The Brief

Three days after the Mountain Fire tore through the hillsides of Camarillo in Southern California last November, Craig Crosby was at home assessing the damage when he spotted two men canvassing the neighborhood. Crosby’s house was still standing, but the blaze had burned down the northwest corner of the structure and his avocado orchard. Every surface was covered in ash and soot. The windows had melted, the doors were scorched, and everything reeked of smoke.

The men eventually made it to his doorstep and introduced themselves as franchise employees of the national restoration company Servpro. They told him they could help with the cleanup, and that they worked with all major insurance firms, including AAA Insurance, where he held a policy.

Crosby, who is a consumer advocate and founder of the Counterfeit Report, was wary. He told them he was not ready to authorize repairs, but that they could assess the damage. When they handed him a one-page access form, he scrawled a few amendments: his insurance adjuster’s information and a line clarifying that he only wanted “evaluation, recommendation, documentation, and inspection.”

“I like to memorialize exactly what I say,” Crosby later recalled. “And it struck me a little unusual that they didn’t have a problem with me changing a corporate form.”

Over the next 10 days, the company sent more than a dozen workers to his house.

They moved furniture, wiped the walls, and dusted surfaces. Along the way, they copied a AAA Insurance representative on emails, leading Crosby to believe that his policy would cover the work. But Crosby started to notice they were cleaning surfaces that probably needed to be ripped out and tossed.

Then they began causing new problems.

As they tore out insulation in the attic, they damaged HVAC pipes and vents. (An HVAC technician would later deem the system inoperable due to the damage.) They also dinged the garage door, stained carpeting, and broke an attic access door.

When Crosby called his insurance adjuster to complain about the company’s shoddy workmanship and excessive billing, he was shocked to learn that AAA had never approved the work.

In fact, they told him One Silver Serve LLC, the franchise that had approached Crosby, was on their internal blacklist.

When he told the cleaning company it would cost roughly $16,000 to replace the HVAC system, they initially offered in writing to cover the cost if he signed a liability waiver. Once he did, the company reversed course. Instead of paying, its lawyer told him he owed the company more than $62,000 for their services.

Then, on Valentine’s Day, the company escalated it further.

Its lawyer filed a mechanic’s lien — a legal claim against a property for unpaid work — on Crosby’s home. He couldn’t believe it. He’d never paid a credit card bill late, let alone had a lien on his property.

“I pay all my bills a month in advance,” he said. “That’s how conscious I am not to jeopardize my reputation and standing.”

A sign in Altadena, California warns people whose homes burned in the Eaton Fire in January of being approached by unlicensed contractors.

(

David McNew

/

Getty Images

)

One Silver Serve LLC, based in Encino, is one of Servpro’s roughly 2,300 independently owned franchises. It benefits from Servpro’s national reputation, but operates with little direct oversight from the parent company. The quality of work, billing practices, and ethical standards are entirely left to the local franchise.

About a dozen of Crosby’s neighbors had similar experiences with One Silver Serve after the Mountain Fire, according to county records and court filings. Each was approached by workers at their doorstep in the days after the fire, told insurance would cover costs, signed an authorization form, and later received exorbitant bills for cleaning.

Some, like Robert Perez, a funeral director down the street, received notice of a mechanic’s lien for roughly $58,000. When Crosby, Perez, and others didn’t cough up the money, One Silver Serve sued them in Ventura County Superior Court.

Crosby’s insurance adjuster eventually declared the home a total loss from the fire — a determination that restoration professionals typically identify during their initial assessment, before cleaning commenced. Crosby has since filed counterclaims for fraud, breach of contract, property damage and elder abuse.

An attorney for One Silver Serve declined to comment. Kim Brooks, director of communications for Servpro, said the company is aware of the lawsuit against Crosby and does not comment on pending litigation.

A growing problem

More than a third of people affected by a disaster report experiencing fraud, according to a survey commissioned by the American Institute of CPAs, a national organization of accountants. About 8% said they experienced contractor fraud, and another 10% reported vendor fraud, which involves improper payments to real or fictitious businesses.

Post-disaster scams come in many forms. In some cases, contractors ask for money up front and then disappear. In others, they may tear down walls damaged by floodwaters or fires, collect a portion of their fees, and never return to rebuild the home. But in the case of more sophisticated actors, they use insurance companies and the legal system to put homeowners in a bind.

