The Brief

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass introduced new limits this week to her administration’s program to streamline affordable housing. The changes will further restrict where low-income apartments can be fast-tracked in the city at a time when rents are rising further out of reach for many residents.

In a message on the July 1 update, Bass framed the changes as creating “additional protections for existing residential tenants” and ensuring the “protection of historic resources.” Others see a significant rollback of a promising program that has spurred lots of much-needed development.

The long list of new restrictions includes a prohibition on fast-tracking affordable housing in the city’s designated historic districts, an idea proposed earlier by City Councilmember Katy Yaroslavksy in response to plans for low-income apartments in pricey Windsor Village.

Another new restriction will ban fast-tracked affordable housing projects on properties that already contain rent-controlled apartment buildings with 12 or more units.

From ‘remarkable’ to ‘status quo’

Housing policy experts said the latest changes will likely curtail plans for new affordable housing, especially from private developers who have used the mayor’s streamlining initiative to propose thousands of low-income apartments without any public funding.

“It's just turning something that was really remarkable into another status quo type tool,” said Jason Ward, an economist and co-director of the RAND Center on Housing and Homelessness. “That's never going to get us where we need to go in terms of housing production.”

LAist reached out to the mayor’s office to ask what prompted the latest round of changes to ED1. Bass spokesperson Clara Karger responded in an email, saying, “Mayor Bass believes that policies should be constantly evaluated and improved upon. That’s what this revision seeks to do. She also believes that we will be able to build more housing if everyone has buy-in.”

Reeling from a housing affordability crisis that has kept homelessness levels elevated and pushed young families out of the city, L.A. is currently facing state requirements to plan for about 185,000 new low-income housing units by 2029. So far the city — like most other parts of California — is not on track to meet those goals.

How we got here 

Bass signed the program in question, Executive Directive One (ED1), during her first week in office. She promised that her planning department would deliver city approvals for new 100% affordable housing developments within a matter of weeks, rather than the previous norm of months or years.

Housing advocates have so far largely seen the program as a success. Bass has said more than 18,000 units of income-restricted housing have been proposed through ED1 to date.

But with all those new proposals has come fierce opposition from homeowners and neighborhood groups who feel ED1 has taken away their ability to slow down or kill projects they believe will harm their communities.

Some residents near proposed ED1 developments have complained about lack of parking, perceived harms to nearby property values and the ability for developers to bypass lengthy environmental reviews.

Group seeking to ‘protect neighborhoods’ applauds changes

Maria Pavlou Kalban is a founder of the group United Neighbors, which says its mission is to “protect neighborhoods” and “ensure local control.” Her group has been lobbying the mayor’s office for changes to ED1, a program she says has been harmful to many neighborhoods. Kalban said Bass seems to have taken many of their concerns to heart.

“A lot of the stuff we were fighting for, we found in these revisions,” Kalban said. “So we really think the mayor stepped up.”

Kalban cheered changes Bass made to ED1 regarding how many waivers and incentives developers can request. Developers typically rely on a number of concessions — often involving increased height, less required open space and smaller setbacks from property lines — to make their projects pencil out financially.

Last year, Bass changed ED1 to ban streamlined affordable housing in areas with single-family homes, which make up 74% of the city’s residential land. The new changes further shrink the areas where developers can propose ED1 projects. But Kalban thinks L.A. still has plenty of room for new housing along commercial corridors, such as low-slung strip malls that could be redeveloped into apartment buildings.

“We're trying to solve the problem of how we need more housing, but we don't feel you have to destroy existing housing in order to get that,” Kalban said.

A win for exclusionary neighborhoods? 

Other housing policy watchers say Bass is bending to the demands of wealthy homeowners in neighborhoods long resistant to new housing. Scott Epstein, the director of policy and research for Abundant Housing L.A., said carving historic districts out of ED1 is a mistake.

“There are many parcels in [historic districts] that are not historic at all,” Epstein said, such as vacant lots. “These are also pretty exclusionary communities.”

Jason Ward, the RAND economist, said nonprofit affordable housing developers with decades of experience navigating the complexities of building low-income housing in California will likely continue to benefit from ED1. But he said when it comes to the many low-income housing proposals coming from for-profit developers, these changes leave ED1 “functionally gutted.”

“At some point in Los Angeles, if we’re serious about increasing housing affordability, we need some leadership that's willing to just take the hits and make permanent changes that will be painful to many stakeholders that are used to having their way,” Ward said.

If you care about local housing affordability

For people who live in L.A., the Board of Supervisors and City Council have the most direct impact on housing affordability in your neighborhood.

• Learn more about who influences local housing policy

The best way to keep tabs on your own local government is by attending public meetings for your city council or local boards. Here are a few tips to get you started.

