L.A. City Council hangs up on phone-in public comment

Good morning, and welcome to L.A. on the Record — our City Hall newsletter. It’s Dakota Smith, with an assist from David Zahniser.

(Also, apologies for landing in your inbox a bit late. We’ve been chasing fire news during this devastating disaster.)

The agenda for Tuesday’s Los Angeles City Council meeting contained the usual mix of topics — zoning changes, legal settlements and measures to fight homelessness.

Still, something was missing.

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, aside from a brief hiatus, the council had allowed residents to comment by phone during public meetings. The call-in instructions were displayed prominently in boldface type at the top of the agenda and the second page.

Those instructions did not appear on Tuesday’s agenda.

Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson confirmed after the meeting that he had done away with the call-in option. During the meeting, none of his colleagues objected.

Public comment during government meetings is a key feature of American democracy, giving residents a chance to weigh in on the critical issues of the day.

At City Hall, a handful of commenters also regularly deliver bigoted messages. Councilmembers have increasingly voiced their disgust at comments — both in person and via phone — that are racist, sexist, homophobic or antisemitic.

As Harris-Dawson sought the council presidency last year, he took feedback from his fellow council members. An item that kept coming up, he said, was their desire to spend more time in their districts working on constituent issues.

One way to achieve that: shorter council meetings.

After Tuesday’s meeting, which took place just as the Palisades fire broke out, Harris-Dawson briefly discussed the decision to do away with call-in comments, saying he wants the council to return to the pre-COVID way of doing things.

“People who come to the council can give public testimony,” he told The Times. “If you want to give testimony without showing up, you’re free to do that in writing or in other ways.”

Asked why he made the change, he said: “We just wanted to move back to regular order. We wanted to pivot and give the city an opportunity to heal from that time period and move into the future.”

Critics denounced the move, particularly in light of devastation and displacement caused by the fires that broke out across the region, leveling neighborhoods in Pacific Palisades, Altadena and elsewhere and killing at least 13 people.

A call-in option allows people who live in far-flung areas of the city, or can’t otherwise get to City Hall for meetings during daytime hours, to weigh in on issues big and small, those advocates said.

Rob Quan, an organizer at the good-government group Unrig LA, said the council should reconsider the decision and reinstate phone-in public comment.

“It’s just valuable generally,” Quan said. “But under an emergency like this, it couldn’t be more important.”

Eric Preven, a watchdog and regular at City Council meetings, had a stronger message, calling the change “outrageous.”

“Marqueece Harris-Dawson is waging an all-out assault on public participation,” he said.

During the pandemic, city leaders also had allowed phone-in comments for the council’s committee meetings. But that practice ended once in-person meetings resumed.

Last year, Unrig LA asked some candidates running for City Council about their position on the issue. Councilmembers Nithya Raman and Ysabel Jurado supported the restoration of phone-in comment at council committee meetings.

“Not every resident has the ability to attend public comment in person,” wrote Jurado, who won her seat in the Nov. 5 election, in her response to Unrig LA. “We should make public comment more accessible and giving people the option to join remotely will ensure we are granting wider access to residents to be able to speak up.”

Councilmember Adrin Nazarian, while running for his seat, had a similar message, telling Unrig LA that he would “advocate for the restoration of remote public comment at committees to ensure broader public engagement, accessibility, and inclusivity in the decision-making process of the LA City Council.”

State of play

— RUNNING DRY: Crews battling the Palisades fire faced a massive challenge after scores of fire hydrants stopped or slowed their water flow due to the immense demand. Gov. Gavin Newsom called for an investigation into the hydrants, as well as the decision to keep a reservoir in the Palisades that holds 117 million gallons of water offline this month for maintenance.

— LEFT IN THE DARK: Power shutoffs intended to reduce the risk of additional fires have left hundreds of thousands of people across the Southland in the dark this week. With more strong winds forecast for next week, expect more outages.

— UNPACKING THE BUDGET: Mayor Karen Bass has been under fire for reductions in staffing, and overtime, at the fire department. But a Times analysis found that the agency’s overall budget will actually grow this year, thanks to a package of firefighter raises approved in November.

— FIRE CHIEF MEDIA BLITZ: Fire Chief Kristin Crowley caused a jolt Friday, embarking on a media tour where she criticized the city over its handling of fire department funding. Bass met with Crowley after Crowley told Fox11 that the city had failed her agency. At one point, a news outlet even reported that Crowley had been fired. The fire department responded by saying the chief remains “in full command of the LAFD.”

— FALSE ALARMS: The emergency alert system that sends out evacuation warnings to Los Angeles County residents was something of a train wreck this week, with false alarms repeatedly going off on cellphones, creating more panic in a region already on edge.

— OUT OF AFRICA: Bass was out of the country on a diplomatic mission in Ghana when the Palisades fire broke out — and was making her way back to the U.S. as the blaze grew and others erupted. Real estate developer Rick Caruso, her opponent in the 2022 election, said Bass should have been in the city during the emergency. Bass said she was in “constant communication” with public safety officials during her journey home. She returned Wednesday.

— BALLOONING RENTS: Rents in the L.A. area are likely to rise following the displacement of thousands of homeowners and tenants, while those rebuilding their homes will face intense competition for contractors, experts say.

— I WANT MY TVC: The City Council voted unanimously to approve a plan by Hackman Capital Partners to expand and modernize its 25-acre Television City site near the Grove and the Original Farmers Market. Both Caruso, who developed the Grove, and A.F. Gilmore Co., which owns the Farmers Market, had joined with neighborhood groups in opposing the project. Critics say it’s too big and, without changes, will worsen traffic.

QUICK HITS

• On the docket for next week: More Santa Ana winds. Stay safe!