Also: Board of Supervisors blows up over county executive and other Measure G mandates. Barger takes a swipe at Horvath. See below.
But first, the city Charter:
The 137-year-long saga of Los Angeles city charter reform continues Wednesday with a special meeting of a City Council committee tasked with reconsidering measures that were left off the Nov. 3 ballot, as well as other recommendations to update the city’s constitution.
The meeting of the Ad Hoc Committee on Charter Review is scheduled for 1 p.m. in Room 1010 of City Hall, 200 N. Spring Street. The sole item on the agenda is a presentation by city staff on deadlines for getting reforms to the ballot and the 75 charter amendments put to voters since adoption of the current 1999 city charter.
Of those, voters approved 63 and rejected six. Another six are on the current ballot.
October and November had been set aside for a discussion of “Who governs” Los Angeles, under a four-part examination proposed by Chair Tim McOsker on Sept. 30, the committee's first meeting.
It's a threshold question for further charter discussions and focuses on a point of contention that is both weighty and timely, given the current reelection campaign of Mayor Karen Bass and the challenge by ad hoc committee member Nithya Raman. It boils down to the allocation of power among the mayor, the council, other city elected officials and various boards and commissions.
Bass and Raman have sparred in candidate forums over questions such as the power to remove the police chief and whether the council member or the mayor have primary responsibility for delivering services to constituents.
But Wednesday's agenda doesn't cover any of that, and we're quickly running out of October. Attention in November is likely to be absorbed by the election outcome.
At the earlier meeting, McOsker said the goal of the process is to put reforms on the ballot in 2028.
Asked about the short notice in advance of the meeting, McOsker said that going forward, he intended to provide at least 72 hours notice, even though the meetings would all be deemed “special” under the Ralph M. Brown open meetings act, meaning only 24-hour notice is required.
McOsker also said he hoped to develop a “regular cadence” for the meetings so that members of the public could plan ahead. And he said he expected to provide opportunities for public comment as though the meetings were regularly scheduled and not special ad hoc meetings.
In June, the council rejected a broad swath of proposals recommended by a Charter Reform Commission after nine months of hearings and study. A handful of recommendations, embodied in six charter amendments, did make it to the current election.
The committee’s first meeting featured a presentation by Raphe Sonenshein, executive director of the John Randolph Haynes and Dora Haynes Foundation, which put the current effort in the context of more than a century of Los Angeles charter reform efforts (note: I am the Haynes Foundation's 2026-27 fellow).
Raphe Sonenshein discusses the long history of Los Angeles charter reform (meeting video, Sept. 30, 2026).
“When it comes to the City of Los Angeles, reform is in our blood, it’s in our history,” Sonenshein told the committee.
He was the executive director of the City of Los Angeles Charter Reform Commission in the 1990s, which worked to revamp the 1925 charter alongside a rival commission known as the Elected Charter Commission. Eventually the leaders of the two commissions produced a unified proposal that voters adopted in 1999. The effort helped defuse secession movements in the San Fernando Valley, Hollywood and San Pedro.
Sonenshein compared skeptical public comments about the current reform effort with discouraging words he and his colleagues heard when they began their 1990s effort.
“And over time, if you follow the plan you’re working through, identifying the problem, doing the research, considering everything, going out of your comfort zone on some issues that may seem too hard, saying no to some things but do it thoughtfully, after a while people start to notice that work,” he said. “And that was the strategy that we took.”
"After a while, people start noticing" good work by charter reformers, Raphe Sonenshein told the committee. (Meeting video, Sept. 30).
Committee member Eunisses Hernandez said she had become infuriated by limits placed on her ability to govern because of what she called the outdated city charter.
“Part of my job is to break those things that don’t work,” she said, “so that we can stop doing the same thing over and over and expect different results.”
Councilmembers Heather Hutt, Katy Yaroslavsky, and Nithya Raman are on the ad hoc committee, along with McOsker and Hernandez.
In addition to the plan to consider allocation of power in October and November, McOsker said December and January would focus on delivery of services, including how city departments and commissions are structured and held accountable, and whether they are designed to meet constituent needs.
February, March and April would be for examining “how the city sustains itself,” including questions regarding the budget, the workforce, pensions, the fiscal structure, personnel reform and discipline. May, June and July would be devoted to representation, including elections, the size and structure of the City Council, the relationship between public and its governing institutions and the potential role of a borough system.
August through October of 2027 are reserved for cleaning up and finalizing recommendations, which would go on the ballot in 2028.
Charter amendments can go to voters in either the March 7 primary or the Nov. 7 general election, or both. Some labor-oriented reforms may not be voted on in primaries, under state law, as noted in an Oct. 16 report from the city clerk.
The report noted legal deadlines for either 2028 election. The deadline for adopting all final ballot resolutions and election ordinances for the November ballot is July 20, 2028, according to the clerk’s report.
County's Measure G blows up at the Board of Supervisors
Los Angeles County supervisors sniped at their appointees on the Governance Reform Task Force Tuesday, and sometimes at each other, as the board discussed but put off action on the centerpiece of sweeping governance reforms.
Supervisor Kathryn Barger called for her colleagues to pledge not to run for county executive, a powerful new post that will appear on the ballot for the first time in 2028. She also called for the county counsel and the new Ethics Commission to report on whether it would be a conflict of interest for any current member of the board to run.
The statement appeared aimed at Supervisor Lindsey Horvath, the driving force behind Measure G, the 2024 reform measure. Horvath is widely seen as a likely candidate.
Barger also revealed that the county had been sent a demand letter suggesting a possible lawsuit over the legality of some provisions of the county executive portion of Measure G.
The board delays throw a wrench into the Task Force's packed timeline for implementing chnages by their legally mandated deadlines.
This all just happened! Check back soon at LosAngelesRules.com for a more detailed report of the long and sometimes heated discussion, and what it all means.