Mayor Karen Bass and a squadron of L.A. City Council bigwigs have strutted back into town, pockets theoretically deeper by over $300 million, fresh from a mission to Sacramento where they schmoozed with top state leaders for emergency cash reimbursements, according to a statement on the mayor's website. Bass, joined by Council President Paul Krekorian and members Bob Blumenfield, Monica Rodriguez, Hugo Soto-Martinez, and Eunisses Hernandez, managed to wrangle funds out of Governor Gavin Newsom's administration after a gabfest that covered everything from the homelessness crisis to speeding up cleanups of unkempt freeway underpasses.
"Our partnership with the state has delivered significant progress for our city and now, thanks to Governor Newsom and his cabinet, hundreds of millions of dollars in long awaited COVID-19 reimbursement funding will be delivered to Los Angeles," Bass praised the collective effort in a quote she dropped on the mayoral site while Krekorian added, the City of Los Angeles stepped up during simultaneous crises that included homelessness COVID, and catastrophic storms and that the FEMA reimbursements via the state are a step toward more permanent solutions like housing the unsheltered and creating affordable digs for working locals.
The team claimed groundwork on several fronts: persuading Newsom to reconsider snatching away already allocated housing funds, extracting a swift confirmation on a memorandum of understanding (MOU) for Caltrans-city cooperation, and pushing for a slice of the Encampment Resolution Fund pie. The L.A. delegation's schmoozing extended to State Treasurer Fiona Ma, where talks veered into the realm of leveraging public-private partnerships for building more affordable housing.
According to their meeting readouts, Bass and team bent the ears of Business, Consumer Services, and Housing Agency Secretary Tomiquia Moss on how to finesse federal waivers to ramp up housing without incurring penalties and they pow-wowed with California State Transportation Agency's head honcho Toks Omishakin to stir up support for initiatives to house Angelenos curled up under and near freeways, in addition to exploring beautification opportunities for L.A.'s freeways with art installations, and the brass tacks of maintaining investment in the city's public transit channels.
The lobby session wasn't for show, with commitments on paper including over $60 million direct to the City of Angels from CalOES, and the mayor's crew linked up with the L.A. County Legislative Delegation for reinforcements in their crusade to tackle top-shelf issues like homelessness and transport, per information from Bass's camp.
All hands on deck, it seems, ensure emergency funds from FEMA will be landing in L.A.'s lap pronto; discussions about disaster readiness in the shadow of recent natural upheavals were had with Nancy Ward, the Director at the Governor's Office of Emergency Services. The exposed underbelly of a metropolis that writhes with organized crime didn't escape the agenda, with the delegation looking to the state for muscle in this ongoing fight, according to the mayor's statement.