• Find meeting schedules and agendas: City councils usually meet at least twice a month, although larger ones may meet weekly. Committees and boards tend to meet less often, typically once a month. You can find the schedule and meeting agenda on your local government’s website, or posted physically at your local city hall. Find more tips here.
  
  • Find L.A. City Council agendas and meeting dates
  • Find meetings for L.A. city boards and commissions
  • Find L.A. County agendas and meeting dates
• Learn the jargon: Closed session, consent calendars and more! We have definitions for commonly used terms here.
• How to give public comment: Every public meeting allows community members to give comment, whether or not it’s about something on the agenda. The meeting agenda will have specific instructions for giving public comment. Review more details here.

A years-long effort to bring fast, reliable internet to Catalina Island cleared a major vote today after the California Public Utility Commission awarded $37 million to install subsea fiber internet infrastructure between Orange County and the island.

More than 4,000 residents on Catalina Island don’t have reliable internet. That’s because the rural island doesn’t have fiber broadband infrastructure, and large communication companies don’t serve the area because of high costs.

“We currently operate off of a microwave tower, and it’s time that Avalon had nothing better than the rest of the mainland, but the same,” Avalon City Councilmember Lisa Lavelle said during public comment.

Lance Ware, CEO of AVX Networks, the telecom company tasked with building Catalina Island’s broadband infrastructure, said this project is significant to the quality of life for island residents.

“No one thought Catalina really was worthy,” Ware told LAist. “It really took a long time to convince the grant makers that this is a very much underserved community … not only digitally red lined, but forgotten about from an infrastructure perspective, and I mean that beyond communications.”

The impact to the community is almost immeasurable, he added.

“The access to that technology, workforce development, economic development and just the potential outcomes change massively for everybody involved,” Ware said. “Our ability to deliver world-class health care and public safety is huge.”

What we know about the project

The commission distributed more than $96 million in federal grant funds during Thursday’s meeting to five groups for high-speed broadband projects, including AVX Networks.

The planned proposal includes building a fiber-optic network above and underground from Catalina Island to the Orange County coast.

When it comes to internet connection, the entire island is unserved, according to the commission’s agenda report. That means it has zero access to broadband internet.

According to records, the undersea cables will run under the San Pedro Channel from two points on the island to landings near Huntington Beach. Those cables will then connect to the Middle Mile Broadband Network in Stanton.

The grant will cover 100% of the project costs, records show.

What’s next?

Grantees are required to follow a set of rules to receive funds, and that includes committing to providing internet service at affordable rates.

Ware said AVX Networks will have a low-income plan at $40 a month at 100/100 Mbps — this is the download and upload speed of the service.

“We chose to go symmetrical, which means the upload is the same as the download,” Ware added. “For people doing video streaming or telemedicine or FaceTime, even, or e-learning, it's really important to have symmetrical bandwidth.”

AVX Networks also has committed to maintaining those rates for at least 10 years, the commission agenda reported.

Next, the company needs to get permits for building out the project and surveying a route on the sea floor for the cables.

The city of Anaheim spent around $17 million on credit card purchases from places like Target, Walmart and Amazon over the past two years, recently obtained records show, but the system hasn't been audited since 2018.

Anaheim spokesperson Mike Lyster, who along with city leadership did not answer detailed questions about the purchases, confirmed the lack of audit.

The absence of audits was a central issue former purchasing agent Kari Bouffard included in a tort claim in June alleging she was fired for raising concerns that the city’s top finance official, Debbie Moreno, was enabling fraud, wasting millions of taxpayer dollars and lying to the City Council.

In the legal claim, Bouffard says when she raised concerns over the lack of an audit with the city’s audit team, which then wanted to audit the credit card program, she alleges Moreno told her: “Do not let them in the door.”

“I found her response unprofessional, dismissive, and deeply concerning, particularly given her role as Finance Director and her responsibility to support accountability and internal controls,” Bouffard wrote.

In October, Lyster confirmed an external legal team is conducting “an independent outside review” of the allegations in the tort claim. But he did not answer questions about who the firm is or how much that contract has cost the city.

LAist requested and reviewed credit card monthly billing statements for all city-issued credit cards for the past two years. The statements show city employees spent tens of thousands of public money at places like Target, Walmart and Amazon on “food, office and other operational supplies for city business purposes,” according to Lyster. The statements do not show details about specific purchases.

The Amazon purchases totaled around $1.7 million of public money over the two years, according to the data. Anaheim provided a breakdown of the Amazon purchases that did not include details about what was bought at the online marketplace.

Lyster said Anaheim monitors credit card purchases appropriately.

He confirmed credit card purchases were last audited in 2018 by the city’s Internal Audit team.

“There was no larger concern with any of the findings, and we reject any mischaracterization and misinformation about oversight of the city’s purchasing cards,” Lyster said in a statement.

