Los Angeles Charter Reform Commission pushed to disclose private talks

As Los Angeles’ Charter Reform Commission moves toward recommendations that could reshape City Hall for decades — from City Council expansion to changes in financial oversight — a growing dispute over transparency is raising concerns that some elected officials may be privately influencing the process outside of public view.

The debate has sparked a motion by Councilmembers Monica Rodriguez and Imelda Padilla, supported by civic transparency groups, that would require members of the Charter Reform Commission to disclose ex parte communications, or private discussions with elected officials or their staff that occur outside of public meetings.

Supporters say the safeguard is necessary as the commission, formed in 2024 after a series of City Hall scandals, prepares to submit its recommendations to the City Council by April 2, a step that could put major governance changes before voters as soon as November.

Rodriguez said she is concerned that key ideas are being developed through informal, undisclosed conversations, limiting meaningful public input before the commission’s work reaches the City Council.

“Voters are going to have items to consider without a fully vetted proposal, and that’s really problematic,” she said in an interview Thursday. “ Potentially it could do more harm than good for our city.”

She also argued that the commission’s structure heightens those concerns. With a majority of commissioners appointed by Mayor Karen Bass and Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson, Rodriguez said the process risks being driven by “the will of two or three people,” rather than the public.

“There has been a lot of behind-closed-doors [discussion] with commissioners and elected officials,” Rodriguez said. “A lot of policy suggestions haven’t come forward in a formal manner.”

Padilla, who co-authored the motion with Rodriguez, said the proposal is aimed at strengthening public confidence in the commission’s work as it approaches major decisions.

“Independence and transparency can and should go hand in hand,” Padilla said in a statement Friday. “When proposals have the potential to alter the structure and function of our local government, there must be confidence they are being developed openly, not through informal or undisclosed conversations.”

Rodriguez also criticized the pace at which her ex parte disclosure motion has moved. Introduced in August, the measure was referred to the Council’s Rules, Elections and Intergovernmental Relations Committee, where it remained for several months before being approved in December, but was not immediately scheduled for a full City Council vote.

With the commission facing an early April deadline to submit its recommendations, Rodriguez said the delay has narrowed the window for public debate.

“Without ex parte communications, which is a motion that I introduced over five months ago that Marqueece Harris-Dawson, the president of the Council, has sat on and refused to advance—[it hides] the disclosures of what communications are actively happening with elected officials and commissioners,” Rodriguez said. “What it does is it just exposes the lack of transparency that they’re operating here, and that’s a big problem.”

Rodriguez publicly raised those concerns during a Jan. 9 City Council meeting, accusing council leadership of allowing key policy discussions to languish without action.

Harris-Dawson chairs the Rules Committee and, as Council president, plays a central role in setting the City Council agenda, giving his office influence over when motions are heard in committee and when they advance to a full Council vote.

He did not respond to requests for comment. The motion appeared on next Tuesday’s City Council agenda, Jan. 20, as Item 33 on Friday.

The dispute has drawn a response from the Charter Reform Commission itself, whose chair pushed back on the idea that the body is operating without safeguards or public oversight.

Charter Reform Commission Chair Raymond Meza said the body is already subject to multiple layers of oversight and transparency, and that it operates under rules set not by the commission itself, but by the City Council.

“This commission was created by ordinance of the City Council and whatever rules the City Council puts in place, this commission will abide by,” Meza said.

Meza pointed to several existing safeguards he said prevent decisions from being made outside public view. The commission, he said, is bound by the Brown Act and the California Public Records Act, meaning deliberations and votes must occur publicly and records can be requested like those of any other city body.

He also noted that any formal recommendation requires seven votes from the full 13-member commission — not just a majority of those present — a threshold he said makes it difficult to advance proposals without broad agreement.

“You can’t spring things on people,” he said.

While commissioners may speak informally with members of the public, advocacy groups, department heads or elected officials, Meza said those conversations cannot lead to action unless proposals are introduced as motions, debated publicly and approved by seven of the commission’s 13 members.

Meza, a mayoral appointee, also rejected the notion that the commission is controlled by elected officials through appointments.

