LA City Council could meet just one day a week under voter-approved charter overhaul

The workweek for Los Angeles City Council members could be reduced to just one required meeting day under a sweeping City Hall overhaul backed by voters.

Voters supported two separate charter amendments that would reduce the number of required full Council meetings and change how the cash-strapped city manages billions of taxpayer dollars.

The changes come as Mayor-elect Nithya Raman prepares to inherit a city struggling with budget problems, crumbling streets and costly infrastructure mandates that have slowed road repairs.

Charter Amendment EE, which would reduce the minimum number of full City Council meeting days from three to one per week, has a narrow lead with 52.76% support, according to the latest unofficial election results.

The measure does not give council members a four-day weekend. They can still hold additional meetings, attend committee hearings and handle district business.

But it would eliminate the longstanding requirement that the full 15-member Council convene three days a week.

The measure would also make it harder for residents to challenge City Hall decisions by increasing the number of signatures needed to force a referendum from 10% to 15% of the votes cast in the previous mayoral election.

A separate measure, Charter Amendment LA, was headed toward passage with 62.42% support, bringing major changes to the city’s budgeting and public works operations.

The measure would shift Los Angeles from annual budgets to two-year spending plans, require a long-term infrastructure plan and strengthen the authority of a director overseeing the city’s five Public Works bureaus.

It would also allow the city to restructure or eliminate the Board of Public Works and remove certain restrictions on mortgaging city-owned property.

Councilwomen Katy Yaroslavsky and Eunisses Hernandez introduced a motion last week calling for city financial officials to produce an implementation plan within 30 days, including a financial forecast through fiscal year 2029-30 and estimates of infrastructure repair costs over the next 20 to 30 years.

“Measure LA at its core was really about trying to make the city work a little bit better,” Leo Daube, communications director for Yaroslavsky, told the California Post.

Daube pointed to the city’s five Public Works bureaus, which operate with different priorities, making it difficult to coordinate major infrastructure projects.

“Right now you’ll have the five different bureaus and they all have different priorities, and so street services isn’t talking to engineering, which isn’t talking to street lighting, which isn’t talking to sanitation,” he told The Post.

The overhaul could give one Public Works director greater responsibility for coordinating departments and overseeing projects.

The changes also come as Raman faces questions about Measure HLA, the voter-approved law requiring planned bike lanes and other safety improvements during certain major street repairs.

Raman acknowledged Tuesday that the costs of those improvements, along with federal accessibility requirements, have contributed to a slowdown in street repairs.

Measure LA does not provide additional funding for those projects.

“The voters passed HLA. They are asking for safer streets. They are asking for protected bike lanes. They’re asking for us to implement our mobility plan,” Raman told The Post.

“There has to be a concerted effort to find additional revenue for this work,” Daube told The Post, pointing to state and federal grants as possible funding sources.

Raman takes office December 14.