THE BUZZ — GUESS WHO’S (SORT OF) BACK? Kevin de León’s try and make a reappearance within the Los Angeles City Council Friday didn’t go as he might’ve hoped.
The embattled member has kept a comparatively low profile because the now-infamous recordings captured him, former council President Nury Martinez, former member Gil Cedillo and then-labor leader Ron Herrera in shocking, back-room conversation that included racist remarks and the mocking of a fellow member’s young Black son.
It’s been two months since an anonymous Reddit user leaked that audio and threw Los Angeles into chaos. Three of the people within the conversation not hold positions of power — save for de León, who has refused to step down within the face of ongoing protests. He has attended small events in his district, but his seat on the dais has remained vacant for weeks.
That brings us to Friday, when the council gathered in City Hall for what was expected to be one other day of mundane municipal matters. About 45 minutes in, nevertheless, KDL walked in and took his seat. He said nothing, but his unexpected appearance prompted members Nithya Raman, Marcqueece Harris Dawson and Mike Bonin, whose son was mentioned on the tapes, to right away leave. Members of the general public began shouting. Inside just a few minutes, members Paul Krekorian and Curren Price left, too.
And not using a quorum, the council recessed. After an hour, they reconvened — without de León — and returned to the business of the day.
Then, things reached a fever pitch. Hours after being shouted out of council chambers, de León got right into a physical altercation with protesters during a kids’ gift giveaway in Lincoln Heights. A part of the interaction was posted on Twitter, but the precise sequence of events, including who actually began the fight, are still in dispute. KDL has accused the protesters of assaulting him. Activists say de León and his team are accountable for the escalation. Police are investigating.
For weeks, the query looming over Los Angeles has been whether de León, the previous leader of the state Senate, will have the opportunity to get better from such a seismic political scandal. But Friday’s events, each at City Hall and the gift giveaway, made it clear that the opposition stays obstinate and outraged.
Some voters aren’t waiting for him to bow to pressure — and have already launched a recall effort, which was cleared to collect signatures last week.
Will de León attempt to make one other public appearance? We’ll know tomorrow at the subsequent City Council meeting.
BUENOS DÍAS, good Monday morning. Today, the San Francisco African American Reparations Advisory Committee will hold its final meeting on the report and suggestions it is going to undergo the mayor and Board of Supervisors.
QUOTE OF THE DAY: “Lastly, to the disruptors and protesters … in their very own words, I yield the remaining of my time — and fuck you.” Los Angeles City Councilmember Paul Koretz on Friday in council chambers.
TWEET OF THE DAY:
WHERE’S GAVIN? Nothing official announced.
HOLIDAY CHEER — “‘Little kids were beginning to cry’: Contained in the Kevin de León fight at Christmas gift giveaway,” by the Los Angeles Times’ Brittny Mejia, Liam Dillon and Gregory Yee: “The fight between embattled Councilman Kevin de León and an activist Friday night has heightened the simmering tensions in L.A. politics over the leak of racist audio that has rocked City Hall.”
READY OR NOT… Karen Bass comes home to LA — and all its problems, by POLITICO’s Lara Korte and Alexander Nieves: Rep. Karen Bass is taking the helm of America’s second-largest city — whose deep-seated problems could thwart probably the most expert of politicians. Bass has represented Los Angeles in Sacramento and Washington for many years, but she’s never taken on a task as daunting as this one.
STRIKING A DEAL — “University of California Academic Staff Partly End Strike,” by the Latest York Times’ Shawn Hubler: “Postdoctoral employees and academic researchers on the University of California announced on Friday night that they are going to return to work on Monday, partly ending a weekslong strike but bringing little relief to a whole lot of hundreds of undergraduates whose campuses have been disrupted within the midst of finals.”
EXIT POLL — “Eric Garcetti led L.A. during profoundly turbulent times. How will history judge him?” by the Los Angeles Times’ James Rainey and Dakota Smith: “Garcetti leaves office Sunday, as L.A.’s longest-serving mayor since Tom Bradley. A 12 months and a half of additional duty — a quirk of an electoral calendar remade to synchronize city and state voting — has felt at times like a siege, clouded by a sexual harassment scandal in his office that forged a shadow on the accomplishments and promise of his first years in office.”
SF STALLING — “S.F. nonprofit was set to open city’s first supervised drug use site. Then officials pulled the plug,” by the San Francisco Chronicle’s Heather Knight: “San Francisco’s Gubbio Project has long been on the forefront of compassion and care — offering space for homeless people to stretch out in the course of the day in a quiet, protected church for ‘sacred sleep.’”
FIGHTING WORDS — “In unusual move, Gov. Newsom smacks stem cell agency,” by Capitol Weekly’s David Jensen: “Gov. Gavin Newsom has rebuked California’s stem cell agency about its conduct of the election of a recent chairperson for the $12 billion enterprise, a process that has been disrupted with the withdrawal of 1 candidate and the addition of a recent one.”
— “Lawsuits Cloud Efforts to Complete Suicide-Prevention Net Under Golden Gate Bridge,” by the Wall Street Journal’s Jim Carlton: “A project to hold a net under the Golden Gate Bridge to stop people from jumping to their death has hit one other delay, much to the consternation of those attempting to cut down on suicides there.”
PAINED PORTS — “California Long Ruled U.S. Shipping. Importers Are Drifting East,” by the Wall Street Journal’s Paul Berger: “The hierarchy of U.S. ports is getting shaken up. Firms across many industries are rethinking how and where they ship goods after years of relying heavily on the western U.S. as an entry point, betting that ports within the East and the South can save them money and time while reducing risk.”
