Los Angeles City Council

Los Angeles City Council Approves Package of Relief Measures Amid Coronavirus Outbreak

The council voted to not allow tenants to be evicted if they are able to show an inability to pay rent due to circumstances related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

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The Los Angeles City Council approved several emergency measures intended to help people through the coronavirus pandemic on Friday, including extending the halt on residential and commercial evictions, requiring paid sick leave for certain employees and protections for people who are working for businesses deemed "essential."

"I've always been and will always be an advocate of the working poor, and that's what we're attempting to do here is address some of the needs of some of the working class and poor people who live in our city," City Council President Nury Martinez said during the first of a seven-hour meeting.

The council voted to not allow tenants to be evicted if they are able to show an inability to pay rent due to circumstances related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Tenants now have up to 12 months to repay past rent, starting from when the local emergency orders are lifted.

People who spoke during the meeting said they were concerned that a moratorium on evictions may not do much if they're required to back pay their rent, as they may not have been able to work throughout the pandemic.

The council as of 5:30 p.m. was still discussing related matters to these provisions.

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an executive order Friday banning the enforcement of evictions for renters affected by the coronavirus outbreak, similar to the city's emergency laws.

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The council approved protective measures for grocery workers, food delivery businesses and businesses to allow for their employee schedules to be flexible and to not allow them to be terminated during the emergency outbreak for staying home.

Councilman Paul Koretz said he wanted to require that grocery store employees handle as little merchandise as possible and to provide sanitation wipes at the front of their stores unless they can document unavailability.

Koretz also recommended allowing a maximum of 35% of a stores capacity be allowed to enter at one time.

Koretz said he wants to codify a 6-foot distance requirement between people waiting in line and to provide a queuing mechanism if it takes longer than 15 minutes for people to wait in line.

The suggestions Koretz made have not been finalized by the council.

The City Council approved to require companies with more than 501 employees -- nationally or locally -- to be required to pay two weeks of sick leave to employees affected by the pandemic.

Councilwoman Monica Rodriguez said she was comfortable making the requirements for corporate entities, but she wanted to get more information on the financial effects it could have.

An employee would not be able receive more than $511 per day and no more than $5,110 in aggregate sick leave payment.

The proposal didn't mention income levels for the workers who could receive paid sick leave, but many council members said low-income workers who would fall under these employment sectors.

"We must act and we must act today. We cannot forget the working- class people that are really the unsung heroes of getting us through this crisis to this point," Councilman Herb Wesson said.

"We have a responsibility to give that to them. Let's move forward. We will be afforded the possibility to make adjustments as we get additional information and things shift."

Council members said some businesses with smaller employment numbers may be able to apply for federal assistance through a stimulus package, which was signed into law by President Donald Trump Friday, that includes about $2 trillion for various immediate needs.

Smaller businesses could be pushed to the brink of closing if they were required to pay two weeks of salary to all their employees, council members said.

Collective bargaining agreements can be applied in lieu of the sick leave emergency ordinance, but only if they provide the same pay as the city's ordinance.

The council also voted to have a report provided on the economic effects of the ordinance and how the stimulus bill augments the emergency law, and whether the council should amend it in the near future.

The council voted to allow city contracts under $100,000 not have to be put in writing, if they're related to addressing the pandemic.

Another major item the council had not voted on as of late Friday afternoon was to require employers to rehire employees who had been laid off during the coronavirus outbreak.

The proposed ordinance would temporarily grant priority to workers who had been employed by a business the longest.

One public speaker said younger employees are going to be affected because they haven't worked as many years for a business as some of their counterparts.

Those provisions would not expire until March 2022.

It has been in many ways an unusual City Council meeting, with random whispers from audio feeds coming in and out as the council tried to conduct its business by Zoom teleconference.

Martinez halted the meeting just under an hour into it, as people who were participating in the teleconference platform were showing pornographic images. Cameras to the platform were cut off shortly after this was noticed.

This follows a new trend called "Zoombombing."

The meeting resumed after an approximately 15-minute delay to solve the problem.

Media outlets were not permitted inside the Council Chamber during the meeting.

Martinez had drawn criticism for canceling Tuesday's scheduled meeting and future meetings. The council can still host emergency meetings when it needs to.

Council members defended her decision.

"You could easily, by holding a meeting in person, create a circumstance where so many members of council are in mandatory quarantine that the council can't meet at all and you paralyze the entire city," Councilman Marqueece Harris-Dawson said.

The City Council had planned to meet on Tuesday, but due to the rapidly changing conditions of the coronavirus pandemic and per orders from the state, Mayor Eric Garcetti and public health officials, the meeting was canceled to give city staff time to set up the teleconference infrastructure.

Under the city and state's "Safer at Home" orders, no more than 10 people are permitted to gather in one place at the same time. The Los Angeles City Council has 15 members.

Copyright CNS - City News Service
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