L.A. ON THE RECORD
Heading for the exits at City Hall
The mood last week in and around City Hall was part freshman orientation and part final day of summer camp, with a dash of the boarding platform for the last train out of a disappearing nation.
Staffers were seen carrying framed certificates and various trinkets out of the building. Goodbye emails thudded into inboxes at a steady clip. At least one commissioner ducked back into City Hall after a farewell happy hour to remove an official souvenir from an empty office.
Just before 8 p.m. Thursday, Kevin James ushered two companions past the massive Christmas tree in the rotunda and toward Mayor Eric Garcetti’s office.
“It’s my last day to give tours! After tomorrow, my badge won’t open the door,” James, a senior advisor and legal counsel to Garcetti, said with a laugh. (The longtime city politico won’t be going far — just across the bridge to incoming City Atty. Hydee Feldstein-Soto’s office in City Hall East.)
The mayor, who has been on something of a goodbye tour for the last year, appears very ready to get out of Dodge. At the Central City Assn. holiday party, a grinning Garcetti pulled up a countdown app on his phone, showing how much time he has left in office down to the second.
When asked about his upcoming free time and whether he had any shows he was planning to watch, Garcetti said he was excited to catch up on “The Handmaid’s Tale.” He enjoys dystopian fiction, he said, because it makes him feel better about real life.
As decamping staffers from across City Hall scatter to new posts, incoming electeds and their employees are preparing to learn the cultural mores and byzantine procedures of the building.
At one point, incoming Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martínez was spotted in chambers with his team receiving a tutorial on how to file a motion.
City Council chambers were also the site of lengthy and at times impassioned sendoffs for departing Councilmembers Mitch O’Farrell, Mike Bonin, Joe Buscaino and Paul Koretz. (There was no goodbye for outgoing Councilmember Gil Cedillo, who has not appeared in chambers since mid-October.)
A few highlights: Buscaino quoted “Ted Lasso,” played Green Day and apologized for getting emotional at times during closed session.
Councilmember Bob Blumenfield jokingly told Bonin, a frequently dissenting voice on the council, that he expected to see him in the audience holding a cowbell, which some protesters have done in recent days.
O’Farrell, who lost his reelection bid last month, used his farewell to warn of the dangers of political polarization and social media. And Koretz, uncharacteristically, signed off with an f-bomb, swiping a line that critics of the council used frequently during meetings following the outbreak of COVID-19.
“To the disrupters and protesters who have done their best to make it difficult for us to do our work in the last 2½ years, in their own words: I yield the rest of my time. F— you.”
The five incoming council members take office Monday, with their first meeting scheduled for Tuesday.
