Effective July 1, 2022, the minimum wage in the City of Los Angeles will rise from $15 to $16.04 per hour, Mayor Eric Garcetti announced this week.

“We fought to raise the minimum wage because hard work should always be met with the dignity, respect, and opportunity that fair pay brings,” said Garcetti in a statement. “Our decision to end poverty wages in L.A. caused a ripple effect across the nation, and this additional increase is the latest reason to celebrate today – and a reminder of how our fight for better wages is far from finished.”  

The change reflects a requirement in the Los Angeles Municipal Code which ties increases in the minimum wage to the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers in the Los Angeles metropolitan area, as published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Here's what we're reading this week:

On the [L.A. Metro] Community Advisory Council's chair's report is a deep dive into the bus driver hiring situation. Bottom line, other agencies are paying more to start, have more certainty in assignments, and $30,000 a year is no way to live. (calwatch)

Could the L.A. River dry up? Fears grow as cities work to recycle more wastewater "Reusing those discharges, city officials say, will help California meet its goals of recycling 2 million acre-feet of wastewater per year by 2030. It would also allow local municipalities to reduce their reliance on water imported from Northern California and the Colorado River....Critics however, warn that this will lead to a grim domino effect: remnant cottonwoods, willows, oaks and sycamores will dry out, the ecology will unravel and popular riverside activities including hiking, bicycling, fishing and kayaking will disappear in some of the most densely populated, park-poor areas in the United States." (LA Times)

Op-Ed: What can Houston teach Los Angeles about solving homelessness? "The struggle to solve homelessness is getting harder nearly everywhere. Yet recent years have still seen many more victories than defeats. And the biggest victory is in greater Houston, which over the last decade has cut homelessness by more than half." (LA Times)

City continues steady development of safe bike network "City Traffic Engineer Carl Hickman laid out a series of projects that will improve the city’s bike network during Tuesday’s City Council meeting. The projects ranged from a series of curb extensions and pedestrian medians at intersections throughout Downtown Long Beach to a separated bike lane on Del Amo Boulevard between Atlantic Avenue and Orange Avenue—and council members also had their own ideas for increasing bike safety." (Long Beach Business Journal)

So You're Taking LA Public Transit To The Super Bowl. Here’s What To Expect "If I’d just kept following the Google Maps instructions, I would’ve made it to SoFi by about now. So the entire journey — without the help of a shuttle bus — would’ve taken a little less than two hours and cost me less than $2. I didn’t mind the time, and saving the money was nice too." (LAist)

Purple Line tunneling completed between Century City and Wilshire/Rodeo! "In early February, the TBMs are anticipated to start digging the tunnels between Wilshire/Rodeo and Wilshire/La Cienega stations. The tunnels on 3.9-mile Section 1 of the project — between Wilshire/Western and Wilshire/La Cienega — were completed in 2021." (The Source)

Lawsuit over Santa Monica parking garage tossed out on a technicality "Santa Monica wants to tear down one of its many parking lots to make way for affordable housing. Thanks to a missed filing deadline, it may get to." (Courthouse News)