The Brief

State conflict of interest laws ban public officials from any involvement in contracts in which they have a financial interest, including agreements that financially benefit their spouse or groups that pay their spouse.

Los Angeles’ top homeless services executive told LAist in December that she stuck to those rules, saying she had been walled off and “completely recused” from business relating to her husband’s employer.

Through a public records request, LAist later discovered records that contradict her assertion.

The documents show that Va Lecia Adams Kellum, chief executive of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA), signed a $2.1 million contract and two other contract amendments with Upward Bound House, the Santa Monica-based nonprofit where her husband Edward Kellum works in senior leadership. The contract names Adams Kellum as the LAHSA official authorized to administer it.

A LAHSA spokesperson told LAist the contracts had inadvertently ended up in front of Adams Kellum to sign.

LAist’s findings come amid mounting questions about oversight at LAHSA, the public agency tasked by the city and county with administering more than $700 million in annual contracts with nonprofits to provide homeless services. It is a creation of the city and county and jointly funded and overseen by both.

Upward Bound House is a longtime vendor of LAHSA that focuses on housing and services for unhoused families, as well as young adults. It began receiving public money from LAHSA years prior to Adams Kellum joining the agency in March 2023.

When employees sign LAHSA’s code of ethics they agree to avoid any activities that could be, or appear to be, conflicts of interest, according to a copy posted on LAHSA’s website. One of the examples given is immediate family relationships with the agency’s vendors.

The $2.1 million contract signed by Adams Kellum authorized federal taxpayer funds for Upward Bound House to pay rent for unhoused people in the region and help them find homes. The money also covered case management and administration costs at the nonprofit.

The records show Adams Kellum signed the three documents directly above the names of her husband’s employer and his boss.

The signature sections of two contract amendments (dated the same day) and a $2.1 million contract Va Lecia Adams Kellum signed between the government agency she leads and her husband’s employer. LAist obtained the documents through a public records request.

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LAist

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LAist found that Adams Kellum’s interactions with Upward Bound House extended beyond signing contracts.

She also spoke with her husband's employer last year regarding complaints made during public comments alleging failures in Upward Bound House’s performance, according to the nonprofit’s chief executive.

Government ethics experts say conflict of interest laws forbid a wide range of involvement, including signing contracts.

“The laws are pretty specific that you can't have any participation whatsoever,” said Sean McMorris, who manages the ethics program for California Common Cause. “You should not be putting your signature on any such contract. You have to completely recuse yourself from the matter.”

McMorris said in the eyes of the law, a conflict of interest violation can take place even if the breach was unintentional. He told LAist that Adams Kellum’s signatures appear to violate California’s Political Reform Act and the state’s Government Code Section 1090.

Following ethics expectations, he added, is "extremely important because it speaks to the integrity and character of our representatives."

Adams Kellum said her conflict was disclosed

Adams Kellum previously told LAist she had steered clear of anything to do with her husband’s employer.

“This issue was disclosed when I was hired,” Adams Kellum wrote in a Dec. 9 email, prior to LAist requesting public records that showed she had signed LAHSA contracts with her husband’s employer.

“LAHSA's [legal] counsel has put procedures in place that have been followed and these procedures ‘walled me off’ from any involvement in matters concerning Upward Bound House,” she added. “I am completely recused from matters that involve or impact Upward Bound House.”

Adams Kellum has not responded to follow-up questions and interview requests from LAist about the contracts she signed, including questions about whether conflict of interest laws may have been violated.

Edward Kellum, her husband, did not respond to LAist’s requests for comment. He is featured as one of six people on the “senior staff” section of Upward Bound House’s website, where his title is director of operations and compliance.

Also listed is the organization’s president and CEO, Christine Mirasy-Glasco. She acknowledged to LAist that Adams Kellum, in her role as LAHSA’s top executive, spoke with her once regarding complaints from public commenters alleging Upward Bound House failed to provide required services and falsified documents.

In an email, Mirasy-Glasco wrote that Adams Kellum “shared that LAHSA would follow up with UBH,” and said a subordinate of Adams Kellum was assigned to work with the vendor to get the complainants into permanent housing. Mirasy-Glasco provided LAist with written responses to several of the complaints.

