Dollars and Nonsense

Alissa joins Mike and Godfrey to decipher LA’s new budget, Karen Bass’s second (or third?) State of the City, and which departments are getting more money this year. Then, how a plan to help Airbnb snuck into the budget, and fundraising updates for candidates as ballots for the June 2 election arrive later this week. Here are all LA’s budget documents and the press conference where Mayor Karen Bass presented her budget to the people, not to be confused with her 7-minute State of the City shared only on video We highly recommend using Controller Kenneth Mejia’s awesome budget app to understand it all. And he also has a new campaign billboard highlighting the city’s problem with liabilities (guess which department’s mistakes are costing you the most!) A new climate budget was included, as part of the mayor’s new climate action plan, released earlier this month  “A Passage Buried in L.A.’s Budget Hints at an Unusual Airbnb Gambit,” writes LA Material’s Julia Wick And Aaron Schrank also reports at LAist: “Airbnb claims proposal included in mayor’s budget will bring tax revenue to LA ahead of Olympics” Remember the “Save Our Services” campaign that Airbnb was trying to roll out last year? Yep, now it’s basically part of the mayor’s budget recommendations “Los Angeles doesn’t need new loopholes for the STR industry. It needs enforcement of the laws already on the books,” says Better Neighbors LA, which estimates that enforcing just 5% of illegal short-term rentals would add add $42 million to this year’s budget Featured in the LA Times On The Record newsletter, City Attorney’s Hydee Feldstein-Soto’s presence at the anti-LGBT “HopeFest” festival was originally reported by LA Ten Four and Left Coast Right Watch. Feldstein-Soto has yet to denounce the event LAist: “$19M and counting in LA races. Campaigns for LA mayor and city attorney lead the fundraising” Here’s the dashboard for all the campaign finance information for LA City candidates If you’re listening on Monday, LA Forward’s Charter Reform Advocacy Launch is happening Monday night, 4/27, at 7 p.m. on Zoom Subscribe to Mike’s podcast What’s Next, Los Angeles to hear interviews with candidates all over LA County Support LA Podcast by becoming a paid subscriber at thinkforward.la. This week’s episode was produced by Sophie Bridges The reporting and analysis you hear in the show is put together by our rotating cast of producers and co-hosts every week. All opinions expressed on the show are solely those of co-hosts and may not represent the views of LA Forward Alissa Walker writes the newsletter Torched, tracking LA’s megaevent progress. Find her at @awalkerinla on Instagram and @awalkerinla.bsky.social on Bluesky Mike Bonin is the executive director of the <a href