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Los Angeles Times
12-07-2025
- Politics
- Los Angeles Times
This four-decade veteran of city government thinks Los Angeles is in dire trouble
Good morning, and welcome to L.A. on the Record — our City Hall newsletter. It's Julia Wick, giving you the latest on city and county government. Rick Cole has forgotten more about municipal government than most of us will ever know. The 72-year-old former mayor (Pasadena), city manager (Ventura, Azusa, Santa Monica) and deputy mayor (Los Angeles) returned for a third stint at Los Angeles City Hall in 2022, bringing a depth of experience to political neophyte and then-newly elected City Controller Kenneth Mejia's office as Mejia's chief deputy. After two and a half years in City Hall East, Cole announced last month that he would be leaving his post to focus on the Pasadena City Council, which he joined again last year. Cole knew that holding down 'a more-than-full-time role in LA and a more-than-part-time role in Pasadena' would be difficult to juggle, he wrote in a LinkedIn post, and ultimately decided he couldn't do both jobs justice. In a goodbye presentation to the L.A. City Council, he sounded the alarm, saying he has never been more worried about the city. We sat down with Cole to discuss that speech and his fears. Here's some of our conversation, very lightly edited and condensed for clarity. Tell me about the speech you gave at council. What motivated it? I've never been more alarmed about the future of Los Angeles. I delineated the existential challenges facing the city, which have been decades in the making. Politics needs to be looking out at the future and not just reacting to the crises of the day. And Los Angeles needs bold, systemic reform to meet the moment. Why are you so alarmed about the future of Los Angeles? It's a converging set of crises. You have a homelessness emergency, an affordable housing crisis, a billion-dollar structural financial challenge that's resulted in the loss of thousands of key city jobs. You had a firestorm that destroyed an entire neighborhood. And you have the federal government at war with the people in the government of Los Angeles. And underneath that, you have an existential challenge to Hollywood, which is unfolding. And you have crumbling infrastructure. And you have people feeling that government can't really fix any of these things, that the money we spend gets wasted, fair or unfair. That's a challenge. Do you think the government is wasting taxpayer money? Every institution has some level of waste. The problem with Los Angeles government and the public sector in California is an aversion to innovation. We've fallen behind the private sector in adapting to the new world of advancing technology and changing demographics. That's fixable, and that's what I was advocating for. What would it look like to fix these problems? Who's responsible, and who is currently dropping the ball? The lack of responsibility is built into the City Charter. Tell me more about what you mean by that. The people who originally wrote the charter a hundred years ago intentionally designed the system to diffuse authority, which therefore diffused accountability. So it's really difficult to know who is in charge of any given thing. A clear example is that the department heads have 16 bosses. They report to the mayor, but in each of the council districts, the council members think that the department heads report to them. That they ... have to make the council member happy with what's going on in their district, whether it's trimming trees on a particular street or fixing a sidewalk in front of a constituent's home, the general managers [of city departments] are subject to extreme and constant political pressure. That distracts them from fixing the system so that we're doing a better job, so that there are fewer resident complaints, so that a constituent wouldn't have to go to their council member to get their street fixed. The street would get fixed every 10 years. But if you are have 16 bosses and and a continually shifting set of priorities, it's difficult, if not impossible, to put in place systemic solutions. And in terms of who do you blame: Do you blame the general manager? Do you blame the mayor? Do you blame your council member? Do you blame the lack of resources that the city has to allocate? The answer is yes. What needs to change? What I advocated is designing the city to work in the 21st century, which means a chief operating officer who works for the mayor to make sure the city runs effectively across 44 departments. We don't have such a person now. It means a chief financial officer. The responsibilities of a chief financial officer are [currently] divided between four different offices in the city, so it's difficult, again, to point to one person who's in charge of keeping the city fiscally sound. The charter calls for a one-year budget, but we could do a two-year budget and simply update it once a year and be consistent with the City Charter. But then we would have a much broader view of the city's financial future, and we wouldn't waste so much time on a budget process that takes 11 of the 12 months and produces very little change. — SAFER CITY: L.A. is on pace for its lowest homicide total in nearly 60 years as killings plummet, according to an LAPD tally. The falling murder rate mirrors a national trend in other big cities. As my colleague Libor Jany reports, it also paints a decidedly different picture than the Gotham City image offered by President Trump and other senior U.S. officials as justification for the deployment of military troops in L.A. in recent weeks. —MORE RAIDS FALLOUT: Mayor Karen Bass announced a plan Friday to provide direct cash assistance to