Mike, Godfrey, and Mariel analyze the deep-pocketed players funding LA’s expensive mayoral race, and their motivations (spoiler alert: one wants new bike lanes). California billionaires are responding as one might expect to the possibility of a one-time wealth tax. And with ballots arriving now — voting early is so important! — a look at efforts to protect the polls.

All of us at LA Podcast love making episodes for you every week and we want to keep delivering them to you every Monday. Please become a paid subscriber to keep us hard at work — thank you so much to the 23(!) who joined us over the past week. We’re more than a third of the way to our goal of 100 new subscribers by Election Day. Sign up today at lapodcast.org 

A new LAist report reveals the actual contestants of the mayoral race: police union LAPPL and Airbnb versus the Carpenters Union and bike lane enthusiast and hedge fund manager Aaron Sosnick. The battle between the police department and street safety is a tale as old as time

Governor Gavin Newsom signed new legislation adding stricter penalties to influencers who don’t disclose political funding on posts — a week-ish later, a lawsuit (filed with help from the Bass campaign’s legal firm) alleged Nithya Raman’s campaign paid influencers without proper disclosure

Another new poll shows Latinos heavily favoring Raman — and yet another says 25% of the city is still undecided with only a month until the election

(It’s never too early to plan for the potential future. This week, L.A. Material’s Julia Wick dared to ask: if Raman were to win, who would take her seat?)

Here are some numbers to make your head explode: California’s billionaires’ wealth increased to $2.117 trillion in the past year (a 25.6% raise). They spend 0.26% of their wealth annually in state income taxes. And they’ve spent $227 million (and counting) to oppose state Proposition 40

Then, as Mariel explains in Golden State Report, these same billionaires sponsored state Propositions 41 and 42, which would repeal any wealth tax (as added insurance, should Proposition 40 pass)

(And remember, Proposition 40 was written in part to address budget holes after Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill slashed Medi-Cal funding: state officials estimate the Medi-Cal program could lose more than $30 billion annually)

(And, and, and: 41% of LA County residents are enrolled on Medi-Cal. Is your head still intact or is it just us?)

You’ll also find a potential end to California’s tortured relationship with CEQA (Prop 45) and a voter ID proposal (that’s kinda just wannabe voter suppression?) (Prop 39) on the ballot

Rest assured, the LA Forward ballot guide with these propositions and more will be out this week

Vote protectors are here to help! This election, getting out the vote also means protecting the vote

The first step is to vote early! Pledge to vote early today at voteearly.la and sign up to monitor polls near you (you’ll get trained first), host your own ballot party, and join an election protection mobilization network

Support LA Podcast by becoming a paid subscriber at lapodcast.org

ICYMI: We’re on YouTube! Bluesky! LinkedIn! Threads! And Instagram, of course. Follow, subscribe, and turn on post notifications to make sure you stay in the loop with all things LA Pod

Thank you to Charlotte Landes for producing this episode and to our digital producer Bianca Cockrell

The reporting and analysis you hear in the show is put together by our rotating cast of producers and co-hosts every week. All opinions expressed on the show are solely those of co-hosts and may not represent the views of LA Forward

Mike Bonin is the executive director of the Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs at CalState LA, and can be found at @mikebonin on Instagram and @mikebonin.bsky.social on Bluesky

Godfrey Plata is the deputy director of LA Forward and is @godfreyplata on Instagram

Mariel Garza is the co-founder and executive editor of Golden State Report and a veteran California journalist for the LA Times, Sacramento Bee, and Los Angeles Daily News, among others

Alissa, Godfrey, and guest co-host Robert Greene dig into the minutiae of ongoing county governance reform and our upcoming ballot measure alphabet soup. A new poll turns the mayoral race on its head: Councilmember Nithya Raman is now leading Karen Bass by double digits. And does Los Angeles have a weak mayor… or is it just a weak city?

LA Podcast can only publish on a weekly basis thanks to the support of our paid subscribers — thank you to the 10 folks who have recently joined us! Our goal is 100 new subscribers by Election Day to cover our costs and keep this show on the metaphorical road. Sign up today at lapodcast.org (more on our rebrand below!)

The County Governance Reform Task Force — aka the executors of Measure G — has had a busy summer and so has Robert as he follows their efforts. As the editor of the aptly-named Los Angeles Rules, he explains the process of the new Ethics Commission nominations, the “why” for the new county legislative analyst position, and organizers’ concerns about potentially losing access to the Board of Supervisors, among many other developments

Join us tonight, Monday, September 28, to review LA Forward’s survey examining what Angelenos think and prioritize about the new county executive role

After that, later tonight, Godfrey and LAF’s Jason Enright will be teaching “How to Host a Ballot Party!”

