The Brief

The Los Angeles City Council on Thursday voted, 12-3, to approve a revised budget that reduces the number of layoffs proposed by Mayor Karen Bass — in part by shrinking the size of the Police Department.

The plan averts 1,000 layoffs, lowering the number of city workers who will lose their jobs to 650.

Bass, facing a nearly $1 billion deficit, had proposed 1,647 layoffs that she acknowledged would have resulted in a reduction in a wide range of city services.

“The revised budget restores these services, ensuring we can clean our streets, trim trees, fix sidewalks and street lights, and make streets more safe,” Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky said during the meeting.

Yaroslavsky, whose District 5 includes Bel Air, Westwood and Hancock Park, chairs the budget committee.

“What we tried to do with this budget is make something good out of a bad situation,” she said. “This is the most serious budget crisis the city has seen in nearly two decades.”

At a news conference after the council vote, Councilmember Bob Blumenfield said city services will inevitably suffer. 

“You can’t take a billion dollars out of the budget and not have reduced services,” he said. “I don’t want to put lipstick on this situation.”

The $13.9 billion budget is for the fiscal year that starts July 1. Bass still needs to sign off on it.

Councilmembers Monica Rodriguez, Traci Park and John Lee voted against the budget, mostly denouncing the move to reduce police hires and citing numerous audits that have found the city’s system of addressing homelessness is, in one audit’s words, “extremely broken.”

“I don't think we should spend another penny on homelessness,” Park said during the meeting.

“All we have done is rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic,” Rodriguez said.

Changes to LAPD budget

One of the big differences between the council budget and the mayor’s plan is in police hiring.

The council reduced the number of police officers hired in the next year from 480 to 240, a move designed in part to save specialized civilian jobs at the department, including fingerprint and rape kit analysts. Bass had proposed more than 400 civilian layoffs. This plan calls for laying off about 280.

The change means the LAPD, taking into account attrition, will shrink to 8,400 officers by June 2026. Just five years ago, it employed more than 10,000 officers.

“We’re reaching critical lows,” Assistant Chief Dan Randolph said in an interview.

Councilmembers Park, Lee and Rodriguez voted against the motion to hire fewer officers.

The council plans to revisit the decision during the year if revenue projections improve.

Yaroslavsky was wary of any improvement.

“I’m concerned about tariffs. I’m concerned about recession,” she said in an interview before the vote, adding she’s also worried about the Trump administration’s funding for local programs, including housing and medical care. “All sorts of things that trickle down to local government or that our partners in the nonprofit sector rely upon — that’s drying up.”

Other changes

The council budget made a series of other changes to Bass’ plan in order to reduce layoffs.

It reduced by 10% — or $10 million — funding for the mayor’s signature Inside Safe program, which seeks to provide temporary housing and services for people on the streets. Part of the cut calls for double instead of single occupancy for people who accept shelter.

The budget also eliminates the mayor’s plan to create street medicine teams at the Fire Department, for a savings of $12 million. The department’s budget will still be $76 million higher than last year’s, allowing fire officials to hire more firefighters and buy new fire trucks. The 9% increase in the fire budget is the highest among departments.

Still, Park, whose District 11 includes the fire-ravaged Pacific Palisades, said the Fire Department’s budget should have been higher.

“The budget does not meet the day-to-day needs of the Fire Department,” she said. Her motion to increase funding failed.

In addition, the council approved an increase in parking meter fees — a move expected to raise about $14 million a year.

“We needed to spread out the pain,” Blumenfield, vice chair of the budget committee from District 3 in the West Valley, said in an interview before the vote.

Reducing layoffs

The proposed layoffs would affect a number of departments, including sanitation, street services and transportation.

Budget officials hope to further reduce the number of layoffs by transferring people whose salaries are paid by the general fund to city agencies that manage their own budgets, including the Department of Water and Power, the Port of Los Angeles and the airport.

“We’re grateful to the work the council did to restore those positions,” said Roy Smaan, president of the Engineers & Architects Association. “The original proposal relied too heavily on layoffs.”

“Any number of layoffs will have an impact on city services as well as on the workload that’s left behind,” he added.

Yaroslavsky said the only way to further reduce layoffs is for labor union leaders to agree to delay or forgo cost-of-living increases or to furloughs.

“Labor, now we need you to come to the table,” she said.

One reason L.A. is in dire financial straits is because of generous contracts city officials signed with labor union leaders last year. The wage added about $250 million to the budget.

Other factors include soaring legal liability costs and lower-than-expected tax revenues. Business and sales taxes are both down, according to city officials, while hotel and property taxes, which make up 35% of revenues, are expected to be below projected growth.

There are currently about 38,000 city positions, not counting the Water and Power and Harbor departments and the airport. In all, the city employs 32,405 people.

