Councilwoman Monica Rodriguez appears to be paying the price for being a critical voice in the City Council and opposing some of the projects and programs of Los Angeles Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson and Mayor Karen Bass.
Rodriguez, who is a San Fernando Valley council member, has distinguished himself by questioning Mayor Bass’s approach to the issue of homelessness, specifically the program Inside Safe, noting that it should receive greater scrutiny from the Council.
He also sharply criticized Harris-Dawson for her proposal to increase the minimum wage for hotel workers by 48% over three years, reaching $30 by 2028.
The result was that Harris-Dawson removed Rodríguez from the Council’s Homelessness Committee.
Not content with taking it out of the Homelessness Committee, inflicted further punishment on her by removing her from the Budget Committee and the Public Safety Committee. Rodríguez had been the president of said committee for the last six years.
Instead, Harris-Dawson rewarded those who presented the motion for her to be Council president, councilors Katy Yaroslavsky, Eunisses Hernández and Heather Huttt.
The new president’s excuse for giving more power to his political allies is that he wants fresh perspectives, while Rodríguez wondered if Harris-Dawson appreciates a decision-making process that respects taxpayers.
The problem with the new leader of the Council is that he is putting new councilors in charge of important committees who may have a lot of passion, commitment and talent, as he says, but they do not have the experience needed for serious problems such as homelessness and destitution. .
Maybe what Harris-Dawson wants deep down is people she can manage, and who won’t question her decisions, but when it comes to public money, priority should be given to people who have been trained over the years. of work, although there are not always coincidences.
Without disparaging the people who are going to replace her, Rodríguez is the most qualified.
But let’s look at some of Harris-Dawson’s other decisions: Councilman John Lee was placed as chairman of the Public Safety Committee, regardless of the fact that he faces a complaint of ten ethics violations for allegedly receiving gifts and is under investigation; and Councilman Curren Price, with ten felony charges in criminal court, was assured a place on the Homelessness Committee.
Such appointments were not well received by the citizen organizations that monitor the proper functioning of the Cabildo.
Councilor Yaroslavsky, the first to give him his support to be president of the Council, was appointed head of the Budget Committee. To do this, he removed Councilman Bob Blumenfield from office, who by the way was his opponent in the fight for the presidency.
To Councilor Hernández, who was also one of the first to favor his being president of the Council, appointed her chair of the Public Affairs Committee and made her part of the Budget Committee. And boy was he generous with Hernández, as he named her co-chair of the new committee specializing in the prevention, intervention and community services of crises that do not require the intervention of armed officers of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD).
What a scandal
Brian K. Williams, who was appointed in 2023 by Mayor Karen Bass as deputy mayor in charge of public safety initiatives, was placed on administrative leave after the FBI searched his home as part of a bomb threat investigation. against the City Council carried out between September and October.
According to the Los Angeles Police Department, Williams is likely the person who made the threat, although no bomb was ultimately found. Williams, of course, claims innocence. But if he is found guilty, how serious it is to have been in such an important position. None other than he was the mayor’s trusted man in charge of supervising the different police forces of the municipality, including the firefighters, the Port of Los Angeles police and LAX.