{"id":198035,"date":"2026-02-28T12:07:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-28T12:07:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/198035\/"},"modified":"2026-02-28T12:07:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-28T12:07:07","slug":"l-a-city-council-should-expand-to-25-members-charter-reform-commission-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/198035\/","title":{"rendered":"L.A. City Council should expand to 25 members, charter reform commission says"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The size of the Los Angeles City Council should increase from 15 to 25 seats, the city\u2019s Charter Reform Commission<\/a> recommended Thursday. <\/p>\n

On a 9-2 vote, the commission backed the council expansion, with supporters saying that smaller ethnic groups, including Black and Asian American and Pacific Islander residents, would be better represented.<\/p>\n

The council has consisted of 15 members since 1925, when the city had fewer than 600,000 residents, compared with 3.9 million today.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we owe the people of Los Angeles to walk out of this room saying that we are a commission that\u2019s concerned about equity, that we are a commission that is concerned about Black and AAPI folks who live in this city,\u201d said Commissioner James M. Thomas, who supported the expansion.<\/p>\n

The commission also recommended ranked choice voting, where voters list candidates in order of preference, for municipal elections beginning in 2032. The city should also establish a new position, chief financial officer, which would essentially be a title change for what is now called the city administrative officer, the commission recommended. <\/p>\n

By April 2, the commission, which has been meeting since last July, must send all its recommendations to the City Council on changes to the city\u2019s governing charter. The council will then vote on which changes will go before city voters as ballot measures in November. <\/p>\n

Thursday\u2019s meeting was packed with supporters of City Controller Kenneth Mejia, who feared that the commission would gut his office\u2019s watchdog role. <\/p>\n

Among the CFO\u2019s duties would be preparing the city budget, advising the mayor on fiscal policy and producing revenue forecasts \u2014 duties currently under the CAO.<\/p>\n

Tim Riley, owner of Heavy Water Coffee Shop in Chinatown, said trust in government is at an all-time low and urged the commission to keep the controller\u2019s powers intact.<\/p>\n

\u201cKenneth has been the only form of government that we have felt has represented us as a community,\u201d Riley said.<\/p>\n

City Administrative Officer Matt Szabo spoke briefly and confirmed his support for designating the CAO as the city\u2019s chief financial officer, without impacting the controller\u2019s office. The CFO role recommended by the commission does not take away any duties from the controller.<\/p>\n

In 1925, each of the 15 City Council members represented about 38,000 residents. Now, each council district has an average of 265,000 residents. If the council grows to 25, each member would represent roughly 159,000 residents. <\/p>\n

The commission did not discuss whether the council members\u2019 salaries and office budgets should remain the same, potentially increasing costs for taxpayers.<\/p>\n

Nick Caputo, who has been chronicling the charter reform commission\u2018s progress online, advocated during public comment for the commission to endorse more than 23 seats. The commission had debated for weeks about whether to go as low as 23 seats or as high as 31, settling on 25 as a compromise. <\/p>\n

With smaller council districts, Caputo said, residents will be represented by people who know their neighborhoods better.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m happy that they did go to 25,\u201d Caputo said Friday. \u201cI think that would be a tremendous boost for not just representation, but also you\u2019ll get real specialists.\u201d<\/p>\n

Commissioner Carla Fuentes noted that three City Council members \u2014 Nithya Raman, Ysabel Jurado and Heather Hutt \u2014 have publicly supported expanding the council to 25.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a huge moment for the commission,\u201d Chairperson Raymond Meza<\/a> said after Thursday night\u2019s meeting. \u201cWe have been hearing from hundreds of stakeholders, academics, members of the public, other interested parties \u2014 and to be able to begin drafting charter language for the City Council to consider is pretty momentous.\u201d <\/p>\n

During the debate on ranked choice voting, Commissioner Diego Andrades explained that the city would no longer hold a primary election, which would save money. Instead, all candidates would run in a general election.<\/p>\n

Commissioner Christina Sanchez expressed concern that non-English speaking voters and those in under-served communities might have trouble understanding the complexities, which drew ire from the crowd.<\/p>\n

\u201cAre you calling us stupid?\u201d two people said.<\/p>\n

The commission also passed a recommendation that the city should approve an ordinance for language accessibility and educating residents about the new voting system. <\/p>\n

Two days earlier, the commission voted unanimously to bifurcate the duties of the city attorney, currently an elected official who prosecutes misdemeanors and represents the city in civil litigation. Under the commission\u2019s proposal, an appointed city attorney would take over the civil litigation duties, while an elected city prosecutor would handle the misdemeanors.<\/p>\n

The decision to bifurcate the position came after consulting with good governance groups, the public and city departments, Andrades said. The current system allows a city attorney eyeing higher office to potentially offer bad advice to a sitting mayor, and conflicts of interest could occur on issues like police-related settlements and misconduct, he said.<\/p>\n

Times staff writer Dave Zahniser contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The size of the Los Angeles City Council should increase from 15 to 25 seats, the city\u2019s Charter…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":198036,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,75167,1409,1586,35459,92073,36693,14564,16976,2324,92135,346,288,2429,92136,1522],"class_list":{"0":"post-198035","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-california","8":"tag-california","9":"tag-california-headlines","10":"tag-california-news","11":"tag-charter-reform-commission","12":"tag-city","13":"tag-commission","14":"tag-controller","15":"tag-council-expansion","16":"tag-duty","17":"tag-l-a-city-council","18":"tag-meeting","19":"tag-member","20":"tag-nick-caputo","21":"tag-office","22":"tag-resident","23":"tag-thursday","24":"tag-title-change","25":"tag-voter"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=198035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198035\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/198036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}