The Brief

Yes, we did just wrap up the primary election, but believe us — November will be here before you know it.

There will be new ballot measures to vote on in L.A. County, and now is the time they're being finalized.

Local jurisdictions (county, city, school and district) have until Aug. 7 to get them completed, according to Mike Sanchez, a spokesperson at the L.A. County Registrar's Office.

Here’s what we know so far about what’s coming.

LA County ballot measures

Enshrining LA County’s ethics commission

Two years ago, voters approved Measure G — a batch of historic county government reforms that included establishing an independent ethics commission and compliance office by 2026.

That's now happening — the Board of Supervisors recently approved an ordinance to create it, and officials are getting into the nuts and bolts of how it would work.

The seven-member commission’s job will be enforcing ethics laws, conducting investigations and levying penalties for violations. Three of the members will be appointed by elected officials, with the rest coming from a public application process.

There are concerns about the body's independence, however, and a Governance Reform Task Force set up to guide Measure G’s implementation has recommended permanently safeguarding its autonomy by enshrining it into the county charter.

That needs voter approval — hence, the new measure on the books in November, which would add the ethics commission, compliance office and governing procedures to the charter.

While the official ballot language hasn’t been made public yet, it’s expected to mirror the ordinance that directed its creation.

The board is also using this opportunity to correct a mistake. Back in 2025, after voters approved Measure G, county officials discovered an “administrative error.” The structure inadvertently put a different measure, Measure J, on the chopping block, which mandates funding for community investment and alternatives to incarceration. So the board is adding additional language that would lock the county into spending money on those issues.

This ballot measure is still pending approval from the Board of Supervisors. That’s expected to come later this month.

The Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration in Los Angeles.

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Binding arbitration in LA County labor disputes

This is a charter amendment that would require binding arbitration in certain labor disputes between the county and public safety organizations, if passed.

It would cover unions representing firefighters, deputy sheriffs, sworn law enforcement supervisors and lifeguards, among other employees.

Currently, when disputes can’t be resolved, the county can implement its best and final offer, even if the union disagrees with it. This creates a “challenging dynamic,” according to Supervisor Lindsey Horvath’s motion for the measure, because public safety employees have important roles and can’t strike under California law.

That power imbalance is what this measure aims to equalize.

Under the terms, a three-member arbiter panel would decide disputes about working conditions — such as wages and working hours — that the county and union haven’t been able to settle. Each party would be able to appoint one arbitrator, and the third would be picked by both parties. The county and union would be required to share the costs.

This measure would need a simple majority to pass.

City of LA ballot measures

Funding the city of LA’s fire department

The L.A. Fire Department’s labor union, United Firefighters of Los Angeles City, sponsored this initiative, which was approved by the L.A. City Council last month. It proposes a half-cent sales tax to fund the LAFD.

This would raise the city’s sales tax to 10.25%. If approved by voters, it’s expected to raise $345 million in its first year. That money would be spent on things like hiring new firefighters, building stations and brush clearance.

United Firefighters says it’s needed because the department is too small to appropriately serve 4 million residents.

“Due to decades of underinvestment, the LAFD currently operates with the same number of firefighters as in the 1960s, six fewer stations and five times the call load,” the union previously said in a statement.

The measure would require a simple majority to pass. If approved, the tax would be in effect until repealed.

A Los Angeles City Council meeting April 2, 2025.

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Reforming the LA city charter

Charter reform has been a big talking point in L.A. ever since the 2022 leaked-tapes scandal at City Hall — and now, we’re seeing the outcomes.

While the City Council controversially opted to forgo a slate of major changes on this year’s ballot, including ones on LAPD oversight and expanding the City Council, we still have six ballot measures proposing reforms.