“Any component that involves people who have been impacted and are vulnerable, people will try to find a way to capitalize,” said Niambi Tillman, a regional director with the nonprofit National Insurance Crime Bureau. “You’ll see people price gouging or inflated costs with excessive billing, trying to convince people to make decisions very quickly and cough up money on the front end, and then not delivering the services.”

As hurricanes, wildfires, and flooding become more frequent and severe, the disaster economy has ballooned — and with it, opportunities to take advantage of people in crisis. Disaster survivors who have already lost homes, and in some cases, loved ones, are left further traumatized and financially strained.

The National Insurance Crime Bureau estimates that upward of 10% of post-disaster spending is lost to scams every year. With nearly $183 billion in infrastructure losses from weather-related disasters in 2024, contractor fraud has become a lucrative business.

And its consequences ripple throughout the economy. The rising cost of recovery, fueled in part by fraudulent activity, then causes insurance premiums to rise and insurers to reduce coverage or leave a region altogether. According to the National Insurance Crime Bureau, fraud, particularly as perpetrated by contractors and other third parties, is “a threat to the stability of the insurance market.” USI Insurance Services, one of the largest insurance brokerage and consulting firms in the country, estimates that fraud is responsible for $900 more in premiums per policyholder.

One of Crosby’s neighbors, who asked for her name to be withheld, was not home when the Mountain Fire ripped through her neighborhood and burned part of her house. One Silver Serve charged more than $100,000 to clean the property — an amount she never agreed to — and put a mechanic’s lien on her house when she didn’t pay. Since the fire, she’s rented an apartment in the nearby city of Oxnard and has been coordinating repairs with a licensed contractor. For now, she’s focused on rebuilding and plans to deal with the lien afterward.

“In my whole 82-year-old life, I have never come across such absolute crooks,” she said. “Here you are, a devastating thing that your house … has burned, and they come and do this. It’s horrible. Right now, I don’t know how to get the lien off of my house.”

Warnings and enforcement

In the aftermath of wildfires, hurricanes, and flooding, state attorneys general, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and local law enforcement officials have taken to warning homeowners to be on the lookout for scammers.

Servpro franchises aren’t the only offenders in post-disaster contractor fraud. But Servpro’s national reputation and professional branding lend an air of credibility to franchisees’ operations, making them harder to scrutinize.

Servpro was founded in 1967 as a small painting operation in Sacramento, California. Within two years, the company launched as a franchise cleaning business and began expanding its operations. By 2000, it had 1,000 franchises, and by the end of the decade, it made more than a billion dollars in revenue. Today, the company has a network of over 2,300 franchises and is a multibillion-dollar organization that can serve 97% of the country’s ZIP codes within two hours.

Once franchisees are approved, they receive classroom and hands-on training at the company’s headquarters in Gallatin, Tenn. The company requires that franchisees use Servpro-branded equipment and professional cleaning products, paint any service vehicles with the company’s green logo and decals, and wear its black and green uniforms.

“Servpro has a proprietary brand identity guide that establishes and maintains a consistent professional customer-facing image for brand awareness and professionalism,” the company’s website notes.

But it’s unclear if Servpro has processes in place to hold franchise owners accountable for questionable practices. Across the country, there are hundreds of complaints with the Better Business Bureau and other consumer websites about price gouging, overcharging and engaging in intimidation tactics by Servpro franchises. For instance, the Better Business Bureau profile for Servpro Northeast Salem in Oregon has multiple complaints of fraudulent liens placed on homes after the company damaged property and overcharged for work. Similar complaints exist for franchises in Naperville, Ill.; Douglasville, Ga.; and Marietta, Ga.

In 2023, when a major storm blew through central California and dumped nearly 5 inches of rain over 24 hours, the floodwaters damaged Wee Shack, a family-run burger restaurant in seaside Morro Bay. The restaurant’s owner, Hoai Duc Ngo, hired Servpro of Morro Bay/King City for water and mold remediation.

The company required him to sign a contract to receive an estimate and later told him the work would cost about $130,000 — nearly equal to his entire insurance coverage. When he refused to pay the charges, the company filed a mechanic’s lien against the property and sued him, despite the fact that they hadn’t provided an estimate up front, had done minimal restoration work, and had caused additional property damage. Ngo later had the work completed for about $15,000, and filed counterclaims against the company for negligence, misrepresentation, fraud and concealment, among other charges.

Owners, volunteers and community members clean up mud and debris at a coffee shop in Marshall, North Carolina, after Hurricane Helene in 2024.

(

Jabin Botsford

/

The Washington Post via Getty Images

)

Some franchises have faced regulatory action.