Under the structure approved by city leaders in 2024, he said, the mayor appoints four commissioners, the City Council president appoints two and the president pro tempore appoints two more. Those eight commissioners then selected five additional members through an open application process — a structure he described as unusual among city commissions and intended to promote independence.

Meza also said ex parte disclosure requirements are not standard across city commissions. Only Los Angeles’ Independent Redistricting Commission currently has such a rule, he said, and unlike that body, the Charter Reform Commission does not send proposals directly to voters.

“No council member put forward any amendments when this commission was created to put ex parte requirements or to change who appointed the commissioners,” Meza said, adding that many of the same council members who approved those rules are still on the Council today.

Supporters of the disclosure proposal, however, argue that the Charter Reform Commission — often described as the city’s constitution-writing body — warrants a higher standard of transparency, given the scope and permanence of the changes under consideration.

The League of Women Voters of Greater Los Angeles said ex parte disclosure rules are critical to maintaining public confidence in the charter process, particularly as the commission moves toward final recommendations.

“The charter is our constitution,” said Chris Carson, chair of the League of Women Voters of Greater Los Angeles’ Government Reform Committee. “And the public has a right to know what is being done to influence the commission’s work behind closed doors.”

League officials said existing open-meeting laws do not replace disclosure rules that reveal how ideas take shape before they reach a public vote.

“We firmly believe that the best safeguard, the only real safeguard, is a ban on ex parte communications—private communications between an elected official and a member of that commission,” Carson said.

Others who have followed the commission’s work say the effects of those gaps in disclosure are already visible in how proposals take shape.

Asked what she believes is at stake in the Charter Reform Commission process, Jamie York did not hesitate.

“The future of the city,” said York, president of the Reseda Neighborhood Council.

She said the Commission’s work goes to the core of how Los Angeles governs itself — and whether it is willing to confront politically difficult issues in a meaningful way.

“It’s asking the questions about what kind of city we want to be, what kind of changes do we think that we need to have,” York said. “And contending with if this Commission is willing to do that work, and then be willing to ask the hard questions and address the tough topics.”

York said she has grown increasingly frustrated with what she described as a staff-driven process that, in her view, has limited transparency and public trust.

“There are two tracks for how things work in this city,” she said. “There’s the public process, and there’s the private process. And the private process tends to be what dominates the city. But the charter should be about what’s good for Angelenos, not about what’s good for politicians. So the entire process should be public.”

York said her Neighborhood Council submitted a community impact statement supporting the motion with amendments, urging that ex parte disclosure requirements apply to city staff as well as elected officials.

Supporters of the disclosure proposal have also pointed to recent commission debates involving City Controller Kenneth Mejia as an example of why transparency concerns have intensified.

On Jan. 10, Commissioner Martin Schlageter — an appointee of Harris-Dawson — introduced a proposal that would significantly restructure the city’s financial oversight system.

The plan would convert the City Administrative Officer into a chief financial officer role and transfer certain financial and administrative functions now handled by the independently elected City Controller.

Mejia, who has previously urged the commission to strengthen the controller’s audit authority, warned the proposal would significantly weaken independent oversight by shifting key financial functions from an elected official to “a political appointee who answers directly to the Mayor and City Council.”

After widespread public opposition at the meeting, commissioners agreed to advance portions of the proposal while continuing discussion of other elements in committee.

The dispute comes as the Charter Reform Commission approaches the final stretch of a process born out of City Hall’s own credibility crisis.

The Charter Reform Commission was created in 2024 in response to multiple City Hall scandals, including the leak of racist audio recordings involving former City Council President Nury Martinez. Tasked with reviewing the city’s governing document — often described as Los Angeles’ constitution — the commission is examining changes that could permanently alter how power is distributed at City Hall.

Under the current schedule, the commission is expected to submit its recommendations to the City Council by April. The council will then decide which proposals, if any, advance to the ballot — a step critics say further heightens the need for transparency at the commission level.

Among the ideas under consideration are proposals to expand the City Council, adopt ranked-choice voting for city elections, set standards for removing elected officials indicted on criminal charges, and allow the mayor to submit a two-year budget instead of the current annual cycle.

A spokesperson for Mayor Karen Bass said the mayor’s office was preparing a response, but a statement was not provided by publication time Friday evening.