The language of these measures is still being finalized, according to Josué Marcus, a spokesperson at the City Clerk’s Office. Here’s a peek at what they include:

• Modifying ethics and campaign finance rules
• Doubling the Recreation and Parks Department’s budget percentage over time
• Moving the city of L.A. to a two-year budget cycle instead of one-year
• Removing a restriction that prohibits the city from taking part in commercial activities
• Changing contracting rules about accepting the lowest bidders
• Requiring a capital infrastructure plan

We should know more about these measures soon. In the meantime, you can keep an eye out for the specifics on the city’s elections website here.

If you're online, anywhere adjacent to the World Cup, you'll see that the Argentina team, which will play England in the semifinals Wednesday, is attracting a lot of criticism.

It can be largely grouped into two categories: soccer and culture. In soccer, Argentina’s comeback win against Egypt last week prompted accusations, including from Egypt’s head coach, that the FIFA referees in that match favored Argentina.

Meanwhile, cultural clichés online accuse Argentines of being arrogant and looking down on other Latin Americans.

“I get sad,  I must say, that when I see that, it hurts me a little bit, to be honest,” said San Fernando Valley resident Roxana Lissa. She was born and raised in Argentina and moved to the U.S. more than 30 years ago.

But she's used to it.

“The thing about Argentines is we have such thick skin,” Lissa said.

California’s Argentine population has grown in the past couple of decades. The state is now home to the second-largest concentration of Argentines in the U.S. after Florida.

Exclusion by other Latinos

The negative comments are not new, but social media has fueled them into a firestorm.

Some Argentines in Southern California say they’ve not seen negativity this bad against their culture before.

Mariana Ferrero, who moved to the U.S. from Argentina when she was 13 years old, said the comments are opening old wounds of exclusion by other Latino immigrants in Southern California.

“What bothers me is [the criticism] goes beyond soccer. It's more of saying, "Oh, you're Argentinian. You're not a real Latina,'” Ferrero said.

She says many Latinos assume she’s privileged because she’s lighter skinned.

But Ferrero says her background is not like that at all. Argentina’s struggling economy led Ferrero’s parents to leave their home, their language and their country.

“We packed up. We came here. We lived with nothing in a tiny one-bedroom apartment, worked really hard, odd jobs,” she said.

Ferrero has some explanation for the hostility, however.

“I think some of it is just a perception that we come from a country that tends to be proud and tends to be loud and tends to be boisterous about our wins and about our accomplishments. And let me tell you, there's not many of them,” Ferrero said.

Since soccer prowess is one of those few wins, she says she and other Argentines are going to take this World Cup as an opportunity to be loud and proud.

IRL people love Argentines

Ferrero and Lissa say people who’ve visited Argentina gush to them about the warmth and hospitality of its people and the country’s beauty. And few people question that Argentina soccer star Lionel Messi is one of the greatest soccer players of all time.

“I was wearing my Argentina jersey,” Lissa said of a visit during the World Cup to L.A.’s Guelaguetza Oaxacan restaurant to watch Mexico play.

“People were coming to me and saying, 'I love Messi. I love Messi.' And I felt for the first time, 'Damn, I'm not being criticized,'” she said.

Pablo Baler, a professor of Latin American literature at CSU L.A., says the disconnect during this World Cup may be that people don’t believe Argentina represents the underdog soccer nations of Latin America anymore.

“At times, [the team] can feel more like a corporation than a national team, but the country it represents was in many ways the victim of the same imperial powers now competing for the title: France, England and Spain,” he said.

Baler grew up in Argentina and has many Latin American friends. He doesn’t believe the negativity against his homeland will tarnish its reputation. He said a Nicaraguan friend said to him this week that he’s proud Argentina made it to the World Cup semifinals because the team is “one of us.”

Topline

The background: In June, the City Council voted to establish the moratorium as city staff drafted a proposal for a permanent citywide ban. At the time, the moratorium was authorized for 45 days.

The issue first made its way to city hall earlier this year after a group of neighbors raised concerns that a proposed new In-N-Out in Culver City could hurt air quality and create safety issues for pedestrians.