You’ll just need the official LA Forward voter guide — arriving the week of October 5 — to complete your shindig. It will explain city measures PRK (parks!) and LA (two-year budget cycles! CIP!!!), county measures A (arbitration!) and E (ethics, but also the former Measure J, it’s a whole thing), and so many more. Trust us, these measures are the life of any party

Councilmember Nithya Raman and Mayor Karen Bass are about tied in campaign fundraising, but not in support: in a new poll, Raman now leads Bass by double digits 

(Bass crashed out and called the poll an “outlier” but her allies are a little nervous) 

Replying to the Bass campaign’s indignation, Berkeley IGS poll director Mark DiCamillo said: "What would you expect from a campaign down by double digits? They attack the poll”

Adding fuel to the fire, the EAA (who recently welcomed city council aides to the union) and the WGA recently endorsed Raman 

On the other hand, Bass can take comfort that the LAPD union enthusiastically did not do that. (They had their own totally normal crash out over Raman’s plans to “embed a socialist regime in Los Angeles” with DSA, “the party of free sh**”)

Is anyone thinking about the forlorn, abandoned Spencer Pratt voters? Whomever will they cast their ballot for this November?

In the end, how much does this even matter? No LA mayor can cut through red tape like  Mayor “200,000 Potholes Filled” Mamdani because we’re a weak-mayor city, right? Not quite: Jim Newton refutes this popular-with-pundits take for L.A. Material

Or as Robert put it earlier this year: even a strong mayor can't overcome a weak city

We’ve rebranded! You’ll now find us at lapodcast.org (where, once again, you can become a paid subscriber to help us keep helping you digest all that’s happening around our city)

And the stars have aligned under this beautiful harvest full moon to usher in a social media bonanza. We’re now on YouTube! Bluesky! LinkedIn! Threads! So many platforms and so many exclamation points.

Subscribe and follow and stay tuned for fun content and other general LA Podcast excitement. There’s lots in store. (And of course, we remain on Instagram)

Thanks to Kristen Torres for producing and Bianca Cockrell for digital producing

The reporting and analysis you hear in the show is put together by our rotating cast of producers and co-hosts every week. All opinions expressed on the show are solely those of co-hosts and may not represent the views of LA Forward

Alissa Walker writes the newsletter Torched, tracking LA’s megaevent progress. Find her at @awalkerinla on Instagram and @awalkerinla.bsky.social on Bluesky

Godfrey Plata is the deputy director of LA Forward and is @godfreyplata on Instagram

Robert Greene is an independent Los Angeles-based reporter and 2026-27 John Randolph Haynes and Dora Haynes Foundation fellow. He is the editor of Los Angeles Rules, a publication about city and county government reform

Alissa, Mike, and guest co-host Matthew Reagan of The LA Local dive into accountability, litigation, and federal assistance in Boyle Heights after the Lineage fire. LAHSA as we know it is over. And on the same day as a safe streets rally, five Angelenos are killed when a driver crashes an SUV into a Metro bus, then a news helicopter covering the crash also crashes. Only in LA?

LA Podcast is only possible thanks to our paid subscribers. Our goal is 100 new subscribers by Election Day to cover our show’s costs so we can keep producing weekly episodes. Sign up today at thinkforward.la

We celebrate local independent news outlets! The LA Local is training citizens to attend public meetings and report back to their journalists and the community at large. And the Boyle Heights Beat has led the charge in Lineage fire reporting. So important and needed

LA City Council voted to block any Lineage rebuilding efforts until LAFD has completed its investigation (though Lineage CEO Greg Lehmkuhl says they aren’t sure they’ll rebuild anyway)

Lineage has sued their solar power provider, blaming them for the fire

A Garden Grove neighborhood was preemptively evacuated over a chemical leak last year, fearing their own Lineage story, which posed the question: why weren’t Boyle Heights residents evacuated? 