After Hurricane Florence hit North Carolina in 2018, Servpro of Boise, an Idaho-based franchise, sent workers to the region for cleanup. They approached residents of an apartment building that had suffered water damage, conducted cleanup and then filed a lien and a lawsuit against the condo owners for $100,000 when they refused to pay what they saw as an exorbitant bill. The North Carolina attorney general’s office took on the case and ultimately settled with the company, canceling the outstanding lien and dismissing the lawsuit. (According to the Better Business Bureau, Servpro of Boise also includes a nondisparagement clause in its contracts with customers, prohibiting them from filing complaints or posting negative reviews.)

But the accountability that happened in North Carolina is rare. Since the rules and regulations for how contractors are required to operate change from one region to another, fraudsters often cross jurisdictional lines after natural disasters to seek out work in regions with the least protections.

Amelia Hoppe, co-founder and executive director of Emergency Legal Responders, an organization dedicated to advancing civil rights and justice after natural disasters, said that homeowners need to be particularly careful about out-of-state businesses.

“The vetting for local governments is really paying attention to who’s coming in from out of state,” she said.

In at least one case, the national Servpro headquarters does appear to have taken action against a franchise.

After multiple complaints from customers of excessive billing, charging for work not performed and intimidation, the company terminated its agreement in 2018 with Servpro of Rosemead/South El Monte. When the franchise continued to operate with Servpro’s logo on a van, the company sued. A federal court ultimately sided with the national company.

According to California records, Servpro of Rosemead/South El Monte’s business license is suspended, though where its owners and past employees have gone since is uncertain.

Mountain Fire aftermath

In Camarillo, One Silver Serve displayed red flags typical of fraudulent contractors, experts said. For one, door-to-door canvassing after a natural disaster, though common, can be a telltale sign of predatory behavior aimed at exploiting vulnerable homeowners. The practice is so prevalent among unscrupulous actors that state laws often require a three-day rescission period, giving homeowners and businesses a brief window to cancel contracts signed under pressure at their doorstep. California is one of the states with a three-day rescission period, and for contracts signed in regions with a disaster declaration, the law guarantees seven days to rescind the agreement.

“The lien tactic, especially, we warn about that a lot,” said Hoppe. “It’s legal leverage without informed consent. Even when it’s technically allowed, it often plays out as coercive. People are overwhelmed, underinformed and don’t have good options.”

Another red flag was that One Silver Serve never provided Crosby an estimate of the damage or a scope of work before starting. Without a detailed breakdown of the planned repairs and their costs, the company could later demand virtually any fee it wanted, consumer advocates warned.

In one Camarillo homeowner’s case, the bill they eventually received stretched dozens of pages, with line items like “clean baseboard,” “clean recessed light fixture,” and “clean closet organizer and rod.” None of those items needed cleaning at all — they had to be ripped out and replaced because of fire damage.

A final warning sign, experts said, is failing to confirm whether the insurance company has a track record with the contractor and will cover the repairs.

“A call to the insurance company, an estimate of benefits from the insurance company, these can be valuable checks on the validity of that relationship,” said Keegan Warren, executive director of the Texas A&M Health Institute for Healthcare Access, who has advocated for the role lawyers can play in identifying and combating harmful practices after a disaster.

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers contractors clear the remains of a church burned in the Eaton Fire.

(

Mario Tama

/

Getty Images

)

For Crosby and others, their experience with One Silver Serve has left them shaken and mistrustful of the disaster-restoration industry. Crosby has since moved back into his house and has been slowly making repairs to the sections that were damaged by the fire. His neighbor, however, faces a longer road to recovery. She’s in the midst of securing permits to rebuild the deck and other parts of the house that burned down. She hopes to be back in her home by January.

“When you tell this story, it’s like, ‘Oh, come on, I had to be stupid,’” she said. “But it’s just unscrupulous. You lose your faith in humanity.”

Operating in L.A. fire burn zones

Meanwhile, One Silver Serve continues to operate in Southern California. In January, after the Palisades Fire took 13 lives and burned more than 23,000 acres in and around Los Angeles, One Silver Serve filed at least seven lawsuits in the Los Angeles Superior Court for breach of contract and other allegations. It’s not clear how many of these cases are similar to the ones the company filed against homeowners in Camarillo.

In an April Facebook post, Servpro highlighted the work of its many franchises, including the cleanup One Silver Serve did after the Palisades Fire. “When Servpro franchises come together, wonderful work results,” the post said.

