Angelenos are being asked in the November election to make a big change to one of L.A.\u2019s most important agencies, the city\u2019s Department of Public Works.<\/p>\n
But even the most plugged-in L.A. voters could be forgiven for having a hard time understanding how exactly the measure, Charter Amendment LA, would do that.<\/p>\n
As a reporter trying to explain it, I did too.<\/p>\n
I was able to wrap my head around most of what the measure would do with a little research and a few interviews. (We have a detailed breakdown of Charter Amendment LA<\/a> in our voter guide.)<\/p>\n But one of its most significant pieces \u2014 one that would change who leads the Department of Public Works \u2014 took some serious digging to fully understand. And I wasn\u2019t alone. It turns out that quite a few officials and experts in L.A. were also puzzled.<\/p>\n Who will run Public Works? Who runs it now?<\/p>\n L.A.\u2019s Department of Public Works manages city facilities and infrastructure, including streets, bridges, sewers, storm drains and treatment plants, as well as City Hall and parts of Los Angeles International Airport. At the top of the department\u2019s current power structure is a five-member Board of Public Works.<\/p>\n Charter Amendment LA would transfer power from the board to a role called the director of Public Works, who would report to the mayor, City Council and city controller.<\/p>\n At first glance, that seemed simple enough.<\/p>\n That is, until I asked what I thought was a straightforward question: \u201cWho is the current director of Public Works?\u201d<\/p>\n I did not get straightforward answers \u2014 from multiple city officials, supporters of the measure and its opponents.<\/p>\n Some said the director of Public Works is the president of the Public Works board, who is generally considered the head of the agency.Others said the position has just never been filled.\u00a0The Public Works Department\u2019s own public affairs representative simply didn\u2019t know.\u00a0And Mayor Karen Bass\u2019 office didn’t respond to LAist\u2019s two requests for comment this week.<\/p>\n Eventually, two current city officials pointed me to the person who\u2019s overseeing these responsibilities.<\/p>\n There\u2019s a backstory.<\/p>\n The disappearing director<\/p>\n The director of Public Works position was created through an amendment<\/a> to the L.A. City Charter, essentially the city\u2019s constitution, in 1999.<\/p>\n In 2005, the City Council transferred the director\u2019s role and responsibilities<\/a> to the board\u2019s secretary, which was renamed \u201cexecutive officer.\u201d<\/p>\n Since then, the Public Works Department effectively hasn\u2019t had a person with the title \u201cdirector.\u201d<\/p>\n Today, the executive officer position is held by TJ Knight, a longtime city employee. Knight\u2019s official title is acting executive officer of the Board of Public Works.<\/p>\n \u201cThe director position has remained in the City Charter but has not operated as a separate position since [2005],\u201d Knight said in an emailed statement to LAist. \u201cCharter Amendment LA would revive and increase the authority of the director.\u201d<\/p>\n If the measure is approved, however, it\u2019s unclear who would become the director.<\/p>\n \u201cAny next steps regarding the position will depend on the outcome of the election,\u201d Knight said.<\/p>\n What else is in Charter Amendment LA?<\/p>\n The other pieces of Charter Amendment LA are designed to improve the city\u2019s ability to plan, pay for and resolve infrastructure projects.<\/p>\n Apart from changing Public Works leadership, the measure would also move the city to a two-year budget cycle from its current one-year cadence, would make the city plan ahead for infrastructure projects, would let the city engage in commercial business and mortgage city-owned properties, and would roll back rules around how the city hires contractors to work on critical infrastructure.<\/p>\n Read more >>><\/a><\/p>\n Calls for change<\/p>\n Overall, Charter Amendment LA aims to streamline how the city of L.A. plans for, budgets for and prioritizes infrastructure maintenance and repairs.<\/p>\n There’s wide support for improving how the city handles these projects. The city struggles with aging infrastructure<\/a>, a huge backlog<\/a> of projects and a steady stream of complaints<\/a> about delayed work and deteriorating conditions.<\/p>\n Many of those projects fall under the Department of Public Works. A chorus of officials and public infrastructure advocates, including supporters of Charter Amendment LA, blame the agency\u2019s current structure, at least in part, for the city\u2019s inability to address infrastructure projects in a timely fashion.<\/p>\n They say the board\u2019s bureaucracy slows down infrastructure projects and makes it more difficult to hold a single person accountable for delays. On top of that, they argue the commissioners do not necessarily have extensive experience in public works or engineering. A director would be expected to have a background in those areas.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you look at how that impacts service and delivery of their tasks \u2014 which is everything from streetlights to curb ramps, to bike lanes, to sidewalk repair \u2014 it’s very fragmented because there’s no one person in charge of overseeing all of it and making sure that it’s coherent in terms of its service delivery,\u201d said City Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky, who is backing the measure.<\/p>\n The Public Works Department is also divided into bureaus responsible for managing different sectors, such as sanitation, engineering, street lighting, street services and contract administration. Critics of the current system argue they also have no central leadership to turn to.<\/p>\n Yaroslavsky and other supporters say the answer is putting a strong director in charge rather than the board.<\/p>\n Charter Amendment LA would also give the City Council the power to change or eliminate the Board of Public Works altogether, a prospect that has sparked the measure\u2019s main opposition. Opponents are concerned eliminating the board would do away with an important check and balance on the department at a time when public trust in City Hall has been damaged by corruption<\/a> and other scandals<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Board of Public Works provides essential, open-meeting scrutiny over multibillion-dollar city contracts that Los Angeles taxpayers cannot afford to lose. Charter Amendment LA weakens accountability by consolidating power under a single position,\u201d said City Councilmember Monica Rodriguez.<\/p>\n Other city departments have boards, including the Department of Recreation and Parks, the Harbor Department and the Department of Water and Power. One major difference is that members of the Board of Public Works are the only commissioners in the city who are paid a salary. Some make around $200,000 a year<\/a>.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not clear what the director position would be paid if the measure is approved by voters in November.<\/p>\n If it does pass \u2014 and now that I understand the inner workings of the Public Works Department so well \u2014 let\u2019s hope they don\u2019t ask me to apply for the position.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Angelenos are being asked in the November election to make a big change to one of L.A.\u2019s most…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":481607,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[37945,64716,188266,48,52,51,47,50,49,188797,74686,11565,188798,188799],"class_list":["post-481606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-2026-election","tag-board-of-public-works","tag-charter-amendment-la","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-los-angeles-public-works-department","tag-monica-rodriguez","tag-public-works","tag-public-works-director","tag-tj-knight"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481606","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=481606"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481606\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/481607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=481606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=481606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=481606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}