The Los Angeles City Council on Thursday approved Mayor Karen Bass’s plan to expand the precinct and approved a budget that would see the hiring of about 1,000 officers over the next fiscal year and record spending to fight homelessness.

The council voted 13 to 1 for Bass’ $13.1 billion budget, despite warnings from critics that her plan for the LAPD to increase the size of the force by 400 officers is unrealistic and unnecessary. the

LAPD department

expects nearly 600 to resign or retire in the next fiscal year, which begins on July 1.

Councilman Eunisses Hernandez cast the only dissenting vote, saying she could not support a spending plan that would bring $3.2 billion to the LAPD

at a time when c

Municipalities repairing sidewalks, providing programs for the city’s youth and providing assistance to the elderly population must ‘fight over residual waste’

.

“

We celebrate moving pennies while putting a quarter of our total budget into just one department, Hernandez said in an impassioned seven-minute speech.

Councilman Hugo Soto-Martnez, a close political ally of Hernandez,

said

the spending plan is “not perfect”. Still, he praised it as “the most progressive budget in Los Angeles history,” one that will pay for expanded mental health teams, drug treatment facilities and a record $1.3 billion to fight homelessness.

Soto-Martnez said the mayor’s budget would focus on issues that are the root causes of homelessness, such as poverty and a lack of mental health care.

“The budget represents the beginning of a new path in tackling homelessness,” he said. “And while it may only be a few steps forward, it keeps us from going backwards.”

Soto-Martnez and Hernandez, both backed by the Democratic Socialists of America-Los Angeles, won office last year after campaigning on the idea that the LAPD should have fewer officers, not more. Both represented a growing effort to push policy to the left

war

at City Hall.

During Thursday’s budget deliberations, the pair tried unsuccessfully to cut $7.4 million earmarked for the purchase of an LAPD replacement helicopter. They called for that money to be used instead to purchase new electric buses.

Their attempt to force a vote on electric bus funding failed

8-68 to 6

to vote. Hernandez, Soto-Martnez and council members Marqueece Harris-Dawson, Heather Hutt, Nithya Raman and Katy Yaroslavsky all voted no. The proposal now goes to various council committees for more review.

Bass welcomed the council’s actions, saying its spending plan would help the city confront homelessness with urgency and use “bold new methods” to make neighborhoods safer.

This budget process is a great example of how working together can move LA forward,” she said in a statement.

A second, technical vote on the budget is scheduled for next week.

Thursday’s action will raise $250 million for Inside Safe, the mayor’s program to move homeless Angelenos into hotels, motels and other facilities and eventually permanent housing. Bass’ team plans to use nearly a fifth of that money to purchase three or more

Unpleasant

four larger motels. Just over two-fifths would go to the rental of hotel and motel rooms.

In recent weeks, some on the council have become frustrated with the mayor’s team over the lack of publicly available information about the program, which has displaced about 1,200 people from encampments in Hollywood, Venice, South Los Angeles and several other neighborhoods.

Since December, when the program started, two reports have been released on the program. Neither was uploaded to the council’s online file on Inside Safe.

Under a compromise reached last week, Bass’s homeless team will provide council members with biweekly reports on Inside Safe. So far, the mayor’s team has pledged about $44 million of the $50 million previously provided to the program, according to a report published Tuesday.

Bass’ homeless team booked rooms at 25 motels and hotels during Inside Safe’s first four and a half months. For example, the city paid $4,684 per room per month at the LA Grand Hotel in downtown Los Angeles.

The cost of the Inside Safe program could easily exceed $300 million in the next fiscal year if Bass’ team completes the planned acquisition of the 294-room Mayfair Hotel

convenient

in the Westlake neighborhood of LA. Temporary accommodation is being sought in that 15-storey building.

Councilman Bob Blumenfield, who heads the borough’s budget committee, said the mayor’s spending plan shows that city leaders have “redefined what public safety is,” putting more money into unarmed response teams. At the same time, he also spoke out in favor of Bass’s attempt to hire more police.

The LAPD has lost about 9% of its officers since the outbreak of COVID-19, to a deployment of 9,100. Blumenfield said he fears the number of officers will soon fall below 9,000, putting the city and the department in “a dangerous situation”.

“I’m actually concerned that we’re sinking dangerously low on the number of cops we have on the street,” he said.

The mayor last month called for the LAPD to expand to 9,500 officers. As part of its plan, the department would bring in 780 new recruits while persuading another 200 retirees to return to the force.

Some on the council have expressed doubts about her chances of achieving her goal, given the slow pace of hiring. Meanwhile, several of those who attended Thursday’s council meeting argued against a larger LAPD, saying Angelenos urgently need other types of services. This over-reliance on the police to solve all our problems undermines our ability to have a society in which people, neighborhoods and communities are invested, said Greg Akili, a longtime Black Lives Matter-Los Angeles activist and organizer. Every dollar that goes to the police, he said, is money that can’t be spent anywhere else. We just can’t have both. Yasser Nokoudy, 29, called on the council to take money from the LAPD and use it to buy Hillside Villa, an apartment building in Chinatown where dozens of residents have faced massive rent increases. “Instead of hiring more agents, you can use the money to hire unarmed crisis responders and maintain affordable housing like Hillside Villa,” said Nokoudy, a six-year resident of the building. Last year, the municipality took the first step towards purchasing the property. Blumenfield said after Thursday’s vote that the budget does not set aside specific funding for such a transaction.