The city of Los Angeles is in a race to see if it can spend as much money on lawyers defending itself in a lawsuit over homelessness spending as it is spending on homelessness.
It looks like it could be close.
In May, City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto told the City Council she needed the “assistance of outside counsel” in the L.A. Alliance for Human Rights vs. City of Los Angeles case. That’s the matter that has been before Judge David Carter since 2020.
The L.A. Alliance sued the city and county of Los Angeles over the failure to provide shelter or housing for the homeless population living on the streets of downtown L.A. The case was settled a couple of years later, with the city agreeing to meet certain benchmarks by certain dates.
You can deduce how well the city complied with its obligations under the settlement agreement by the fact that it has lawyered up.
Feldstein Soto asked the City Council for “an initial amount not to exceed $900,000, with a term of two years.” After it was approved she hired the firm of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher.
LAist reporters Makenna Sievertson and Nick Gerda obtained a copy of the firm’s first invoice through a public records request.
For the first two weeks of work through May 30, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher billed the city $1.8 million.
If you’re bad at math, as the L.A. city government seems to be, that’s 200% of the authorized amount in the first 2% of the contract period.
Even the wild-spending Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority would be impressed with that burn rate.
Judge Carter, however, may not have been impressed, because on June 24 he ruled against the city despite the 252-page brief filed on June 13 by Feldstein Soto’s costly outside attorneys. Taxpayers have not yet seen the bill for that.
But wait, there’s more.
The city of Los Angeles is appealing Judge Carter’s ruling to the Ninth Circuit. Given that the law firm contract provided for 15 attorneys each billing $1,295 per hour, the budget for the appeal could rival the cost of renovations to the Federal Reserve building.
The dispute centers on whether the city did or did not procure the number of beds it was or was not obligated to provide under the settlement with the L.A. Alliance. Calling the case “a moral reckoning,” Judge Carter ruled that the city was in violation of the 2022 settlement agreement. He appointed a court monitor to oversee compliance from now on.
Happily for city officials, Judge Carter declined to put Los Angeles into receivership for homelessness spending, holding out that option as a last resort. A court-appointed receiver would take control of the city’s functions to achieve compliance with its obligations. A monitor only watches and reports back to the court.
So maybe the $1.8 million and counting for outside lawyers prevented the worst outcome for Mayor Karen Bass and her team.
For taxpayers, however, all the outcomes are bad. The latest sales tax increase, L.A. County Measure A, is expected to take $1 billion per year from the wallets of shoppers and restaurant patrons and give it to homeless services providers. Some of that money will compensate their highly paid executives. Will any of it provide court-enforced beds in the city of L.A.?
Be on the lookout for tax increases for homelessness to be slipped onto next year’s ballot at the last minute. Expect the usual promise that this time there will be oversight.
“For nearly twenty years, oversight bodies have repeatedly identified the same fundamental failures,” Judge Carter wrote, “poor fiscal oversight, inadequate contract management, and a chronic inability to ensure accountability for public funds. Each report has reinforced a troubling pattern: that rather than taking accountability and making changes, the longstanding deficiencies have been left to persist and deepen.”
If you’re keeping score, Los Angeles city and county voters have approved a $1.2 billion bond, a 0.25% sales tax increase, a 4% to 5.5% tax on real estate sales and another sales tax increase, all to solve the problem of homelessness.
Far from ensuring accountability, the city is paying lawyers to keep it at bay.
Write Susan@SusanShelley.com and follow her on X @Susan_Shelley