California’s High-Speed Rail Authority failed this year to push through most of the state legislation it deemed necessary to keep construction of the 171-mile rail line connecting Merced and Bakersfield on its current schedule.

In August 2025, authority Chief Executive Ian Choudri urged state leaders to commit stable state funding and cut red tape that he said had long stalled the project. He pitched several legislative ideas that would allow the agency to tap into local tax revenues and fast-track court disputes, environmental reviews and negotiations with utility companies in the rail line’s way.

“State action is critically needed to maintain the cost & timelines of the program,” he wrote in a January presentation to authority board members.

But only one of Choudri’s essential policy proposals became law. Senate Bill 1425, by Senate Transportation Committee Chair Dave Cortese, a San Jose Democrat, allows the authority to grant permits to outside entities such as utilities, local governments and private developers that want to build on authority-controlled land. Gov. Gavin Newsom signed it into law Sunday.

Most of Choudri’s other pitches remained “concept-level ideas” that the high-speed rail authority never developed into written proposals, said authority spokesperson Micah Flores. When asked why, Flores told CalMatters that the agency is not tasked with writing laws.

“Legislators who learn about the concepts may choose or author legislation independently to help the project,” he said.

Many of those ideas faced fierce opposition from local governments. One proposal — vaguely mentioned in Choudri’s August 2025 report — would have allowed the authority to collect sales and property tax revenues within a half-mile of the rail line, alarming local officials who say it would divert essential funding local governments rely on for social services and road repairs.

“This proposal … is fiscally reckless, legally vulnerable, and fundamentally unfair to the communities expected to host High-Speed Rail facilities,” 11 mayors in the Central Valley and Southern California wrote in a June opposition letter. “Simply put: the state cannot solve a state funding problem by raiding local tax bases.”

After this story was published, Flores told CalMatters that the agency is still talking with local governments and is not proposing any policy, “particularly not one that would override local land-use or tax authority.”

The high-speed rail project is already long delayed: In 2008, voters approved a $10 billion bond to build a high-speed rail line from San Francisco to Los Angeles by 2020 for an estimated $45 billion. The project is now estimated to cost between $126 billion and $231 billion, with a full buildout expected by 2040, according to the authority’s latest business plan. Current plans call for building a first leg linking Merced to Bakersfield.

The project is set to receive $1 billion each year from the state’s carbon market auction proceeds until 2045, a deal Newsom championed last year. But the funding could be in jeopardy under new climate rules from the Newsom administration, which threaten to cut carbon market revenue by half.

The authority’s legislative losses this year could further stall the project, but it’s unclear by how much.

The agency’s business plan calls for the authority to complete the Merced-to-Bakersfield segment by 2033. But that timeline largely relies on the “overly optimistic” assumption that state lawmakers will approve the agency’s legislative priorities into law “almost immediately,” according to a review of the plan issued in July by the Office of Inspector General that oversees the authority.

The authority declined CalMatters’ multiple requests for interviews with Choudri or the chair of its board of directors, Steve Kawa. In a statement, Flores said the agency plans to push for similar legislative concepts next year and provide project cost and schedule updates in March.

It’s unclear what the next governor makes of the high-speed rail project. Democratic gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra said in May he would “scrap the current configuration” but provided few details, whereas Republican Steve Hilton would cancel the entire project.

Other proposals died

Sen. Henry Stern, a Sherman Oaks Democrat, authored the only other proposal related to high-speed rail this year. His Senate Bill 1411, which had bipartisan support, would have allowed the rail authority to spend more state funds outside the Central Valley segment of the rail line, but the legislation was shelved in May during a process known as the “suspense file” hearing, where lawmakers rapidly kill or approve proposals without explanation.

Under current law, the authority can only spend up to $500 million from its share of the state climate fund on high-speed rail projects outside the Merced-to-Bakersfield portion. Stern’s measure would have lifted that cap and allowed the authority to use the money for early designs, engineering and land acquisition elsewhere along the planned rail route from the Bay Area to Southern California.

Stern said the flexibility would help the authority build “bookend” rail line projects across the state and attract investors from private companies while still building in the Central Valley.

“If you are not unlocking private dollars in those demand centers … you are then leaving money on the table that could otherwise accelerate the entire project. It can lift those boats in the valley,” he said.

But doing so would divert dollars from the Merced-to-Bakersfield project and contradict state lawmakers’ intent just four years ago to keep the funds in the Central Valley, legislative staffers warned in a May analysis of the measure, shortly before it died.

