Three years of reform promises after the Fed Tapes, and today the Council expansion vote landed on one word: later. This is L.A. Politics and Urbanism Daily, Monday the 29th. Today: a reform punted to 2028, Boyle Heights still asking what burned, and — yes — a real win on the buses. Hit follow and you won't have to come looking for the next episode. From Steven Sharp at Urbanize LA:
The Southern California Association of Governments is updating its map for SB 79 implementation in Los Angeles County, following feedback from the state regulators. Updates aren't included in the map seen in the below screen grab quiet yet, but revisions will add transit hubs which were omitted from the initial draft, most notably stops along the forthcoming K Line extension and Sepulveda Transit Corridor.
So the ULA bill — the one that was supposed to bring in more affordable-housing money — it fizzled in Sacramento. Dead. That's one more revenue stream gone, and the financing gap nobody campaigns on just got wider. And buried in the same Urbanize roundup: SCAG has to redo its SB 79 map because the draft just... left out stops on the K Line extension and the Sepulveda corridor. Two of the biggest transit investments this region will ever make, omitted from the planning map. State regulators had to send it back. Forgot Sepulveda. On a map about where transit goes. Somebody hit save before they finished — and we're betting the next two decades of growth on this thing. Meanwhile the LAX people mover — LINXS now says no passenger service till at least early October. We're in the World Cup window, Matt. Fans landing at LAX right now find nothing running. Landscaping work and approval delays, per the contractor's June 15 report. Week two of crowds, zero trains. The system never even showed up. From LAist:
In both cases, records show state and local regulators knew the facilities; they had inspected them, approved plans and resolved violations. How they used their authority is now a central question for neighbors in the surrounding areas seeking accountability. A lawmaker has proposed some reforms to chemical policy. But prosecuting companies for failing to follow environmental laws is difficult, and how far cities may go to protect residents isn’t clear.
The Boyle Heights cold storage fire started June 17. The state of emergency didn't come until five days later, after it intensified. LAist has the timeline, and it does not flatter anyone. Five days. And on day five, officials are telling people the air's clearing while Manuel Valle — 84 years old — is riding his bike through the smoke handing out fifty N95s because nobody else would. His line was the whole story: "This is a state emergency — treat it like a state emergency." An 84-year-old made the official messaging look like spin, right out in public. And here's what gets me — the facility uses anhydrous ammonia. Regulators knew. They'd inspected it, approved the plans, resolved violations. The hazard was right there on file. LAist pairs it with Garden Grove — weeks earlier, 50,000 people evacuated over an aerospace tank that could explode or leak. Two chemical scares, back to back, both at places the state already had paperwork on. Same week the council punts its own reform to 2028. The institutions that couldn't keep tabs on a known ammonia warehouse are the ones we're trusting to watch everything else. Boyle Heights paid for that gap. Joe Linton, writing in Streetsblog Los Angeles:
L.A. City has new peak-hour bus lanes on Florence Avenue. Bright red “Bus Bike Lane” markings are in place from Brynhurst Avenue (near the L.A./Inglewood city limits) to Figueroa Street, and from Broadway to Central Avenue (the limit of unincorporated Florence-Firestone).
Some actual good news today — peak-hour bus lanes are live on Florence and on Alvarado, per Joe Linton at Streetsblog. Let's name the streets, because these are corridors real people sit in: 4.25 miles of red lane on Florence, 7 to 9 in the morning, 4 to 7 at night. Florence and Alvarado — South LA and Westlake. Working-class corridors finally get buses moved to the front of the line, instead of another westside comfort project. And this one's been cooking since 2022 — outreach, then the county doing its half-mile east of Central last year. So when something actually gets built, remember: it took four years of grinding to get there. Four years for a few miles of paint. Meanwhile the SCAG map for SB 79 had to go back because somebody left the K Line extension and Sepulveda off entirely. The street crews are outrunning the regional planners. Here's Capital & Main:
The nearly 500,000-square-foot warehouse is operated by Michigan-based Lineage Inc., the largest cold storage firm in the world and a company with a record of dozens of health and safety and environmental violations. The cause of the fire is still unknown, said LAFD spokesperson Jamie Stewart, but the company believes it started on the warehouse roof as workers from another company serviced rooftop solar panels.
Capital & Main's angle here is the part I keep coming back to: the warehouse is run by Lineage, a Michigan firm, the largest cold storage company on the planet — and it grew into a global giant while racking up dozens of health, safety, and environmental violations. Nearly half a million square feet, built less than a decade ago, and residents across the street had no idea what was behind those walls. The risk piled up for years. Boyle Heights breathed it in for over a week. And note the cause — still unknown, but the company's pointing at rooftop solar panel servicing. Lineage's first move is naming the other contractor. People couldn't even get an air purifier. Smoke from Downtown to the San Gabriel Valley, and the basic ask — clean air in your own home — went unmet for days. This is the second environmental-health story hitting this same neighborhood this week, and it keeps landing in the same place — who's actually watching the hazards working-class LA lives next to. From Westside Current:
After more than three years of studies, public hearings, and promises of government reform following City Hall corruption scandals and the leaked "Fed Tapes," Los Angeles voters will not get to weigh in on expanding the City Council this November. Instead, the City Council voted to send the issue back for another round of review, delaying consideration of one of the city's biggest governance reforms until at least 2028.
Three years. Public hearings, a whole independent commission, the Fed Tapes — and today the council's big move is to study it more and come back in 2028. The Charter Reform Commission already did the homework — 15 seats to 25. Each council member's representing about 260,000 people right now, which for a city council district is enormous. The contrast is brutal — this same council went 14-0 on the fire tax in one sitting. They can move at unanimous speed for a measure labor's carrying, but their own reform needs another two years of contemplation. Harris-Dawson's reasoning is cost, implementation, administrative questions. After three-plus years, those are the questions that just now stopped them? LA Forward's Godfrey Plata told City News Service it feels like going in circles. Generous read. Circles at least come back around — this one's just parked until 2028. Got a tip, a story idea, or a correction for us? Send it to ladailyfix at lantern podcasts dot com. We read every note, and your feedback helps shape the show.
Next up, we're watching the other proposed City Charter amendments Los Angeles voters will still see on the November general election ballot. Council expansion is now delayed until at least 2028.
We've put links to every story from today's episode in the show notes, so if one of them caught your ear, you can follow it there. That's Los Angeles Politics and Urbanism Daily for today. This is a Lantern Podcast.