Good morning, and welcome to L.A. on the Record — our City Hall newsletter. It’s Noah Goldberg with an assist from David Zahniser, giving you the latest on city and county government.
A few Los Angeles city councilmembers got in some final zingers before packing their bags for summer recess.
It was the final council session before the three-week pause, and members were working their way through a thick agenda Tuesday. After weeks in which the main focus has been President Trump’s immigration crackdown in the city, it didn’t appear there would be fireworks.
Then, Councilmember Traci Park rolled her eyes at Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martínez while he was speaking. And Councilmember Monica Rodriguez had some sharp words for both of them.
Let’s backtrack and figure out how we got there.
In May, the council passed an ordinance to raise the minimum wage for hotel and airport workers to $30 per hour — higher than the city’s minimum wage — with Park, Rodriguez and Councilmember John Lee voting against it.
Soto-Martínez, a former organizer with the hotel and restaurant union Unite Here Local 11, which pushed for the minimum wage hike, led the charge at City Hall.
Park said she voted against the ordinance because she thought that it didn’t take into account economic realities and that it would result in hotel and airport workers losing their jobs. Park’s opponent in a bitterly contested general election for her Westside council seat in 2022 was a Unite Here-backed candidate, Erin Darling.
After the minimum wage hike passed, a business coalition called the L.A. Alliance for Tourism, Jobs and Progress began a campaign to overturn it by gathering signatures to place it on the June 2026 ballot, which would at least delay its implementation.
Things quickly got ugly. Unite Here’s lawyer alleged in a letter to the L.A. County district attorney and the city attorney that petition circulators for the business coalition misrepresented their campaign to voters…