Los Angeles is a mess. It’s not just the trash and vandalism. Compared to the mess of local government, those problems look like a Good Housekeeping award. 

The city government is currently paying a law firm roughly $5 million to defend it from the wrath of U.S. District Judge David Carter over allegedly violating the 2023 settlement terms of a 2020 lawsuit filed due to ineffective city spending on homelessness. The city has to explain why it shouldn’t be held in contempt of court, or have its homelessness spending taken over by a court-appointed receiver, or be ordered to pay the other side’s legal fees. 

For this defense, the firm of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher has a team of lawyers each billing the city up to $1,295 per hour. That’s what a managing partner told the court when the judge demanded to know if the billing arrangements “simply incentivized” delays.

Over at the county government offices, the latest mess is the problem of how to fix last year’s error that accidently repealed voter-approved Measure J from 2020, which requires the county to set aside 10% of “locally generated unrestricted revenues in the general fund” for the purpose of “accelerating the transformative process of creating a more just and equitable Los Angeles County for all residents.”

Specifically, the money must go to such things as “youth development,” “construction jobs for the expansion of affordable and supportive housing,” “access to capital,” rent assistance, health, housing and services. It cannot be spent on anything “carceral” or law-enforcement related. 

With the county under increasing budget pressure and crime ever in the news, there’s a chance that if Measure J goes back on the ballot, it might be defeated.

The county’s other option is to ask voters to approve a revised version of Measure G, the cause of the accidental repeal of Measure J. Measure G is the county charter amendment just barely passed by voters last year to expand the Board of Supervisors from five seats to nine, and to make the county CEO position elected instead of appointed. Because Measure G repealed the section of the county charter where Measure J happened to be located, hundreds of millions of dollars in funding will end in December 2028 when the elected county CEO takes office.

 In a related story, the Board of Supervisors recently gave its quiet approval to pay $2 million to the current county CEO, Fesia Davenport, to settle a lawsuit she filed over how badly her feelings were hurt by Measure G changing her position from appointed to elected. She still has the job, with an annual salary of $630,813 as of November 1, according to county documents. 

With fiscal decision-making like this, it’s no surprise that the county budget is under pressure, as Davenport wrote in a February 10 letter to the supervisors. In another letter on March 7, she suggested unspent funds from Measure J should be spent to help pay for housing for people who lost their jobs due to the January wildfires. The board reallocated about $150 million, infuriating some Measure J supporters.

Since Measure J passed, the board approved $187.7 million in “care first, jails last” spending for 2020, adding $100 million and $88.3 million in the next two years.

Now the Board of Supervisors has to figure out how to keep this going. They’re considering options to put Measure J back on the ballot next year. It’s either that, or place Measure G back on the ballot and risk asking voters to approve nearly doubling the number of political patronage jobs in L.A. County. Supervisor Janice Hahn has her son, Mark Baucum, on her office payroll at a salary of more than $250,000 per year. Want four more supervisors?

For comparison, the L.A. City Council has 15 members, enabling it to waste money three times as fast as the five-member county Board.

Good luck to Judge David Carter as he attempts to order the government of Los Angeles to operate competently. And congratulations to the city’s outside attorneys and the county’s overpaid government employees on their new yachts. It’s nice to have a place to live if your house burns down.