Victory in Los Angeles!
Ian Fregosi
The LA City Council meeting was unlike any local government meeting I had been to. Staffers were clustered behind councilmembers passing around documents, people were filing in and out of the meeting, and a man with a batman mask was making a public comment. To the councilmembers it was just another meeting, but to us this was one of the most important meetings we would attend this summer. I sat there with a few of our volunteers and my colleagues anxiously awaiting the council's decision on our resolution to reform Prop 13. We we unsure if we would need to make a public comment and push the last few councilmembers to support us. We didn't know when exactly the agenda item would come up or what the discussion would be.
Despite all of that, we were optimistic. We knew that we had put in the groundwork to get LA to go on record supporting Prop 13 reform, and that we had some great champions on the council.
The vote happened quickly. We didn't think it would come up so early on the agenda, and there were no comments from our opposition. It took us a minute to realize and confirm that the council had voted 14-1 in support of our resolution!
It was a very exciting moment for us as well our allies who had come out to show their support from the LACDP, CLUE-LA, ACLU, and the UCLA student government. We were invited to the press room shortly after the vote where we celebrated with the sponsor of our resolution Paul Koretz.
This victory would not have been possible without our volunteers, members, the councilmembers and city staff.
For over a year we have been contacting city councils and school boards to support our resolution calling to reform Prop 13. We've attended countless meetings, made public comments, and made thousands of phone calls. After working with 83 other local elected bodies who had supported our reform, we can finally say that the biggest city in the state is on board! The work doesn't end here though. We still have plenty of elected officials to talk to, and we won't stop until Prop 13 is finally reformed.