Budget fight season is here

Good morning, it’s Monday, April 20. You can expect a superbly mild spring day (mid 70s) ahead of a possibly rainy Tuesday. In today’s newsletter, we have your rundown of the week ahead, a deep dive on Eric Swalwell’s Icarus-like rise and fall and burglaries in the San Fernando Valley. But first, the mayor’s coming budget battle. 

Later today, Mayor Karen Bass will present her fourth city budget to the City Council — a sprawling fiscal document that runs hundreds of pages long and details billions of dollars in spending. Here are a few things to watch for as the city’s public budget season begins. 

The city is in a better place than it was last year, when leaders were staring down a nearly $1 billion shortfall and Bass’ original plan suggested more than 1,600 city workers would be laid off. (Those jobs were eventually saved, largely through budget maneuvering and cost-cutting deals with city unions that included furlough days for some employees.)

The mayor is required to present a balanced budget every year, but as of last month, there was a roughly $250 million gap to overcome — still rough, but not the existential crisis faced last year. The budget will also reflect "stronger tax revenues in multiple areas,” as the mayor's office touted on Sunday afternoon.

Late last month, City Administrative Officer Matt Szabo, the city’s top budget official, warned members of the council that these were still lean times.

“As great as the needs might be, and they are, this is not the year to expect restorations or expansions of services,” Szabo said. “I need to stress this point, because you will hear from our departments incredibly compelling arguments for staff and funding restorations.”

Those arguments will be justified, Szabo said, noting how diminished some departments have been, “to a point where they are not able to deliver the basics effectively.” But, he continued, those departments “will also be asking for funding that we simply do not have at this point.”

The city’s strained fiscal outlook could put Bass in a difficult position, particularly as the public wrangling over the budget plays out in tandem with her campaign for reelection. (The council's major deadline to return the budget is June 1; the mayoral primary is June 2.) 

If there is a direct inverse to political campaigning, it is preparing a city budget. Campaigns operate entirely on the plane of possibility, with candidates spinning gossamer promises and handing them out like cotton candy. Constructing a budget is a zero-sum game, with tradeoffs immediately visible and resources finite. 

What comes next

Monday’s release will kick off a roughly six-week budget sprint, which will play out in the City Council and its budget and finance committee. There will be a series of public hearings where various city departments will make presentations, before the committee issues its recommendations to the full council. The council will then have until June 1 to accept, reject or alter the mayor’s budget. There can then be a bit of back and forth between the mayor and the council before the budget is ultimately approved.

Given that Councilmember Nithya Raman is currently challenging Bass in a bid for mayor, it’s likely that politics invades this year’s budget process even more than usual, though Raman is not on the powerful budget committee. 

Another figure to watch is Katy Yaroslavsky, the first-term Westside council member who chairs that committee. 

Yaroslavsky is a pragmatic policy wonk who sits somewhere between the council’s attention-getting progressive bloc and its more centrist members. Unlike some of her colleagues, she has little penchant for grandstanding, though she’s been willing to take occasional political risks, as when she voted against the city’s Convention Center expansion and sharply critiqued the plan. 

Thank you for reading L.A. Material. We’re brand new, and reader-supported. If you like what we’re up to, pass this along to a friend and consider upgrading your subscription.

MONDAY: Alt-pop singer D4vd is expected to make his first court appearance Monday in connection with the death of Celeste Rivas Hernandez. The singer was arrested last week on suspicion of murder, seven months after the body of a slain 14-year-old girl was found in his towed car. 

Also Monday: Mayor Karen Bass will present her State of the City address virtually by video. (L.A. mayors typically deliver a SOTC address in late April. Bass made the unusual choice this year of hosting two SOTCs, with an earlier address in February.)

WEDNESDAY: It’s Earth Day, and there will be events across the region.

THURSDAY: The NFL Draft begins Thursday in Pittsburgh. The Rams will be hosting a block party and fan fair at Hollywood Park to celebrate. 

FRIDAY: Friday is Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day. LAUSD schools will be closed in observance. 

SUNDAY: A stretch of Westwood and Santa Monica boulevards will be closed to traffic and transformed into a pop-up park for CicLAvia West L.A. 

VALLEY FEARS: Mayor Bass has ordered extra LAPD patrols along Ventura Boulevard amid a rash of recent San Fernando Valley residential burglaries that have residents on edge. 

THE MAN WHO THOUGHT HE WAS UNTOUCHABLE: Former Rep. Eric Swalwell’s vertiginous downfall has forced a reappraisal of the congressman. Politico Magazine digs into the arc of his career.  

A PIT STOP FOR YOUR NEXT FAMILY ROAD TRIP: There’s a new big-deal children’s museum opening in Camarillo in May, with exhibits rooted in the Ventura County region (think climbing through a kelp forest in the Channel Islands exhibit, or picking berries from an edible garden while learning about agriculture). 

THE DEATH OF A RISING ART STAR: L.A. artist Celeste Dupuy-Spencer — known for her vivid, political paintings — died earlier this month at 46, days before her new solo exhibition at Jeffrey Deitch Gallery was set to open. Her work will remain on view at Deitch through May 30. 

THE DIFFICULTY OF DOING BUSINESS DOWNTOWN: The proprietor of Los Angeles’ legendary Clifton’s restaurant has given up on reopening, saying it's just too hard to do business in downtown’s Historic Core. 

WOODLAND HILLS WEAPONS DEALER? Federal authorities arrested a 44-year-old Woodland Hills woman Saturday night at LAX on suspicion of helping Iran funnel weapons to its proxies in Africa.

For today’s peek inside our subscriber-only Discord server, @astrologywithstevie shares a dream ride in the #not-la channel. 

AND FINALLY… A poem to pair with your morning coffee: “To the Harbormaster” by Frank O’Hara.

Enjoying this newsletter? Forward it to a friend. Did someone forward this newsletter to you? Sign up here. Want to help make this work possible? Upgrade your subscription.