a single-family home in what was then the all white Morningside neighborhood of Englewood. Determined to create opportunities for her sons, she worked tirelessly to ensure they both graduated from college. She believed in stability and community, residing in England for 51 years and remaining active in her block club throughout that time.
Professionally, Mrs. Price served over 15 years at the Los Angeles County Assessor's Office. She later worked at a law firm and spent more than a decade teaching office management at Englewood Adult School, her most gratifying post-retirement endeavor. She had a gift for helping students understand not only the material but its purpose, encouraging them to pursue their interests and build their careers.
A lifelong advocate for civic engagement, youth and education, Mrs. Price strengthened neighborhoods that inspired generations across South Los Angeles. Her community work earned recognition from the City of Englewood, the California State Legislature, the city and county of Los Angeles, and numerous non-profit and philanthropic organizations. In honor of her impact, the intersection of 38th Street and Griffith Avenue proudly carries the name Charlena D. Price Square.
In her free time, Mrs. Price cherished moments with loved ones and enjoyed gardening, baking rolls and solving Sudoku and word puzzles. She also had a passion for travel exploring destinations throughout California the US as well as Europe, Asia, Mexico, Jamaica and Cuba. Her faith remains central throughout her life guiding her with resilience and grace. She'll be remembered for kindness strength and lifelong devotion to service. Mrs. Price is survived by her sons Councilmember Curran D. Price Jr. and Charles Price. I move that when we adjourn today, we adjourn in memory of Joan Boyette.
5:45 – 5:514 turns
A devoted champion for arts education and a longtime Studio City resident, Joan Boyette passed away on August 4th at the age of 90. A third-generation Angeleno, Joan dedicated her career to making the arts accessible to young people across Los Angeles. After a decade with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Joan established the Music Center's Education Division in 1979.
Over the next two decades she helped grow it into one of the nation's largest arts education programs reaching millions of people and was instrumental in the founding of the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts. Joan believed deeply in opening doors for others, whether for a young person discovering the arts or a colleague finding their path in the field.
Even after retiring she continued serving Los Angeles through arts and cultural organizations leaving an influence that can be still felt in classrooms theaters and creative communities throughout our county She is survived by her children Kevin and Susie, her granddaughters Brooke and Jordan, and her great grandson Henry. We adjourn today in honor of Joan recognizing her extraordinary contributions to arts education, the opportunities she created for generations of young people, and the lasting legacy she leaves across Los Angeles County. And Supervisor Barger, I know you wanted to join me in that.
Yeah thank you and Susie actually is the executive director for the Blue Ribbon Music Center and as someone her mom, as you said, Supervisor Horvath was just a remarkable woman who really did leave an incredible legacy
Thank you for joining me in that. I move that when we adjourn today, we adjourn in memory of Tim Curry, a beloved actor, singer and performer who made Los Angeles his home for nearly four decades. Tim Curry passed away on August 25th at the age of 80. Born in England, Tim grew up singing in church and discovered theater at a young age beginning a career that would ultimately span more than five decades. He became known for taking creative risks and embracing characters outside the expected and in doing so his work helped generations of people feel more comfortable embracing what made them different.
Tim was also an avid reader, painter and gardener who found great meaning in creating and restoring beautiful spaces. After suffering a major stroke in 2012 he continued to work, engage with audiences and participate in the artistic community that had surrounded him for much of his life. In his later years he reflected on the messages he received from people who told him his work had helped them feel seen, understood and less alone.
He is survived by his nieces Kate Lewis and Julia Bowman, his nephew Mark Lewis and his great-nieces Josephine and Georgina. We adjourn today in honor of Tim Curry recognizing the creativity and courage he brought to his art. And I had the privilege of getting to know him during my time serving in West Hollywood when we had a commemoration of the Rocky Horror Picture Show as part of our Halloween celebration He was incredibly kind and supportive of the community, always inspiring and daring. And he is certainly treasured by the community and certainly missed as well.
I move that when we adjourn today, we adjourn in memory of Dolly Rebecca Parton, a beloved artist, songwriter, philanthropist, and American icon. Dolly Rebecca Parton passed away on August 25th at the age of 80. Born into a family of 12 children in the mountains of East Tennessee, Dolly grew up with very little and went on to build an extraordinary life. Yet no matter how far her career took her She remained deeply connected to the stories of working people, strong women, family, heartbreak, hope and home.
Dolly also made an enduring mark on Hollywood and Los Angeles. Her film debut in 9to5 helped tell a story about working women standing together against harassment. Inequality and being underestimated, certainly a message resonant with this board. Dolly showed generations of women that there was no single way to be strong or successful. Some of Dolly's most meaningful work however was dedicated to children.
