TRANSPARENT AND ACCOUNTABLE GOVERNMENT

OVERVIEW

Angelenos have become rightfully frustrated with our local government. Unresponsiveness from the government not only makes us feel unheard or unseen, but it also prevents us from making progress on key city issues, like maintaining basic working infrastructure, housing our unhoused neighbors, or building housing altogether. The truth is, the City Council has the power to streamline our government, but special interests often rely on these archaic systems remaining in place. 

Good government starts with accessibility. It shouldn't take a Herculean effort to reach a council office or to give public comment at important hearings or meetings. Those who have tried to give input at City Hall know that giving public comment can seem like merely shouting into the void. Instead, residents should be able to easily track how their priorities were taken into consideration, what our city is doing, and how it is making our lives better. Only when leaders are connected with community members, dedicated to weighing voices with equity, and committed to full transparencycan we build a representative system of governance. 

When transparency and accountability are established, we can build a government that not only does its job but does its job effectively. Currently, city departments are siloed from one another, and often no one is specifically tasked with moving a project forward. Our policy tends to fail at the implementation level because we lack the robust oversight needed to follow through on promises to constituents. When no one is in charge, the needs of our communities are neglected, and we fail to deliver even the most basic city services. In the second-largest city in the nation, we cannot settle for this.

These goals are not out of reach. They can and will be accomplished here in our city. We just need elected representatives, like myself, who are willing to stand up for the people they represent. Then we can get to work!

RADICAL TRANSPARENCY 

It shouldn’t require hours of study to understand how our local government works. Information about how public money is spent, what decisions are being made, and whether programs are working should be at residents’ fingertips, clear, accessible, and updated in real time. In Los Angeles, openness should be the default, not something people have to fight for. My radical transparency agenda is about making information easy to find, easier to understand, and available to everyone.

Residents of the second-largest city in the country should be able to expect at least the same clarity from their government as they get when they order food delivery on an app. They should know when their issues and feedback have been received, where they are in the process of being addressed, how long it will take, and exactly who is responsible for resolving them.

  • Strengthen open-data policies in Los Angeles.

    The LA Open Data Portal doesn’t currently do what it’s supposed to do. A lot of the city’s datasets are outdated, only show one moment in time, or are missing key information that makes them hard to understand or actually use. RAND has even pointed out these issues. If we actually want transparency, we need to do what places like New York City have done–push all city agencies to regularly publish clean, accessible data and treat open data as a baseline responsibility.  

  • Implement the city’s affordable housing portal.

    Too many people don’t trust or fully understand our affordable housing system. Residents often don’t know who owns or manages affordable units, where they are located, or how to access them. I will support the creation of a single, public database that tracks all covenanted affordable housing units in Los Angeles so residents can clearly see what exists, where it is, and how to apply. Read more in my Housing and Tenants’ Rights platform 

  • Push every city department to adopt public metrics.

    I will push every city department to adopt clear, consistent measures of success and report progress against them regularly. These measures will be displayed on simple, public dashboards so residents can see how their city is performing in real time, tracking things like response times, service quality, and project progress. We will also create a clear process for responding to resident questions about these reports, so people can get answers and understand what the data means.

  • Transparency around discretionary funds.

    Each office controls significant discretionary funds, though the amount available varies widely between offices. But residents cannot easily track how this money is used or whether it reflects community priorities. The Controller also does not have full oversight of individual council budgets, allowing major spending decisions to be made without sufficient transparency.  For example, more than $400,000 was allocated by Councilmember Traci Park for Automated License Plate Readers (ALPRs) around the district without meaningful public input or clear justification. As it stands, the only way constituents can know how their discretionary money is being spent is by following our city’s archaic council file system. Our office will change this by publicly detailing every discretionary dollar we spend and encouraging other council offices to do the same.

A BUDGET PROCESS THAT REFLECTS OUR VALUES

With a budget of $15 billion, LA should be delivering results. At the ballot box, LA voters have repeatedly shown a willingness to invest in long-term solutions, like Measure ULA and Measure A, which are bringing historic investments for housing and homelessness. The issue is not that Angelenos don’t want to fund these services; the issue is that Angelenos do not trust the government to manage our money well. And it’s not hard to see why. Our leaders are not building public trust. Short-sighted decisions and a bloated police budget have led to repeated cuts from essential services. Moreover, every year when the budget comes out, the public is reminded that they have very little, if any, say in how their tax dollars are spent. 

