Reform pressure on ULA, a Metro line actually opens, and LAPD's so-called best anti-gang unit is under investigation. Welcome to Wednesday in Los Angeles. This is LA Politics and Urbanism Daily. Today: a business lobby going after the mansion tax, a housing voucher program that finally gets some good news, and a transit milestone we've been waiting on for a long time. And body cams getting switched off by the cops who were supposed to be the good ones. So, yeah, full Wednesday. All right, let's get into it. Maria S Salinas, writing in Culver City Observer:
Los Angeles voters passed Measure ULA with legitimate urgency, and we respect that. But the evidence is now clear. Researchers from UCLA, Harvard, UC San Diego, and UC Irvine have all found that this policy is producing less housing, less commercial investment, and less tax revenue than promised. Los Angeles is weeks away from the FIFA World Cup and two years from the Olympic and Paralympic Games.
The LA Area Chamber is pushing City Council to reform Measure ULA — the mansion tax voters approved in 2022. Chamber CEO Maria Salinas is pointing to research from UCLA, Harvard, UC San Diego, and UC Irvine all saying the same thing: less housing built, less commercial investment, and less tax revenue than was promised. The Culver City Observer has the statement. Four university research teams saying the same thing — that ULA is suppressing housing production — and the Council is still just sitting on it? The tax was supposed to fund affordable housing. If it's ending up by choking supply, that's not a win for working Angelenos. That's a self-own. The Chamber is also hammering the FIFA and Olympics timeline. And look, I get why they're doing it, but tying real estate policy to the World Cup is exactly the kind of argument that makes people's eyes roll. Sure, the framing is cynical. The underlying point doesn't disappear just because the messenger is annoying. If ULA is slowing housing starts, reform it — don't wait for a ribbon-cutting moment to care. This one's from RealEstateRama:
The Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles (HACLA) has earned the U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development (HUD) highest performance rating for its administration of the Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher Program— one of the largest rental assistance programs in the nation. HACLA received an overall score of 99 percent, placing the agency in HUD’s “high performer” tier for program management and delivery.
HACLA just scored a 99 out of 100 on HUD's annual Section 8 management audit. That's top tier nationally for running the Housing Choice Voucher program, which serves over 60,000 LA households. Credit where it's due — keeping vouchers moving for 60,000 households without blowing the SEMAP score is genuinely hard, and most people only hear about housing agencies when something breaks. The catch, of course, is that a voucher is only as good as a landlord willing to take it. And LA's rental market has not exactly been rolling out the welcome mat. Exactly. A 99 percent administrative score doesn't build a single new unit. The waiting list is still years long, and the city still can't permit its way out of a paper bag. Great score, same crisis. This one's from Law And Order News:
Members of the the 77th Avenue Division’s specialised gang element got here beneath inner investigation in current months for failing to activate their body-worn cameras and pulling individuals over with out documenting the interactions. “We take this very very critically, which is why your complete unit is stood down,” Asst. Chief Scott Harrelson informed the Police Fee at its weekly assembly Tuesday.
LAPD's 77th Division anti-gang unit is stood down — all of it — after officers were caught turning off body cams during traffic stops and pulling people over with no documentation. The department's civilian watchdog is now asking for a citywide review of all gang enforcement units. The city spent millions on body cameras and the officers just... turned them off. That's not a technical glitch, that's a choice. And this is supposedly their best unit. Commissioner Skobin put it pretty plainly: the cameras only work if officers actually use them. Which, yes, is obvious, and also apparently not happening in South LA. South LA. Not Los Feliz, not Brentwood. The communities with the least institutional protection are the ones getting stopped with zero documentation. That's the part that should be leading every sentence here. This one's from Tunnel Business Magazine:
Metro opened Section 1 of the D Line Subway Extension Project on May 8. The 3.92-mile addition takes riders west from the previous terminus at Wilshire and Western station in Koreatown under Wilshire Boulevard through neighborhoods and communities including Hancock Park, Windsor Square, the Fairfax District and Carthay Circle into Beverly Hills. The three new underground stations are at Wilshire/La Brea, Wilshire/Fairfax and Wilshire/La Cienega.
Big one: LA Metro officially opened Section 1 of the D Line extension last Friday — three new stations under Wilshire, running from Koreatown out through Fairfax and into Beverly Hills. Nearly four miles of new subway, per Tunnel Business Magazine. I've been waiting for this since the Obama administration. Wilshire is one of the busiest bus corridors in the country, and it finally has a subway under it. That is not nothing. The Olympic framing is going to be everywhere — Metro's pitching this as part of Twenty-Eight by '28. Fine. But Wilshire needed this subway long before any torch was lit. The Olympics deadline is the only reason this got done at speed, and we all know it. I'll take the win. Next question is whether Section 2 into Westwood actually opens before the closing ceremony. Here's Govly:
Since October 2024, the City of Los Angeles, under Mayor Karen Bass's leadership, has secured more than $45 million in contracts for small and local businesses through the ProcureLA program, operated by the Pacific Asian Consortium in Employment (PACE). This initiative aims to break down barriers for local vendors, particularly small and woman-owned businesses, enhancing their competitiveness ahead of major upcoming events such as the 2028 Olympic Games.
The Bass administration is touting forty-five million dollars in city contracts steered to small and local businesses since last October — through a program called ProcureLA, run by the Pacific Asian Consortium in Employment. Woman-owned firms and neighborhood vendors are the target beneficiaries. I want to see this work, I really do. But 'secured contracts' can mean a lot of things — are these businesses actually getting paid on time, or are they stuck in the city's legendary net-sixty, net-ninety payment purgatory that kills small contractors? Fair shot. The pitch is that this gives local vendors a runway ahead of the 2028 Olympics pipeline — which is either a real opening for small businesses or a very convenient press release hook, depending on how cynical you are. Both can be true. If PACE is actually cutting through the city's procurement bureaucracy, that's genuinely worth praising. Just don't let the Olympics branding be the whole story — these businesses need contracts in 2026, not just 2028 promises. You'll find links to every story we covered today in the show notes, so if something caught your ear, you can follow it there and read more.
That's Los Angeles Politics and Urbanism Daily for this Wednesday, May 13th. This is a Lantern Podcast.