Paul Rubenstein, a spokesperson for LAHSA, also said follow-up on the complaints was handled by a subordinate of Adams Kellum.

Spokesperson says signatures were an ‘oversight’

As for the three agreements with her husband’s employer, Rubenstein said Adams Kellum “mistakenly signed” them after staffers inadvertently sent them to her. When the CEO has a conflict of interest, LAHSA’s standard practice is for contracts to instead be signed by the agency’s top programs officer, Rubenstein wrote.

“Dr. Adams Kellum has not been involved in any discussions regarding Upward Bound House contracts,” Rubenstein wrote in an email to LAist. He added that Adams Kellum “has never been involved in overseeing any programs or agreements with UBH."

“LAHSA is taking steps to further ensure this does not happen again, including requiring additional staff training,” he added, noting that all contracts go through multiple reviews and require “three staff signatures before being sent to the CEO or her designee.”

Rubenstein did not respond to an email asking how Adams Kellum’s signatures could be a mistake, given their close proximity to Upward Bound House’s name.

He also did not answer why, if Adams Kellum was completely recused, she was named in the $2.1 million contract with Upward Bound House as LAHSA's representative "authorized to administer" the agreements.

What the oversight commission knew

The 10-member LAHSA Commission is responsible for overseeing the agency and its CEO. Half of the commission is appointed by county supervisors, and half are appointed by L.A.’s mayor with confirmation by the City Council.

“The LAHSA Commission was fully informed and consulted with legal counsel about potential conflicts prior to Dr. Adams Kellum being offered the position,” Rubenstein said.

But LAist found that members of the LAHSA Commission had varying degrees of awareness of Adams Kellum’s conflict — and gave different instructions over time at the recommendation of staff.

In August 2023, LAHSA’s governing commission specifically excluded Adams Kellum from signing the $2.1 million contract when it came up for a vote, according to the meeting’s minutes. Instead, the commission authorized its chair to enter into the agreement. The meeting record shows Adams Kellum recused herself and stepped out of the room during the vote.

Despite the prohibition, she signed that contract months later.

In other instances later on, the LAHSA Commission apparently changed course. Despite Adams Kellum’s conflict of interest disclosure forms, commissioners voted to follow staff’s recommendation to authorize her to enter into contracts with Upward Bound House.

L.A. Mayor Karen Bass was among the commissioners who voted unanimously last year to allow Adams Kellum to sign other contracts with the service provider, according to meeting minutes and agendas. (Bass was not yet on the commission for the August 2023 vote.)

Asked for comment about the conflict of interest, Zach Seidl, a spokesperson for Bass, said work is underway to “make LAHSA more transparent and accountable,” including “initiating additional protocols to prevent future issues.”

Va Lecia Adams Kellum, CEO of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA), with current chair of the agency’s governing commission Wendy Greuel (left) and L.A. Mayor Karen Bass (right).

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Office of L.A. Mayor Karen Bass

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Two other commission members who joined the LAHSA Commission after Adams Kellum was hired — L.A. County Supervisors Kathryn Barger and Lindsey Horvath — were not formally notified of the conflict prior to voting to allow her to enter agreements with Upward Bound House, according to their spokespeople.

Barger didn’t find out about the family tie until after she left the LAHSA Commission in October 2024, according to her spokesperson. Horvath was not officially notified about the conflict, though it was known among many who work in homeless services, according to Horvath’s spokesperson.

LAist reviewed those later contracts, and found Adams Kellum did not ultimately sign them. Instead, subordinates signed with Adams Kellum’s name printed below most of the signature lines.

What’s next

Questions about transparency and how LAHSA is handling hundreds of millions in public dollars have been a growing concern for local lawmakers.

Adams Kellum faced controversy recently over her hiring of Lilly Simmering for a top-level LAHSA leadership position that oversees all homelessness programs. Simmering oversaw an Orange County government department that paid out millions of dollars to an out-of-compliance nonprofit now embroiled in a fraud scandal involving former Orange County Supervisor Andrew Do. Simmering left after less than two weeks on the job, following questions about her history in Orange County.

LAHSA officials have removed the agency’s list of leaders and organization chart from its website. For at least two weeks, those pages have been replaced with a graphic labeled “under construction.”

