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Tag: soto-martínez

  • Mayor Karen Bass vetoes ballot proposal to let police chief fire problem officers

    Mayor Karen Bass vetoes ballot proposal to let police chief fire problem officers

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    Mayor Karen Bass has vetoed a proposed ballot measure to rework the disciplinary process at the Los Angeles Police Department — a step that could result in its removal from the Nov. 5 ballot.

    In her veto letter to the City Council, Bass said the proposal, which would have allowed the police chief to fire officers accused of committing serious misconduct, “risks creating bureaucratic confusion” within the LAPD.

    Bass said the proposal, which also would have reworked the composition of the department’s three-member disciplinary panels, provided “ambiguous direction” and “gaps in guidance.”

    “I look forward to working with each of you to do a thorough and comprehensive review with officers, the department, and other stakeholders to ensure fairness for all,” she wrote. “The current system remains until this collaborative review is complete and can be placed before the voters.”

    Bass issued her veto during the council’s summer recess, when meetings are canceled for three weeks. The deadline for reworking the language of the ballot proposal has already passed, City Clerk Holly Wolcott said.

    “If the council does not override the veto or take any action, the measure will be pulled from the ballot,” Wolcott said in an email.

    The council’s next meeting is scheduled for July 30. Whether it can muster 10 votes to override the mayor’s veto is unclear.

    By issuing the veto, Bass effectively sided with top LAPD brass, who warned last month that the proposal would create a two-tier disciplinary system, with some offenses resulting in termination by the chief and others heading to a disciplinary panel known as a Board of Rights.

    The mayor’s appointees on the Board of Police Commissioners also criticized the ballot proposal, saying they felt excluded from the deliberations. At least one commissioner voiced concern about the proposal’s creation of a binding arbitration process to resolve cases where an officer files an appeal of his or her termination.

    Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martínez expressed similar worries, arguing that binding arbitration would lead to more lenient outcomes for officers accused of serious wrongdoing. Soto-Martínez, who voted against the proposal last month, had also argued that the range of offenses that would lead to termination by the police chief was too narrow.

    An aide to Soto-Martínez said Tuesday that his boss supports the veto.

    Councilmember Tim McOsker, who spearheaded the ballot proposal, said he is “deeply disappointed” with the mayor’s action, arguing that it threatens the most significant reform of the LAPD’s disciplinary system in more than two decades.

    If the council fails to override the veto, the next opportunity for major reform would not occur until the 2026 election, McOsker said.

    “What this veto would do is put us back in the status quo for at least two years,” he said in an interview.

    McOsker said he is still looking at the options for responding to the mayor’s veto. During the council’s deliberations last month, four council members — Soto-Martínez, Nithya Raman, Eunisses Hernandez and Curren Price — backed a proposal to seek additional changes to the ballot measure.

    Soto-Martínez took aim at the decision to let a police chief fire officers for some offenses but not others, saying it would create “ambiguity” in the disciplinary system.

    That proposal was defeated on a 9 to 4 vote. Had it passed, it would have effectively killed the ballot measure for this year’s election, since the deadline had passed for making extensive changes.

    The proposal vetoed by Bass had been billed as a way to undo some of changes brought by Charter Amendment C, a ballot measure approved by voters in 2017, which paved the way for all-civilian disciplinary panels at the LAPD.

    The ballot proposal would have reworked the system, ensuring that each panel would have have two civilian members and one commanding officer.

    Representatives of the Los Angeles Police Protective League, which represents about 8,800 rank-and-file officers, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

    Last month, the union issued a statement saying the ballot proposal struck “the right balance” on disciplinary issues, ensuring that officers who are terminated by a chief have access to an appeal process with binding arbitration.

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    David Zahniser, Libor Jany

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  • An aide to an L.A. councilman traded Holocaust jokes about Amy Schumer. Now he’s out

    An aide to an L.A. councilman traded Holocaust jokes about Amy Schumer. Now he’s out

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    A high-level aide to Los Angeles City Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martínez resigned from his post Friday after facing criticism for making Holocaust jokes about the comedian Amy Schumer on social media.