Boyle Heights residents were frustrated by Mayor Karen Bass’s virtual attendance (or no attendance at all) at meetings

Federal disaster loans are available to affected businesses (but, meeting this administration’s politics, only if you are a citizen or green-card holder) 

The Lineage fire’s sweet smelly legacy is emanating from Simi Valley landfills and as you can imagine, no one is thrilled about it 

After LAist reported on Mayor Karen Bass skipping more than half of LAHSA’s meetings, she officially stepped down from the board

LAHSA is also stepping down from LAHSA, forfeiting the federal roles it has been performing for years like the annual homelessness count

LAHSA had already been on thin ice fighting a lawsuit from the Trump administration this summer 

City, county, and private agencies are placing bids to take over LAHSA’s work

Congress summoned Mayor Bass to a hearing in DC about LA’s homelessness spending but she declined, calling it “politically motivated.” Committee Republicans vow to “use every tool” to make her testify

Earlier this summer, the Department of Housing and Urban Development issued a $4.4 billion Notice of Funding Opportunity — a NOFO, if you will — directing aid money away from a “housing first” approach

The feds were in LA that week anyway, arresting two people for misusing millions of taxpayer dollars. You know that situation where you’re supposed to provide housing but you accidentally buy a nightclub and go to Tahiti? Haven’t we all been there?

As usual, this begs the question: but what will this look like during the Olympics?

Continuing our city and society’s addictions to cars and the crime news cycle, after an impaired driver crashed her SUV into a Metro bus, the news helicopter covering the situation also crashed

In a rare move, the driver was arrested and charged with second-degree murder

The New York Times analyzed the dangers of flying news helicopters in big cities like Los Angeles

Poignantly and ironically, there was a rally to declare a state of emergency over our dangerous streets the morning before the crashes

(Advocates cited facts like the city had to return $100 million of state grants for street safety projects and removed 5 miles of bike lanes despite the fact traffic fatalities are up 8% from last year)

Plans to slow cars on Forest Lawn Drive had been in the works for years. However, California lawmakers swooped in at the last minute 

** Since recording the podcast, Governor Gavin Newsom signed SB 194 into law, stopping traffic safety improvements on Forest Lawn Drive

Forest Lawn and Mount Sinai cemeteries spent $500,000 to lobby against these plans, wanting to generate future customers

Streetsblog LA’s Joe Linton has explained why the city is only doing “large asphalt repairs” to avoid having to upgrade street safety

Postively: it will eventually feel safer to walk on Spring and Alameda streets in Chinatown. And speed cameras! Many speed cameras! And speed governors, someday, maybe!

Thank you to Charlotte Landes for producing this episode and to our production assistant Bianca Cockrell

The reporting and analysis you hear in the show is put together by our rotating cast of producers and co-hosts every week. All opinions expressed on the show are solely those of co-hosts and may not represent the views of LA Forward

Alissa Walker writes the newsletter Torched, tracking LA’s megaevent progress. Find her at @awalkerinla on Instagram and @awalkerinla.bsky.social on Bluesky

Mike Bonin is the Executive Director of the Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs at CalState LA, and can be found at @mikebonin on Instagram and @mikebonin.bsky.social on Bluesky

Matthew Reagan is the assignment editor of LA Documenters, a program that trains and pays LA residents to put public meetings on the record. Documenter notes are published online and inform the community journalism produced by The LA Local

Mike, Memo, and guest co-host Faizah Malik look back on the 25th anniversary of 9/11 and its legacies, including the Department of Homeland Security, which recently decided they will not (yet) revoke Temporary Protected Status for Salvadorans. Then: childcare in Los Angeles is becoming more difficult and more expensive to find— but maybe a billionaire tax could help?

LA Podcast is only possible thanks to our paid subscribers. Our goal is 100 new subscribers by Election Day to cover the show’s costs so we can keep producing weekly episodes. Sign up today at thinkforward.la

Last week marked the 25th anniversary of 9/11 and Alex Padilla’s remarks about the tragedy as acting mayor of Los Angeles

Julia Wick profiled the moment in a piece for L.A. Material

This week also granted some relief to thousands of Salvadorans after a month of threats that their TPS (Temporary Protected Status) would be taken away

Memo and L.A. Taco reporter Izzy Ramirez chronicled this saga (and other ICE malfeasance)

Journalist Cerise Castle goes deep on LAPD’s relationship with ICE with Dominique DiPrima of KBLA

CHIRLA, CARCEN-LA, and other advocates gathered to demand protections for TPS holders and their families 

In other worrying news for families, UCLA is closing their childcare facilities

Similarly, the city of Los Angeles used COVID funds to build a network of city preschools — but now say they don’t have enough funding to run them

(How expensive is childcare in this town anyway?)