people who have been affected by the Trump administration's sweeping immigration raids. The money will come from philanthropic partners, not city coffers, and the cash cards will be distributed by immigrant rights groups. —MOTION TO INTERVENE: The city and county of Los Angeles are among the local governments seeking to join a lawsuit calling on the Trump administration to stop 'unlawful detentions' during the ongoing immigration sweeps. The lawsuit was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, Public Counsel and immigrant rights groups last week. —IN MEMORIAM: Longtime former executive director of the Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs Jaime Regalado died last month at age 80. Born in Boyle Heights, Regalado served in the U.S. Navy and was the founding editor of California Politics & Policy and the California Policy Issues Annual. He led the Pat Brown Institute at Cal State L.A. from 1991 to 2011. —'SOMEONE GOOFED': When L.A. County Supervisors Lindsey Horvath and Janice Hahn co-wrote Measure G, a sprawling overhaul of county government that voters passed last November, they didn't realize they would also be repealing Measure J, a landmark criminal justice measure that voters had passed four years earlier. Thanks to an administrative screw-up for the ages, that's exactly what happened. The relevant changes won't go into effect until 2028, so county leaders have some time to undo their oops. —DISASTER AVERTED: A potentially tragic situation was averted Wednesday night, after all 31 workers in a partially collapsed Los Angeles County sanitation tunnel were able to make their way to safety. Work on the tunnel has been halted, and the county sanitation district board is looking into what caused the collapse. —POSTCARD FROM SANTA MONICA: In the long shadow of White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller's hard-line anti-immigration policies, local and national observers alike are paying renewed attention to Miller's upbringing in the famously liberal enclave once dubbed 'the People's Republic of Santa Monica.' Join me for a deep dive into Miller's time at Santa Monica High School and learn why some of his former classmates think he's getting his revenge on Southern California. That's it for this week! Send your questions, comments and gossip to LAontheRecord@ Did a friend forward you this email? Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Saturday morning.
Daily Mirror
11-06-2025
- Politics
- Daily Mirror
'I was at LA protests - cops swarmed as terrified families fought for rights'
Donald Trump ordered the deployment of National Guard troops into Los Angeles following anti-ICE protests where people unhappy with the aggressive immigration policy have taken to the streets Arriving in Los Angeles after nearly a week of anti-ICE demonstrations in the city, the National Guard being called in and President Donald Trump threatening to arrest California Gov. Gavin Newsom, I had no idea what I was walking into. Parking about two blocks away from Los Angeles City Hall, I made my way down Main Street to the now scattered protests near the Edward R. Roybal Federal Building, where much of the weekend protests took place. On my way, I saw the vandalism scrawled over signage, buildings, and sidewalks throughout downtown - but I did not see rioting, I did not see looting. I saw people fighting for their rights. Despite the pushed narrative, I saw a scared community on Tuesday. Afraid of having their families ripped apart, fearful of seeing their friends and neighbours taken away, and scared that this could only be the beginning. I saw what Americans have done since a group of colonists hurled tea into the Boston Harbor in 1773 to protest their government - use their rights. To me, there's nothing more fundamentally American than the right to protest your government's actions. Engaging in protest honors the millions of lives sacrificed so that we may have the right to do so. As Abraham Lincoln said, "We here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain-that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom-and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." Making my way past the Federal Building, I saw what appeared to be heavily armed National Guardsmen patrolling the entrance, with a handful of protesters lobbing insults and jeers at them as they stood stoic and at attention. Large swaths of LAPD and California Highway Patrol officers lined the streets, blocking foot traffic to the Federal Detention Center, where many of the people swept up in Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids over the past several days were being held. As the day wore on, more and more heavily armed officers arrived on the scene, with some bystanders telling me they had already detained several people and set off canisters of tear gas and flash bangs, although I did not witness that myself. The first demonstrator I spoke with told me he flew all the way from Wisconsin to attend the protest, saying these protests were history in the making and he couldn't watch from the sidelines. "I booked a one-way ticket here, brought my camera, and here I am, just here supporting a lot of different stuff mainly, but the fact is the system of capitalism has failed us," said Liam, who did not wish to provide his last name. "I'm very passionate about my country, and people like to say I'm not patriotic, but I think the most patriotic thing you can do is realize your country's flaws and work to change them." A theme of many left-leaning protests I've attended over the years has been everyone bringing their own cause into the demonstration, regardless of whether it is the main cause being highlighted, and that was no different on Tuesday. Many used the demonstration