The webpage that once showed the LAHSA organization chart has been replaced with a graphic labeled "Under Construction." The graphic remained on the page at the time of publication.

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LAHSA website

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In response to a request from LAist, Rubenstein provided a copy of the organization’s organization chart, dated Feb. 1. He said the website will be updated soon with the new info. The site was not updated as of Tuesday.

In November, Horvath called for the county to pull its funding from LAHSA after an audit found failures in the agency’s oversight of service providers. The county provides about half of LAHSA’s $875 million annual budget. The Board of Supervisors approved Horvath’s call for county staff to create a plan to have the county manage the spending directly.

Before she left the LAHSA Commission at the end of last month, Horvath planned to schedule a discussion on conflict of interest procedures at an upcoming commission meeting, her spokesperson told LAist.

L.A. City Councilmember Nithya Raman, who chairs the council’s housing and homelessness committee, said in an email to LAist: “At a time when there is a great deal of distrust in government and in the homeless services system, I think it is particularly important to ensure that we avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest.”

In response to LAist’s reporting, Raman said she contacted Wendy Greuel — L.A.’s former controller and current chair of the LAHSA Commission — who assured Raman that conflict of interest policies would be rigorously enforced to prevent future lapses.

Greuel did not address concerns about the conflict when asked for comment by LAist.

L.A. City Councilmember Monica Rodriguez, a frequent critic of LAHSA’s oversight practices, called Adams Kellum’s signing of contracts with Upward Bound House “really problematic” and “absolutely unacceptable.”

Adams Kellum was hired at a base salary of $430,000 a year — nearly double the pay of elected City Council members and about 42% more than the mayor of L.A.

With such a high salary and responsibility over taxpayer dollars, Rodriguez said, LAHSA’s CEO should be adhering to high ethical standards.

“There need to be greater guardrails,” Rodriguez said.

How to watchdog local government

One of the best things you can do to hold officials accountable is pay attention.

Your city council, board of supervisors, school board and more all hold public meetings that anybody can attend. These are times you can talk to your elected officials directly and hear about the policies they’re voting on that affect your community.

• Read tips on how to get involved.
• The next scheduled LAHSA Commission meeting is Friday, Feb. 28, at 9 a.m. You can check out the commission’s full calendar here. 
• You can find the address to attend in person or attend the meeting virtually here. 
• You can speak to the LAHSA Commission during any agenda item, or at the end of the meeting during general public comments, by submitting a “Request to Speak Form” to the commission’s secretary before the agenda item starts. 
• You can see the list of all  LAHSA commissioners here (note one of the seats is currently vacant). LAHSA’s website for the commission does not include a way to contact the commissioners.

LAist reporter Aaron Schrank contributed to this story.

Topline:

Why it matters: The small amphibian is found in the grasslands of Southern California and the Central Valley. But habitat loss, urban sprawl and longer droughts have been threatening the species’ population in recent decades.

What the protections do: Now that the Western spadefoot is a candidate for permanent protections, any development project planned for Western spadefoot habitats will have to take the amphibians into account.

Some exceptions may apply: The commission did carve out exceptions for solar projects in the Central Valley. To take advantage of federal tax credit deadlines, some projects can continue to be built, as long as they protect breeding pools and curtail construction during the season when spadefoots are most active.

What conservationists say: Brendan Cummings, conservation director with the Center for Biological Diversity, said in Southern California the biggest threat to the Western spadefoot is not solar development: “It’s warehouses or data centers and road widenings and all manner of construction activities.”

What happens next: The California Department of Fish and Wildlife will conduct a year-long review to determine if the Western spadefoot should be permanently protected.

More than two dozen California Assembly Democrats and one state senator sent a letter Wednesday to legislative leaders asking them to delay fees under SB 54, the state’s landmark plastic reduction law, for two years — an eleventh-hour push as the Legislature hurtles toward the end of session.

The letter, addressed to Senate President Pro Tempore Monique Limón and Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, was signed by 23 Assemblymembers and Sen. Melissa Hurtado. It asks lawmakers to pause fee assessment and collection this year and next, commit to a “reform package” next session, and increase legislative oversight of the program going forward.