Status of the proposed ban: Culver City staff wrote in a report to City Council this week that they’ve begun drafting a potential permanent ban on new drive-thrus citywide.

The proposal will first go to the city’s planning commission, a five-person body that makes recommendations to the City Council on development and zoning matters in the city, then head to the City Council for a final vote. Those dates have not yet been set.

One councilmember left door open for a different approach: At Monday’s meeting, Councilmember Albert Vera, who was among the four votes supporting the moratorium extension, said he would be open to seeing recommendations from the planning commission that don’t ban drive-thrus citywide outright.

The contractor building the long-awaited LAX People Mover project has filed a lawsuit alleging the city of L.A. breached its contract in several disputes.

In the suit, filed with the L.A. County Superior Court on July 9, LINXS alleges the city is misplacing blame in construction-related disputes and refusing to extend contract deadlines. LINXS also alleges it’s owed additional payment for the work as a result of the delays.

The project, a 2.25-mile-long elevated train designed to transport riders between airport terminals and local transit, is currently undergoing testing. Work on the train is scheduled to be complete “in a few months,” according to a June interview with Los Angeles World Airports CEO John Ackerman on the L.A. in a Minute podcast.

Chief among the disputes detailed in the lawsuit is one involving repairs to faulty electrical equipment in the system that powers the train, resulting in testing delays last year. LAist reported on this dispute last November and in April.

A spokesperson for LINXS said it has attempted to engage in “extensive good-faith efforts over the past two years” to resolve the ongoing contractual disputes.

A spokesperson for Los Angeles World Airports, the city agency that manages LAX, said the agency does not comment on pending litigation. They added that the agency remains committed to “delivering a safe, durable and reliable” train as soon as possible.

The L.A. City Attorney’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

In its lawsuit, LINXS said that by not granting the contractor’s compensation and time-extension requests, the city is attempting to evade accountability for the delayed train, which was once expected to open in 2023 and is nearly a billion dollars over budget.

The contractor warned in its lawsuit that without an extension of contract deadlines, it might be forced to repay lenders who financed the project as soon as this fall. In that case, the contractor said in its lawsuit that it could become “insolvent and unable to perform,” adding that possibility would have “catastrophic consequences.”

Dispute over metering cabinet

Last February, staff from Los Angeles World Airports and the city’s Department of Water and Power directed LINXS to repair equipment in a metering cabinet that had degraded due to moisture and debris, as LAist previously reported.

LINXS completed the repair work, which required power to be partially shut down between February and July 2025. That temporary power disruption delayed critical testing of the technology that allows for central control of the People Mover’s systems.

LINXS said last year, and also in the current lawsuit, that the repair work is not in its scope of work. As a result, the contractor has said it's owed compensation and a minimum of a 141-day extension to complete construction.

“Since then, [Los Angeles World Airports] has stonewalled the discussions of [LINXS’] compensation and a time extension,” the contractor alleges in its lawsuit.

LINXS, citing information it received from a public records request, alleges the issue stemmed from an instance where LADWP opened the metering cabinet in September 2024 to rectify design issues with the equipment contained in it.

Whereas past disputes between LINXS and the airport were resolved through settlements that have so far totaled hundreds of millions of dollars and resulted in schedule extensions, the dispute over maintaining electrical equipment has been uniquely contentious.

“Other relief events that we’ve dealt with up to this point … we could agree there were some things that were not totally within LINXS’ control,” Jake Adams, an airport executive who is overseeing $5.5 billion in LAX upgrades, said in an interview with LAist in April. “This relief event is very different. We believe there is absolutely no merit to this claim.”

The lawsuit also alleges that the contractor is owed additional time and money for several other ongoing disputes, including that Los Angeles World Airports is refusing to sign a power agreement with LADWP for solar panels installed as part of the People Mover project and that workers on separate airport projects have “demolished” work LINXS completed for the train.

What’s the status of the People Mover?

The People Mover is operating in a testing phase where it simulates how the train will operate when it begins shuttling travelers between airport terminals and the L.A. Metro system.