Her father never had the opportunity to learn to read or write And in his honor, she created the Imagination Library so children could experience the joy of having books of their very own. What began in the community where she grew up became an international literacy movement that has given hundreds of millions of books to children. Dolly spent her life telling stories and then used her success to make sure millions of children would have the opportunity to discover stories and dreams of their own.
Dolly's music made people feel seen. Her humor brought people together, and the story of a girl from a family of 12 children who never forgot where she came from reminded people that where you begin does not have to determine how far you can go or how much you can give back along the way. Dolly was preceded in death by her husband of nearly 60 years, Carl Dean and leaves behind a large and deeply cherished family as well as generations who found joy comfort courage and possibility in her life and work.
We adjourned today in honor of Dolly Rebecca Parton Recognizing the joy she brought to our lives, the doors she opened for women, the dreams she nurtured in children and the extraordinary generosity with which she shared her gifts with the world. Thank you Madam Chair. Thank You
Supervisor Barker.
5:51 – 5:585 turns
Oh I suppose her hand was jumping up like she okay I move that when we adjourn today, we do so in memory of Virginie Gevorkian who passed away on July 21st. She was born on April 5th, 1946 in Armenia. She later immigrated to the United States and raised her daughter Kinarik in Burbank filling every room she entered along the way. The loudest voice at any gathering always ready with a laugh, a word of encouragement for anyone who needed one.
She poured everything into her family, her friends and our Armenian heritage. Even as Alzheimer's took so much from her, her grandchildren remained one of the few things that could still bring joy to her. She survived by her daughter Kinarik Vizcara and her granddaughters Chloe and Ella. On behalf of the board we extend our deepest condolences to her and her family. Adele, her husband Adele works as Mark Vestrella's assistant and so yeah.
And then also I move that when we adjourn today, we do so in memory of the following individuals who were identified as indigent veterans by the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner and were subsequently buried with dignity and honor at Riverside National Cemetery in the last month. Michael Claire Goodman Air Force, Albert Huff Marines, William Michael Venegas Air Force, Charles Lee Logson Senior Navy, Gregory Anthony Powell Navy, Willie Frank Drummond, Army. Herbie Real Curtis, Marines. Willie James Townsend, Army. Bruce George Hetkemmer, Navy. Raymond Douglas Head, Marines.
Louie Rios, Army Donald Seja Awokini, Army May their contributions and sacrifices in service to our country never be forgotten. Thank you Madam Chair
Yeah, thank you Madam Chair. I didn't have a German say but I wanted to join Supervisor Horvath in adjourning for Dolly Parton. I just wanted to join that she all members it sounds like yeah, yeah, she was such a star and I think she Maybe fooled a lot of people just with her outward appearance, because under all of that she was an incredible businesswoman. She was a fierce advocate for children as shown in her library foundation.
And she was a feminist. I mean, when you read the words to 9to5 it really was a shout out to all working women and the ideals of equal pay for equal work and being oppressed in the workplace so even though she has been described as kind of a human Barbie doll She really was a keen businesswoman and a very sharp person whose many, many, many songs that she wrote will live on forever. Yeah, so we will miss her. This world is much brighter and lighter and sparkly because of Dolly Parton.
Following her national model, the state of California passed a bill. Tony Atkins was pro tem at the time and authored it and funded the state of California to participate in the Imagination Library. And I know that they are looking at partners at the local level, so I'm hoping they will reach out to the five female members of the LA County Board of Supervisors I think a profound way to support Dolly would be to make sure that the Imagination Library is made available to young people in our own county.
Thank you all, we'll take all motions as seconded there is no objection to unanimous vote then that will be the order and let us now executive officer read us into closed session
Members of the public, the board will now be going into closed session. In accordance with Brown Act requirements, notice is hereby given that the Board of Supervisors will convene in closed session to discuss item number CS1 audited by California State Auditor's Office, item number CS6 conference with legal counsel regarding existing litigation, item number CS8 public employee performance evaluation and item number CS10 conference with labor negotiators Joseph and Nikita and designated staff as indicated on the posted and supplemental agendas.
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Executive officer, please read us. Please we're now back I'm sorry we're in open session executive officer please read the report of action if there's any.
The following is a report of action taken in closed session on September 1st 2026 item number CS1, CS6, CS8 and CS10 no reportable action was taken
Thank you. That concludes today's meeting. The board will be meeting again on September the 8th. Oh, wait a minute. What am I saying? We are canceling that date. It's Labor Day right after... The next regular meeting will be held on September the 15th, 2026 at 930 AM. We're adjourned. Thank you. you