Lyster told LAist the city’s purchasing agent, who until recently was Bouffard, can “pursue audits at any time,” but one has not been done recently. In the tort claim, Bouffard said she raised concerns with Moreno over “lack of time and staffing within the Purchasing Division to adequately manage and audit the program.” Moreno’s solution, she said, was a temporary staffer — “an insufficient solution given the scope of responsibilities,” Bouffard wrote.

Lyster also said the financial firm KPMG conducts an annual audit of a sample of credit card transactions. LAist asked Lyster for a copy of the KPMG sample audit, but he did not share it.

Anaheim’s credit card spending amounts to about $800,000 a month.

The city of Irvine, also one of OC’s most populous cities, spends around $500,000 on credit cards every month, according to city spokesperson Kristina Perrigoue. Those purchases are audited monthly, Perrigoue said. Irvine’s purchasing staff randomly selects one department per month to audit and they audit a sample of purchases.

“We take the five users with the highest number of transactions and audit all their transactions for the prior month,” Perrigoue said.

Why it matters

Earlier this year, Anaheim grappled with how to close a $60 million budget shortfall after spending more than they were generating in revenue. City leaders closed the deficit with proceeds from capital bonds and by pulling money previously set aside to repay debt. The City Council recently declined to put a gate tax at its entertainment venues, including Disneyland, to voters. Instead, the majority of the council decided to meet at a future date to discuss revenue generating ideas. At that meeting, Mayor Ashleigh Aitken called for “tightening our belts” to boost revenue.

LAist review of the credit card purchases showed significant spending at vendors — some with which Anaheim has cooperative agreements with.

Cooperative agreements allow agencies like the city of Anaheim to pre-negotiate pricing so they get the best deals.

Anaheim’s credit card policy states that the credit card can only be used for the small dollar purchase of supplies or off-site services. Typically, for bigger purchases, cities turn to cooperative agreements.

“The vast majority of city purchasing — most purchases more than $10,000 — is done by purchase order or contract,” Lyster told LAist.

Credit cards, Lyster said, “provide an efficient, cost-effective way of making smaller purchases, rather than use of petty cash, direct payments, cash advances and check requests, which can be more cumbersome, administratively costly and bring their own risks of misuse.”

“There are cases where a purchase order or contract would be unnecessary and excessive, adding time and cost and impacting timely service to our community,” he continued.

LAist has shared our findings with Aitken, City Manager Jim Vanderpool and all council members. We have also reached out to Moreno for an interview. We will update this story if we hear back.

Here are some of our key findings from Anaheim’s credit card purchases:

• Over $800,000 spent on restaurants

City employees spent more than $800,000 on restaurants in Southern California and elsewhere over two years including around $60,000 at K&A Restaurant and over $20,000 on In-N-Out. Some restaurants from the credit card statement include Aloha Steakhouse in Ventura County, Tacos 1986 in Pasadena and BaBaLoo Lounge in Palm Desert.

Lyster told LAist the restaurant spends “are catering expenses for events or meals for special work operations.”

He said the city also provides meals when they “bring together a large contingent of our own police officers and those of other agencies to work demonstrations, high-profile dignitary visits or other occasions,” especially for work in the evening or on weekends.

Lyster added that the council meetings are also catered and the city hosts community events where they cater food for the public.

• Around $650,000 spent on hotels

LAist’s review of the credit card purchases showed thousands of dollars spent at hotels, including the Grand Hyatt in Nashville, Caesars Palace in Las Vegas and a pet hotel in Oxnard.

“The vast majority of this spending is for employee development to ensure our people are continually learning and aware of best professional standards,” Lyster said about the hotel charges. “This is an investment in our workforce that brings better service to our community.”

• Around $40,000 spent at Costco, close to $120,000 at Sam’s Club, around $120,000 at Target and around $57,000 on Walmart purchases in two years

Lyster attributed this spend to “food and supplies.”

The Community Services Department, he said, buys “food and crafts and other supplies” for the city’s Fun on Wheels program, the Mobile Library and family resource centers.

He declined to answer questions on whether employees submit a request for the purchase of goods and services and how the city tracks if these purchases are used for public benefit. The requests, called requisitions, are typical first steps in the purchasing process detailing quantity, description and use, Bouffard told LAist. When she worked at the county, all purchases went through this “checks and balances process,” she said.

• Over $600,000 spent at Home Depot, more than $550,000 at Office Depot and over $340,000 at Grainger

Lyster didn’t confirm if the purchases at these vendors were made using a purchase order.

He confirmed Anaheim has accounts with Grainger, Office Depot and others, but not if the city’s credit card purchases at the vendors are made through the dedicated account.

LAist correspondent Jordan Rynning contributed to this report.