Another City Hall scandal, Bad news for Crypto.com, and more

This week's headlines were dominated by everything but real estate, architecture, and urban planning news. Following the leak recording of an October 2021 meeting at the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, where now former City Council President Nury Martinez joined with two of her colleagues and labor leader Ron Herrera engaged in a wide-ranging discussion of the city's redistricting process, peppered with crude and racist remarks.

After calls to resign from...well pretty much everyone (including President Biden), Martinez stepped down from her seat on Wednesday. However, her two colleagues who participated in the infamous discussion, Councilmembers Gil Cedillo and Kevin de Leon, have yet to give up their seats, despite mounting pressure and scrutiny.

The scandal's impacts may stretch beyond the political futures of three disgraced elected officials. California Attorney General Rob Bonta has announced that his office will conduct an investigation into the city's redistricting process, with the aim of determining if any violations of state or federal voting rights laws and transparency laws occurred.

On the other hand, after four years of scandal after scandal, the door may finally be open to some reforms of how the City Council operates. Motions introduced at Tuesday's City Council meeting include a proposal for charter reform, which would increase the number of seats on the City Council by implementing a methodology which ties representation to population growth. Los Angeles has had 15 Council seats since the 1920s, a time when the the city was home to just over 1.2 million people. Another proposal calls for the creation of an Ad Hoc Committee on City Governance Reform, which would be charged with implementing reforms such as an expanded City Council, establishing a fully independent redistricting commission, and removing City Councilmembers’ discretionary power over land use decisions in their districts.

Time will tell if any of these fixes come to pass, but in the meantime, here are some other things we've been reading this week:

Months after opening new restaurants at The Grand on Bunker Hill, chef José Andrés has announced plans for a new rooftop restaurant bar at The Trust Building a few blocks away. The 1928 landmark, located at 433 S. Spring Street, will also house José Andrés Restaurant group - including its new José Andrés Media division. The restaurant is scheduled to open in Fall 2023.

This Is How Much Money You’ll Get From The California Gas Rebate "The payments, which started going out Oct. 7, range from $200 to $1,050, depending on income and other factors. About 18 million payments will be distributed over the next few months, benefiting up to 23 million Californians. The cash payouts are part of a June budget deal." (LAist)

‘Great Boulevard’ project will transform stretch of Artesia in North Long Beach "...the $36.2 million plan will transform the 3.2-mile stretch of Artesia that runs through Long Beach while maintaining the total number of travel lanes at four, despite adding protected bike lanes in both directions....The project also includes new landscaping, medians, pedestrian bulb-outs that will shorten the distance of crosswalks and new bike lanes that will be protected by on-street parking and new landscaping. A number of pedestrian signals will also be installed that will allow people to cross the street safely at intersections without signals." (Long Beach Post)

Winter is Coming for Crypto.com "Crypto dot com arena" doesn't stick, there's hope: "In June, Crypto.com started laying people off, and cut about 40% of its workforce. By August, dot.LA was already questioning the viability of long-term crypto sports deals, and others continued to wonder if Crypto.com’s big marketing bets would work. The exchange poured money into sponsorship deals it thought could be lucrative, including new L.A. women’s soccer club Angel City FC, but it later defaulted. Lawyers for the soccer team told AdAge last week Crypto.com reneged on the deal after refusing to pay." (dot LA)

Eyes on the Street: New San Vicente Protected Bike Lanes Nearly Done "San Vicente is an overly wide street, a former streetcar right-of-way. It is a predominantly residential street with, until now, up to ten lanes (seven travel lanes and three parking lanes), all given over to cars. The bike lane improvements remove one car travel lane in each direction: a road diet." (Streetsblog LA)