The revised budget included the creation of a new Bureau of Homelessness Oversight. Councilmember Nithya Raman, whose District 4 stretches from Los Feliz to Reseda, championed the new agency, which she said would monitor and collect data on how programs for the unhoused are working in the city.

“It will help us to use those hundreds of millions of dollars better to get people indoors,” she said.

The budget does not allocate any money to the new bureau, which will be housed in the Los Angeles Housing Department.

Officials also said the revised budget means no animal shelter will close.

In just four days, the Los Angeles Official Martin Luther King Day Parade will take over South L.A.

The LA Local recently spoke with Sabra Wady, the parade’s lead organizer, who said this year’s parade will look much the same as recent years.

So, whether you’re attending the parade or watching it on TV, here’s everything you need to know about Monday’s parade:

The procession will begin at 10 a.m., with ABC7 set to begin a broadcast at 11 a.m.

What time does the parade start? How can I watch? Is anything happening after?

Wady said the best place to catch the parade in person is the intersection of Crenshaw Boulevard and Martin Luther King Jr. King Boulevard, or “camera corner,” where the parade will culminate and organizers are planning a live preshow. Bleacher seats, though, will be limited.

The Metro K Line runs directly to the intersection, dropping people off at the Martin Luther King Jr. Metro station.

Onlookers can also post up along the parade route with folding chairs and other self-arranged seating, Wady said.

The parade broadcast will run until 1 p.m., but Wady said the procession is expected to keep going until mid-afternoon.

“After the cameras stop rolling, it’s the people’s parade,” Wady said.

LA City Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson and Councilmembers Curren Price and Heather Hutt – who represent council districts 8, 9 and 10, respectively — will organize the annual MLK Freedom Festival in the Leimert Park Plaza from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

What route will the parade take?

The route will remain the same, running down King Boulevard from Western Avenue to Crenshaw Boulevard before turning south down Crenshaw and heading to Leimert Park. Much of the route will be closed to traffic overnight before the parade.

More than 150 groups, including bands, floats, horseback riders and marchers, will trek down the boulevard. Wady said organizers cut off new sign-ups weeks ago in order to keep the parade manageable.

What will road closures look like?

Colin Sweeney, a spokesperson for the LA Department of Transportation, said in an email that the department will close off traffic down the main parade route overnight.

Here are the roads that will be closed to all vehicles for the duration of the parade and festival.

• King Boulevard from Vermont Avenue to Crenshaw Boulevard 
• Crenshaw Boulevard from King Boulevard to 48th Street
• Leimert Boulevard from 8th Avenue to Leimert Park 
• Degnan Avenue between 43rd Street and Leimert Park

Sweeney said only residents will be allowed to drive into the band of neighborhoods directly along the length of the parade route. That includes the blocks from 39th Street to 42nd Street along King Boulevard and the blocks between McClung Drive and Victoria Avenue along the Crenshaw closure.

The transportation department will allow traffic to cross the parade route at major intersections — including Western Avenue, Arlington Avenue and Stocker Street — but those crossings will be shut down at 10 a.m. All closed roads will stay blocked off until the parade and festival wrap up and transportation officials determine crowds have sufficiently dispersed, Sweeney said.

Wady said the parade is expected to peter out around mid-afternoon. The festival at Leimert Park Plaza is scheduled to end at 5 p.m.

Vehicles parked in the parade assembly area, parade route and disbanding area will be subject to impound or tickets, Sweeney wrote.

Topline:

By the numbers: Film and television shoot days totaled 4,625 in the final three months of 2025, up 5.1% in that timeframe. But overall last year, there were 19,694 shoot days, which is down 16.1% from 2024's total of 23.480.

Why it matters: Production in Los Angeles has been slow to rebound since the COVID-19 pandemic and the Hollywood writers and actors strikes in 2023. There is also increased competition from other states that offer appealing film tax credits and other incentives for productions that decide to take their shoot outside of California. This summer, Gov. Gavin Newsom expanded California's Film and TV Tax Credit Program in an effort to lure productions back to the Golden State.

What's next: Film L.A.'s Phil Sokoloski says that many of the productions approved under the expanded tax credit program are just now getting underway, and he hopes the industry will start to see the effects of not only the tax incentive expansion in 2026, but also L.A. Mayor Karen Bass' directives to streamline the permitting and shooting process in the city.

In L.A., there is no shortage of events to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day this year.

Since 1986, the federal holiday is observed on the third Monday of January to honor the life and legacy of the Civil Rights leader.

California African American Museum

The California African American Museum is hosting a King Day scavenger hunt on Sunday from 2 to 3 p.m. On Monday, it is hosting an all-day event honoring King that will culminate with a performance by the Inner City Youth Orchestra of L.A., which is billed as the largest majority Black youth orchestra in the country.