    Josh Androsky, senior advisor to Soto-Martínez, took part in an exchange on X, formerly known as Twitter, earlier in the day that featured puns about concentration camps and what appeared to be disparaging remarks about Schumer’s weight.

    By the end of the day, the messages from Androsky, who has worked as a political consultant for at least three of the council’s 15 members, had been condemned by an array of civic leaders, including Mayor Karen Bass.

    “The anti-Semitic and misogynistic comments made today were reprehensible, disgusting and dangerous and in no way represent the city family,” Bass said in a statement issued just before midnight. “Especially now, City Hall must be a beacon of hope, not hate. I’m glad the staffer responsible has resigned.”

    Soto-Martínez, in a separate statement, called the posts from his employee “disturbing and reprehensible.”

    “With antisemitism on the rise in recent years and especially in recent weeks, cracking jokes about the holocaust isn’t just disgusting, it’s dangerous,” said Soto-Martínez, who chairs the council’s civil rights committee. “These antisemitic and misogynistic posts sickened me, and I have accepted his resignation effective immediately.”

    The Androsky incident appeared to have begun Friday morning, when the social media account for TrueAnon, a podcast, took aim at Schumer, who had posted a political cartoon derided as offensive to Palestinians living in Gaza and to protesters seeking to end the bloodshed there.

    The TrueAnon account wrote that Schumer, who frequently posts about the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, is “particularly sensitive to Jewish deaths due to her experience in the holocaust.”

    “The nazis named a concentration camp after her. It was called Da Cow,” the TrueAnon account wrote, offering a pun on Dachau, where more than 40,000 prisoners were killed, according to some estimates.

    Androsky, a onetime comedian who is Jewish himself, responded by saying “it’s f— up that you would say this about her when you know it was actually Cowschwitz.”

    Later, in an apparent reference to a sprawling cattle farm near the 5 Freeway, Androsky took another dig at Schumer, writing: “I called it cowschwitz!!! either way they all (and amy) smelled the same.”

    Androsky did not respond to multiple inquiries from The Times. He initially deleted his posts, then his entire account.

    Schumer has not publicly commented on the controversy. She described her Jewish heritage in one recent Instagram post, mentioning a relative who had “numbers from Auschwitz burned into his forearm.” In another, she apologized for making “hurtful” remarks about Gazans, promising to “be more careful.”

    The reaction to Androsky’s posts was swift among L.A.’s Jewish community leaders.

    Jake Flynn, a spokesperson for Councilmember Bob Blumenfield, said his boss had seen Androsky’s messages and was “appalled.” Sam Yebri, an activist who sits on the board of the legal services nonprofit Bet Tzedek, called the posts distasteful and antisemitic.

    “The fact that a city employee felt it was OK to make these words in a public forum, with such utter disregard for any consequences, is shameful,” he said in an interview.

    Androsky, an outspoken progressive, has been heavily involved in city politics in recent years, working as a consultant for the campaign of Councilmember Nithya Raman in 2020 and Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez last year.

    Soto-Martínez paid Androsky’s political consulting firm, Bright Future LA, nearly $108,000 for services performed as part of last year’s council campaign, according to Ethics Commission records. He also worked on the unsuccessful council bid of attorney Erin Darling on the Westside.

    Androsky left Bright Future LA when he took a job with Soto-Martínez, according to Anne Freiermuth, who is currently listed on state business forms as a manager or member of that firm.

    Androsky has long been known for his glib takes on social media. In February 2022, as Russia’s military was launching its invasion of Ukraine, he posted on Twitter: “Putin’s bad, NATO’s bad, but the vibes here at buca di beppo? pretty good!”

    In 2017, Androsky tweeted a joke about Bill Cosby that was denounced by some as insensitive to victims of sexual assault. He issued an apology and announced he was “stepping back” from his work with the L.A. chapter of Democratic Socialists of America, according to an archived DSA post.

    Naomi Goldman, a onetime spokesperson for former Councilmember Mike Bonin, said Friday on her own social media account that Androsky’s career should be placed “on the no-fly list.”

    “I would have vastly preferred to see Josh Androsky swiftly fired by [Soto-Martínez] with a strong leadership stance vs letting him decide his own outcome,” she wrote. “But at least he is gone from City Hall.”

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    David Zahniser

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