The testing of the train won’t be impacted by the lawsuit, a spokesperson for Los Angeles World Airports told LAist.

A hearing on the case filed last week has been scheduled for December, according to the L.A. County Superior Court’s website.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement will pause non-urgent vehicle stops after two deadly shootings in less than a week, Maine Sen. Angus King's office tells NPR.

King spokesman Matthew Felling says the Department of Homeland Security confirmed the policy shift. Maine Sen. Susan Collins also posted Tuesday on X that she had called for change.

"I spoke with DHS Secretary [Markwayne] Mullin last night and urged him to cease all non-urgent vehicle stops," she wrote.

DHS told NPR in a statement that it will not "disclose or discuss law enforcement tactics," and it's unclear what this change will look like in practice.

The most recent death happened Monday in Biddeford, Maine, where ICE agents tried to pull over the car of 26-year-old Joan Durán Guerrero, a Colombian national.

"The vehicle attempted to flee the scene, and fearing for public safety, an officer discharged his weapon," DHS said in a statement. However, the agency has not provided any evidence to back the claims. The agents were not wearing body cameras.

Last week, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was shot by agents in Houston after they attempted to pull him over. The Department of Homeland Security says Salgado Araujo tried to use his van as a weapon, prompting an agent to fire their weapon. But passengers in the van have disputed this account.

Paul Hunker, the former chief counsel of ICE in Dallas, told NPR the standards and principles of when to discharge a firearm are clear.

"I was an attorney for the officers — the person has to pose an imminent threat of harm to use deadly force," Hunker said.

He said whether the person poses an imminent threat is always from the perspective of the officer.

DHS policy

The Department of Homeland Security's policy says deadly force cannot be used solely to prevent someone from fleeing … unless the person poses a significant threat of death or serious physical harm to the agent or others.

DHS accused Salgado Araujo of weaponizing his car against the ICE officer. In Maine, the agency said Durán Guerrero posed a public safety threat.

But in these cases, there hasn't been video evidence to back up those allegations.

The latest development has been welcomed by former DHS officials who said a reset is needed in order to regain the trust of the public and ensure no more lives are lost.

"That person could flee and present a big danger to people around them … that's one of the reasons I think there are few vehicle chases because of the danger and the harm that could happen if one of those goes bad." Hunker said.

He said in the past, ICE's preference has been to assume custody of the undocumented immigrants who were already in jails, making it safer for the agents.

Sarah Saldaña, a former ICE acting director under President Barack Obama, said the shift in policy is a good start.

"I think it's a very practical thing to do until the agency can get its officers more properly trained and attuned to what their effort is," Saldaña said. "Immigration enforcement should not be a deadly endeavor — it should be a method by which to make sure that people are complying with the law."

Despite the shift in policy, there are a lot of outstanding questions about what led to the fatal shootings of Salgado Araujo in Houston last week, and of Durán Guerrero in Maine this week.

None of the federal immigration agents were wearing body cameras, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

After the shooting of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis in January, DHS vowed to quickly deploy body cameras to federal immigration agents nationwide.

But that hasn't happened.

The agency is blaming Democrats in Congress and the partial government shutdowns for this. But it is, again, vowing to deploy body cameras for all agents in the next 60 days.

That footage would have been key to knowing whether the agents followed protocol or not, and to hold the agents accountable, said Lauren Bonds, the executive director of the nonprofit National Police Accountability Project.

"Luckily in both instances there were witnesses, independent witnesses, that observed some things and were able to share some information," Bonds said. "But it's really hard to be able to hold ICE agents accountable in any manner if all we're getting from DHS right now is kind of vague statements about the car being used in a way that was either threatening the ICE agents or, in the case of Maine, threatening the public."

Bonds said the public needs to keep demanding answers and independent investigations to create a change in policy — like the pause on traffic stops made public Tuesday.

NPR's Meg Anderson contributed reporting.