Thread by @DSA_LosAngeles

Watch @LACityCouncil stream their emergency meeting live here lacityview.org/live

City Council meetings are broadcast live on cable television channel 35 and council meetings can also be heard at: (213) 621-city (metro), [phone] (valley), (310) 471-city (westside) and (310) 547-city (san pedro area)

Only members of the public who wish to participate in public comment to the Council should call [phone] and use Meeting ID No. 459 499 150 and then press #. Press # again when prompted for participant ID.

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For Telecommunication Relay Services for the hearing impaired, please see the information located on page 2 of this agenda. The ageda for the meeting can be viewed online at ens.lacity.org/clk/councilage…

@LACityCouncil Kicking off public comment strong with a "mom and pop" landlord whose mortgage relief isn't enough. Reminder than property taxes in California are already *extremely* low due to the Reagan tax revolt.

Thank you to public commenter Tom B for calling on the city council to pass #HealthyLA demands and expand them to include rent suspension

We have to act today. It's not OK to say it's a state problem. What we have today is not enough, but we have to pass it and expand them later.

Correct, from the last few commenters from @HousingHumanRt

Public comment is now suspended because "inappropriate videos" are being shared on the zoom channel?

It took the council three tries to get through roll call because one of them didn't mute their recording and caused a bunch of feedback

Councilman Buscaino is trying to gut this paid sick leave amendment to exempt businesses with fewer than 100 employees or workers caring for family members, but doesn't get a second.

Councilwoman Rodriguez says she won't support this ordinance as written

Now he's trying again, still exempting small businesses, and Blumenfield seconds. The amendment now exempts businesses with under 50 employees or businesses that have temporarily closed.

Mitch O'Farrell calls this paid sick leave "rushed". We don't know if Mitch noticed, but we're in a global pandemic and not having paid sick leave is forcing your constituents to choose between going to work and spreading the virus and paying rent in four days.

OK now Blumenfield is trying to create a market for businesses who are getting tax credits to sell the credits to each other so that they can afford the sick leave???

City councilmembers spending a lot of time declaring that they need more time to understand how to implement paid sick leave while supporting small businesses. Seems like maybe they shouldn't have canceled next week's meeting?

Councilmembers other than Bonin seem to be coming around to the idea of paid sick only for big businesses... after Cedillo explained that 54% of Angelenos work for small businesses. Y'all know this means that 54% of Angelenos are going to go to work sick or lose all income?

And here it comes, Buscaino is bringing it back and moving to exempt all businesses with 500 or fewer employees.

"The virus doesn't care how large the company you work for is. We need to provide sick leave for everyone in this city." That's exactly right.

Should be clear – this is from public comment, which has reopened on this specific motion.

"The hippocratic oath was written about human lives, not business profits"

A surprising pair of comments from Wesson and Martinez talking about the importance of caring for working class people and acting decisively. Will they follow through and vote to support the majority of working people employed by businesses with fewer than 500 employees?

Councilperson Harris-Dawson asking the city attorney if the current package would leave behind undocumented workers, indicating that he would not support a package that doesn't cover them. Incredibly important question that has not been addressed at all today!

We're back from recess! Tune in here lacityview.org/live

The council votes down a proposed amendment that would have exempted small businesses by counting total income, with Huizar and Rodriguez in favor. It sounds like they want to instead restrict by number of employees.

Now considering an amendment to make a workplace closure an invalid reason for paid sick leave. Only Harris-Dawson opposes the amendment.

Here's the small business exemption. Again, only Harris-Dawson votes no, and re-asks his question about undocumented workers. Thank you @mhdcd8

City Attorney reports back that a pre-existing federal sick leave bill includes undocumented workers. The final version of this resolution looks set to pass unanimously, though it has been weakened.

The council is now finally taking up item #1: an eviction moratorium.

Wesson moves to extend the rent payback period to last 12 months rather than 6 months.

Councilman Bonin explaining how this eviction moratorium, which requires individuals to prove a connection to COVID-19, means that it will in effect only help the portion of the population able to fight things out in court.

"If you are evicted right now, you literally cannot follow the Mayor's Safer at Home order"

@mikebonin moving to expand the motion to expand the moratorium to *all* tenants, and to prevent the serving of *any* eviction notices. Thank you, councilmember for standing with renters

John Lee making the argument that it's extremely important for landlords to be able to evict tenants. In the middle of a pandemic. Ghoulish.

Buscaino is arguing to keep the moratorium to six months.

Councilwoman Rodriguez making a very bizarre argument that if we have an eviction moratorium, banks will foreclose and evict the landlords.

The City Attorney is now being instructed to investigate suspending both rent and mortgage payments.

Alright, we had to take a break and then there was a long recess, but we're back now. Councilman Bonin is trying to pass an amendment to make this a true eviction moratorium

The city attorney is arguing??? with Bonin that this would inherently mean that people wouldn't pay rent. That's important when people literally can't afford rent, Dave!

Councilman Blumenfield says that we "already" have an eviction moratorium because the courts are closed.

Once again, our council is very concerned about the wellbeing of landlords and not concerned about the HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF TENANTS WHO CAN'T WORK

Paul Koretz says "let's just leave it for a month and see if people get evicted before we pass something stronger"

"There seems to be a tendency to assume the best intentions on the part of landlords and the worst intentions on the part of tenants"

That's right, Mike Bonin. City Council shows time and again its class interests in the way it argues these resolutions.

In favor of Bonin's amendment: Bonin, Huizar, Cedillo, Koretz, Harris-Dawson, Ryu, Wesson.

It fails, needing 8 votes. Shame on the rest of city council.

Thanks to @mikebonin for fighting for tenants. We're not going to stop fighting.

The council passes an amendment to not recuse large corporations from paying rent.

Council passes an amendment extending the repayment window to 12 months. John Lee the only no vote.

The amended ordinance passes unanimously.

"People thought social security was an overreach. People thought collective bargaining was an overreach. But they were not, they were necessary."

Bonin discussing an ordinance requiring businesses to comply with worker retention provisions.