— “A Black Sacramento firefighter said his colleagues set him as much as fail. Now he’s suing the town,” by the Sacramento Bee’s Marcus D. Smith: “A Black Sacramento firefighter is suing the town, alleging that racial discrimination within the Sacramento Fire Department harmed his profession, humiliated him and caused him emotional distress.”
VEHICLE VIZ — “High gas costs hurt California drivers as refiners rake in huge profits. These charts explain,” by the Los Angeles Times’ Laurence Darmiento, Sean Greene and Vanessa Martínez: “For many years, California has suffered the nation’s most costly gas because of upper taxes and clean fuel requirements, but that differential reached extreme levels within the spring and fall after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the next ban on Russian oil.”
— “From diesel big rigs to electricity: The costly transition begins,” by Capitol Weekly’s Will Shuck: “Never mind there are few in the marketplace, or that keeping them moving requires a nonexistent network of chargers, California wants truckers to rush up and replace diesel big rigs with versions that run on batteries or hydrogen.”
LOOKING BACK — “He’s leaving California politics as a ‘vaccine hero’. One selection set him on that path,” by the Sacramento Bee’s Cathie Anderson: “An industrious medical student, the son of immigrants, wrestled with the selection of two plum summer jobs during his second 12 months of medical school on the University of Pittsburgh. Richard Pan, from Yonkers, Latest York, knew the choice would have momentous consequences for his medical profession.”
HERE WE GO AGAIN — “Gig Staff, Prop. 22 Backers Resume War Over Initiative’s Fate,” by Bloomberg’s Joyce E. Cutler: “The following battle within the long-running California war over who’s an worker and who’s an independent contractor will happen in a San Francisco courtroom with arguments on the constitutionality of a voter-approved, court-suspended initiative carving out gig employees from the state’s worker-friendly classification law.”
— “California dips its toe into the deep waters of offshore wind energy,” by the San Diego Union-Tribune’s Rob Nikolewski: “California has taken step one in what will likely be a really deep dive into energy generation from offshore wind farms. The federal government accomplished an auction Wednesday that reaped $757.1 million from five different firms to lease greater than 373,000 acres off the Central and Northern coasts of the Golden State.”
MADAME SPEAKER — “Review: Nancy Pelosi fan or not, HBO’s ‘Pelosi within the House’ is important viewing,” by the San Francisco Chronicle’s Mick LaSalle: “When you admire Nancy Pelosi, you need to see the brand new HBO documentary, “Pelosi within the House.” But even when you’re simply involved in politics or in modern American history, that is a vital documentary. It records, from the within, the pivotal moments of the past 20 years and provides a singular glimpse into the actual job of speaker of the House.”
NUTS AND BOLTS — What the Jan. 6 select committee’s final report will seem like, by POLITICO’s Kyle Cheney and Nicholas Wu: The Jan. 6 select committee’s final report will begin with a voluminous executive summary describing former President Donald Trump’s culpability for his extensive and baseless effort to subvert the 2020 election, in line with people briefed on its contents.
— Don’t worry, be a majority: Dems shrug off Sinema’s switch, by POLITICO’s Burgess Everett: The Arizona senator’s decision to go independent will reverberate in Arizona and national political circles for months to come back as Sinema’s potential reelection approaches. Yet in terms of the day by day operation of the Senate, it seems Democrats will still get something very near the functional 51-seat majority they assumed they’d won — with perhaps a small asterisk.
— “Music legend Elton John broadcasts Twitter exit as hate speech rises on social media platform,” by the San Francisco Chronicle’s Jordan Parker: “Twitter has lost one among its most distinguished users after musical legend Elton John announced he was leaving the social media platform for good Friday. John, who has 1.1 million followers, announced his departure in a tweet Friday, saying ‘I’ve decided to not use Twitter, given their recent change in policy which is able to allow misinformation to flourish unchecked.’”
TAKING ON TECH — “The 12 months labor organizing got here to tech,” by Axios’ Peter Allen Clark: “2022 saw an unprecedented rise in labor organizing in U.S. tech firms, with some employees pushing for collective rights just as a tanking economy modified the industry’s dynamics.”
— “Why legal weed is failing in one among California’s legendary pot-growing regions,” by the Los Angeles Times’ Adam Elmahrek, Robert J. Lopez and Ruben Vives: “Boom-and-bust cycles are a part of this county’s history, from gold mining within the 1800s to, a century later, the crash of the logging industry. Legal cannabis was going to be a lifeline for residents. But that promise has quickly collapsed.”
SNOWED IN — “Snowstorm blankets Northern California, with hurricane-force winds and blizzard conditions reported,” by CBS.
— “Strippers protesting at North Hollywood topless bar were unlawfully fired, NLRB says,” by the Los Angeles Times’ Suhauna Hussain.
— “S.F.’s 911 dispatch struggling amid staff shortage: ‘We’re bleeding,’” by the San Francisco Chronicle’s Mallory Moench.
— “UC Student Staff Agree To Mediation To Resolve Month-Long Strike,” by LAist’s Adolfo Guzman-Lopez.
— “Coyote that attacked 2-year-old in Woodland Hills euthanized, officials say,” by the Los Angeles Times’ Melissa Gomez.
Monday: Google’s José Castañeda (3-0) and Nick Pearson … Riley Nelson of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation … Kartik Das …
(was Sunday): Kara Swisher … Peter True … Josh Morton … POLITICO’s Marianne LeVine …
(was Saturday): Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.) … Steve Johnston of Pioneer Fund … former Rep. Harley Rouda (D-Calif.) … Kip Wainscott … David A. Ulevitch
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