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Courtesy of LACityClerk
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By ERIC HE
The Los Angeles City Council is set to meet Tuesday for the first time this week, one meeting after protesters who showed up demanding the resignations of Councilmen Kevin de León and Gil Cedillo were instead kept waiting outside City Hall due to what officials claimed was the chamber reaching capacity.
Hugh Esten, a spokesman for Council President Paul Krekorian, told City News Service the capacity was reduced to around 100 people when the council chamber reopened to the public in April, a reduction from the capacity of 234 people listed on a sign outside the chamber. Esten cited recommendations by the county’s health department under COVID-19 guidelines.
Workers from the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power arrived at least an hour before the Friday meeting began and took up most of the rows in the chamber, keeping protesters who had interrupted meetings earlier in the week with chants and shouts from entering. There were several items on the agenda related to LADWP contracts.
Hamid Khan, an organizer with Stop LAPD Spying Coalition, told CNS that he arrived around 9:15 a.m. for the 10 a.m. meeting, but was kept out. Khan has been among those attempting to shut down council meetings since the recording was released earlier this month. Khan said he would be back Tuesday and try to arrive earlier. City Hall opens at 8 a.m. on weekdays.
“What they did today further goes to show that what they think of people out on the street, what they think of the communities, how they completely make a mockery of people, how they completely insult and disrespect the community out there,” Khan said. “These are supposed to be open meetings, and these are the games that they’re playing.”
Though it appeared there were empty seats in the chamber as the meeting went on, Esten said that once the chamber reaches capacity, people waiting outside would not be let in.
Items on Tuesday’s agenda include establishing an Office of Racial Equity, adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism, providing funding to expand rental assistance in District 11 and voting on second consideration of a proposed ordinance prohibiting misleading advertising by pregnancy services centers in Los Angeles.
De León and Cedillo have defied fierce and widespread calls to resign for taking part in a leaked 2021 conversation that involved racist comments and attempts to manipulate redistricting, though a notice of intent to recall de León was filed with the city clerk’s office on Thursday. Neither has attended a meeting since Oct. 11.
With neither de León nor Cedillo showing any indication they plan to resign, council members have stressed that certain city business needs to get done. The council also cannot expel its own members.
At a news briefing after he cleared the chamber Wednesday in response to protesters’ refusal to quiet down, Krekorian claimed he has demonstrated “far more patience than should reasonably be expected in management of our council meetings.” He prefaced that he didn’t have much patience with the protesters in the first place.
“On the other hand, I recognize these are extraordinary times,” said Krekorian, who last week instituted a hybrid system for public comment to allow speakers to testify remotely to the council.
De León has conducted a series of television and radio interviews reiterating his desire to regain the trust of the community and his colleagues. Cedillo, who lost his reelection bid, will be off the council in December regardless. But his only public comments since an initial statement the day the recordings were released have come through a spokesman, who maintains that Cedillo is at “a place of reflection.”
“One way or the other, whether it’s through technological means or whether it’s through other means, this council will do the work that we’ve been elected to do,” Krekorian said.
