L.A. on the Record: Bass’ star turn in school strike mediation

Good morning and welcome to LA on the Record, our City Council newsletter. This is Julia Wick writing from the newsroom at 200 N. Spring Street, with the help of Dakota Smith.

It was quite a place for the mayor of Los Angeles.

Dressed in a red suit, mayor karen bass came between the Executive Director of SEIU Local 99 Max Arias and the Superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District. Alberto Carvalho on Friday afternoon when both men effusively praised her for leading them out of the stagnant desert and toward a transformative labor deal after a three-day school strike.

Carvalho described her as “a partner” who had been present “incessantly” to negotiate the deal. And Arias credited the mayor for allowing the union to “find a way to communicate and finally come to an agreement.”

Bass spoke first at the news conference, announcing the tentative deal and saying his lack of formal control over the school system would “never stop me when it comes to fighting for our children and their families.”

One has to imagine that Bass, who has focused almost exclusively on the homeless since taking office, had been planning something very different. images to outline the day 100 of its administration this week.

Perhaps cameras following her at an Inside Safe site, to mark the fact that as of Tuesday her show had gotten nearly 1,000 Angelenos into temporary housing. Or maybe a press conference with some of her friends from Washington or Sacramento, shaking arms as they announced new homeless associations.

Instead, as so often happens when you’re the mayor of the country’s second-largest city, it hit a crisis: a school strike that created disruption akin to a natural disaster, with student meal distribution and parents fighting for childcare.

Although antonio villaraigosaThe best efforts of when he was in office, Los Angeles mayors don’t actually have any authority over the school system.

But like other mayors facing potentially crippling labor disputes in the city, Bass intervened publicly Wednesday to mediate between SEIU Local 99 and the Los Angeles Unified School District, bringing both sides to City Hall for talks. She had been privately involved in the days before, her office said.

“You are expected to try to fix things, especially a mayor who is a little close to all the contending sides,” he said. Raphael Sonenshein, local governance expert and executive director of the Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs at Cal State LA

Sonenshein described participation in a school walkout as one of the “informal expectations of the mayoral leadership”, likening Bass’s role of mediator to that of the then-mayor. eric garcetti took over during the 2019 teachers’ strike.

This week’s three-day strike ended on Thursday as scheduled with the dispute unresolved, and talks continued until Friday when schools reopened.

Bass’s political brand is one of coalition building and pragmatism, and those skills surely served him well during the days of contention.

In another hallmark of her style, she also remained largely silent in public during the tense period of negotiations, saying Friday that “bragging and talking publicly when things are being worked out doesn’t benefit anyone.”

“The important thing was to get the job done and get the job done,” Bass said.

Crossing the 100-day mark is an admittedly made-up milestone. But in the midst of the long, slow work of municipal politics, it’s also a good framing device to define early progress: something concrete to hold onto and easy to refer to on the 11 o’clock news.

And all told, she could hardly have written a better moment than successfully leading the city through her first real test as mayor.

Which brings us to the next real question: Will Bass intervene if Hollywood writers attack? (Unlikely, even in a so-called company town, given the WGA’s record of previous strikes. But you never know.)

Status of the situation

WHERE MRT? As of Friday morning, the fate of the suspended councilor Mark Ridley-Thomas it is now in the hands of a jury, following a dramatic trial that painted highly conflicting portraits of a powerful Los Angeles politician. If Ridley-Thomas is acquitted, he will return to his seat on the council.

— THE SIT-DOWN: the bass did it a long interview with the New Yorker in which, among other things, he discussed the city’s purchase of apartment buildings, motels, and hotels as a possible next “public housing iteration” with less stigma and smaller facilities spread across the city.

— NAME NAMES: In other 100 Days news, Bass dumped a bunch of commission appointments Tuesday night. (Complete list of mayor’s office here.) Bass has been significantly slower than her predecessors in appointing commissioners.

— UPDATE FROM DANIELS: After sweeping the Oscars with their film “Everything Everywhere All At Once”, the directors daniel kwan and daniel scheinert it was at KCRWwhere Scheinert praised his “favorite city councilor”, Eunisses Hernandez, and asked the councilor Kevin de Leon give up

— REPAIR WALL: Council member Hugo Soto Martinez is preparing to tear down the (in)famous fence around Echo Park Lake, just as the city reaches the two-year anniversary of the controversial camp operation. But the neighborhood remains, at least in part, divided by the fence and the future of the park.

— BIG OOPS: The Los Angeles Police Department accidentally released the names and photos of numerous undercover officers to a surveillance group that posted them on its website, a matter now being investigated by the Office of the Inspector General.

— IS METRO THE BEST? Frustrated with local law enforcement agencies, Los Angeles County transit officials on Thursday rejected their proposals for a new contract to patrol buses and trains and signed a plan to explore creating their own police force. The rebuke from local police came as the board approved extending the current contract for another year.

— FLYING PROBLEMS: A campaign flyer sent by Marco Santanacandidate in the April 4 special election to fill nury martinezshe received criticism from the Los Angeles County Democratic Party Chairman for saying that Santana is “endorsed” by the Democratic Party.

Meanwhile, La Opinión demands the public retraction of a mail supporting candidate Marisa Alcaraz paid for by Local 770 United Food and Commercial Workers PAC.

The advertisement says that Alcaraz is endorsed by the newspaper. “That endorsement is a false claim,” he said. armando varela, executive editor of La Opinión. “We all need to bring integrity to City Hall and this is not the way to do it.” The newspaper also published a searing editorial in the mail.

A union representative declined to comment.

— WHO IS A LOBBY? After much back and forth, the grand renewal of the city’s municipal lobbying ordinance remains in committee for another round. All parties appear to agree on the broad outlines of the reform, which would change the definition of a lobbyist from a time-based threshold to one based on annual compensation. But such a move would greatly widen the net on who qualifies, and the Ad Hoc Committee on Governance Reform has yet to come to a consensus on how that should affect influence-seekers who don’t have conventional lobbying roles.

chairman Pablo Krekorian pushed for a proposal to exempt 501(c)(3) nonprofits and unions from traditional filing requirements and instead create a new, separate filing class for them with different requirements, prompting a new controversy and was ultimately sent back to the drawing board. Of particular concern is whether the new rules will fairly distinguish between small nonprofits with fewer resources and larger ones that wield great influence, as well as whether unions should be grouped with nonprofits.

quick hits

• Almost to India: Standing with his parents, wife and daughter, a smiling Eric Garcetti he was finally sworn in as the US ambassador to India by Vice President Kamala Harris on Friday.
• On the docket for next week: The Council will be in recess for the next two weeks.