As the mayoral race draws nearer, make sure to educate yourself on your preferred candidate’s stance on street vending

LAist’s Gab Chabrán reports on the basics of legal street vending practices

The L.A. Times editorial board breaks its publishing drought, writing an opinion for the first time in a year and a half to oppose Prop 40, the proposed billionaire tax

Surely this isn’t because L.A. Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong is a billionaire? That would be too obvious?

Some guides and controversy to help you form your own opinion on whether or not Mark Zuckerberg should have to give the state $11 billion in a one-time tax

Check out LA Forward’s teach-in about the most dangerous measures on the ballot this Tuesday on zoom

Some of the best editorial writing in LA is still coming from former LAT editorial board member, Robert Greene, who now writes at regular newsletter at Los Angeles Rules

Thanks to Charlotte Landes for producing and Bianca Cockrell for production assistance

The reporting and analysis you hear in the show is put together by our rotating cast of producers and co-hosts every week. All opinions expressed on the show are solely those of co-hosts and may not represent the views of LA Forward

Mike Bonin is the Executive Director of the Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs at CalState LA, and can be found at @mikebonin on Instagram and @mikebonin.bsky.social on Bluesky

Memo Torres is an award-winning journalist with L.A. Taco, where he covers ICE and immigration raids as host of the Daily Memo. He’s on Instagram at @el_tragon_de_los_angeles

Faizah Malik is a housing and civil right attorney, who ran as a progressive for LA City Council in District 11. She can be found at @faizahforla on Instagram

Scott, Alissa, and Sophie attempt to understand the Lucas Museum’s decade-long arrival in Expo Park and what “narrative art” actually means. Does this mean the La La Land optimism of 2016 LA is back? MacArthur Park hosts a picnic — and potentially a new fence? And more major endorsements in the mayoral race.

LA Podcast is only possible thanks to our paid subscribers. Our goal is 300 new subscribers by election day (November 3rd!) to cover our show’s costs so we can keep producing weekly episodes. Sign up today at thinkforward.la

Haven’t you ever wanted to picnic with your district attorney? Your dreams could have come true this weekend

(Despite his throwing of the gauntlet, DA Nathan Hochman had enjoyed himself at a World Cup event in MacArthur Park earlier this summer)

Picnics might become harder in a fenced MacArthur Park, but it is unclear when or if that is actually happening

The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art will officially open on September 22 and everyone has thoughts about it (you might like to revisit Christopher Knight’s 2017 remarks where he describes this project as the “Treacle Museum — a sentimental vanity gallery pumped up on soppy emotional steroids”)

What is “narrative art” anyway? George Lucas explains. Kinda? Is it just horny statues?

It’s the 10th anniversary of La La Land’s premiere and Eric Garcetti is with us in spirit 

UNITE HERE Local 11 and DSA-LA both endorsed Nithya Raman for mayor (positioning Airbnb as a top issue in the race)

Meanwhile, Mayor Karen Bass shared videos about encampments near schools and “No-Show Nithya” (while, it must be said, missing a third of LAHSA meetings and two thirds of Metro votes)

“I’ll take Raman’s “wonderful ideas and plans” — Bass’ words, not mine! — over the mayor’s record. For climate voters, this is an easy choice.” Sometime LA Podcast host Sammy Roth also endorses Raman

And a happy Labor Day to all — City Council aides have unionized with EAA!

Thanks to Sophie Bridges for producing and Bianca Cockrell for production assistance

The reporting and analysis you hear in the show is put together by our rotating cast of producers and co-hosts every week. All opinions expressed on the show are solely those of co-hosts and may not represent the views of LA Forward

Scott Frazier is an original co-host of LA Podcast

Alissa Walker writes the newsletter Torched, tracking LA’s megaevent progress. Find her at @awalkerinla on Instagram and @awalkerinla.bsky.social on Bluesky

Sophie Bridges is a writer and audio producer whose work has appeared on This American Life, Radiolab, and Reveal. She’s a proud graduate of LAUSD and the Writers Guild of America

Alissa, Mike, and Olga discover that extreme humidity pairs nicely with our already-crumbling infrastructure. Luckily, social media is the key to fixing potholes! Controller Kenneth Mejia tries to demystify LA28’s finances. And will DSA-LA make an LA mayoral endorsement — and does it matter?