Leaders in LA must revise our budget process to restore the public's confidence in the City’s fiscal competence. Our yearly budget cycle is rushed, provides limited opportunity for meaningful public input, and incentivizes short-cut solutions over long-term planning. Each year, the prior budget is carried forward as the baseline with little evaluation of return on investment. Public participation in the upcoming fiscal year’s budget does not begin until April, merely weeks before its adoption in June. 

Adopting a multi-year budget cycle would finally allow the city to prioritize the long-term planning we need to address serious issues like the affordability crisis and climate preparedness. Implementing meaningful participatory budgeting will ensure that residents have a say in the planning process. These changes would lay the foundation for a more effective budget process and a city budget that is far more reflective of our constituents’ priorities.

  • Represent community priorities in our budget.

    I will be a true representative of Council District 11 by engaging residents in the budget process before the Mayor’s proposed budget is released. I will host budget listening sessions and town halls throughout the district, starting far in advance of the budget deadline to identify community priorities early and actively advocate for those needs during our budget development process.

  • Give residents more power over public dollars.

    I support institutionalizing participatory budgeting across the entire city, so residents have a direct voice in how public funds are spent. But we also do not have to wait. We can start participatory budgeting here in CD11 with a portion of our discretionary funds and take concrete steps to pilot it locally. 

  • Support a multi-year budget cycle.

    I support moving the City toward a biennial (two-year) budget cycle to enable more strategic planning, reduce last-minute decision-making, and create greater stability in how we fund services. A multi-year framework allows departments to plan, align spending with long-term goals, and gives the public more time to engage in meaningful ways.

  • Strong budget oversight.

    I support safeguarding taxpayer dollars by fully funding and empowering the independent Controller’s Office to conduct regular, comprehensive audits of departments and programs. This should be paired with dedicated investigators to address the nearly 800 annual claims of fraud, waste, and abuse

DELIVERING CITY SERVICES THAT WORK

Across Los Angeles, residents increasingly feel that basic city services are slow, unresponsive, or simply not working. This is driven by internal inefficiencies, high workforce vacancy rates, and bureaucratic hurdles. 

Our city suffers from high workforce vacancy rates. 17- 21%, or nearly 10,000, of municipal jobs at any given time remain unfilled, and these rates are most pronounced in essential departments like street cleaning, street lighting, and sanitation. High vacancy rates don’t just slow services; they also mean that taxpayer dollars that have already been budgeted for these roles are redirected or only partially used, rather than supporting the services they were originally meant to deliver. A recent audit by City Controller Kenneth Meija found that it takes an average of 7.5 months from a department filling an open position to hiring a candidate. Even when the City decides to outsource work to contractors, the process is long. While it takes nearly 200 days to hire a city employee, hiring a contractor takes nearly twice as long and frequently extends beyond 400 days.

And when constituents interact directly with City departments themselves, particularly through permitting and approvals, these challenges intensify. Only recently have our councilmembers begun to acknowledge how duplicative reviews and a lack of coordination across departments slow housing approvals. Currently, fire survivors who want to rebuild their homes must seek separate clearances from City Planning, Water and Power, Housing, Fire, and the Bureaus of Engineering, Sanitation, and Street Services, each with their own set of paperwork, requirements, and timelines. These are examples of common redundancies that we could make a thing of the past. 

  • Permitting timelines that are fast and adhered to.

    I will push to create universal, predictable permitting processes where every step is defined, timelines are enforced, and applications are reviewed on schedule. Instead of forcing constituents to navigate bureaucracy alone or having to hire expediters at extra cost, I will advocate that city departments take responsibility for moving applications through the system quickly. Starting a business or building housing in our city shouldn’t mean navigating months of delays and uncertainty.

  • Define clear lines of responsibility across city departments.

    I support the creation of a Director of Public Works role responsible for overseeing the delivery of core city services, including street maintenance, sanitation, and infrastructure coordination, and ensuring they are executed efficiently and on time. I would advocate that this position also be accountable for directing and aligning the City’s Capital Investment Program (CIP), so projects are prioritized strategically, completed on schedule, and coordinated across departments.

  • Modernize hiring to fill vacancies faster.

    I will work to implement the hiring reforms to reduce delays and modernize how the city recruits, tests, and trains its workforce. As a Councilmember, I will push for policy changes that standardize and shorten hiring timelines.

  • Reform procurement and contracting processes.