The request lands amid a broader fight over how the plastics law is rolling out. Little by little California is demanding that the packages you pick up at your doorstep or at the store contain less plastic. A law Gov. Gavin Newsom signed four years ago aims to phase out 25% of non-recyclable, non-compostable plastic by 2032.

To get there, the state tasked a nonprofit, the Circular Action Alliance, with drafting a plan to meet the state goals. The group estimated the work would cost $17.2 billion over five years – and is asking for a three-year exemption from the source-reduction deadline.

But as the state moves to implement the law, questions are mounting over how the organization calculates the fees producers — and eventually consumers — will pay, and how much oversight the group actually faces.

Industry groups say the price tag for complying with the law could be tens of billions of dollars higher than California originally estimated. An industry-commissioned study found the law could cost consumers three times what the state projected — between $683 and $948 a year, rather than $190.

That means groceries, shampoo bottles and other consumer goods packed in plastic could cost a little more as the law takes effect.

The California Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery, which oversees implementation, declined an interview but said in a written statement that the law puts consumers first and pushes producers to design packaging with recycling in mind.

“Californians are facing rising costs and pollution from increasingly complex packaging that wasn’t designed for the recycling systems local governments, ratepayers, and the state developed and funded over the past four decades,” said CalRecycle director Zoe Heller. “The law’s rollout is a dial, not a switch, giving producers flexibility to redesign packaging, invest in recycling systems, reduce single-use plastics, and make adjustments along the way,” she added.

Watching the watchers

The Circular Action Alliance published its fee schedule in June, spelling out what each producer owes into the system. The fees could add up to more than $10 million for some businesses, according to the Dairy Institute of California. The Dairy Institute is a trade association that represents milk processors and dairy product manufacturers.

But unlike a state agency, the Circular Action Alliance answers to almost no one, said Katie Davey, executive director of the Dairy Institute.

“[The alliance] does not have to go through an audit by the state auditor. They’re not subject to the (California open government law) Brown Act. They’re not subject to public records requests. The Legislature does not approve their budget and does not approve how many employees they need, or how many fees they can charge,” Davey said.

As a private nonprofit, Circular Action Alliance indeed is not subject to the Brown Act or public-records law — but records it submits to CalRecycle or other government entities may be.

CalRecycle must approve its fee schedule and implementation plan, and has the authority to audit the organization’s performance, said CalRecycle spokesperson Lance Klug, who added that the plastics law includes provisions to ensure the group’s budget and fees are appropriate.

The alliance’s role “is not to set California policy,” said its spokesperson, Larine Urbina. “Our role is to implement the framework established by SB 54 under CalRecycle’s oversight.”

Davey said the gap extends to enforcement. Businesses that fall short will face so-called malus fees, which fund bonuses for those that comply. But the Circular Action Alliance hasn’t said what those fees will be.

Shane Gusman, a lobbyist for the Teamsters, which represents hundreds of thousands of California workers, raised similar concerns. “They’re a wholly independent nonprofit organization that has no oversight. That’s part of the problem.” The union backed the plastics law hoping it would boost jobs; Guzman now says the fees could affect workers too.

Shortly after the alliance published its fee schedule, Davey and a coalition of industry leaders — including the California Restaurant Association, the California League of Food Producers, the American Forest and Paper Association and the Print Creative Alliance — commissioned a study disputing CalRecycle’s numbers.

It found CalRecycle’s 2025 estimate of $21 billion in implementation costs, or $190 a year per California household, rests on “idealized assumptions that fail to capture real-world costs and complications the regulations will create.”

The study puts the number somewhere between $35 and $58 billion, rising after the implementation period.

Klug of CalRecycle said the agency’s earlier reports were just estimates. “The actual costs will be determined by producer choices,” he said. “These costs, for example, will reflect the infrastructure needed to recycle materials that producers are choosing to use.”

Agriculture groups push back 

The biggest hurdle for producers is cutting plastic use 25% by 2032 — which state regulators say will require redesigning packaging and shifting toward reusable products, such as dishes at restaurants and paper-based packaging for produce.

Business groups say they support the state’s goals but call the timeline unworkable.

Food safety is one sticking point: alternatives like paper-based containers for berries are less breathable and spoil faster, while heavier glass or cardboard adds transportation costs, said Casey Creamer, president of the California Fresh Fruit Association.