A top priority for the authority this year was to speed up the relocation of overhead power lines, water pipes and other infrastructure that is in the rail line’s construction path, Choudri said at an August board meeting. Utility companies have no incentive to move their lines and the agency does not have authority to compel them or bind them to a deadline, Choudri said.

“We are talking about utilities that were identified in 2017 that are still there in the way,” he said at the meeting. “Minus the legislative action, I just don’t know how else we can solve this.”

Sen. Scott Wiener, a San Francisco Democrat, authored Senate Bill 445 last year to address the issue. But the measure went through several last-minute overhauls amid opposition from local governments and utilities and also died in the suspense file.

Other priorities Choudri identified included:

• Expedite environmental review for facilities that will provide renewable energy for the rail line;
• Speed up resolution of court disputes over property acquisition, and
• Exempt the authority from paying sales tax on construction materials.

Cortese, a champion of high-speed rail, told CalMatters the rail authority is partly to blame for the legislative losses.

“The governor’s office and the high-speed rail [authority] haven’t asked us to write any bills,” he said. “Have they contributed to these bills not getting passed by simply not providing enough help? Sure, absolutely.”

Still, he said his fellow lawmakers also need to better advocate for the project.

“We can’t have bills like Stern’s bill and Sen. Wiener’s bill just completely stalled out,” he said. “That’s not on the authors as much as it’s on the legislative process that those bills can disappear without a debate.”

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

The city of L.A. has spent around $27 million on the Olympic and Paralympic Games, less than two years out from the summer of 2028.

That’s according to numbers crunched by City Controller Kenneth Mejia, who says he’s tracking city funds used for the Olympics and where they're going.

The tally for now includes $13 million in financing for police vehicles and an additional $14 million in other city departments. The majority of that — more than $11 million — is to pay workers in the City Administrative Office, Public Works and the L.A. Department of Transportation, among other city departments.

Mejia says he’s tracking the spending through the city’s accounting system, logging anything that is marked as an Olympics expense. His office noted that the tally is likely an undercount, since it doesn’t include LAPD expenses beyond the vehicle order.

“The city's trying to make it a no-cost Olympics, right? But we all know that's not true,” Mejia told LAist. “Because they’re spending a lot preparing for it and accelerating a lot of spending.”

Other noteworthy line items flagged by the controller include around $460,000 for “international affairs” within the mayor’s office and more than $3.2 million for a Recreation and Parks program called Universal Play.

A spokesperson for L.A. Mayor Karen Bass did not respond to emailed requests for details about the “international affairs” expenses.

Recreation and Parks spokesperson Rose Watson told LAist via email that Universal Play was the precursor to PlayLA, the youth sports program that private Olympics organizing committee LA28 has dedicated $160 million to.

Despite that, L.A. won’t be reimbursed for the $3.2 million it cost to staff and implement the program, Watson told LAist.

The Bureau of Street Services and the L.A. Department of Transportation did not respond to questions about their Olympics expenses in time for publication.

Paul Krekorian, the former L.A. City Council president who now leads the city’s office on major events, said in an emailed statement that most of the projects listed by the city controller were “key infrastructure improvements that Mayor Bass would deliver with or without the Games.”

He added that requests for city services by LA28 that go beyond what’s deemed “normal and customary” will be reimbursed.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed legislation Wednesday that would have penalized Californians for using smart glasses to record people without their permission in changing rooms, doctor’s offices and other spaces people generally consider private.

The legislation also would have required companies making smart glasses or other wearable devices, starting in 2028, to include a light or some other feature that indicates that the person is video or audio recording. It would have banned the sale of technology designed to help people conceal a recording light or sound on a smart device.

Newsom wrote in a letter explaining his decision that the bill’s definition of a wearable recording device was too broad. He noted that the state already bars people from recording someone without their consent in spaces generally considered private.

Meta Ray-Bans, smart glasses that were rolled out in 2021, have especially grown in popularity, with more than 7 million of the AI-powered devices being sold last year. State Sen. Eloise Gómez Reyes, who wrote the bill, said it would’ve helped the state respond to the technology’s rapid growth.

“Whatever we can do to protect an individual’s right to privacy, we have to do,” she said.

The bill would have been the first of its kind in the nation and built upon the state’s extensive privacy protections. California is one of about a dozen states that already requires both parties’ consent before a conversation can be recorded via audio or video.

