LOS ANGELES — Los Angeles City Council members raised concerns about how $1 billion in federal funding for security for the 2028 Olympics and Paralympics will be allocated.Council members expressed reservations about ongoing contract talks between the city and LA28, the local organizing committee, over determining how LA28 will compensate the city for Games-related services.
The Enhanced City Resources Master Agreement was supposed to be completed by October 1, but city officials remain in negotiations with LA28 over which expenses beyond “normal and customary” city services LA28 will compensate the city for.
The council’s ad hoc committee on the Olympic and Paralympic Games, during a special meeting Monday, also approved resolutions by Councilwoman Monica Rodriguez requesting “LA28 provide a detailed presentation on the new federal Olympics task force, its purpose, jurisdiction, anticipated activities, and the implications for the City’s planning and preparation for the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games. This should also include guidance on what guardrails the City can enact to ensure that the City’s most vulnerable communities are protected.”
Council members’ concerns about the task force and how federal security funding will be allocated come against the backdrop of a series of threatening and disparaging comments by President Trump about Los Angeles and California and other blue state cities hosting World Cup matches.
Trump signed an executive order in August establishing a federal task force on the Olympics for the Los Angeles Games. Similar task forces have been established for the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta and the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City, as well as for next summer’s World Cup.
Trump has made repeated threats to move the Games and World Cup matches out of Los Angeles and other blue state cities, as well as threats to deploy military or National Guard troops to the city during the Olympics. The threats have heightened concerns about the role of the task force in the planning and implementation of the Games among state and local officials.
“We’ll do anything necessary to keep the Olympics safe, including using our National Guard or military,” Trump said during the August 5 ceremony in which he signed the executive order establishing the Olympic task force.
Trump will serve as chairman of both the Olympic and World Cup task forces.
During the August ceremony, which was attended by LA28 chairman Casey Wasserman and Gene Sykes, the USOPC chairman and an IOC member, Trump also referred to Mayor Karen Bass as “not very competent.”
The $1 billion federal funding for Olympic security was part of the so-called Big Beautiful Bill passed earlier this year by Congress.
Council members pressed city administrative officer Matthew W. Szabo on who decides how that $1 billion will be allocated.
“We don’t have complete clarity yet,” Szabo said.
The Olympics and World Cup have been designated as National Special Security Events (NSSE) by the federal government. At previous NSSEs, the Secret Service has coordinated security with state and local officials.
City officials also acknowledged they missed the October 1 deadline to reach an agreement with LA28 that would establish the framework on determining the reimbursement to the city for Olympic and Paralympic costs above normal and customary services provided by the city. The deadline for the agreement was October 1.
The agreement, Szabo said, has “great significance to the city and getting it right takes precedent.”
The agreement will essentially create the rules for determining compensation in the Venue Services Agreements between the city and LA28. After the Venues Services Agreements are completed between the City of Los Angeles and LA28, the local organizing committee will negotiate similar agreements with other cities hosting Olympic and Paralympic events.
But council members raised concerns about the transparency of those negotiations and locking down city costs if LA28 continues to shift Games venues.
“It seems like every couple of months there’s a change in venue sites,” said Councilwoman Imelda Padilla.
Rodriguez said she also had concerns about negotiations between the city and LA28.
“We know the biggest nut in that conversation is public safety, why wouldn’t we include that?” Rodriguez asked Szabo, referring to negotiations with LA28. “And if (contract language is) so broad, and yet it excludes that one really large portion of it, it would seem to me that everything else is negligible in comparison. So I’m confused, and I don’t know if any of my colleagues are, I’m a little upset that I also have a report that was transmitted to my office on Friday afternoon at three o’clock from the city attorney’s office that was originally dated September 9. So I’m trying to understand.
“But when we had a deadline and expectation that October 1, this agreement was going to be done, city attorney transmitted their report to us September 9. But I know my office wasn’t even providing this copy until Friday, and I don’t know who was in these conversations for the negotiation, but something stinks around here in terms of who’s involved, who’s letting us know or withholding information. And I don’t know if you want to have that conversation in closed session, or at least let the public know.
“But you know, I have some real reservations about the way this is all going.”