Math is not political. The numbers add up, or they don’t.
For Los Angeles City Controller Kenneth Mejia, who was elected in 2022 as an avowed leftist endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America-Los Angeles, the numbers are not adding up, and he’s saying so.
In a video posted to social media, Mejia reacted to the City Council’s 11-2 vote to approve an expansion of the L.A. Convention Center by 2029. “This is going to have a price tag to taxpayers of $5.5 billion, and the city will need to pay off the debt by 2056,” Mejia said. “So when you combine all the revenues that it will bring in from the expansion and all of the incremental tax revenue that we’ll get, we are still on the hook to find an additional $104 million [each year] for the next 30 years.”
The controller gutted the argument that the project pays for itself with all the new business it supposedly will attract.
Wondering where the city government will find the money to pay off the debt for the Convention Center expansion?
“I do not know where we’re going to find $104 million each year for the next 30 years,” Mejia said. He pointed out that for the past two years, “the city has suffered major budget deficits” due to “overestimated revenues” and “spending over budget.”
Adding to that, the city has faced increased labor costs and liability claims. “The city just keeps spending, and the city just keeps overestimating revenues,” Mejia said, “There’s no controls. It mind-boggles me how the city is handling its finances.”
The reserve fund has been tapped to cover spending, dropping it from $648 million two years ago to $300 million now, the controller explained, and there have been cuts to city departments’ staffing and budgets already.
Mejia told his social media following that unless another $104 million per year is found, the choices will be “keep cutting” or “raise revenue somehow.”
In business, “revenue” is a term that means money coming in because products and services were purchased by willing customers. In government, “revenue” is a euphemism for taxes, money taken forcibly from individuals and businesses as a condition of living, working or operating within the government’s jurisdiction.
Thanks to Proposition 13, the famous taxpayer protection initiative approved by nearly two-thirds of exhausted California voters in 1978, all local tax increases must go on the ballot for voter approval. What’s the city’s strategy for persuading voters to raise taxes?
A hint of it can be found in Mejia’s assessment of the deterioration of Los Angeles city services. “If you go around town, you can just see how bad everything is: our roads, our streets, our sidewalks, our street lights, our infrastructure, our rec and park facilities, our animal shelters,” he said. “It’s bad. And we keep cutting from those departments that service those areas, and I’m scared what it’s going to mean for you all if services keep eroding.”
You don’t need a crystal ball to see what it’s going to mean. In 2026 or 2028, or both, the City Council will wait until the last week before the deadline to place a measure on the ballot and then pass a resolution asking voters to approve a tax increase. The government’s argument will be that “revenue” is desperately needed for streets, sidewalks, street lights, infrastructure, recreation and park facilities and animal shelters.
Nowhere will it say the city has to find $104 million annually to make debt payments to investors who loaned City Hall the money to start the Convention Center project, although not enough money to finish it.
It won’t say the city got reamed on the deals it signed to cover extra city expenses for the 2028 Olympics.
It won’t say the mayor and City Council agreed to sign totally unaffordable multi-year labor contracts for unionized city employees.
Mejia is running for re-election, and former state legislator and Compton city councilman Isadore Hall is running against him. “I’m running to bring change to the City Controller’s Office,” Hall says on his website.
He can’t change the laws of mathematics. Maybe he intends to change the policy of telling the public about them.
Write Susan@SusanShelley.com and follow her on X @Susan_Shelley