Southern California is used to being the best at many things, but unfortunately this week we took the prize for highest humidity in the country

Did you want to run your air conditioning in this extreme heat? Sorry! Power’s out

In cooler news: an LAUSD school in Westlake more than quadrupled their green space on campus, creating a shady oasis for their students, and there are plans for more district campuses to do the same

Streetsblog LA’s Joe Anthony and Joe Linton covered advocates commemorating 10 years of LA’s landmark sidewalk  settlement and why it hasn’t succeeded

LA is (still) a film town, so maybe we shouldn’t be surprised that you have to make a viral video to get any infrastructure fixed 

Alissa’s pothole campaign was successful! But others have not been as lucky

Are you tired of potholes in your neighborhood? Join LA Forward Monday night as we discuss what a Capital Infrastructure Program (CIP) could and should include to fix our streets

As 2028 draws closer, City Controller Kenneth Mejia is requesting their financial documents so taxpayers aren’t left paying for the Olympics and our city instead has money for projects like fixing sidewalks

Representative Laura Friedman (CA-30) held a panel to advocate for Metro funding with other less knowledgeable elected officials because the federal government has yet to pledge money for Olympics transportation (But hey, it’s one Olympics. What could it cost, $10?)

Whatever happened to those $28 Olympics tickets anyway?

City Council President Marquee Harris-Dawson introduced a motion to guarantee local businesses be included in Olympic contracts and therefore revenue

Geese magazine has the arguments for why DSA should or should not endorse “pothole populist” Nithya Raman for mayor. Voting ends Tuesday

Mayor Karen Bass walked back her remarks about street vendors made during the SOHA debate while Raman updated her street vendor platform

Los Angeles Public Press reported on LAPD using infamous ordinance 41.18 to warn, cite, and displace vendors in MacArthur Park for at least the past year

Support LA Podcast by becoming a paid subscriber at thinkforward.la

Thank you to Charlotte Landes for producing this episode and to our production assistant Bianca Cockrell

The reporting and analysis you hear in the show is put together by our rotating cast of producers and co-hosts every week. All opinions expressed on the show are solely those of co-hosts and may not represent the views of LA Forward

Alissa Walker writes the newsletter Torched, tracking LA’s megaevent progress. Find her at @awalkerinla on Instagram and @awalkerinla.bsky.social on Bluesky

Mike Bonin is the Executive Director of the Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs at CalState LA, and can be found at @mikebonin on Instagram and @mikebonin.bsky.social on Bluesky

Olga Lexell is a TV writer and local political organizer

Mike, Godfrey, and Olga dissect the heated mayoral debate at the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Association. Will LA see a Paramount Skydance Warner Brothers lot? Uber and Lyft drivers won the right to organize, making labor history. Then: you can file to run for LA County CEO starting next month, but what does this job actually entail?

Mayor Karen Bass and Councilmember Nithya Raman debated in an auditorium in Sherman Oaks last Wednesday night

L.A. Material’s Julia Wick dared to bravely ask and answer the question: but why do the mayoral candidates of our nation’s second-largest city trade jabs behind a duct-taped banner in the Valley?

(Not everyone was able to see that beautiful banner though: SOHA’s Zoom account maxed out on capacity)

The LA Times, L.A. Taco, and LAist analyze the debate (and Bass’s anti-street vendor comments)

A poll showing Bass trouncing Raman by double digits was actually fake. Oops!

Raman plans to hire Fight Agency for some television ads: their other clients include Mayor Zohran Mamdani and former Senate candidate Graham Platner (who withdrew after being accused of sexual assault)

Bass is calling for “all parties to come to the table” to settle the anti-trust lawsuit blocking a proposed Paramount Skydance and Warner Brothers merger, though a LA County Board of Supervisors report says it would cost thousands of jobs and about $2.78 billion in lost economic value

Raman stands by her opposition to the merger and support for the lawsuit

The WGA is not pleased with Bass’s approach nor the proposed merger — but DGA and IATSE just want a decision, one way or another, to prevent members from losing wages

Paramount and the State of California are scheduled to meet today to discuss a path forward

In other union news, Uber and Lyft drivers have won union recognition in the state of California thanks to the passing of AB 1340 and lots of organizing

(Gig drivers are still classified as independent contractors, but can now bargain for protections)

The filing window for LA County CEO opens next month. But what will the County CEO do, exactly? Is this election governed by campaign finance rules? What’s the structure of its future office? These questions and more are… still being decided

Whatever its scope, this change may be most helpful for unincorporated communities, who without local governments, rely on the Board of Supervisors for municipal services

The Governance Reform Task Force will review a final draft of these recommendations at its August 28 meeting: you can give public comment and lobby for your priorities

Support LA Podcast by becoming a paid subscriber at thinkforward.la

Thank you to Charlotte Landes for producing this episode and to our production assistant Bianca Cockrell