“We just don’t want to force something out and not be able to deliver a fresh, healthy commodity, or create a situation that has more significant or adverse environmental concerns just because we look at plastics and packaging in a silo,” Creamer said.

Environmental groups oppose any pause.

“All of us pay for plastic pollution through higher garbage bills and clean-ups of polluted beaches and waterways, not to mention the damage to our environment and our health,”said Nick Lapis, director of advocacy for Californians Against Waste.

Sen. Ben Allen, a Democrat representing coastal Los Angeles County who authored the law, said it’s time plastic producers are held accountable for the waste they produce.

“This 11th-hour Hail Mary is only trying to maintain status quo and avoid due responsibility, throwing years of good-faith negotiations, and affordability and sustainability improvements out the window,” he said in a statement about producers’ efforts to pause implementation of the law.

Businesses pass costs to consumers

Whether the plastics law is actually driving up grocery prices yet is hard to pin down. Creamer said businesses may already be factoring the organization’s planned fees into their prices.

Federal data show grocery prices dipped slightly in July from June, though prices have climbed year over year and that rate is accelerating, said Richard Volpe, a consumer-price expert at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. Neither the USDA nor the Bureau of Labor Statistics has released August figures, and no data yet isolates the state plastics law’s effect from broader inflation.

Volpe said retailers, who run on thin margins, will eventually pass costs on to consumers — but probably not right away.

“It will not happen overnight,” he said. “And it will still be relatively small, mostly on the order of pennies on the dollar.”

Industry groups warn it will add up.

“If someone’s even on the cusp of food insecurity and they’re looking at $1,000 more a year, that’s pushing them over the food cliff,” said Nate Rose, a spokesperson for the California Grocers Association.

The Teamsters, which backed the plastics law hoping it would boost jobs, now worry the fees could affect workers too.

The law “has been morphed into something that is going to cost California consumers a substantial amount of money at a time when I don’t know if we need to spend thousands more on groceries,” said Gusman, the Teamsters lobbyist. “That also has an impact on the workforce.”

Father's Office built its reputation on refusing to let anyone touch its burger — no substitutions, no exceptions. Just dry-aged beef, bacon fat-caramelized onions, Gruyère, Maytag blue and arugula.

Which is why a new collaboration with hand roll specialist Uoichiba had me… scratching my head.

Yes, that’s right. For a limited time, the Office Burger can be found in hand roll form at Uoichiba locations (Sherman Oaks and DTLA), packed over rice and wrapped in nori in lieu of a bun, for $16.

The collaboration

Turns out Chef Liwei Liao (owner of Uoichiba/Joint Seafood) and Chef Sang Yoon (Father's Office) are close friends who decided to bridge their culinary worlds.

Liao says he’s actually a burger guy off the clock, and considers the Office Burger one of the most iconic in L.A.

"I'm not even a blue cheese fan, but I enjoy it in that flavor combination with the grilled onions —it's basically French onion soup in a sauce —and then his blend of cheese," Liao said.

While the hand roll combo isn’t something you see every day, it's not a total left turn for Uoichiba. The spot already runs four Wagyu hand rolls on its regular menu (cheeseburger, tartare, shabu shabu, steak), so this slots into an existing format rather than a one-off gimmick.

The Uoichiba x Father's Office collaboration hand roll, available through August.

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Courtesy Uoichiba

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Does it work?

So... to my verdict on trying it. Despite its unusual format, the elements hit my taste buds, and I was immediately struck by how familiar it all felt —transported straight back to the outdoor patio of Father’s Office at the Helms Bakery building, touching upon all the same notes.

That’s not a surprise, since Liao uses Yoon’s exact Office Burger recipe. “We’re literally using his cheese, his onions, his blend,” he says.

Watching the roll get assembled, it's easy to see the level of precision involved — the dry-aged beef gets a slight char from a hand-held blowtorch, then it's layered with the onion and cheese mixture and fresh arugula, the whole thing coming together like one of Vincent van Gogh's still-life vase paintings.

It's not a one-off, either — Liao said Uoichiba plans to keep doing chef collaborations like this on the hand roll bar about once a month.