to air out every grievance they had with the Trump administration, whether it be cuts to the federal government, immigration, or the war in Gaza. For much of the day, I found myself bouncing back and forth between several scattered protests all over downtown, and the police, to their credit, were very much restrained from what I witnessed. Nearly everyone carried signs and engaged in traditional call-and-response chants such as "Who's streets? OUR STREETS" and "Show me what democracy looks like. THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE." One woman said she came out to set an example for her son that what the Trump administration is doing to immigrants is morally wrong. "I don't agree with what ICE is doing; I don't agree with illegal search and seizures just because the Trump administration thinks this is okay-mobilizing the military for domestic reasons? When we're not even doing anything. Some bad actors are causing violence and throwing things at the cops, and I don't stand for that. I stand for peaceful protesting and utilizing my First Amendment right to disagree with what they're doing," said Danielle Kahl. "It's not okay, and I don't agree with it, and I'm not gonna teach my kid that it's okay. I'm gonna teach my kid that he needs to see for himself what's going on with his own eyes and then decide for himself." Not all those present were there to support the immigrant community; some seemingly were there to antagonize the protesters and elicit a response. One man continued screaming about how ICE was deporting child sex traffickers and, when confronted by protesters, quickly backed off and attempted to play the victim. At one point, a man told a black woman arguing with the man to not even respond to his attempts to antagonize, to which the man replied to her, "Listen to your overseer," something that I, and many others, took as blatantly racist remarks, alluding to chattel slavery. Even those who Trump's aggressive immigration policy may not directly affect turned out to support the Los Angeles community, saying they can't live their day-to-day lives knowing that innocent families are being torn apart. "I just can't sit by anymore, act like nothing is happening, and just live my day-to-day life. Okay, criminals, he [Trump] ran on that, that's what he's gonna do. I'm not okay with the children; there are no children that are criminals; they're getting taken out of our schools; we should all be affected, we're all affected," said Scottie Taylor while holding a sign that read, "Jesus was never brutal." "I'm a 50-year-old white woman; I've had friends that have had their husbands deported. But the main reason I'm here today is because I'm tired of them trying to distort the narrative, and I'm here because, again, I'm a 50-year-old white woman in the middle of downtown LA, and I feel safe. There's no need for 4,000 National Guard troops," Taylor added. As more heavily armed police officers made their way downtown to contend with several groups of protesters blocking the 101 Freeway, something done during many protests in the city, I thought things might be winding down for the day. I decided to make my way back to the entrance of the Federal Building, where the same 15 or so National Guardsmen were guarding the door. As I photographed them, I noticed what appeared to be the commanding officers bark out several orders, and the troops stepped forward. Looking up from my camera, I saw two of the largest groups of protesters I'd seen that day, converging in front of the building and marching uptown towards LA Live and arena. This was the main event of the day, and tired and sunburned as I was, I ran to the front of the pack and followed them as they marched through the greater Los Angeles area, all the way up to the 110 Freeway entrance and back down to City Hall. Thousands of people flooded the streets with many cars tailing behind them, honking their horns in support, hanging out the window waving Mexican and American flags, and chanting "ICE OUT OF LA" as they made their way down the street. And when I say down the street, I mean they were in the middle of the street, blocking traffic with little police presence around them. However, drivers didn't seem annoyed by them; they honked their horns in support and leaned out the window to yell encouraging messages. As I approached the front of the protest, a man tapped me on the shoulder to show me something on his phone. A news alert said that Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass had imposed an 8 p.m. curfew for downtown LA. I thanked him and continued following the protestors. This was when I saw with my own eyes blatant vandalism taking place, with some people jumping out of their cars to spray the side of highway onramps and buildings, some with completely irrelevant messages, making clear they were likely just opportunists, taking advantage of the situation. One of the people even accosted me to snap a photo of him spraying the graffiti, which struck me as odd, as many protesters throughout the day covered their faces when I pointed my camera at them, not wanting to be seen at the protest. As my legs grew tired and my resolve weakened, I checked the time on my phone, which told me it was 7:30 pm, which was my signal to wrap it up as I did not want to be caught outside past the imposed curfew. Thirsty and tired, I found salvation at a local 7/11, where I refueled with a Mountain Dew. I called an Uber to take me back to my car and called it a night. Sitting in my Uber recounting the day's events to my driver Angel, we both look on in shock as several military vehicles carrying what I can only assume to be National Guard troops; I wondered whether what I saw that day warranted a full-blown military response.