Orchestra at Skirball

The orchestra will also perform at the Skirball Cultural Center on Saturday evening. The free event is already at capacity, but you can try your luck by signing up for the waitlist here. Earlier Saturday, the orchestra will join the Santa Monica Symphony for its annual MLK concert.

Parades and celebrations

Cedric the Entertainer will be the grand marshal of this year’s official L.A. MLK Day Parade on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard between Western and Crenshaw avenues on Monday. If you’re looking for a parade earlier in the weekend, you can head to Long Beach’s MLK Day parade on Saturday. Also on Saturday is a celebration of King’s legacy at the Veterans Memorial Auditorium in Culver City.

Volunteer opportunities

In 1994, President Bill Clinton officially decreed MLK Day as a day of service. If you’re looking for opportunities to volunteer, grab free tickets to Monday’s MLK Day Volunteer Festival at the L.A. Memorial Coliseum.

Free access to state parks

Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Friday that more than 200 California state parks will be free to enter on Monday. The move comes after the Trump administration eliminated MLK Day and Juneteenth from the list of days when it’s free to access national parks. There are 12 free state parks on the list in L.A. County, including Los Angeles and Will Rogers State Historic Parks, as well as Topanga and Malibu Creek State Parks. See the full list here.

A 2017 Los Angeles Times article tells the tragic story of Lai Hang, a terminally ill woman who killed her 18-year-old son George, who’d been diagnosed with schizophrenia.

It’s a carefully reported story by journalist Frank Shyong about a family, about the shame and stigma that can surround mental illness in Asian American communities, and how media portrayals of people with mental disorders can perpetuate harmful misconceptions.

So when Shyong was first approached about the idea of adapting the story he wrote into a narrative film, he had some “very intense” concerns about whether a film would get the story right.

But after conversations with the filmmakers, and thinking through the potential value of telling fictionalized stories based on real-life events, Shyong says, “ I think I realized that my story was in a lot of ways incomplete.”

Nine years later, the film, titled Rosemead, is finished. Directed by Eric Lin and written by Marilyn Fu, the film stars Lucy Liu as Irene, a character based on Hang, and Lawrence Shou as Joe, who’s based on George.

And Shyong, who is credited as an executive producer and served as a consultant on the film, says “it’s sort of completing the circle a little bit” — fleshing out Hang and George as “full 360 degree human beings” and giving glimpses of how their story might have ended differently.

Reporting on trauma in Asian American communities

Back in 2015, when the events depicted in Rosemead happened, the breaking news coverage revealed the basics of what was known at the time — that a woman had fatally shot her son in a Rosemead motel and turned herself in.

“ I think a lot of people probably realized there was more story there,” Shyong says. But the only person who knew the details, Hang’s longtime friend Ping Chong, had declined to talk to the media.

Still, Shyong kept following up because the court records hinted at a story that he thought should be told.

The court records revealed that Hang had been dying of cancer, and that Chong continued to visit her after she turned herself in, performing Buddhist rituals for her.

“Just knowing those two facts,” Shyong says, “and knowing Asian American families, and how complete and terrifying the sense of responsibility that a parent can feel toward a child, I just thought there's gotta be something there.”

He would visit Chong’s shop, a traditional Chinese pharmacy, leaving notes for her and talking to her about why he wanted to know more. And he gained her trust.

 ”You just have to say, ‘This is [the] story I think is here. And do you think that story is true? And if so, can you help me tell it?’ And that's all I did,” Shyong says. “I think that's all any journalist ever does.”

It’s a story that Shyong says he would come to learn is more common than many may expect.   “When you are a caregiver in these communities,” Shyong says, “you can find and name a tragic story like this in probably every zip code.”

How filmmaking and journalism can complement each other

Shyong’s article ends with this poignant quote from Chong, about her friend: “People will only know her as the mother who killed her son [...] But she was more.”

The piece itself goes a long way toward dispelling Chong’s concern, including details about Hang’s life — that she was a talented graphic designer, that she was “beautiful, smart and ambitious,” that she’d lost her husband to cancer, and that she deeply cared about her son.

But “in this case fiction,” Shyong says, “could give closure to characters in a way that I couldn't in reality. It could tell the fullness of this family story.”

The film shows Liu’s character Irene having fun with her son at the beach, and joining his therapy sessions at the urging of a psychiatrist, despite being visibly uncomfortable doing so.

It shows George (Joe in the film) with his friends, who come to visit him after he has an intense schizophrenic episode at school.

The sound design gives a sense of what it’s like to experience schizophrenia, and a part of the film where Joe runs away shows how quickly a boy with a mother and friends who care about him can become an unhoused person who someone might fear on the street.

Ultimately, the film ends on a note of hope, which grew out of something that Shyong learned from Chong after the article was published. In a way that he couldn’t do in print, “It added parts to the story that I wanted to see depicted.”