Reyes’ proposal was designed to clarify that it applied to smart glasses and make it easier for someone to tell when those devices are recording. Any person who violated the bill by secretly recording someone would have faced prison time or fines of up to $1,500. A company that made devices that didn’t comply with the bill would’ve faced fines up to $2,500.

But TechNet, a group of executives from companies including Meta, Google and Amazon, said the legislation, known as SB 1130, would have been unfair to businesses and customers.

“California already has extensive laws governing unlawful recording, and as currently written, SB 1130 is not the right approach to addressing these concerns,” TechNet Executive Director Robert Boykin said in a statement.

Meta touted the benefits of its smart glasses in response to Newsom’s veto, including an initiative providing the devices to blinded veterans to help them read documents and identify objects.

“We’re still in the early days of building this technology and we’re committed to continuing prioritizing privacy as we build,” a Meta spokesperson said in a statement.

About a dozen states, including California, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, require someone who wants to record a conversation to get the other person’s permission.

It’s important to strengthen privacy laws for these wearable smart devices because it’s not as obvious to tell when a person is using them to record compared to when someone is filming with their phone or a camera, said Justin Brookman, the director of technology policy for Consumer Reports.

In a letter to lawmakers earlier this year about the bill, Consumer Reports referenced a TikTok in which a woman recounted her experience getting a wax when she realized her technician was wearing smart glasses. The technician told the content creator, Aniessa Navarro, that the glasses weren’t on, but the experience was still unnerving, she said in the TikTok. The Consumer Reports letter cited a separate event in which a woman said she was secretly filmed with smart glasses at a gym and harassed online after the video was uploaded to social media.

“The stories are enough to cause alarm, and we need to do something as soon as we can,” Reyes said at the end of the legislative session.

Angelenos are being asked in the November election to make a big change to one of L.A.’s most important agencies, the city’s Department of Public Works.

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.

As a reporter trying to explain it, I did too.

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 in our voter guide.)

But one of its most significant pieces — one that would change who leads the Department of Public Works — took some serious digging to fully understand. And I wasn’t alone. It turns out that quite a few officials and experts in L.A. were also puzzled.

Who will run Public Works? Who runs it now?

L.A.’s 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’s current power structure is a five-member Board of Public Works.

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.

At first glance, that seemed simple enough.

That is, until I asked what I thought was a straightforward question: “Who is the current director of Public Works?”

I did not get straightforward answers — from multiple city officials, supporters of the measure and its opponents.

• 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. 
• The Public Works Department’s own public affairs representative simply didn’t know. 
• And Mayor Karen Bass’ office didn't respond to LAist’s two requests for comment this week.

Eventually, two current city officials pointed me to the person who’s overseeing these responsibilities.

There’s a backstory.

The disappearing director

The director of Public Works position was created through an amendment to the L.A. City Charter, essentially the city’s constitution, in 1999.

In 2005, the City Council transferred the director’s role and responsibilities to the board’s secretary, which was renamed “executive officer.”

Since then, the Public Works Department effectively hasn’t had a person with the title “director.”

Today, the executive officer position is held by TJ Knight, a longtime city employee. Knight’s official title is acting executive officer of the Board of Public Works.

“The director position has remained in the City Charter but has not operated as a separate position since [2005],” Knight said in an emailed statement to LAist. “Charter Amendment LA would revive and increase the authority of the director.”

If the measure is approved, however, it’s unclear who would become the director.

“Any next steps regarding the position will depend on the outcome of the election,” Knight said.

Calls for change

Overall, Charter Amendment LA aims to streamline how the city of L.A. plans for, budgets for and prioritizes infrastructure maintenance and repairs.

There's wide support for improving how the city handles these projects. The city struggles with aging infrastructure, a huge backlog of projects and a steady stream of complaints about delayed work and deteriorating conditions.

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’s current structure, at least in part, for the city’s inability to address infrastructure projects in a timely fashion.

They say the board’s 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.

“If you look at how that impacts service and delivery of their tasks — which is everything from streetlights to curb ramps, to bike lanes, to sidewalk repair — 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,” said City Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky, who is backing the measure.

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.

Yaroslavsky and other supporters say the answer is putting a strong director in charge rather than the board.

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’s 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 and other scandals.

“The 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,” said City Councilmember Monica Rodriguez.

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.

It’s not clear what the director position would be paid if the measure is approved by voters in November.

If it does pass — and now that I understand the inner workings of the Public Works Department so well — let’s hope they don’t ask me to apply for the position.