The reporting and analysis you hear in the show is put together by our rotating cast of producers and co-hosts every week. All opinions expressed on the show are solely those of co-hosts and may not represent the views of LA Forward

Mike Bonin is the executive director of the Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs at CalState LA, and can be found at Substack, or @mikebonin on IG, and @mikebonin.bsky.social on Bluesky

Godfrey Plata is the deputy director of LA Forward and is @godfreyplata on Instagram

Olga Lexell is a TV writer and local political organizer

Alissa, Godfrey, and Loraine go deep on LAUSD’s many changes and challenges as this new school year begins. LA’s City Council is set to make big shifts on how to address homelessness, but the hardest part might be getting everyone to agree. And what will actually get Angelenos out of their cars?

Andres Chait has been officially appointed LAUSD superintendent and has some plans to address the slew of issues ahead

Declining enrollment is creating a big financial challenge for LAUSD. One new income supplement: using vacant classrooms as childcare centers

If the budget deficit isn’t resolved, the county will step in

Some good student transportation news: speed cameras are being installed around schools

More students are taking the bus to school, which is helpful amid continuing ICE raids

Newly approved screen time reforms are in place, eliminating digital devices for first graders and younger, setting age-specific time limits on older students, blocking YouTube access, and more

Unfortunately, Boyle Heights kids have more grounds than most to say going back to school stinks — the odor of rotting food is not going away anytime soon

(Relatedly, Lineage will fail to meet Mayor Karen Bass’s 45-day clean up deadline, so she is directing city lawyers to pursue civil litigation — but Lineage claims the city has the deadline date wrong)

LAUSD says schools near the Lineage fire are safe from contaminants, though two tested positive for above-average levels of lead

Councilmember Nithya Raman has been removed as chair of the Homelessness and Housing committee, which was then split into two separate committees

Raman and Bass will surely discuss housing among other issues during their debate hosted by the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Association on Wednesday evening 

Many councilmembers made rather, er, harsh comments about this, which happened to coincide with news of Bass and Councilmember Imelda Padilla’s tiny home village opening

Speaking of scathing remarks, Judge David Carter didn’t mince words as he blocked Trump’s attempt to take over LAHSA, criticizing both HUD and LAHSA

Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martinez introduced an interestingly timed motion to get rid of all of the 41.18 zones in his district

Turns out an accounting glitch skewed numbers from this year’s homelessness count, inflating the rise in the unhoused population by almost 1.5% 

Newsom announces a new EV tax credit for first-time buyers but what about that e-bike credit?

Metro is piloting a program that will pay you not to drive for 5 weeks and DOT is piloting mobility wallets to reimburse all types of modes in low-income communities

More on homelessness and visits from the Trump administration on the new L.A. World podcast, a project of L.A. Material, hosted by Hayes Davenport, Antonia Cereijido, and Julia Turner

Support LA Podcast by becoming a paid subscriber at thinkforward.la

Thank you to Sophie Bridges for producing this episode and to our production assistant Bianca Cockrell

The reporting and analysis you hear in the show is put together by our rotating cast of producers and co-hosts every week. All opinions expressed on the show are solely those of co-hosts and may not represent the views of LA Forward

Alissa Walker writes the newsletter Torched, tracking LA’s megaevent progress. Find her at @awalkerinla on Instagram and @awalkerinla.bsky.social on Bluesky

Loraine Lundquist is chair of LA Forward’s board, an astrophysicist, and a sustainability policy expert who earned 49.4% of the vote as a candidate for LA City Council

Godfrey Plata is the deputy director of LA Forward and is @godfreyplata on Instagram

Alissa, Mike, and Marco say a requiem for the Graffiti Towers. Nithya Raman receives endorsements from some big players, including Kenneth Mejia’s corgis. In the wake of the Lineage environmental disaster, which still reeks, LA’s City Council votes for more environmental disasters. And who will be LA County’s first elected CEO?