    I will simplify and accelerate the City’s procurement and contracting processes by consolidating redundant reviews, moving to parallel (rather than serial) approvals, and establishing clear, enforceable timelines for contract execution. I will create a “small business pathway” that provides technical assistance, simplified applications, and faster access to city contracts for neighborhood-based vendors. At the same time, we will strengthen transparency through publicly accessible contract tracking and accountability standards—ensuring efficiency does not come at the expense of integrity.

DEMOCRATIC PARTICIPATION & CIVIC ACCESS

In CD11, especially on the Westside, City Hall can feel both physically and figuratively out of reach. For many low-income and working-class residents, the barriers to accessing city government are high, whether it’s time, transportation, or navigating a complex system. As a result, only constituents with the most resources are able to regularly engage with City Hall, while others are completely left out of the decision-making process. Consequently, despite increases in recent years, civic participation in LA is still very low. Local elections, which determine how we experience our city on an everyday basis, draw far lower participation than congressional and presidential elections. Moreover, racial and socioeconomic disparities are also reflected in voter turnout data, with higher rates of participation among white voters than among Black, Latino, and Asian residents. 

City Council has the opportunity, and the responsibility, to dramatically increase civic engagement by making participation easy and equitable, especially for people who face barriers, like parents who need childcare to attend a meeting, residents who need interpretation to be heard, or disabled individuals who might not be able to access building spaces or meetings. In office, I will take steps to make sure ALL Angelenos have every opportunity to engage with their government and exercise their right to vote. 

  • Reopen district offices.

    I will keep all district offices open and accessible, including reopening a West LA district office that has been closed. These neighborhood-based spaces will give residents a direct place to get help navigating city services, report issues, and be heard. Each office will have consistent walk-in hours, casework support, and staff available to assist constituents.

  • Virtual & inclusive public engagement.

    I will advocate to the Council President for increased access to public participation by strengthening remote public comment options and ensuring City Council meetings are more accessible, multilingual, and user-friendly. Too many residents are shut out because of work schedules, caregiving responsibilities, or mobility challenges. By modernizing how people engage with city government, we can ensure more voices are heard.

  • Regular, rotating town halls.

    Neighborhood councils are one way to engage residents, but they don’t always reflect the full diversity of the district, and participation can be self-selecting. We need a broader and more representative approach to community input. I will expand the use of resident commissions and civic assemblies to explore additional ways to gather input from our constituents. 

  • Ensure language access.

    Los Angeles is one of the most diverse cities in the world, and no one should be excluded from civic life because of language barriers. Our office will do multilingual outreach to our many diverse communities in CD11 and provide interpretation to encourage more civic participation by immigrants in the district. I will push for a review of the implementation of our citywide language access planto assess progress, identify gaps, and update it so it reflects current needs. Right now, the city is falling short of its own commitments. The Mayor’s budget funds only two positions in the Office of Immigrant Inclusion and Language Access, and the City Clerk has budgeted just $160,000 for interpretation next year (more than 40,000 less than what was actually spent on interpretation in fiscal year 2024-2025). I will work to increase funding and staffing so language access is fully realized.

  • Explore non-citizen voting.

    I support Councilmember Soto-Martinez’s proposal to allow our local government to explore non-citizen voting in future local elections. All Angelenos should have a say in how our City is run, and we can follow the leads of other cities that have demonstrated that expanding voting access can increase participation in our democracy.

CREATING THE LA PUBLIC BANK

Los Angeles is one of the wealthiest cities in the world, yet too many of our communities struggle to access capital for housing, small businesses, and local development. Today, the city has billions of public dollars sitting in large private banks. Those institutions use our tax money to generate profit, often reinvesting it elsewhere, while Angelenos face barriers to loans, credit, and investment in their own neighborhoods.

Taxpayers already bear substantial risk in our financial system, through taxpayer-backed guarantees on things like housing finance and small business lending, but by placing our capital in private banks, we lose control over where that capital flows. A Los Angeles Public Bank is about bringing our money home, ensuring that public dollars are reinvested into public priorities. Done right, it can expand access to capital, strengthen local economies, and increase accountability over how our collective wealth is used.

At a time when federal oversight of banks is being weakened and trust in institutions is low, Los Angeles must take a more active role in shaping our own financial future. A public bank, paired with strong transparency, real accountability, and governance, can help us do exactly that.

A growing coalition of council members already support the development of a Los Angeles public bank and have even contributed discretionary funds to advance the plan. As a Councilmember, I will join this effort and work alongside them to make a public bank a reality for our city.