Los Angeles County Must Deliver Promised Report to East Los Angeles Community

• Edmundo Cuevas
• (916) 319-2052

Sacramento, CA (Saturday, August 31, 2024) - On the final day of the 2024 Legislative Session, Assemblywoman Wendy Carrillo (AD-52, Los Angeles) issued the following statement related to East Los Angeles and AB 2986:

"On April 23, 2024, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors (BOS) passed a motion opposing my bill AB 2986, a feasibility study on East Los Angeles requiring the Local Agency Formation Commission of Los Angeles County (LAFCO) to work with Los Angeles County in establishing a community led task-force to study East Los Angeles becoming a special district or its own city. While the BOS opposed AB 2986, they simultaneously passed a motion with similar language and tasked the Los Angeles County Chief Executive Office (CEO) to study East Los Angeles becoming a special district, its own city, amongst other items and report back within 120 days. That report, originally due on August 21, 2024, is now overdue. The BOS has not provided the public a new date for the release of their commissioned report.

In response to the BOS decision to conduct their own study, AB 2986 was amended to align with their motion, which removed the taskforce and required that their report be submitted to the Legislature. This amendment created a mandate in which Los Angeles County could potentially be reimbursed by the state for the costs. Their failure to produce a report in a timely manner and in accordance with their own deadline gives me tremendous pause.

Given that Los Angeles County is already covering the costs of producing and distributing information relevant to East Los Angeles to ensure transparent financial assessments, there is no need for the State of California to reimburse Los Angeles County millions of dollars, as noted by the California Department of Finance, for a study it cannot deliver by its own deadline.

In recent direct communications with the Los Angeles County CEO, my office was informed that they requested additional time from the BOS because Los Angeles County does not separately track data on tax revenues, property taxes, investments, or department costs specifically for East Los Angeles. With a population of nearly 120,000 residents, whatever tax revenues East Los Angeles produces are completely unknown and simply go into the County's general fund to be used at the County's discretion.

AB 2986 arose from the need to make the present and future well-being of East Los Angeles residents and small business owners a priority for Los Angeles County officials. The residents have sought a stronger civic voice for decades and are deserving of local government representation that will help enhance tax revenues. The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors' recent motion to expand the current number of board members from five to nine members confirms what residents of East Los Angeles have known for years: one elected official cannot appropriately represent two million people at the local level.

There is significant support for the families of East Los Angeles, and grassroots efforts for transparency in county government have shown that it required a state policy for the BOS to prioritize the community. Thank you to Voice of East LA, all the residents, small businesses and nonprofits who worked on this policy and who believe in a better future for East Los Angeles. I am also grateful to my legislative colleagues for their support of AB 2986, which received overwhelming bipartisan support throughout the entire Legislative process. Their support was a testament to the importance of uplifting the voices of East Los Angeles residents and laying the groundwork for a conversation about the future: One in which we stand and deliver for East LA."