The Graffiti Towers have been sold and cleaning efforts have begun

Aren’t the Graffiti Towers the Watts Towers of their generation? (Both are being refurbished for the 2028 Olympics)

Keep Honking! I’m admiring the Oceanwide Plaza Graffiti Towers! See them up close with Alissa and the Rent Brigade on a tour next week

Nearby, a new park under the Sixth Street Bridge, also resplendent with graffiti, continues gentrification conversations

LA Material’s Degen Pener reports on families of coyotes living in residential towers in West Hollywood

The Western States Carpenters union endorsed Nithya Raman, reversing their 2022 support for Bass

Raman was also recently endorsed by Kenneth Mejia, who is encouraging the public to add a Nithya sticker to their yard signs

City Council will vote on splitting Housing and Homelessness and Health into two separate committees this week

The Lineage fire still smells and it’s still bad news so Karen Bass wrote an open letter to the Lineage shareholders and supports an order of abatement from AQMD

Councilmember Ysabel Jurado introduced a seven-motion package for Boyle Heights fire recovery. Hilda Solis is in charge of small business recovery

The EPA has asked Lineage for documents to assess Clean Air Act compliance: aka, was there an ammonia leak? Lineage warehouses have had 63 fires over the last ten years, by the way

Hungry for more environmental disasters, Council approved a retrofitting of the Scattergood gas plant

Eric Garcetti has a new job and it is (or isn’t) what you’d expect

Garcetti recently declined Julia Wick’s request for comment as she explored who might throw their hat in the ring for the powerful LA County CEO election in 2028 for LA Material. Mike profiled Long Beach mayor Rex Richardson, another rumored candidate, on What’s Next, LA?, look for it in the upcoming weeks

Support LA Podcast by becoming a paid subscriber at thinkforward.la

This week’s episode was produced by Sophie Bridges

Thanks to our digital producer Bianca Cockrell

The reporting and analysis you hear in the show is put together by our rotating cast of producers and co-hosts every week. All opinions expressed on the show are solely those of co-hosts and may not represent the views of LA Forward.

Alissa Walker writes the newsletter Torched, tracking LA’s megaevent progress. Find her at @awalkerinla on Instagram and @awalkerinla.bsky.social on Bluesky.

Mike Bonin is the executive director of the Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs at Cal State LA, and can be found at @mikebonin on Instagram and @mikebonin.bsky.social on Bluesky

Marco Santana brings over a decade of leadership to the LA homelessness services sector and is a former candidate and active leader within local Democratic party politics. He’s at @Marco4LA on Instagram

Scott, Mike, and Olga convene a transportation sickos roundtable to discuss Metro’s State of the Agency, how the system fared during the World Cup, and big changes to the board’s structure. Will the LAX people mover ever open — and will anyone actually call it SkyLink? Then: Karen Bass’s sudden pivot on the Lineage disaster in a mayorship that has been defined by disasters.

Watch Metro’s State of the Agency featuring Metro’s magnetic CEO Stephanie Wiggins

Metro ridership numbers in June increased by over two million year over year during the World Cup

Alissa was on Spectrum talking about how well it all went and wrote more about the lessons learned on Torched

More than 560,000 fans attended the eight matches altogether, according to the Los Angeles World Cup 2026 Host Committee. There were approximately 212,000 boardings to and from SoFi. This means about 1 in 5 fans going to the matches took Metro’s shuttle service

Los Angeles Times: “The World Cup was an L.A. public transit success. The Olympics will be a much bigger test”

Bass, now in her second go as Metro board chair, suddenly started caring about transit, and is promising fare-free transit that advocates have been demanding for years

As advocates — including a direct plea from CicLAvia — begged Metro to find $1 million for open streets events while pouring over $100 million into freeway expansions

Metro’s board is changing — and is about to undergo more significant changes. Two small city reps are no longer elected councilmembers, so they’re out: Whittier’s Fernando Dutra who lost his council race and Glendale’s Ara Najarian who didn’t run again. Long Beach mayor Rex Richardson is replacing Dutra, but the obscure L.A. County City Selection Committee rejected Santa Clarita councilmember Jason Gibbs

Due to Measure G, which expands the LA County Board of Supervisors to nine members, Metro’s board composition has to change. The board approved a motion — a combination of a staff recommendation, and motions from Bass, Janice Hahn, and Lindsey Horvath — that will recommend including two rider representatives. There are still a few final wrinkles to iron out, but soon these proposals will proceed as Metro’s recommendations to the state legislature, which may have its own ideas about changes to Metro governance

The LAX people mover contractor has now sued the city, raising even more concern over when/if the three-years-late, $1 billion over budget, 2.25-mile connection from the airport to the LAX Metro station will actually open

Nick Andert has the only video about the people mover you need

After L.A. Material’s Julia Wick broke the news that Lineage Logistics had filed for permits to rebuild their burned and putrid cold storage warehouse, Bass quickly announced that she would stop Lineage from rebuilding, issuing an emergency executive order to deny the permits, weeks after saying that she didn’t know if she could do that

LAist has a great explainer on what Bass and the city could actually do

Meanwhile Lineage is getting hit by fines from both AQMD and the LA County Public Health Department for odors, vermin, flies, and more

