Councilmember Monica Rodriguez has been agitating to get her motion calling for the Los Angeles Charter Reform Commission members to disclose any communications they have with elected officials and their staff to be taken up by her colleagues on the LA City Council. That motion has not been scheduled by Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson to be heard in committee since she introduced it nearly three months ago, on Aug. 1.
And after it did not shown up on this Tuesday’s Rules committee agenda, she stalked into the reform commission’s ‘planning and infrastructure’ subcommittee meeting that was being held on Saturday in her district at Pacoima City Hall, where her office was located, and proceeded to unloaded her frustrations onto the three members on that panel.
“What you should know is, I introduced a motion several months ago that sought to have commissioners document the conversations and the engagement that they're having with elected officials behind closed doors or their staffs, to have ‘ex parte’ communications shared with members of the public, so that we're operating in full transparency,” Rodriguez said.
She then referenced the ‘impetus’ for the charter reform commission being created, which was to “clean up all the backroom deals and the, you know, the corruption at City Hall.”
The LA Reporter reached out to the council president’s office Saturday to get comment on Rodriguez’s remarks and why her motion had not being taken up yet, but did not hear back by publication time. Rodriguez’s motion calls for an ordinance to be adopted that would require a transparency measure in which what are known as “ex parte communications” — which are often between commissioners and elected officials and their staff — to be disclosed. Such measures are meant to provide transparency on who might be influencing commissioners in their decision-making.
California Common Cause’s Transparency, Ethics, and Accountability Program Manager, Sean McMorris, told The LA Reporter that such a requirement isn’t usually controversial and so he wondered “why it was it not implemented for the [charter reform commission].” Before the commission was created, at least one group, Unrig LA, had suggested that a requirement to disclose ex parte communications be incorporated into the charter reform commission’s process.
Rodriguez’s remarks to the commission on Saturday were unorthodox, especially when compared to the welcome remarks of other host council members who have appeared supportive of the underlying purpose of the charter reform commission. Rodriguez, who often offers a contrarian voice on the City Council, opened by saying, “Well, I’m going to be me, that’s what you’re used to!” before launching into extended remarks intimating skullduggery on the part of those who appointed many of the people sitting on the commission — which were the mayor and council leadership, such as Marqueece Harris-Dawson (some commissioners had been appointed by the prior council president, Paul Krekorian, who is no longer on the City Council after he termed out). There were several people in the audience, from her district, who cheered for Rodriguez.
She characterized the work of the charter reform panel as being used as a “ruse” to misguide people into thinking that proposals like increasing the number of people in City Council or institution ranked-choice voting would lead to city services being delivered better. And she said having city department officials present to the panel was not a good use of their time, and she also said she felt the panel’s work was being rushed through.
Raymond Meza, the chair of the Charter Reform Commission, who happened to be attending the committee meeting on Saturday, responded to Rodriguez’s remarks afterwards, saying that he was unaware of any conflation of ranked-choice-voting and council expansion with how well services are delivered. The delivery of city services have been part of their discussions, he said, but they were being discussed in the context of streamlining department structures and coordinating capital infrastructure work into a long-term planning process. And he also pointed to the council, which includes Rodriguez, as having approved the process for who got to appoint the commissioners that now sit on the panel.
Meza said he was happy that Rodriguez came and spoke at their meeting, adding that “I will again remind all council members that they're the ones who created the ordinance with the timeline that we have, and they could always change it if that's something that they saw fit to do. I'm not necessarily advocating for that, but that's in their power and not in the power of the commission.”
A spokesperson for Rodriguez said that the councilwoman had initially been supportive of the commission, but things had changed.
“The councilwoman backed the commission’s creation and supports reform, but she's concerned about the disorganized process and mixed agendas,” Gabriel Avalos, spokesperson for Rodriguez, said in a statement to The LA Reporter. He added that one example of this was the fact that her “motion to disclose ex parte communications still hasn’t been scheduled for Tuesday’s Rules Committee hearing.”
Ross Weistroffer, a volunteer for Fair Rep LA, defended the council expansion idea, after Rodriguez had written it off as being part of an agenda. He said that “while I admire CM Rodriguez's commitment to championing her constituents' needs, we need to expand the size of council if we want more manageable council districts, more competitive elections, and more responsive offices that will make it easier for you to reach and be heard by your council member about potholes -- and any other problem that can be more effectively addressed when there's more fair representation for Angelenos on City Council.”
Note: The story has been updated with a quote from Rodriguez’s spokesperson.
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