Recommendations from the LA City Charter Reform Commission will be considered by LA City Council’s rules committee over a period of six weeks, starting on April 30. However, public comment is only going to occur at the first meeting.
Key items in the proposed reform package include:
- Expand city council from 15 to 25 single-member districts
- Adopt ranked-choice voting to ensure majority support
- Lower voting age to 16 for city and LAUSD elections
- Reduce ballot access barriers so more candidates can run
- Add a Preamble stating the city’s values
- Establish periodic charter review every ten years
- Give ethics commission independent legal counsel and protected budget
- Strengthen police accountability with council oversight authority
- Establish a director of Public Works to coordinate infrastructure
- Allocate a minimum 2% of budget to infrastructure
- Double charter-mandated funding for Recreation and Parks
- Create chief financial officer for long-term fiscal coordination
- Implement a two-year budget cycle with participatory budgeting
- Bifurcate city attorney into city attorney and city prosecutor
- Enshrine controller’s fraud, waste, and abuse authority
- Update Neighborhood Council provisions
- Streamline land use processes
- Modernize procurement rules
After the rules committee considers the recommendations, they will be taken up by the full city council who will draft one or more ballot measures for the public to vote on this November.