“Bass’ summer has been beset by a string of negative news. Staff members on both her campaign and administration teams have left. She was away from the city — just as she was at the start of the devastating 2025 firestorms — when a blaze ignited at the Lineage cold-storage food warehouse in Boyle Heights, inundating the heavily Latino surrounding neighborhoods with noxious fumes,” writes Noah Goldberg at the LA Times

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This week’s episode was produced by Kristen Torres

The reporting and analysis you hear in the show is put together by our rotating cast of producers and co-hosts every week. All opinions expressed on the show are solely those of co-hosts and may not represent the views of LA Forward

Scott Frazier is an original co-host of LA Podcast

Mike Bonin is the executive director of the Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs at CalState LA, and can be found at Substack, or @mikebonin on IG, and @mikebonin.bsky.social on Bluesky

Olga Lexell is a TV writer and local political organizer

Mike, Godfrey, and guest co-host Carla Hall discuss the Sunset Boulevard sinkhole in West Hollywood. Then, the results of the 2026 homeless count are in. And Mayor Karen Bass’s informal advisor steps back.

On July 16th, an LADWP pipe burst on the corner of Sunset and Holloway in West Hollywood. It was about 110 years old, and created a giant sinkhole in the middle of the night 

This pipe was on track to be refurbished in 2031- about 30%,of the city's pipes are over 80 years old

LADWP experiences a leak rate that is 36% below the national average

More small leaks on Sunset

For the LA Times, Hannah Fry reports that “there are about 547 miles of trunk line underground across the city. In 2019, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power said roughly 29% of the city’s pipes were over 80 years old, approaching their typical lifespan of 100 years.”

The LA Times has a map of locations where water main leaks have happened since 2010

West Hollywood mayor John Heilman was there, and so was Mayor Karen Bass

Councilmember and mayoral candidate Nithya Raman was on the scene with Councilmember Chelsea Byers

Officials said anyone with property or vehicle damage can file a claim through LADWP at ladwp.com/claims

After two years of modest but promising decreases in homelessness, numbers are up in both the city of LA and the larger overall county of LA, LAHSA officially announces

The overall homeless population in the city is up 3.5%, and the unsheltered population, which Mayor Bass focuses on through Inside Safe, is up 7.9% 

State funding for homelessness, which had been very healthy and robust, got cut in 2025 - a lot of that money was going to limited rental subsidies, which were hugely successful. This past year, there were 5,000 fewer people that the county was not able to put into housing because they didn't have enough subsidies

The Los Angeles County Affordable Housing Solutions Agency, shorthanded as LACAHSA, is investing over $228 million this fiscal year to help communities build and preserve affordable homes and to help prevent homelessness

Funding for support services and homelessness prevention is currently funded by Measure A dollars, and for LA city specific residents, some of this funding comes from Measure ULA

Mayor Bass is running for reelection against Council Member Raman - the numbers in Council District 4 are very different from the citywide numbers. The unsheltered population citywide was up 7.8%, and in Council District 4 it's down 49%

Yusef Robb, a close but informal advisor to the mayor, took on crisis comms work for Lineage after the warehouse fire in Boyle Heights through a group called M Strategic Communications - whose clients also include both Airbnb and the California Community Foundation 

Mayor Bass publicly promoted Airbnb's housing assistance after the fire, and asked Lineage to contribute a significant amount of money to the California Community Foundation. Robb’s work for Mayor Bass was unpaid

For L.A. Material, Julia Wick reports that Robb stepped back from working with the mayor, saying “I'm not going to let unnecessary distractions get in the way of the important things that need to be done, so I'm not extending my volunteer advisory work for the Mayor,” via text message

Robb remained in three WhatsApp groups used by the mayor’s comms team for at least a week after stepping back

Support LA Podcast by becoming a paid subscriber at thinkforward.la

This week’s episode was produced by Charlotte Landes

Our digital producer is Victoria Alejandro

The reporting and analysis you hear in the show is put together by our rotating cast of producers and co-hosts every week. All opinions expressed on the show are solely those of co-hosts and may not represent the views of LA Forward

Mike Bonin is the executive director of the Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs at CalState LA, and can be found at Substack, or @mikebonin on IG, and @mikebonin.bsky.social on Bluesky

Godfrey Plata is the deputy director of LA Forward and is @godfreyplata on Instagram

Carla Hall is a former editorial writer for the Los Angeles Times, where she covered and wrote extensively about homelessness