Qatar Tribune
08-06-2025
- Politics
- Qatar Tribune
National Guard deployed in Los Angeles to crush immigration protests
Agencies LOS ANGELES California National Guard arrived in Los Angeles on Sunday, deployed by President Donald Trump after two days of protests by hundreds of demonstrators against immigration raids carried out as part of Trump's hardline policy. About a dozen National Guard members were seen in video footage on Sunday morning lining up at a federal building in downtown Los Angeles, where detainees from immigration raids on Friday were taken, sparking protests that continued on Saturday. The complex is near Los Angeles City Hall, where another protest against the immigration raids is scheduled for Sunday afternoon. US Northern Command confirmed National Guard troops had started deploying and that some were already on the ground. 'These Radical Left protests, by instigators and often paid troublemakers, will NOT BE TOLERATED,' Trump posted on his Truth Social platform early on Sunday. page 5
Toronto Sun
22-05-2025
- Toronto Sun
Ex-Los Angeles deputy mayor will plead guilty in fake bomb threat to city hall
Published May 22, 2025 • 1 minute read The Los Angeles City Hall building is seen in downtown Los Angeles on Jan. 8, 2020. Photo by Damian Dovarganes / AP LOS ANGELES — A former Los Angeles deputy mayor will plead guilty to reporting a bomb had been placed in city hall last year to law enforcement, federal prosecutors said Thursday. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account. Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments. Enjoy additional articles per month. Get email updates from your favourite authors. THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK. Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments Enjoy additional articles per month Get email updates from your favourite authors Don't have an account? Create Account Brian K. Williams, 31, who was employed as the deputy mayor of public safety in October 2024, was charged with one felony count of making an explosives threat. The charge carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison. William's attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Williams sent a text message to LA Mayor Karen Bass and other high-ranking city officials on Oct. 3, 2024 that he just received a call from someone who threatened to bomb city hall, prosecutors said. 'The male caller stated that 'he was tired of the city support of Israel, and he has decided to place a bomb in City Hall. It might be in the rotunda.',' Williams wrote in the text, according to prosecutors. He said he contacted the Los Angeles Police Department, who sent officers to search the building. Police did not locate any suspicious packages or devices, prosecutors said. Williams showed officers a call he received from a blocked number on his city-issued cellphone that he said was from the person who made the bomb threat. The call was made by Williams himself through the Google Voice application on his personal phone, according to prosecutors. The Federal Bureau of Investigation searched Williams' home in December 2024 in connection to the incident, and Williams was placed on administrative leave. Williams will appear in federal court in downtown Los Angeles in the coming weeks. Toronto Maple Leafs Hockey Editorial Cartoons World Tennis
Yahoo
28-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Ooh La La! Art Deco Exhibition Ends Today
Exactly one hundred years ago, the most fashionable designers from around the world gathered in Paris to debut an entirely new kind of modern design. The Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes launched the style we now call art deco, and the Art Deco Society of Los Angeles has been celebrating all weekend at one of L.A.'s most magnificent secret spaces, the Oviatt penthouse. The private residence of clothing magnate James Oviatt sits 12 stories above his magnificent men's store on Olive Street downtown. The boutique closed in 1967 and sat empty for decades. His widow lived alone in the penthouse until she died eight years later. The space was restored in the 1980s and is occasionally open for special events. Today is World Art Deco Day, and until 9pm, guests and club members will be mingling amidst icons of decorative arts from the 1920s at 'Art Deco Tous Les Jours'—an original exhibit of stunning period artifacts including textiles, furniture, fashion, fine art, and a newly recovered painting long lost to the Oviatt. 'They can come see the exhibit and enjoy our centennial cocktail menu curated from period books by our vintage cocktail expert,' the society's executive director Margot Gerber tells Los Angeles. 'We'll have French music and curator talks in the gallery explaining the significance of the original expo and how it impacted Los Angeles.' Los Angeles City Hall, the Wiltern, and the Eastern Columbia building were all influenced by the style. The 1925 Expo sent shockwaves around the design world, inventing a whole new design vocabulary that found its way to fashion, architecture and everyday household objects. Suddenly, everything from vacuum cleaners to clocks went modern. A zeppelin-shaped cocktail shaker will be on view near original fabrics and souvenirs from the Expo, including some very expensive playing cards that were intended to be sold in Oviatt's clothing store. They're displayed near a carved bar that Oviatt had sent back from the original Parisian expo. The Art Deco Society is cooking up months of fun to celebrate. More outings to vintage venues like the Queen Mary, Tam o'Shanter and Yamashiro for their popular Cocktails in Historic Places series are on the roster. L.A.'s legendary Bullocks Wilshire department store, a temple to commerce and art deco, opens June 7 for a lecture on jewelry history of the 1920s and a perfumier will address the group at the Saban theater in Beverly Hills on June 29 to discuss Jazz Age fragrances used in everything from perfume to chocolate. What will become of L.A.'s mini expo tonight when the doors close at 9? 'When we wrap we'll just bulldoze it into the Seine river,' Gerber jokes. 'That's probably what they did in 1925.'
